Am. Lit. Clep
Bernard Malamud
A myth maker, fabulist, and a writer of exquisite parables. His stories often dramatize the tension arising out of the clash between Jewish conscience and american energy and materialism; the difficulty of keeping alive the jewish sense of community on american society. His jewish characters become symbols of all american tryings to maintain a link with their cultural heritage while coping with the realities of contemporary life.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A mythic tale of death, rebirth, freedom, and bondage, this novel is one of America's most influential.
Robert Frost
America's best known and best loved poets of his time (1874-1963). His poems used traditional verse forms and the plain speech of rural New Englanders t prove life's irrationality.
Countee Cullen
Called "the black Keats" for his youth, skill as a poet, and use of traditional forms.
Stephen Leacock
Canadian American. Arguably the english speaking world's best known humorist from 1915 - 1925.
Yiddish
Chief language of the Ashkenazic Jews from eastern and central europe.
Moby Dick
Considered America's greatest prose (non poetry) epic and is a top contender for the best novel, too.
Thomas Jefferson
Considered to be the finest writer of the Revolutionary Era, as the Declaration of Independence demonstrates
Elie diesel
Jewish American writer who describes the horrors of the Holocaust. At age 15, he was sent to a concentration camp with his family. Only he and his two older sisters survived, he fled to France and began trying to reassemble his life. His novel "Night" was about his experience in the concentration camp as a boy. It describes a boy torn by guilt and anguish over the annihilation of his people. The theme is the loss of his belief in God.
Norman Mailer
Jewish American. Famous for his writing, as well as for his marriages, divorces, and media hype. He successfully developed a form of journalism that conveys actual events with the subjective richness and imaginative complexity of the novel. His bold style and rich use of language often blurred the line between journalism and fiction
Saul Bellow
Jewish American. His novels concentrate on the turmoil of modern jewish life, with a comic turn. Finest novel of this era is Seize The day, the bitter comedy that tells the story of a former actor.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Jewish American. Known for his wild stories, written originally in Yiddish and filled with demons and schlemiels, wild plots, and even wilder resolutions..
Emily Dickinson
Like Walt Whitman, _____ is considered one of the founders of Modern American Poetry. ____'s concrete imagery, forceful language, and unique style ushered in poetry as we know it today. Wrote 1775 poems but published only 7 of them during their lifetime. The theme of death is _____'s favorite.
Stephen King
Known for his terrifying and thrilling novels. "Carrie," "Salem's Lot," "The Shining," The Dead Zone," "Pet Cemetery," and more. His thrilling psychological horror tales have made him America;s best s
Edgar Allan Poe
Lousy childhood and serious substance abuse problem, he wrote landmark criticism and memorable poetry. he also created the modern short story, with its unity of character, detail and mood. his psychic murder stories paved the way for such pop culture icons as norman bates and freddy kruger. he created the detective story. he was reviled in his day, but his fame is now secure.
Kate Chopin
Made her mark with stories of the Louisiana Bayou, until she blew the lid off the pot with her story of a woman sexual coming of age in "The Awakening"
The Woman Warrior
Maxine Hong Kingston's 1976 memoir, _____, helped asian american writers break into mainstream american literature.
Joyce Carol Oates
One of America's most productive contemporary writers. Had a series of ambitious Gothic novels that rework traditional literary genres and reimagine large swaths of American history. These novels mark a departure from the psychological realism of her earlier work. ____ returned powerfully to the realistic mode with ambitious family chronicles and a series of suspense novels. All these books show her great versatility as a writer.
Pierre Berton
One of canada's best known writers, he is a serious popularizer of canadian history. His first important book was "Klondike," a narrative of the Klondike old Rush of 1898, an event that cast a long shadow under which Berton lived for years, being the son of a gold seeker and having grown up in the Dawson amid the debris of the stampede.
Willa Cather
Probed life on the Nebraska prairie, winning a Pulitzer Prize for her achievements. In her works, she has strong admiration for the courage and spirit of immigrant settlers, intense awareness of pioneer's isolation and loss, and keen awareness of the culture of city life.
Robert Lowell
Produced 10 volumes of brilliant, anguished poetry.
The Confessional Poets
Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Robert Lowell used their anguish of their own lives to explore America's hidden despair. Their poetry dealt with deeply personal, emotional and psychological matters. They described the experience of suffering, often in the context of the family, through this suffering, suggested the cost of national practices and ideologies of the 1950s on the individual.
Sartoris and Compson families // Snopes Family
What author created these characters? Sartoris and Compson families represent the genteel Old South. The Snopes represent the pragmatic, worldly, and unscrupulous forces of the modern South.
Maya Angelou
Writer and entertainer best known for her portrayals of strong African American women. Much of her writings stress the themes of courage, perseverance, self acceptance, and the realization of one's full potential.
John Smith
Writing helped lay the foundation or American literature (puritan times)
On The Duty of Civil Disobedience
Written by who? Has become the primer for nonviolent protest, used by Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and many others.
The Scarlet Letter
Written by who? Like all of this author's works, this novel is about people who are torn between tragic evil and human nature and a human sympathy for our natural passions.
The Great Gatsby
Written by who? One of the masterpieces of American Literature. Not only a brilliant comment on the 1920s, but also an ironic and tragic treatment of the American success myth.
Walden
Written by who? A guidebook for life, showing the reader how to live wisely in a world designed to make wise living impossible
Carl Sandburg
poetry expresses americas hearty, earthy nature. Poems describe everyday humans, have a positive tone, use simple words, are easy to understand, and are written in free verse.
Washington Irving
"Father of American Literature" because he proved that memorable fiction could feature both American settings and American "types." became the first american writer to achieve an international reputation and was the central figure in the american literary scene between 1809 and 1865. he wrote short stores, travel books, and satires. his most famous works are the short stories "the Legend of Sleepy Hollow", "Rip Van Winkle," and "The Devil and Tom Walker."
W. E. B. Du Bois
"The Souls of Black Folk" demonstrated that segregation would inevitably lead to inequality, particularly in education. A founder of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). His worked helped black intellectuals rediscover heir rich folk literature and music.
The Harlem Renaissance
A black cultural movement that emerged in Harlem, NY during the 1920s. Literature, music, and art flourished.
Edith Wharton
A wealthy society matron whose novels show the subtle interplay of emotions in a society that censured free expression. _____'s characters are often victims of cruel social conventions, trapped in bad relationships or confining circumstances. Writing style is elegant, graceful, and honest. Close with Henry James who helped her edit and critique her works.
William Least Heat Moon
Also _______ Trogdon. Should use Trogdon when conducting business and doing other "Anglo" things, but use his Native American name when doing spiritual activities such as writing. Hence, the name. He continues to contribute essays and articles to well respected periodicals such as The Atlantic Monthly. His writing has attracted attention and earned respect.
Denise Chavez
Although her writing often seems to shift focus from the key issues of Chicano culture to self reflection, ____ nonetheless welcomes her Chicano heritage. She is deeply grateful for being bilingual. She began writing plays in the early 1970s, focusing on the social and economic issues of the chicano culture as well as bilingual speech and chicano humor. The characters in her writings are typically everyday people, and through these characters, she celebrates the strength and dignity of the working class.
Theodore Dreiser
Although lambasted for there awkward style and overwriting, his novels express a brooding instance on the essential tragedy of life. His "An American Tragedy" is a scathing portrait of the American success myth gone sour, as well as a universal story about the stressed of urbanization, modernization, and alienation.
James Thurber
America's most popular humorist in the 1930s and 1940s. His most common theme is the battle between the sexes; his most famous story of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." He is celebrated for his vision of the urban man needing to escape into fantasy because he is befuddled and beset by a world he neither credited not understands. His best known portrait of this character is Walter Mitty, a timid, hapless man who nonetheless outsmarts his overbearing wife by retreating into a rich inner life.
Dorothy Parker
American Humorist. Became a symbol of the liberated woman for her wit and independence. She is known for her caustic and clever poems and short stories.
Robert Benchley
American Humorist. One of the most prolific and popular writers of his time (1889 - 1945). Served as editor of Vanity Fair and later worked as a drama critic for Life and The New Yorker.
James Fenimoore Cooper
Americas first successful novelist. Created the first American adventure story, the first american novel of manners, and the first american novel of the sea. raised the american frontier experience to epic proportions and helped define the american character as we know today. his most famous character was Natty Bumppo, aka Deerslayer, Hawkeye, and Leatherstocking, one of the most popular characters in literature.
Booker T Washington
An educator and most prominent black leader of his day. Born to a white slave holding father and a black slave mother, he became famous for his efforts to improve the lives of african-americans through education. His policy of integration with white - an attempt to involve the recently freed black American in the mainstream of american society - was outlined in his famous Atlanta Exposition Address.
Frederick Douglass
An escaped slave, became one of the most effective oration of his day, an influential newspaper writer, a militant abolitionist, and a famous diplomat. One of the true heroes of America. His autobiography appeared in 3 versions and became an instant and enduring classic story of courage.
Stephen Crane
Attacked patriotism, individualism, and organized religion to confront the meaningless of the world. Considered to be one of the first naturalists because of his belief in determinism: the effects of environment, heredity, and chance on human fate. Most famous for writing "The Red Badge of Courage," a novel set in the Civil War. Hs writing is celebrated for its images and symbolism.
Naturalists
Believed that life is determined by environment, heredity, and chance. As a result, we live by the law of the jungle.
William S Burroughs
Best known books are "Queer," "Junky" and "Naked Lunch." The beats generation's most innovative writer. Much of his life was marked by drama; he was arrested on drug charges in 1949 and fled to Mexico with his wife and accidentally killed her in a drunken game.
Margaret Atwood
Best known for her novel "The Handmaid's Tale." She has been instrumental in separating Canadas cultural identity from both American and British influences. She accomplishes this by writing poems, novels, and stories that consider the issues that prevent many Canadians, especially women, from achieving their goals and dreams.
Truman Capote
Best known for his "nonfiction novel" 'In Cold Blood,' ____ was the first author to write a nonfiction book that could be read as a novel. A gifted prose stylist, ______ opened up new literary territory. He was also a flamboyant media celebrity, famous for his lavish parties and excesses.
Frank Norris
Best novel "McTeague" helped transform American fiction from tentative realism to in your face naturalism.
Mavis Gallant
Canadian American. Her brilliant and ironic style is highly realistic. She often describes frightened, lonely children and teenagers, writing compassionately of their pain. In unsentimental prose and with trenchant wit, she describes the isolation, detachment and fear that afflicts rootless North American and European expatriates.
Alfred Purdy
Canadian American. Member of a group of Canadian poets rooted in working class culture. _____ has tried to bring to his poetry a sense of Canada's past and of the rapid pattern of change.
Margaret Laurence
Canadian American. Ranked as one of the top novelists of the 1960s and 1970s. Her writing is distinguished by penetrating characterizations and fin techniques. Her stories resonate in your mind, echoing long after you've put the book down. Her african fiction reflects her belief in the dignity and potential of every human being.
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Carved out her niche with stories that hauntingly explore the lives of isolated, poor, "mature" New England women who confront their poverty with ferocious independence. Her characters recognize their isolation but struggle to preserve their dignity.
Vachal Lindsay
Celebrated small town midwestern populism and created strong, rhythmic poetry.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Cornered the market on sin and guilt, including the consequences of pride, selfishness, and concealed culpability. Did romance as the Colonel does chicken. Romance is a work of fiction that, in ____'s words, "claims a certain latitude" with the ordinary course of human experience. Also showed keen psychological insights that paved the way for his friend Herman Melville and the 20th century Southern Novelist William Faulker, among others.
e. e. cummings
Created a new, highly idiosyncratic poetry, marked by unusual typography and spelling.
Walt Whitman
Created new poetic forms and subjects to fashion a distinctly American type of poetry. He rejected conventional themes, traditional literary references, allusions, and rhyme - all the accepted poetic customs of the 19th century. He used long lines to capture the rhythms of natural speech, free verse, and vocabulary drawn from everyday speech.
Humorist Writers
Evoke yuks by pointing out comical, ludicrous, and ridiculous situations. These writers may embellish events, use sarcasm, use word play, include irony, deliberately misuse words, and exaggerate details.
James Weldon Johnson
Expored the complex issue of race with his fictional "The Autobiography of an Ex Colored Man," about a mixed race man (like ____ , himself) who "passes" (is considered) white. This book effectively conveys Black America's concern with issues of identity in America.
William Bradford
First leader of the plymouth county, was the Alpha puritan. Authors and signers of the Mayflower Compact in 1620, the Pilgrims constitution and his History of Plymouth Plantation.
Anne Bradstreet
First published American poet
The Marx Brothers
Four brothers who wrote movies whose humor has become legendary. Each brother is easily identifiable and memorable.
John Cheever
Had an interest in the lives of upper class suburban professionals trapped by circumstances - marriages, jobs, possessions. Imprisoned in their beautiful homes and neighborhoods, ______'s characters long to break free from their routines, but sometimes they don't realize how deeply they are trapped.
Richard Rodriguez
Has been a controversial figure on the American intellectual landscape for his strong stance against bilingual education. While his own experiences would seem to suggest that he would be in favor of teaching children in both their home language and english, _____ nonetheless feels that total immersion in English benefits children far more than a bilingual education.
Mordecai Richler
He is one of Canada's foremost novelists, a controversial and prolific journalist, .and an occasional scriptwriter. His reputation as a novelist took of with the publication of "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz," a witty portrait of a young Montreal jewish entrepreneur, the novel is characterized by the contrast between comedy and pathos; rich dramatic scenes; a lively narrative pace; and a comprehensive depiction of the protagonist as Montrealer, Jew, and individual.
Amy Tan
Her "The Joy Luck Club" describes the lives of four asian women who flee china in the 1940s and their four very americanized daughters. The story focuses on Jing Mei (June) Woo, a 36 y-o woman at loose ends. After her mothers sudden death, June comes to appreciate her heritage and the extraordinary hardships experienced by the Chinese immigrant women of her mother's generation.
Alice Munro
Her early writing concerns the problems teenage girls face coming to terms with family and small town life. Her more recent work addresses the problems of middle age, of women alone, and of the elderly. Characteristic of her style is the search of some gesture by which an event is illuminated and given personal meaning.
Louise Erdrich
Her fiction and poetry draw on her Chippewa heritage and experiences as Native American to examine complex family and sexual relationships among full and mixed blood Native Americans as they struggle with questions of identity in white American culture.
Sandra Cisneros
Her style has been shaped by her experiences: feminism, love, oppression, and religion. These themes recut in her work.
Jamiaca Kincaid
Her writing often describes one culture overwhelming another, resulting in deeply conflicted, divided individuals unable to wholly accept the dominant culture. Her characters sometimes hate their own culture because they cannot help but see it through white eyes.
Alice Walker
Her writing portrays the lives of the poor, oppressed black women in the early 1900s. Many of her books themes are love, suicide, civil rights and Africa.
J. D. Salinger
His "Catcher in the Rye" became the symbol for a generation of disaffected youth. The main character, Holden Caulfield, has become a symbol for the misunderstood youth. It has won critical acclaim and thousands of devoted followers for its poignant description of a teenager trying to find his way in the world.
J Hetctor St Jean de Crevecoeur
His "Letters from an American Farmer" helped establish our national identity by coining the term "melting pot" and giving us the notion that theres something special about "Americans"
Thomas Paine
His "The American Crisis," which helped props us into war, remains a model of effective propaganda.
Jack Kerouac
His book "On The Road" captured the beats' ebullient spirit. It developed a new, spontaneous, nonstop and unedited method of writing tat shocked more polished and conventional writers. The novel drew public attention to the widespread subterranean culture of the beats poets, folksingers, hipsters, mystics, and eccentrics.
John Steinbeck
His novels and short stories reflect his belief in the need for social justice and his hope that people can learn from the suffering of others. "The Grapes if Wrath" combined naturalism and symbolism to express outrage and compassion for the plight of the farmers displaced by the Depression and Dustbowl.
Ralph Ellison
His only published novel "Invisible Man" was a landmark achievement in american literature, and expounds the theme that american society willfully ignores blacks. This novel is what both made and destroyed him. In one stroke. the novel established the author as americas preeminent african american writer. BUt at the same time, it set him up against many african american intellectuals, who argued for a clearer statement of blacks as victims
Allen Ginsberg
His poem "Howl" became the beat anthem. This great poem was conveniently publicized by a bungled obscenity charge that made ____ a worldwide symbol of sexual depravity. It was a visible expression of beat defiance.
John Updike
His primary subject in Protestant small town middle class life, despite being born in 1932. Perhaps best known for his three Rabbit books "Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; and Rabbit is Rich"
Philip Roth
His works reflect the changing attitudes of Jews living in post World War II america. His most famous book is "Portnoys Complaint." The novel is shocking, crude, and wildly entertaining. It concerns Alexander portnoy's memories of his early childhood miseries. He presents characters who can be victimized by other jews, as much as by bigots. His daring subject matters sets him apart from his contemporaries, making him a singular identity in both American and Jewish literature.
James Baldwin
His writings interweave sexual and racial concerns, especially what it means to be black and homosexual in america in the second half of the 20th century. His writing nonetheless show great sensitivity to racial and sexual discrimination and a fierce commitment to the American ideal or personal freedom.
Will Rogers
Humorist and writer. Known for his gentle, self-effacing humor, he became an american icon with his homespun "aw shucks" manner disguised his brilliant barbs and added to his humor and popularity.
Sarah Jane Jewett
Immortalized rural Maine. Her originality, exact observations of her Maine characters and settings, and sensitive style are best seen in her fine story "The White Heron," in "The Country of the Pointed Firs." Like all of her stories, revolves around character and crucial choices.
Abigail Adams
In her letters, she campaigned for women rights and provided a fascinating look at life in the revolutionary period
Julia Alvarez
In her poems and novels, ____ explores the gulf between alienation and assimilation within the Latino community. Despite the difficulties of bridging two cultures, she sees advantages to this unique position when she asserts that: "we travel on that border between two worlds and we can see both points of view." She published "In the Time of the Butterflies" which was a historical novel that introduces the american public to the legendary Mirabal sisters, who gave their lives defying the oppressive dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. They were called las mariposas" ( the butterflies).
Edgar Lee Masters
In his Spoon River Anthology, ____ used an "unpoetic" colloquial style to provide a frank description of sex and the drawbacks of small town life.
Ernest Hemingway
In his day, ______ was a larger than life hero, a big game hunter, sport fisherman, and headliner the world over. The ____ Code advocated "grace under pressure." In the face of a meaningless world, a hero must establish his own values by facing life courageously and by acting honestly in terms of this reality. His simple, spare, and concise style has influenced generations of writers. Works include "The Sun Also Rises," "A Farewell to Arms," "For Whom the Bell Tolls," and "the Old Man and The Sea." Won a Pulitzer Prize and The Noble Prize for Literature; he also ushered in a new style of writing and looking at the world.
Erica Jong
Jewish American. Produces ribald, exuberant, feminist poems, novels and essays. Her writing was groundbreaking because she was one of the first modern women writers to approach sex in such a modern way (for example, acknowledging the desire to have sex with a strangers.) Her feelings were seen as feelings only a man should have. Her most famous novel is Fear of Flying that describes the quest for emotional and sexual fulfillment. _____'s wry and witty writing celebrates the treats and tricks that await women who seek emotional and sexual satisfaction in contemporary america.
Jack London
Most famous novel, "The Call of the Wild," shows how a tame dog is forced to revert to his original primitive state. His short story "To Build A Fire" shows life is marked by "Survival of the fittest."
Natachee Scott Momaday
Most of his poems and stories focus on the power of myth and language to shape reality. His works also reveal the traditional Native American harmony with the environment.
Bret Harte
Obsessed with he role of chance and death in human affairs. Fashioned our impression of the Old West with such stories as "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" which takes place in California during the gold rush and follows a group of outcast forced out of their town by a secret committee who decided to "rid the town of all improper persons."
Mary Gordon
Pegged as a religious and moral writer, a tag she has tried to shed. Nonetheless, her ethical distance and rhythms of her prose reveal that the label is more accurate that she might perhaps like. Her novel "Final Payments" follows the main character and her journey as she questions the nature of devotion and sacrifice and makes choices between the pull of the flesh and the claims of the spirit.
O Captain, My Captain
Poem written by who? Memorializes Lincoln's passing, the death of a great man and the death of the era he dominated.
Michael Ondaatje
Poet, novelist and filmmaker.Perhaps the most notable aspect of his writing is his preference for images over standard novelistic cause and effect plots. The action is always enhanced by his intense sense of motion and picture. He even claims that he is less influenced by books than by other art forms, such as music and painting.
Herman Melville
Ranked as one of America's top novelists, even though few of his contemporaries recognized his genius. Wrote the first great romances about the South Seas, some excellent short stories and poetry, and wrote the epic "Moby Dick." Nowadays, he is the poster child for the misunderstood artist.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Recorded her postpartum nervous breakdown in "The Yellow Wallpaper," exposing women's lot around the turn of the century.
Zora Neale Hurston
Rediscovered by the woman's movement in the 1970s, _____ is considered one of the key black writers of the 20th century. She refused to follow a political agenda; rather, she argued that she should be free to write about what she wanted, regardless s of appearance or perception.
Local Color
Regional writers tried to capture the essence of a particular area, or its _______
Henry David Thoreau
Resisted materialism and chose a life of simplicity, close to nature. Wrote "Walden."
Leslie Marmon Silko
She seeks to preserve her Native American heritage, especially the oral tradition. She is also interested in maintaining the ceremonies of Laguna Pueblo Native Americans. She emphasizes the need to return to rituals and oral traditions of the past in order to rediscover the basis for one;s cultural heritage. She also used her status as a prominent Native American writer to draw attention to controversial modern issues, such as women's equality and current immigration policies directed at minorities.
The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow
Short Story written by Washington Irving that has terrified generations of American children
The Devil and Tom Walker
Short story written by Washington Irving that presents an american twist to the traditional encounter with the devil folktale.
Rip Van Winkle
Short story written by Washington Irving. The man who misses his wakeup call, _______, created success from failure becoming an American antihero
Charles Waddell Chestnut
Stories deal with racial themes but avoid predictable endings and generalized sentiment; his characters are distinct individuals with complex attitudes about many things, including race. ______ often shows the strength of the black community and affirms ethical values and racial solidarity.
Flannery O Connor
The Southern Gothic writer, ____ created stores that simultaneously shock readers and reflect her strong catholic faith. She admitted that her fiction could be called grotesque due to her stories being loaded with physical deformities, freak fatalities, and spiritual depravity. For her, evil usually triumphs over good.
Henry James
The first american writer to plan an international career. Nw ranked with Mark Twain as the greatest American novelist of the second half of the 19th century. First phrase used international themes, his second phase was experimental and his third phase death with sophisticated psychological insights.
Toni Morrison
The first black woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Toni Morrison's novels focus on black cultural identity in contemporary America. Her writing, noted for its poetic language, provocative themes, and powerful story telling, explores gender and racial conflicts and the many ways that people express their identities.
The Family
The group of New York intellectuals who buzzed around the highbrow literary magazines in the 1940s and 1950s. These writers and critics helped establish many of the book we today esteem as classics .
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The key intellectual and philosophical voice of 19th century america. his writing, especially Nature, "the American Scholar," and "Self reliance" helped establish the philosophy of individualism, an idea thats deeply embedded in American culture. In his "Divinity School Address," he declared that true religion resides within the individual, not in christianity or in the church. he pointed the way to a unique american voice in poetry by calling for verse that celebrates democracy and ordinary experience rather than the epic times of the past.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
The most famous American woman of her day. Credited by Abraham Lincoln for singly handedly starting the Civil War with her novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that highlighted the horrors of slavery.
Sylvia Plath
The most famous confessional poet, as much for her suffering and suicide as for her poetry. "Daddy" is her best known poem as she examines the father/daughter relationship. Her life and death (brutal suicide by sticking her head int he oven) evokes astonishing fire among her devoted fans.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
The most influential book of the 19th century. The first book to sell a million copies, it touched readers across the globe. It is one of the most effective documents in American Literature and helped fuel the Civil War. Technically not considered to be a novel, but propaganda.
Langstons Hughes
The most successful black writer in American during his time. He wrote poetry, drama, novels, songs, articles, autobiographical pieces, and movie scripts. In his poetry, Hughes experimented with a variety of forms and techniques and often tried to recreate the rhythms of jazz. He also wrote poems of protest against racism.
Ben Franklin
The symbol of success gained by hard work and common sense. His Autobiography and Poor Richard Almanac portrayed Americans as ambitious but agreeable.
Maxine Hong Kingston
The woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts made_____ a literary celebrity at the age of 36. Her memoirs and novels are a fascinating mix of myth and reality, fable and fact.
Chicago Poets
Three members: Carl Sandburg, Edgar Lee Masters, Vachel Lindsay Part of the midwestern or Chicago school that arose before WW1 to challenge the East Coast literary establishment, made popular by Frost and Cummings. Their verses often concern ordinary, everyday people. Their realist poems and dramatic emphasis attracted a large audience.
William Faulkner
Widely considered to be the most original writer of his time. His primary subject was his heritage - Southern memory, Southern reality, and Southern myth. His home Oxford, Mississippi became the fictional Yoknapayawpha County; and his family became the fictional Sartorises. He experimented with different narrative techniques, including stream of consciousness, interior monologues, discontinuous time, fragmented chronological order, multiple narrators, complex allusions, dialects, elements of the gothic romance, and allegory.
Mark Twain
Widely thought to be the greatest American humorist and one of our greatest novelists. His most famous books include "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "Tom Sawyer," "Life on the Mississippi," "The Prince and the Pauper," and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." He used vernacular, exaggeration, and a deadpan narrator to create humor. Whats his real name?
The Beat Writers
William S Burroughs, Jack Keroauc, and Allen Ginsberg were countered with the hidden despair of the 1950's with wildly exuberant language and behavior. They explored the need for spontaneity in living and writing. "They spoke their own argot, mostlypicked up fromt he Negro Jazz musicians and juvenile street gangs: "bread: for money and "dig" for admiration. They experimented with pot. Both sexes huddled up in flats they called "pads," furnished with no more than a guitars, hot plate, bare mattress, and a few records and books. Their writing reflected the emptiness of a world devoid of spontaneity and creative possibility, which has "driven the best minds mad." Attempted to convey pure emotion through words in order to break though what they saw as the sterility of the times.
T.S. Eliot
With Ezra Pound, they were the two most influential poets and critics of their era (1915 - 1945). They dictated the tone, direction, and subject matter for a generation of poets. His open "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" asks "what is out place in the universe? how can anyone love and communicate with anyone else?" His 1922 poem, "The Waste Land," the most important poem of the first hald of the 20th century, deals with the failure of Western civilization, illustrated by WWI.
Ezra Pound
With T.S. Eliot, they were the two most influential poets and critics of their era (1915 - 1945). They dictated the tone, direction, and subject matter for a generation of poets. He established the Imagist school of poetry, befriended leading american and european writers, committed treason, and spent a decade in a mental hospital.
Anne Sexton
Won a Pulitzer Prize in 1966 for Live or Die; she committed suicide less than a decade later. ____'s ongoing mental illness led to repeated hospitalizations in psychiatric institutions. She was also addiction to alcohol and sleeping pills and took her life via overdose.
F Scott Fitzgerald
Work and life illustrate American Culture in the 1920's. Famous work: The Great Gatsby
E. A. Robinson
Wrote ironic poems about ordinary people. Known primarily for short, ironic character studies of ordinary individuals, he used traditional rhyme and rhythms. Despair runs through his poetry.
Claude McKay
____'s poetry evokes the rich heritage of his native Jamaica. His "Harlem Shadows" is a collection of passionate and vibrant poems and is the first great literary achievement of the Harlem Renaissance.
Richard Wright
_____'s Native Son is a brutal portrait of a poor lack man spurred on to murder by the oppression and hatred of the white world. Native Son describes a society that commits a crime against one of its own and explores the themes of inequality, racial conflict, and violence as a personal necessity.
Jean Toomer
______'s "Crane" is now regarded as one of the most influential, important works of the era. Crane does not use the voices of black people of that era. _____ was praised not only for his sensitive portrayals of black life, but also for writing "without surrender or compromise of the artist's vision," as one admirer said.
Puritans
a group who separated from he Anglican church. the pilgrims were the _______ who traveled via the mayflower to Plymouth, Mass in 1620. the _____ believed in original sin, the doctrine of election, predestination, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the "Saints."
Transcendentalism
a philosophical movement that began around 1840. it stressed individualism, intuition, nature and self reliance.
Cotton Matter
famous puritan minister and supporter of the salem witch craft trials
Edward Taylor
finest puritan poet
Gwendolyn Brooks
iThe first female black poet to win a Pultizer Prize. She is best known for her poems "The Bean Eaters" that offers a glimpse into the life of a poor but contented elderly black couple and "We Real Cool" that explores the attitudes and fate of poor, inner city black hoodlums. One of the most under appreciated writers of her time.