American Literature

At the end of this module the student are expected to:

1. Describe the history of American literature;

2. Appreciate American Literature;

3. Write an essay about American literature.

          Literature is a term used to describe written or spoken material. Broadly speaking, "literature" is used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination, including works of poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction.

“Who reads an American book?” asked the British critic Sydney Smith in 1820. “Literature the Americans have none...it is all imported.” But nearly 150 years later, American literature had developed to the point that the British critic Julian Mitchell asked; “Why is that American novelists seem to write so very much better than we do?”

It took Americans many years to develop a national literature. The settlers who arrived in the 1600’s had little time to write books. They were too busy clearing the wilderness and conquering the land. Gradually, as the nation grew, a rich and imaginative literature began to appear. By the mid-1800’s, only 30 years after Sydney Smith’s scornful remark, America was the home of many major literary achievements. Such authors as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman had produced masterpieces that ranked with the great works of literature.

Today, American authors are recognized throughout the world for their important contributions to all forms of literature. Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe helped make the short story a major literary form. The free verse of Whitman, the short poems of Emily Dickinson, and the literary theories of Henry James created new paths in poetry and fiction. In drama, Eugene O’Neill influenced playwrights everywhere with his bold techniques and daring new themes.

American literature has been translated into almost every language. Russians study Mark Twain, French people quote Henry David Thoreau, and Italians discuss Ernest Hemingway. American authors no longer wonder whether anyone will read their work. Instead they face the challenge of producing enough works of quality to satisfy world wide interest.

Long before America got its name, there was a dream of a good land that man might find for himself, a land of material riches and spiritual hope, a recoverable Atlantis and a discoverable Indies. The prospect stirred men’s imaginations as well as their explorations. The vision did not cease with the first European landings on the North American continent. The expanding frontier encouraged fresh surgings inland. The 18th century American political revolution gave promise of a freer life, and the material prosperity of the 19th century added the sustaining atmosphere of plenty to the developing democratic ideal. Both offered new definitions of a persisting promise to the restless peoples of the Old World. The 20th century did not divert the focus of attention from a nation that had emerged as the most prosperous on earth. In two world wars the Americans had swung the balance of power; in peace as in war their technologies had permeated the globe; their books were being read everywhere, not only for their vitality but out of a general curiosity about America and Americans. From the beginning, Americans have examined and attempted to explain themselves in their literature, and the perplexing question, “What is an American?” has ever lost its interest either inside or outside the American boundaries.

This curiosity about America and Americans has been accompanied by an increasingly familiarity with American English on a global scale. Through American motion pictures the international ear has been turned to the cadences of the American way of speaking. Through American literature the world has become familiar with the distinctive American way of writing. English which has been adopted as a major international language is all the more pliant because of its enrichment by American speech and writing.

There has been an increasing recognition of the excellence of American literature. Among 19th century American writers, Hawthorne, Melville, James, Whitman, and Emily Dickinson have become established as literary classics rather than as historical figures. In the 20th century, Eliot and Pound and Hemingway and Faulkner are major influences wherever English is read or its literary forms imitated. One result of the international recognition of American literature has been its introduction as an integral part of school and university courses of study throughout the world.

Since, World War II, Americans themselves have become increasingly international-minded, reading more of the world’s fiction, poetry, and drama. In the same way that the writers abroad read Americans and assimilate them artistically, Americans have made world literature as much a part of their consciousness as the intellectual and artistic contributions of their own writers.

The earliest American writings were concerned directly with the dream of a new world and the first attempts at its realization. From both North and South came published accounts of pioneering motives and settlements. They form the picture of foundations. Today, Americans remember their first colony at Jamestown, Va., on much the same terms as contemporary England knew of it through the writings of chroniclers, especially Capt. John Smith (1580-1631). After an adventurer’s life, he sailed for Virginia late in 1606 with about 143 colonists on an expedition financed by the Virginia Company of London. When the vessel that had brought them returned to England in 1608, Smith sent with it a narrative for publication at home, A True Relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate as hath happened in Virginia since the first planting of that Collony, which is now resident in the South part thereof, till the last returne from thence (1608). Smith’s account, straightforward and precise like its title, was properly a combination of an economic report for the information of stockholders in the venture, a newsletter for the curious, and an encouragement for future settlers. Blunt and functional in its prose style, it might from a merely decorative point of view have been, as Smith was to say of his Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles (1624), “clad in better robes than my rude military hand can cut out in paper ornaments.” But the first Virginia settlers used neither paper nor lace ornamentation in their daily living, as Smith’s scornful remark indicates; theirs was a business like venture. Smith wrote other accounts of his sometimes quarrelsome American experiences, none of which is better known than The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine John Smith in Europe, Asia, Affrica, and America, from Anno Domini 1593 to 1629, the autobiography that established the legend of Pocahontas and made of Captain Smith himself a swashbuckling hero.

Characteristics of American literature

The United States has such a large and varied literature that we can make no true generalizations about it. But three characteristics seem to stand out and give it a flavor all its known.

First, American literature reflects beliefs and traditions that come from the nation’s frontier days. The pioneer ideals of self-reliance and independence appear again and again in American writings. American authors have great respect for the value and importance of the individual. They tend to reject authority and to emphasize democracy and the equality of the people. They often celebrate nature and a sense of boundless space.

Second, American writers have always had a strong tendency to break with literary tradition and to strike out in their own directions. Writers of other countries seem to absorb all their national literary traditions. But many American authors have rejected the old in order to create something new.

Third, a lively streak of humor runs through American literature from earliest times to the present. In many cases, a dash of salty humor saves a serious theme from becoming too sentimental. American humor tends to be exaggerated rather than subtle. It reflects the people’s ability to laugh at themselves even during the most difficult times. People everywhere would probably still agree with the Scottish author Andrew Lang. in 1892, Lang wrote; “If you see the tears running down from the eyes of a fellow countryman…, if he be writhing with mirth too powerful for expression, the odds are he has got hold of a Yankee book.”