(Painting: The Hudson River School)
When European explorers first came to North America, Native American cultures already existed and had rich forms of oral literature passed down from generation to generation. People arrived in America from all parts of the world with their different languages; as English prevailed, some forms of cultures already present were translated into English, but most disappeared with the destruction of the Natives.
Until the 19th century American literature took inspiration from works written in British. Most of the works were in verses and dealt with (= trattavano) the new physical environment and the evolving (= in evoluzione) culture of the colonies. Puritans who settled (= si stanziarono) in New England followed the Puritan tradition and read poetry in family and with closest (= più intimi) friends. Public poetry was more didactic or instructive and often involved the transformation into verse of important biblical and divine lessons that guided Puritan belief (= credo)
Anne Bradstreet (1612-72), come to Massachusetts from Britain at the age 18, was the first poet in America to publish a volume The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (La decima musa sorta recentemente in America) The verses (= i versi) reveal her attraction to the new world, and the problems he met while facing (= affrontava) a new life and the wilderness (= termine usato per definire la natura selvaggia in America; non viene tradotto con una parola) . Further ( = in seguito) , she showed early ideas of female reaction to women situation (The Prologue, 1650).