1988 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
The colonies
Published in:
The Literature of the United States of America
Early colonists had little time for art. Their first concern was survival, their second construction. Making a new life in Virginia or New England, even with God’s help, required energy, resourcefulness, stamina, and fostered utilitarian forms of expression in the prose of reports, histories, sermons and diaries. Verse, with a few notable exceptions, was occasional, and without merit.