Virginia literature

Prior to English settlement and the formation of Jamestown on the east Virginian coast in 1607, the region was home to the native Algonquian peoples, also known as the Powhatan peoples of Tsenacommacah. Literature made by the early Powhatan peoples was multi-textual, not based on the English written word and took many artistic and cultural forms.[4] Indigenous literature of early Virginia consisted of oral stories and tales, markings made on rock and the land itself, physical memorials that were used as a way of storytelling, and, other kinds of texts including "earthworks (architectonic forms of public rhetoric that embody and express civic and sacred power) and other smaller expressive forms such as effigies, pipes, and pottery".[5]

There is some evidence to suggest that the Algonquin people used a form of hieroglyphic writing in order to communicate and record information.[6] Written observations made by European settlers recorded that indigenous people were writing these hieroglyphic inscriptions on birch bark and in screen-fold books on a number of matters including public life, private affairs, culture, social systems and spiritual beliefs.[7] This is known as a form of indigenous literacy[8] or literature that employs a non-alphabetic writing system and makes use of signs and symbols in order to communicate.

Literature produced during the early period was predominantly written in the style of prose and focused almost exclusively on topics of exploration and settlement.[9] Texts mostly consisted of diaries, letters, logs, political writings, promotion literature, prose, travel notes/practical manuals, religious sermons and poetry. Early writings were predominantly observational logs made by the first colonisers in service of the crown describing the landscape, indigenous peoples and conditions of settlement.[10] Explorer and colony governor (from 1606 – 1609) George Percy, wrote the Observations, a highly detailed eye-witness account of the incidents of the first voyage to Virginia and the party's many expeditions onto land, however it was not published until 1625.

John Smith, explorer and captain of the newly established Virginian colony wrote frequently and in 1608 Smith's first book A True Relation of Virginia also known under the title A True Relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate as hath hapned in Virginia since the first planting of that collony, which is now resident in the South part thereof, till the last returne from thence was published at Stationers Hall in London.[11] Attributed as a natural-born writer,[12] Smith's account of Jamestown was a straightforward, matter-of-fact record of his journey to, settlement of, and what he witnessed and experienced within, the colony. The text itself was forthright, vivid and used direct and strong natural prose. It followed a tradition of British geographical style writing prominent at the time that documented, categorised and expounded the nature of adventure and colonisation. It describes in detail the Indigenous Powhatan peoples Smith encountered and presented Virginia as a 'Wonder of Nature' and as a 'Mirror of our Clime' in which he reflects "a vision of a heroic imperial England".[13] As it was the first published English-language literary text of the region it helped to establish Smith's reputation as an authority on Virginia.[14] It is cited by historians as the first piece of literature produced within and about Virginia, marking the beginning of Virginian (and also American) literary history.[15]

Title page of 'Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles' by John Smith.

John Smith later published The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles in 1624 which was divided into six sections spread across two volumes of work. The work further described British colonial efforts in Virginia, documenting the topography & geography of the region, recording observations of the spiritual practices, systems of law, and family life of the indigenous peoples, and categorising the native flora & fauna of the land. Smith also included a short and limited dictionary of the Algonquian language.[16] Literary scholars note that Smith's themes and the writing itself influenced later Virginian literary texts and styles, as well as other Southern writers "from Twain and Melville to Barth and Pynchon".[17]

Throughout the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia's leaders often sought to emulate a style of poetry established during the period of the English Renaissance, a tradition of writing which was primarily concerned with topics of civic and social life.[18] This style was widely used by their English compatriots back home.[19] These literary traditions would stretch into the 18th Century with common types of verse included the elegy, the narrative poem, and the historical poem.[20] William Strachey the colonial secretary of the Virginia Colony wrote several works including The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia which included the opening poem Aecclesiae et Reipub (Church and State) in which he "emphasises the inextricable link between planting a colony and planting the Christian faith, indicating that the English colonists had a religious responsibility to convert the Virginia Indians.”[21]

A printing press began operating in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1682.[22] Colonial- and Federal-era writers included Robert Beverley, Jr. (History and Present State of Virginia, 1705); Arthur Blackamore (Religious Triumverate, 1720); Thomas Jefferson (Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785).[23]

Later during the eighteenth century, letters became one of the most popular forms of literary text, the period being dubbed the golden age of letter writing due to "expanding social mobility, higher literacy rates, less expensive stationary supplies, and faster postal delivery".[24] It is noted that the earliest descriptions of Virginia (its terrain, layout and original indigenous inhabitants) were recorded and proliferated in the literary form of the letter.[25] A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia by Thomas Harriot is one such example of descriptive letters published to English audiences describing the newly colonised Virginia.

Virginian Literature of the 19^th Century covers literature produced from 1800 to the turn of the century in 1899. This period of writing was marked by the Antebellum (meaning 'before the war') period between 1812 – 1861 and the American civil war from 1861 – 1865.[26] The early years of the nineteenth century saw several important literary texts published including The History of the expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the sources of the Missouri thence across the Rocky mountains and down the river Columbia to the Pacific Ocean (1814) which recorded the expedition of Lewis and Clark (two Virginian-born explorers) and A Tour through Part of Virginia in the Summer of 1808 (1809) by John Edwards Caldwell. These texts centred on the themes of travel, history, and biography.[27]

The cover of the December, 1835 issue of The Southern Literary Messenger magazine, published in Richmond, Virginia (VA), by T.W. White. Included in this issue is 'M.S. Found in a Bottle' by Edgar Allan Poe.

The early Antebellum period of Virginia's literary history was marked by genres of "elegies, poems, metrical romances, narrative, satire, sentimental humour, and vers de société."[28] Poetry on the topic of nature and the natural surrounds of the Virginia area was common and followed a tradition established in England by romantic poets such as William Wordsworth.[29] Such writing, like previous literature written during the Jeffersonian era, was typically "written by men of the professional class – clergymen, lawyers, legislators, physicians, teachers"[30] however in 1813 Judith Lomax became the first woman from Virginia to publish a book consisting only of her own written verse.[31] Other women poets of the time included Anna Byrd, Martha Ann Davis and Judith Wormeley.

The Southern Literary Messenger launched in Richmond in 1834.[32] Edgar Allan Poe a prominent literary figure of the antebellum period served as the paper's editor in chief between 1835-1837.[33] Other literary figures of the period include Virginia-born writers William Alexander Caruthers (1802–1846), John Esten Cooke (1830–1886), Philip Pendleton Cooke (1816–1850), Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (1784–1851).[34] During the Antebellum period The Novel also became a popular form of literary text often highlighting "historic Virginia settings and historic figures" where action and narrative was "set either on a Virginia antebellum plantation or in a crucial moment from Virginia history."[35]

The period of the American Civil War provided an opportunity for literary development for women writers not only from Virginia but within the larger American South.[36] Women "in response to the war that rocked their patriarchal society...wrote diaries, memoirs, poetry, and novels".[37] The themes explored at this time were predominantly concerned with women's personal experiences of the War in the form of both fiction and non-fictional account.[38] Other female Virginian writers include Mary Tucker Magill (Woman, or a Chronicle of the Late War, 1867), Marta Lockett Avary (A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1903), Maie Dove Day (The Blended Flags), Susan Archer Tally and Marion Harland.

Marion Fontaine Cabell Tyree's Housekeeping in Old Virginia, a cookbook, was published in Richmond in 1878.[39] In 1855 Sketches of Slave Life: Or, Illustrations of the Peculiar Institution was written by Peter Randolph an ex-Virginian Slave and noted abolitionist.[40] He also wrote From Slave Cabin to the Pulpit in 1893. His narratives recorded the day-to-day hardships of slave life in Virginia, "relating how the lives of slaves were controlled by their masters and the laws of the land."[41] Randolph's writing was part of a larger change of literary voices in Virginia's history as African American writers began to write to "assert themselves not only as human beings worthy of freedom and opportunity, but also as equals to whites, with the act of writing their stories being the first step in asserting that equality."[42]