The Beginning ofAmerican Literature Americahas always been a land of beginnings.After Europeans"discovered"Americain the fifteenth century,the mysterious New

World became formany people a genuine hope of a new life,an escape from poverty andpersecution,a chance to start again.We can say that,as a nation,America beginswith

thathope.When,however,does American literature begin?

American literaturebegins with American experiences.Long before the first colonists arrived,beforeChristopher Columbus,before the Northmen who"found"America about

the year 1000,nativeAmericans lived here.Each tribe's literature was tightly woven into the fabricof daily life and reflected the unmistakably American experience of linking

with theland.Another kind of experience,one filled with fear and excitement,found itsexpression in the reports that Columbus and other explorers sent home in Spain,French

and English.Inaddition,the journals of the people who lived and died in the New England wilder- ness tell unforgettable tales of hard andsometimes heartbreaking

experiences of thoseearly years. Experience,then, is the key to early American literature.

The New World provided a great variety of experiences,andthese experiences demanded a wide variety of expressions by an even widervariety of early American

writers.Thesewriters included John Smith,who spent only two-and-a-half year on the Americancontinent.

They includedJonathan Edwards and William Byrd,who thought of themselves as Britishsubjects,never suspecting a revolution that would create a United States of America

with a literature ofits own.American Indians,explorers,Puritan ministers,frontier wives,plantationowners-they are all the creators of the first American literature.When did American literature begin?

A.Before the American natives lived there.

B.When Columbus and other explorers sent reports back home.

C.When the Northmen found America in about 1000.

D.Long before the year 1000.