单选题
The Beginning of American Literature
American has always been a land of beginnings. After Europeans "discovered" America in the fifteenth century, the mysterious New World became for many people a genuine hope of a new life, an escape from poverty and persecution, a chance to start again. We can say that, as nation, America begins with
that hope
. When, however, does American literature begin?
American literature begins with American experiences. Long before the first colonists arrived, before Christopher Columbus, before the Northmen who "found" America about the year 1,000, native Americans lived here. Each tribe"s literature was tightly woven into the fabric of daily life and reflected the unmistakably American experience of lining with the land. Another kind of experience, one filled with fear and excitement, found its expression in the reports that Columbus and other explorers sent home in Spain, French and English. In addition, the journals of the people who lived and died in the New England wilderness tell unforgettable tales of hard and sometimes heartbreaking experiences of those early years.
Experience, then, is the key to early American literature. The New World provided a great variety of experiences, and these experiences demanded a wide variety of expressions by an even wider variety of early American writers. These writers included John Smith, who spent only two-and-a-half years on the American continent. They included Jonathan Edwards and William Byrd, who thought of themselves as British subjects, never suspecting a revolution that would create a United States of America with a literature of its own. American Indians, explorers, Puritan ministers, frontier wives, plantation owner—they are all the creators of the first American literature.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[解析] 主旨题。最后一段的主题句为第一句，Experience, then, is the key to early American literature，D项符合此意，故正确答案为D。