John Smith's Chronicles: The First American Legend - The Story of Pocahontas, Esquemas y mapas conceptuales de Literatura Americana

¡Descarga John Smith's Chronicles: The First American Legend - The Story of Pocahontas y más Esquemas y mapas conceptuales en PDF de Literatura Americana solo en Docsity! JOHN SMITH Among the chronicles that arose in these first years of the 17th century stand out those of John Smith (1579-1631), who before starting his trip to the Americas had practiced already as a mercenary soldier in several European countries. Smith has been qualified as the author of the first book written in North American lands and firstly in the one that can be a vision of a New World as a space in which an own identity has to be forged and as territory in which they found personal and national history. Therefore, his categorization as the first writer in the literary North American tradition. Nevertheless, the work that more brought him the highest recognition is The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624), since it is here where Pocahontas first appears; the daughter of the Indian chief Powhatan, who saves the life to the Captain Smith defying the will of his father. It is in these chronicles where Smith, debtor of the tradition of travel literature popularized by Hakluyt and Purchas, describes the marvels of these new lands in an attempt to stimulate its exploration and the colonial settlement. Besides these literary models, the author has also drawn from the sources of the romance or medieval novel and of the Renaissance historiography. Smith wants to delight the reader with his chivalrous adventures, appearing as a worthy prototype of admiration and imitation, but likewise he offers a few forceful reasons in favor of the settlement which go from the patriotism and the importance of the Christianization up to the riches that hoard the new territories. All the same, these benefits are only within the reach of those that combine their ambition with their effort and discipline. In spite of being misunderstood and rejected by the English men, Smith seems to have understood the nature of American experiment and he took advantage of his experiences to create an image of himself that approaches more that of the chivalrous hero than that of the explorer without scruples, especially in The Generall Historie of Virginia (1624). While his chronicle of 1608, A True Relation ..., is a book of travels and action, in that of 1624 there exists a clear intention of legitimizing the English colonial project and of reconstructing textually the meaning of the American experience. For this Smith uses a classical strategy: the romance between the conqueror and the native woman that from Virgil?s Eneida has been used as inventive resource and structuring link of the tales of origins. This would partly explain the appearance of the Indian princess in this text. The legend of Pocahontas and of her brave action, the rescue of the Captain John Smith, is fixed in 1607. In 1609, after Smith returned to England, the relations between Powhatan and the English started deteriorating and in 1612 she was kidnapped by the Captain Argall, and made captive Indian in Jamestown when there took place an attempt of negotiating the peace. On the following year she became Christian and received the name of Rebecca; in 1614 she married John Rolfe and gave birth to his son one year later. In 1616 she travelled US Literature 1 UNIT 1.5 Prof. Eusebio V. Llaácer