WORLITE HANDOUTS

American Literature
AMERICAN LITERATURE
The body of written works produced in the
English language in the United States.
Like other national literatures, American
literature was shaped by the history of the
country that produced it. For almost a century
and a half, America was merely a group of
colonies scattered along the eastern seaboard of
the North American continentcolonies from
which a few hardy souls tentatively ventured
westward. After a successful rebellion against the
motherland, America became the United States, a
nation.

HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE

I.

II.

Period of Colonization and Revolution (17th 18th Century)

A. First permanent English settlement was
established at Jamestown, Virginia in
1617. The War for Independence lasted
for eight years (1776-1783).
B. American Puritanism one of the most
enduring shaping influences in American
thought
and
literature.
The
representatives of the Enlightenment set
themselves the task of disseminating
knowledge among the people and
advocating revolutionary ideas.
C. The Puritans emphasized hard work,
piety and sobriety; The earliest writings
include diaries, traveling books, journals,
letters,
sermons
even
government
contracts.
D. The earliest American writers:
a) Benjamin Franklin author of Poor
Richards
Almanac
and
his
Autobiography.
b) Thomas Jefferson primary author
of The Declaration of Independence.
Period of Romanticism (first half of 19 th
century)
A. Industrial Revolution; Western expansion;
immigrants contribution; political ideal of
equality and democracy; the influence of
European Romanticists.
B. American Romanticism the real
beginning of American literature; the first
American Renaissance; emphasis upon the
imaginative and emotional qualities of
literature, a liking for the picturesque, the
exotic, the sensuous, the sensational and
the supernatural; the strong tendency to
exalt the individual and the common man.
C. New England Transcendentalism the
Romanticism on the Puritan soil; emphasis
on spirit, or the Oversoul; the stress of the
importance of the individual as the most
important element of society; a fresh
perception of nature as symbolic of the
spirit or God.
D. Notable Authors
a)
Washington Irving father of
American short stories. The first who
one international fame. Author of Rip

III.

IV.

8:30-10:00 TTh
Van Winkle and The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow.
b)
James Fenimore Cooper father
of
American
fiction.
Author
of
Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five
novels about the frontier life of
American settlers.
c)
Edgar Allan Poe father of
American detective stories. He is a
great writer of fiction, a poet of the
first rank, and a critic of acumen and
insight.
d)
Hawthorne his black vision of
life and human being; evil as the trade
mark of human being. His novels: The
Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven
Gables.
e)
Walt Whitman a pioneer poet
known for his free verse poems. Some
of his works are Leaves of Grass,
Song of Myself and When Lilacs last in
the Dooryard Bloomd.
E. Free verse poetry basing on the irregular
rhythmic cadence, no conventional use of
meter, rhyme may or may not be present.
Period of Realism (latter half of the 19 th
Century)
A. The impact of American Civil War;
increasing industrialization; the widening
contrast of wealth and poverty; popular
feeling of frustration and disillusionment.
B. Realism a reaction against Romanticism
or a move away from the bias towards
romance and self-creating fictions; a great
interest in the realities of life, everyday
existence, what was brutal or sordid and
class struggle
C. Local Colorism the beginning of
Realism;
the
presentation
and
interpretation of the local character, the
truthful color of local life.
D. Dominant figures in the period of Realism:
a)
Mark Twain the true father of
American literature by H. L. Mencken;
rough humor and social satire; magic
power with language, the use of
vernacular and colloquial speech.
Famous
works:
Adventure
of
Huckleberry
Finn,
Life
on
the
Mississippi, The Adventure of Tom
Sawyer.
b)
Henry James psychological
approach to his subject matter;
concerned more with the inner life of
human beings than with overt human
actions. Representative works: The
Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassador,
The Wings of the Dove, The Golden
Bowl.
c)
William Dean Howells focuses
on the rising middle class and the way
they lived.
American Naturalism (last decade of the
19th century)

Sources:
english.tongji.edu.cn/ymwx/pdf/meiwenxueshi.pdf
iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/English/publication/2008/05/20080516134208eaifas0.1100885.html#axzz3CmQgCJxF

WORLITE HANDOUTS

American Literature

A. Darwins evolutionary theory made an

impact
on
the
American
thought;
emergence of this period was also
influenced by the 19th century French
literature.
B. Naturalism Naturalists chose their
subjects from the lower ranks of the
society, portrayed misery and poverty of
the underdogs who were demonstrably
victims of society and nature. And one of
the most familiar themes in American
Naturalism is the theme of human
bestiality, especially as an explanation of
sexual desire.
V. Modernism/Contemporary
American
Literature (20th Century)
A. Booming industry and material prosperity
in contrast with a sense of unease and
relentless underneath; a decline in moral
standard described as a spiritual poverty;
the impact of war feelings of fear, loss,
disorientation and disillusionment.
B. Imagist Movement - Pound and Flint laid
down
three
main
principles:
direct
treatment of poetic subjects, elimination of
merely ornamental or superfluous words,
and
rhythmical
composition
in
the
sequence of the musical phrase rather than
in the sequence of a metronome.
C. Modernism in poetry the feeling of
frustration
and
failure;
the
commercialization and debasement of art
in Pounds Mauberley; Pounds attempt to
impose, through art, order and meaning
upon a chaotic and meaningless world in
his work Cantos.
D. The Lost Generation a period of
spiritual crisis. Also known as the second
American Renaissance; the expatriate
movement; young people volunteered to
take part in the war to end wars, only to
find that modern warfare was not glorious
or heroic.
E. The Depression Period the Great
Depression (1929-1933); social protests
was the main theme of most novels in this
period.
F. The Beat Movement this came about
by the impact of WWII, the cold war, the
Korean
War,
Vietnam
War,
the
assassination of Kennedy and of Martin
Luther King. This movement has the idea
that life is a big joke or an absurdity. This
movement sees the world as more
disintegrating and fragmentary; and people
is described as more estranged and
despondent.
Allen
Ginsbergs
Howl
became the manifesto of the Beat
Movement.
G. American Fiction after WWII themes
of the writings in this period were about
traumatic
war
experiences,
Jewish
experience, about black people, alienated
youth, and about middle-class life.

VI.

8:30-10:00 TTh
H. New Fiction American fiction in the
1960s and 1970s proves to be different.
Writers like Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller,
and John Bath shared almost the same
belief that human beings are trapped in a
meaningless world and that neither God
nor man can make sense of the human
condition.
I. 20th Century American Drama has
gained itself an indispensable position in
the world literature and also established its
international
reputation
for
its
achievements in the realistic theatre,
expressionist theatre, metatheatre and
feminist theater that are rooted in
American social reality. It produces a band
of important playwrights, two Nobel-Prize
laureates among them.
J. Third Wave Feminists a movement that
usually refers to young women in their 20s
and 30s who have grown up in an era of
widely accepted social equality in the
United States. Third Wave feminists feel
sufficiently empowered to emphasize the
individuality of choices women make.
Bridget Joness Diary by the British writer
Helen Fielding and Candace Bushnells Sex
and the City featuring urban single women
with romance in mind have spawned a
popular genre among young women.
Postmodernism (later parts of 20 th century
early 21st Century)
A. Postmodernism suggests fragmentation:
collage, hybridity, and the use of various
voices, scenes and identities. Postmodern
authors question external structures,
whether political, philosophical, or artistic.
They tend to distrust the master-narratives
of modernist thought, which they see as
politically suspect. Instead, they mine
popular cultural genres, especially science
fiction,
spy,
and
detective
stories,
becoming in effect, archaeologists of pop
culture.
B. Creative
Nonfiction:
Memoir
and
Autobiography the rise of global,
multiethnic, and womens literature works
in which writers reflect on experiences
shaped by culture, color and gender has
endowed autobiography and memoir with
special allure. Autobiography is a written
account of the life of a person written by
himself. While a memoir a historical
account or biography written from personal
knowledge or special sources. The contents
of an autobiography and a memoir are
almost the same but the latter is typically
shorter than the former.
C. The Short Story: New Directions The
short story has lost its luster by the late
1970s. It was until an outsider from the
Pacific Northwest a gritty realist in the
tradition
of
Ernest
Hemmingway

revitalized the genre. Writers with ethnic

and global roots are informing the story

Sources:
english.tongji.edu.cn/ymwx/pdf/meiwenxueshi.pdf
iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/English/publication/2008/05/20080516134208eaifas0.1100885.html#axzz3CmQgCJxF

WORLITE HANDOUTS

American Literature

genre
with
non-Western
and
tribal
approaches,
and
storytelling
has
commanded critical and popular attention.
The versatile, primal tale is the basis of
several hybridized forms: novels that are
constructed of interlinking short stories or
vignettes, and creative nonfictions that
interweave history and personal history
with fiction.
D. The Short Short Story is a very brief
story, often only one or two pages long. It

8:30-10:00 TTh
is sometimes called as flash fiction or
sudden fiction after 1986 anthology
Sudden Fiction, edited by Robert Shapard
and James Thomas. In short short stories,
there is little space to develop a character.
Rather, the element of plot is central. A
crisis occurs, and a sketched-in character
simply has to react. Authors deploy clever
narrative or linguistic patterns; in some
cases, the short short resembles a prose
poem.

Sources:
english.tongji.edu.cn/ymwx/pdf/meiwenxueshi.pdf
iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/English/publication/2008/05/20080516134208eaifas0.1100885.html#axzz3CmQgCJxF