1
John Smith vs. William Bradfords Reliability on Writings
John Smith and William Bradford are excellent writers who have
made a significant
contribution to the history and literature of the United States
of America; however, stories by
John Smith are sometimes questioned to be true. True Travels are
the fantastic adventures by
John Smith and these were claimed to have some fiction elements
and at the same time they
became the reason to believe that writings of Smith are not
reliable.
However, a range of special research were conducted in order to
check this theory and
researchers came to conclusion that Smith and his literature
were affected by the literary
attitudes of Elizabeth and Jacobean England greatly, so this
might have been the reason of
particular features of Smiths work (Captain John Smiths Image of
America).
Despite the fact that the stories are claimed to be true,
William Bradford is believed to
be a more reliable writer than John Smith. One of the reasons
was that William Bradford was
the governor, and occupation of such high position requires
being extremely serious about all
the issues with is connected with functions of the governor and
it is unacceptable to devote
literature activity to writing fiction stories.
William Bradfords works contain some bias and these bring up
numerous themes
which are similar to those which can be found in the Old
Testament. One of such was the
image of the pilgrims who were chosen by the God similarly to
the Israel tribes - usage of the
Bible makes the writings even more reliable since William
Bradford belonged to devoted
Catholics and using the themes from the Old Testament he
demonstrates that there is nothing
more real than life which is described in his stories and the
stories, in their turn, are the life
itself (William Bradford).
