Early american literature from colonial period to revolution

DEMOCRATIC ORIGINS AND REVOLUTIONARY WRITERS, 1776-1820

• American Revolution against Britain (1775-1783) was the first modern war of liberation against a colonial power.
• Americans were painfully aware of their excessive dependence on English literary models. The search for a native literature became a national obsession.
• The absence of adequate copyright laws was perhaps the clearest cause of literary stagnation.
• Ironically, the copyright law of 1790, which allowed pirating, was nationalistic in intent.
• Noah Webster (1758-1843) devised an American Dictionary, the great lexicographer