American Literature: Drama

II. Beginnings: 1600s and 1700s

Because settlement was sparse and living conditions were arduous in the American colonies, little theatrical activity took place before the mid-18th century. The first-known English-language play from the colonies, Ye Bare and Ye Cubb (1665), is lost. The play's existence is known as a result of the controversy it aroused in the Virginia Colony, where a lawsuit was filed to prevent the play from opening. Several colonies had passed antitheater laws based on a Puritan belief that the seventh of the Ten Commandments prohibited dancing and stage plays.

The oldest surviving American play is Androborus by Robert Hunter (1714). Hunter, the New York Colony's governor, published the cartoonish play as an attack on his political enemies, despite New York's antitheater law. Intended for a reading public rather than a viewing audience, it established a tradition of political satire that became common fare in American drama of the 1700s.

Before more American plays had appeared, a company of British professional actors established a touring circuit in the 1750s with an all-British repertory. By the early 1760s this group was known as The American Company and American writers occasionally submitted plays to the actors, though few were produced. But in 1767 The American Company staged The Prince of Parthia, a tragedy by Thomas Godfrey, in Philadelphia. This is usually considered the first professional production of a play written by an American. The play itself is indistinguishable from imitations of the works of English dramatist William Shakespeare that abounded in Britain in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

During the American Revolution (1775-1783), most professional actors moved to Jamaica. Satirical plays were written as propaganda during the war, either supporting British control of the colonies or attacking it. British soldiers presented some of the pro-British plays. Few other plays were performed during the war years, although they were widely read and recited. The Battle of Brooklyn (1776), which was pro-British and written anonymously, presented rebel generals, including George Washington, as drunks, lechers, and cowards. The Blockade (1775), written by British General John Burgoyne, was performed in British-occupied Boston. The play's ridicule of American soldiers was subsequently burlesqued in The Blockheads; or the Affrighted Officers (1776), written by an anonymous playwright identified only as a patriot. The Blockheads depicts British soldiers as so terrified of the Americans that they soil themselves rather than go outside to use the latrine. Mercy Otis Warren, who created several biting satires of the British, may have written The Blockheads as well. She remained the strongest American dramatic voice of the Revolution and championed the rebel cause in The Group (1775), a play that describes Britain, called Blunderland, as a mother who eats her own children. The Patriots (1775?), a play by Robert Munford, was unusual in its appeal for a neutral stance and its attacks on both sides for their intolerance.

By the mid-1780s professional actors were touring in America again. In 1787, when the Constitution of the United States was being written, Royall Tyler wrote The Contrast, the finest American play of the 18th century. This five-act comedy owes much to The School for Scandal (1777) by British playwright Richard Sheridan. Like Sheridan's play, The Contrast is a comedy of manners that satirizes the customs of the upper classes. It compares British and American fashions and values and ultimately sides with what it sees as American candor and patriotism over British duplicity and artificiality. A masterful element of the play is the Yankee character Jonathan, whose honest innocence stands in stark contrast to the rumor-mongering and gossiping of the play's British characters and the American characters who emulate them.

The 1700s also saw the first American play written by a woman reach the professional stage. The melodramatic comedy Slaves in Algiers (1794) by Susanna Rowson reflects troubles at that time with pirates along North Africa's Barbary Coast who interfered with shipping and ran a white slave trade that involved selling girls and women into prostitution. Although the villain was treated comically, the conflict and resolution in this play indicated a move toward melodrama, a form of drama that became extremely popular in the 19th century.

Drama

Ⅰ.Introduction,

Ⅱ.Beginnings: 1600s and 1700s,

Ⅲ.Nationhood: The 1800s,

Ⅳ.The Modern Era: The 1900s

Poetry

Ⅰ.Introduction,

Ⅱ.Beginnings: 1600s Through the American Revolution (1775-1783),

Ⅲ.The 19th Century,

Ⅳ.The 20th Century.

Prose

Ⅰ.Introduction,

Ⅱ.Beginnings: The 1500s and 1600s,

Ⅲ.Toward Independence: The 1700s,

Ⅳ.Nationhood: The 1800s ,

Ⅴ.Modernism: The 1900s,

Ⅵ.Current Trends