But in general, the United States was founded upon European, and especially British, precedents. Culturally speaking, America might be called a European colony. However, to say so is to draw attention to the complexity of the American scene. No other colony has been so heterogeneously populated, or so long politically independent or Europe. No other country whose origins lie in Europe has had so sharp an awareness of its cleavage from, and superiority to, its parent cultures. Running through American history, and therefore through American literature, is a double consciousness of Old World modes and New World possibilities. Yesterday has been dismissed and pined for; tomorrow has been invoked and dreaded. It has not been the most favourable of situations for the production of literature. As an American, the writer has distrusted Europe; as a writer, be has envied the riches available to his European counterpart. At any rate, this was true of creative literature: the novel, the poem, and the play were for a long time inhibited in the United States. By and large, critical and historical writings have flowed more easily from American pens.