Heralds of American Literature: A Group of Patriot Writers of the Revolutionary and National Periods (1907)

Each decade calls forth a more detailed study of the beginnings of American history. The lives of our pioneer soldiers and statesmen have been narrated in many volumes. On the other hand, the writers who prophesied, and sought to promote, a national literature during the early days of American independence have not been so generally studied, except in groups. Moses Coit Tyler individualized scores of Colonial and Revolutionary versifiers and satirists, but the self-imposed limits of his theme prevented him from completing the later services of some of these writers, after the Revolution. He did not live to accomplish a similar work in biography for the patriot-writers of the National period in which American government, industry, and education were slowly established. The aim of this book is to recount, in detailed study and largely from original sources, the lives and services of a group of typical writers during the pioneer days of national growth, who revealed the standards and aspirations of their time and who announced the dawn of a national literature, although their own products were often immature and crude.Contents: Introductory: Signs of the Dawn - The Impulse of FranklinFrancis HopkinsonPhilip Freneau: America’s First PoetJohn Trumbull: Satirist and ScholarA Group of Hartford WitsJoseph Dennie: The Lay Preacher William Dunlap: The Beginnings of DramaCharles Brockden BrownBibliographyIndex