Americká Literatura

Herman Melville

(1819-1891) - American novelist, a major literary figure - mixed Scotch and Dutch ancestors, born in a very wealthy family - when he was 12, his father went bankrupted, Melville had to earn money, became a sailor - as such, he traveled a lot, got experience in the southern Pacific - the crew was international, low class, not educated - his exploration of psychological and metaphysical themes foreshadowed 20th-century literary concerns - used his experience in writing, wrote novels about exotic life in southern seas - his later works are more philosophical (but people read them because they were exotic) - he was much read after WWI by the "Beat Generation" Typee, Omoo - adventurous novels, reflect his experience at the sea, describe the adventures of two Americans caught among the cannibals (Typees), whom they find more honest then civilized people Mardi - a poetical allegory, symbolic study of a fruitless search for uncertain beauty White Jacket - moves from allegory to symbolism the white jacket becomes a symbol of man's identity and personality Redburn - the main character Wellington Redburn is Melville's alter ego, based on his experiences during his first voyage to Liverpool Moby-Dick - the book is partly narrated by Ishmael (in the 1st person) and partly in the 3rd-person - three parts - in the 1st Ishmael is dissuaded from joining the crew - the 2nd part deals with the months-long search for a white whale (Moby-Dick) - the last part is a fascinating description of the conflict between a man and a white whale - the fight constitutes the climax in the novel - at the beginning of the voyage everyone realizes that it will not be an ordinary one - Captain Ahab nails a golden doubloon to the mast and proclaims that it is a reward for the man who first sees the big whale - the chase begins - captain is obsessed with his hatred of Moby-Dick - he never leaves his cabin and is prepared to avenge, at any loss, the loss of his leg in the previous fight with the white whale - the 3-day fight is predestined to end in disaster - Ahab who wants to fight Moby-Dick is pinned to the whale's body by his own harpoon - Ahab is a free man, fighting against his own fate, Moby-Dick is for him an embodiment of evil (the relativity of evil and good - it is different for different people) - the reader is given the freedom to move between the facts and their significance - in his lonely fight, Ahab must be killed, his ship is smashed, and the only survivor tells the story - Nature is good, it is our mother and is very wise - no longer just an adventurous book, contains many philosophical questions Billy Bud, Batleby the Scrivener - his last short novels, he returns to a human moral dilemma - read much easier than Moby Dick

Walt Whitman

(1819-1892) - American poet, precursor of Modernism, the 1st poet to write openly about sexual life - represented a revolutionary departure in American verse, both in terms of form and content - he owed much to the philosophical thought of Emerson - his work boldly asserts the worth of the individual and the oneness of all humanity - was very unlike any other poets before him - abandoned all European forms (rhythm, rhyme) and replaced these with free-verse (Anglo-Saxon poetry, Bible) - he was a pioneer in terms of technical innovation: experimented with free verse in an attempt to liberate American poetry from the restrictions and rules of traditional stanza and rhyme forms - his "long line" contained a variable number of unstressed syllables and no strictly fixed meter - he organized his stanzas into what he called "verse paragraphs" - tried to find beauty in little things in life "the aesthetics of the ugly" - expressed the transcendentalist view that beauty is wherever we are willing to find it - was born when America was not very developed, most people lived in a very civilized way; but by the time he died, America was highly industrialized => very different - he is read much more than other poet in the 19th century - was a member of a very different generation although he was born only 10 years after Poe - was the first American poet to write openly about sexual life (was platonic homosexual) - most of those who read his poetry didn't like it, with one exception - W. Emerson - Emerson liked Whitman's poetry, wrote in his favor, supported him in trying to find beauty in little things in life (~ the "poetry of everyday life" in the Czech literature in the 1950s) - Whitman expressed the transcendentalist view that beauty is where we are willing to find it - he influenced poets like Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens or Allen Ginsberg to a great extention - form of his poetry - in his poetry he shows enormous enthusiasm - he sings about practically everything - life, death, sea, America, imagination, ... - he identifies with every single atom of the Universe, shows the ability to become other people and things - mystical theory which replaced the traditional Christian believes - showed signs of pantheism - the 1st poet who openly declared himself independent to any Church Leaves of Grass - free-verse, unconventional thinking (the 1st edition was disliked by critics because of that) - a kind of autobiography in verse, both prophetic and intimate - a volume of poetry in a new kind of versification, different from sentimental rhymed verse of the 1840s - immodestly praised the human body and glorified the senses - poetry far away from sentimental patriotism and writings about beauty and gentleness of the Nature - could write very conventional poetry as well (a poem dedicated to assassinated president B. Franklin) - Whitman showed unconventional thinking, deviated from the staples of established - in it, Whitman showed the ability to become other people or things (he identified with every atom of universe) mystical theory replaced the traditional Christian belief - he was the first poet who openly declared himself independent to any Church (PANTHEISM) - found rhapsodic pleasure in some topics that were not very beautiful - wrote about big cities, ungentle people and events within those - welcomed the foreign migration to America after the Civil War - a very successful collection (reached 9 revised and enlarged editions during his lifetime) - Song of Myself - the best poem of this collection - a vision of a symbolic "I" enraptured by the senses, vicariously embracing all people and places from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans - no other poem in the first edition has the power of this one - long "catalogues" of things he likes - he enumerates these things without giving explanation why he likes them - instead of focusing on one thing and discussing it, he just adds more and more uncommented things - When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd - elegy on the death of President Lincoln - betrayed a sense of anguished resignation and grief Drum-Taps - collection inspired by Civil War Passage to India - similar idea as E. M. Forster's people of different cultures have to share their knowledge and experience Goodbye My Fancy Democratic Vistas - a prose work (1871) Specimen Days - autobiographical notes

Henry James

(1843-1916) - bridged the gap between 19th and 20th century literature - the main representative of psychological realism in the American novel, sometimes he is referred to as the "aristocrat of the psychological novel" - his innovative and finely crafted prose possessed a sophistication which went beyond his contemporaries - also was concerned with the moral problem facing America in the new age - literary work - novels, short-stories, travel sketches, literary criticism (art of fiction), plays, essays - precursor of the stream of consciousness - was concerned with the inner, psychological workings of an individual mind - a distinguished philosopher, familiar with European literature - was considered cosmopolitan ( like modernists) - his fiction juxtaposed American innocence and European experience in psychologically complex works - much of his works deals with the clash between the wise, but corrupt, ways of the Old World (European civilization), and the innocence and vitality of the New World (America) - his work is characterized by leisurely pacing and subtle delineation of character rather than by dramatic incidents or complicated plots - his writings are highly sensitive examples of the objective psychological novel - they deal with the world of leisure and sophistication he had grown to know intimately in Europe - not interested in the social conditions, was rather an observer of the mind than a recorder of the times - extremely erudite and very elaborate use of the language was considered a novelist for a limited number of demanding readers (elitist) - his characters live an almost exclusively internal existence - the characters are never faced with a struggle for existence, but only with their psychological problems - in his early "international" novels he explored the relationship and tension in the relationship between Americans and Europeans - his early novels and tales showed the impact of European culture on Americans traveling or living abroad - the style of his later works is complex, with the motives and behavior of his characters revealed obliquely by means of their conversations and through their minute observations of one another Daisy Miller, Washington square - short novels confronting the innocent Americans with the corrupted world of Europe The Europeans, The American, The Golden Bowl, The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors - more complicated The Portrait of a Lady - the main character (Isabel Archer) is an attractive and intelligent American - she travels to Europe with her aunt - because of her lack of experience she falls a victim to Gilbert Osmond, a widower - he married her only for her fortune and ruins her life - she accepts her defeat and remains loyal to her husband even after realizing his bad character - she feels also responsible for his daughter Pansy - only too late she realizes affection for Caspar Goodwood, whose offer of marriage she once refused - ending predestined - by refusing the respectable noblemen, Isabel falls a victim to a man who destroys not only her life but also her illusions - her love for a man whom she once rejected is recognized too late, she cannot escape her fate - James studies the characters in great detail, examines the situation closely - Isabel's rejection of Lord Warburton prepares for later plot developments and revelation of characters - the money that she inherits is both a blessing and a curse, it permits her to travel and to live almost lavishly, but is also attracts to her Gilbert Osmond (one of few outright villains in James's fiction) - Osmond appears to be charming, modest, intelligent, and sensitive, but proves to be proud, arrogant, idle and cruel - he courts Isabel cleverly, appealing to her sense of the artistic wonders of Europe - he wins her hand, partly through the efforts of Mme Merle (Isabel later discovers that they were lovers) - the topic of marrying for money is one that James explored very thoroughly with a great insight - Mme Merle is eager for Osmond to marry well, because they have a daughter (Pansy) whom she wants to see well placed in the world - the marriage is a failure, Osmond comes to resent Isabel, she eventually despises him - in chapter 42, Isabel examines the grim condition of her life - in an extended passage (clearly a precursor of the stream of consciousness) James causes Isabel to review the horrible errors she made and to consider how foolish her pride made her - Isabel is stubborn and refuses to heed wise advice (many warned her against Osmond) - the plot becomes more complex when Lord Warburton directs his affections to Pansy - Osmond is highly in favor of such a marriage (Warburton is very rich) - Isabel incurs her husband's even more intense hatred by discouraging Warburton with the simple argument that he and Pansy do not really love each other - here European corruption (expressed by an American expatriate Osmond) is opposed to native American innocence and emotional integrity - the conclusion is very subtle and ambiguous - Isabel returns to England to visit the deathbed of Ralph Touchett - Ralph is one of James's truly virtuous characters (it is shown by his renunciation of any thought of marrying Isabel, whom he loves, because of his failing physical condition) - Isabel admits to Ralph that he was right and that she committed a monumental error in marrying Osmond - Ralph, typically, blames himself for having provided her with the money that tempted Osmond - Isabel refuses this excuse, recognizing that the mistake was her own - at the end, Isabel determines to go back to Osmond as his wife - what will become of her - whether she will remain with him - remains a mystery

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Romanticism (1804-1864) - American novelist, first he sympathized with the Transcendentalists, later he refused the optimistic trust in human goodness, believed in the original sin present in every human heart - his works are deeply concerned with the ethical problems of sin, punishment, and atonement - themes: good x evil, sin, guilt, motivations of human behavior at both individual and community levels - his narratives contain highly organized plots dense with symbolic meaning, and emblematic characters whose actions convey implicit moral values - wrote original short stories and novels about everyday life of the 17th-century New England in a mixture of realistic and imaginary things (wrote entertaining gothic romances) - wanted to give the realistic view on lives of Puritans (was interested in those times) - a pioneer of the modern American psychological novel - he never used Poe's horrific (sometimes cheap) affects; searched for psychological profundity - he called his novel "romances" because he believed his novels differ from novels written by Dickens - he combines realistic and imaginary things; his English is very difficult - was born in Salem (is famous for its 17th-century trials with witches) Twice Told Tales - short stories, his 1st book published (no one was interested in it) Marble Faun, Rapacini's Daughter, Blithdale Romance, The House with Seven Gables (entertaining gothic romances) The Scarlet Letter (1850) - a novel about conscience, guilt, punishment, and expiation - the adulterous Puritan Hester Prynne loyally refuses to reveal her partner and the father of her child - a protestant pastor (Arthur Dimmesdale) is having an affair with Hester, who bears a child (Pearl) - people ask, who is her father (she was Arthur's daughter, but he did not admit it as it was illegal) - Hester was punished by society (had to stand on the pillory and wear letter A for adulteress on her clothes) - other children did nto want to play with Pearl - Arthur fears that the truth will transpire, and feels very guilty, feels he should be punished (example of inward suffering) - Hester's husband (Roger Chillingworth) comes back after two years, when he was captured by Indians, and finds out the truth - Roger wants a revenge and punishes Arthur in a very cruel way - Arthur confesses, straight after the confession he falls dead - people pardon both Hester and Pearl (typical happy ending in the 19th-century novel) - Hester still wears letter A on he clothes, but now it means "able" - symbolic names - A. Dimmesdale, R. Chillingworth - in this novel Hawthorne wanted to give a realistic view on lives of Puritans - wanted to stress that nobody is perfect, all humans are natural sinners - the sense of sin - rather a the psychological effect on certain actions than a religious problem - by wearing the letter on her bosom, Hester achieves purity and gains strength - the two men are mentally tortured, husband by the revenge and Arthur by bad conscience Young Goodman Brown - a mix of fairy-tale and realistic story (very convincing), difficult to read - a story of a farmer who meets a slick person who invites him to the witches' Sabbath - there the farmer meets many people who he knows, he thought that they were not sinners - there is also his wife - when he returns home to his wife he becomes more distrustful to other people because of this experience - was it hallucination? or a bad dream? it's never shown in the story

Washington Irving

Romanticism I (1783-1859) - the first American author to achieve international renown - belonged to the Knickerbocker Group (NY as a literary center rivaling to Boston or Philadelphia) - trained a lawyer, but began to contribute to the newspaper edited by his brother - wrote his works in the 1st decade of the 19th century - the subjects he writes about are not as exotic as Cooper's - first used a short story as an American literary form The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - tender horror about ghosts - fairy-tale for the adults, romantic sentimental story - the story takes place on the eastern shore of the Hudson River (village called Sleepy Hollow) - the "legend" is a tale about a headless trouper who appears to lonely people at night - a village schoolmaster (ugly) loves a daughter of a rich family, there's also a rival (young) - Katrina loves the young and handsome one, he plays a trick on the schoolmaster - he tells the schoolmaster a story about the headless man, schoolmaster is scared when riding home - the schoolmaster really sees the headless figure on horse, that phantom follows him - the schoolmaster manages to escape, but nobody has seen him in the neighborhood since Rip van Winkle - about the changes in life after the Declaration of Independence - Rip is a Dutchman from NY, a lazy man who preferred to sit in the pub - to get rid of his wife he ran away to the forest - there he meets a dwarf who gives him a liquor - after drinking this he falls asleep - he wakes up 20 years later (after the Declaration of Independence) - everybody speaks only English, people he knows are older - he also meets his daughter who is old now - later he tells this story to his friends in the pub History of New York (his first literary success), The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent; History of Christopher Columbus; The Alhambra (both historical works); A Tour on the Prairies; Astoria; The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, USA (books using the West as the setting); Tales of a Traveller; Oliver Goldsmith; Life of Washington (in 5 volumes)

R.Penn Warren

Southerner - beatnik (1905-1989) - an American author and educator, born in Guthrie, Kentucky - during his childhood he heard tales of the Civil War from his grandfathers - these stories provided a rich source of memories and images that nurtured his art - he left the South for good when he was 37, but never left it in spirit, and much of his artistic energy was expended in an effort to reconcile his loyalty to the region with the claims of modernism - he lost the sight of one eye when (his younger brother accidentally hit him with a stone), this determined the direction of his life - forced to abandon a naval career, he enrolled at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee - in 1928 entered Oxford University, and returned from England with a degree in English literature - started career as a university teacher (at Southwestern, Vanderbilt, Louisiana State University) - he established a reputation as one of the most influential academics of his generation Understanding Poetry, a textbook which codified many of the so-called New Critical ideas into a coherent approach to literary study Understanding Fiction - revolutionized the teaching of literature in the universities - his ten novels are unified in both locale and theme - they are works about the South and southerners and are marked by a southern particularity World Enough and Time, Band of Angels, Wilderness - result of 30 years of studying American history - three historical novels, set in the period of the Civil War - judicious handling of evidence, attention to detail characteristic of the scholarly historian Night Rider - about the world of his boyhood At Heaven's Gate - about the Nashville of his college years All the King's Men - about the Louisiana he knew as a young university teacher at Baton Rouge The Cave, Flood, Meet Me in the Green Glen - cover the years in his section of the South from just before WW II through the 1960s A Place to Come To - his last novel, written in a spirit of summary - as he approaches old age, the hero, a professor of English, looks back with nostalgia over a career that spans three-quarters of a century, a period paralleling Warren's own life Selected Poems, 1923-1943 Brother to Dragons - autobiographical narrative in verse Promises, Poems 1954-1956 - a group of interrelated lyrics in which his new family figured prominently, introduced a new phase - fresh and energetic; the poetry is in a sense a work-in-progress, - Warren later remarked that his poetry was his "autobiography"

Flannely O'Connor

southerner - beatnik (1925-2964) - American writer, her novels and short stories focus on humanity's spiritual deformity and flight from redemption - her work is an unlikely mixture of southern Gothic, prophecy, and evangelistic Roman Catholicism - she is frequently compared to William Faulkner (portrayal of southern character and milieu) - and to the Austrian writer Franz Kafka (preoccupation with the grotesque) - basic theme of her work is the individual's vain attempt to escape the grace of God - her work is profoundly and pervasively religious - known for her stories which combined comic with tragic and brutal - she belonged to the Southern Gothic tradition that focused on the decaying South and its damned people - wrote only two novels and some speeches and letters - she enrolled in the Georgia State College for Women, at school she edited the college magazine - then continued her studies at the University of Iowa, attended writer's The Geranium - her first short story Wise Blood - novel dealing with a young religious enthusiast, who attempts to establish a church without Christ - the young protagonist, Hazel Mote, returns from the army with his faith gone awry - he founds the Church Without Christ, wears a preacher's bright blue suit and a preacher's black hat - he is accompanied by bizarre villains Hawks (pretends to have blinded himself), Sabbath Lily (his daughter who turns into a monster of sexual voracity), and young Enoch Emery (steals from a museum a mummy, which he thinks of as "the new Jesus") - Enoch knows things because "He had wise blood like his daddy" - eventually Enoch finds his religious fulfillment dressed in a stolen gorilla costume - Hazel buys an old Essex automobile, murders the False Prophet, his rival, by running over him with his second-hand Essex, and faces his cul-de-sac The Violent Bear It Away - had a related subject matter - the protaginist begins his ministry in his youth Everything That Rises Must Converge - second collection of short stories was published posthumously The Complete Short Stories - imaginative occasional prose and several stories A Good Man is Hard to Find - about a family holiday that ends with their murder - a grandmother, her son and daughter-in-law and their three children, are on a car journey - they encounter an escaped criminal called the Misfit and his two killers, Hiram and Bobby Lee - the family is wiped out by them when the grandmother recognizes the Misfit from the poster - the hallucinating grandmother murmurs: "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" - Misfit shoots her and says: "She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life"

Stephen Crane

(1871-1900) - American novelist, journalist, short-story writer and poet - one of the first American writers of the naturalistic style, 1st American novelist who aimed at a realistic portrayal of their society - wanted to create truthful characters without sentimentality, to create real life - Crane was also an innovator in verse techniques - is known for his pessimistic and often brutal portrayals of the human condition - his stark realism is relieved by poetic charm and a sympathetic understanding of character - born near the New York slums (populated by poor people from Europe) - he wrote short stories about horrible conditions of people living in the slums - wrote only about negative aspects (prostitution, ...) The Black Riders and Other Lines, War Is Kind and Other Poems - important early examples of experimental free verse The Red Badge of Courage - a anti-war novel with mild criticism of war - a penetrating and realistic psychological study of a young soldier in the American Civil War - the main character is an inexperienced soldier Henry Flemming - the novel reveals his personal reactions to fear in the war - description of the cruel spectacle of the Civil War and how this setting shapes the character - the revelation of the friendship that can exist between two men in spite of the chaos of the world - Henry Fleming, a recent recruit, worries about his courage, thinking that if he were ever to see a battle, he might run - the regiment is given orders to march, the soldiers spend several wearying days traveling on foot - they near a battlefield, and begin to hear the distant roar of conflict - they are charged by the enemy; Henry realizes that he could not run even if he wanted to - he fires mechanically, feeling like a cog in a machine - the blue regiment defeats the gray soldiers - Henry wakes to find the men are being charged again, terror overtakes him, he flees from the line - he tells himself he did the right thing to flee, that his regiment could not have won, and the men who remained to fight were fools - he overhears that the men have held back the enemy charge - feeling ashamed, Henry tries to convince himself that he did the right thing to preserve his own life - he joins wounded soldiers, he is deeply envious of the wounded men, thinking that a wound is like "a red badge of courage," a visible proof of valorous behavior - he meets a man who has been shot twice, who says proudly that his regiment did not flee - he meets a spectral soldier with a distant, numb look on his face, he recognizes a badly wounded Jim - Henry promises to take care of Jim, but he runs from the line into a small grove of bushes, where Henry and the tattered man watch him die - Henry and the tattered soldier wander through the woods; the tattered soldier continues to ask Henry about his wound - Henry is unable to bear his questioning, and abandons him to die in the forest - Henry sees a blue regiment in retreat and to stop the soldiers to find out what happened - one of the fleeing men hits him on the head with his rifle, and Henry receives a bloody gash on the head - another soldier leads him to where his regiment is camped, and Henry is reunited with his companions - believing him to be shot, Henry's friend Wilson cares for him tenderly - the regiment is taken back to the battlefield, and Henry fights like a lion; he feels rage at the enemy - Henry and Wilson overhear an officer say that the 304th fights like "mule drivers", they are insulted - the regiment's color bearer falls, Henry takes the flag, which he carries proudly before the regiment - the derisive officer says that they fight like "mud diggers"; Henry is outraged - the group is sent into more fighting, and Henry continues to carry the flag - the regiment win, Wilson seizes the enemy flag, and the regiment takes four prisoners - Henry reflects on his experiences in the war, he feels exultant about his recent success in battle, but also deeply ashamed of his behavior the previous day, especially his abandonment of the tattered man - he is able to put his guilt behind him, and realizes that he has come through "the red sickness" of battle - he is now able to look forward to peace, feeling a quiet, steady manhood within himself - unhappy ending - Henry is stricken by guilt because of leaving the tattered man to die in the woods, and is ashamed of his previous behavior - or open - he is able to put the guilt behind and look forward to peace, feeling manhood within himself Maggie, a Girl of the Streets - a short novel, a basically sentimental story of prostitution and alcoholism in New York City The Open Boat, The Monster - collections of short-stories

Jack London

(1876-1916) - a very prolific writer (best educated from naturalists), very popular - was the "last serious" among the naturalist writers - was influenced by Nietzsche and at the same time by Marx (was socialist, partly racist) - his style is brutal, vivid, and exciting this made him enormously popular among the readers - his work combined powerful realism and humanitarian sentiment - participated in the Alaska gold rush, after returning to San Francisco, he wrote about his experiences - wrote most readable books, his characters are strong, courageous, self-assured individuals - his most popular stories are those connected with Alaska at the time of the gold rush - some of his works deal with nature (wolfish life of gold diggers) The Call of the Wild, The Sea-Wolf, The White Fang Martin Eden - the novel depicts the struggle of an author to achieve success - Martin Eden is a character with many autobiographical features - he is a worker and sailor who longs to gain education - he falls in love with Ruth Morse who is for him a symbol of high society and educated circles - she leaves him because of his social ideas - when one of his books is published and he becomes rich, she returns to him, but his love is lost - after one of his friend's suicide, Martin leaves on a voyage to the South Seas - the book has a tragic ending, which is probably the best section in all London's work, it foreshadows the suicide of the author himself - it's less a story than a philosophy - a parallel to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" - Martin is stricken with the desire to ascend in class stature, his vehicle for attaining their acceptance is to become a writer - he realizes that, in his quest to become an intellectual equal, he has surpassed them - he realizes that he is alone, that the people he wanted to impress so badly did not shun him because of his lack of intellect but because of his lack of money - he is frustrated by every publisher's inability to "get" his ideas - his inability to publish, despite his hard work, leads his love interest, high-born and condescending, to abandon him - she has no faith in his ability to achieve fame as a writer and he has no desire to settle down into a 9 to 5 job to placate her socialite parents - he does succeed in getting published; upon learning of his fame, she comes running back, ready to make him the centerpiece for conversation at her family's socialite dinner parties - he rejects her and tries to return to the companionship of his earlier days as a sailor, but he finds that he cannot rekindle the bond that he once had with old friends, and is alone - he cannot bear such life any longer, jumps into the sea and drowns himself - very unhappy ending - after realizing that he is alone, abandoned by both groups of people he wanted to impress and belong to (his old friends, and the high-society members he admired), he has no option but to end up his life - he loses all his ideas and dreams, is so tired and disappointed by life that he doesn't want to live The Call of the Wild - his masterpiece dealing with reversion of civilized creature to primitive state - the novel is about Buck, a sledge dog, who loves his master - after his master is killed by the Indians, he abandons the human civilization to become leader of a wolf-pack - the natural world forms a beautiful and impressive background to the life of men and animals - both men and animals have to respond to the laws of the Nature John Barleycorn - an autobiographical novel about London's struggle against alcoholism People of the Abyss - about the poor in London

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

(1896-1940) - American writer who came form middle West - most inhabitants were descendants of Europeans (area more conservative, less open to the rest of the world) - his novels and short stories chronicle changing social attitudes during the 1920s which he called The Jazz Age the time of relative prosperity when the American Dream was believed to be fulfilled - his works depict disillusion with the American dream of self-betterment, wealth, and success through hard work and perseverance - in 1917 he joined the United States Army, which was then entering World War I - he met his future wife (Zelda Sayre) there, who became the model for many of his female characters - lived in France (Paris, French Riviera) - most of his works are set in big cities, described from the point of view of the mid-west intellectual - his writing mirrors his own life experience, it's an account of a young man who eagerly wishes to become perfect in everything, yet finds only disillusion and the fact that perfection doesn't exist - he concentrated on the life of the very rich (was fascinated with their life and did his best to live up to their standard) - he saw what wealth could enable a man, he also knew that it was not always good and that the privileged classes were worth little (still he was unable to stop clinging to them) - characters in his first books are his self-portraits (they dream and are disappointed, are young, immature, naïve) - he knew the rich very well, he had a perfect ear for their conversation, for the nuances of their language - his own language is very fine in poetic as well as in descriptive passages - he was sensitive and able to feel what was going on around him, he knew how to convey it - his bad luck was that he valued his social status more than his art Flappers and Philosophers - collection of short stories about young people of the 20s This Side of Paradise - cult book of the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald's first novel - captured a mood of spiritual desolation after World War I and a growing, devil-may-care pursuit of pleasure among the American upper classes The Beautiful and the Damned - partly autobiographical, thinly veiled description of his marriage - the story of a wealthy young couple whose lives are destroyed by their extravagant lifestyle The Great Gatsby - Nick Carraway moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn about business - he rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area - Nick's next-door neighbor is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a giant Gothic mansion and throws extravagant parties every Saturday night - Nick is not like the other inhabitants - he was educated at Yale and has social connections in East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island home to the established members of the high upper class - Nick goes for dinner with his cousin Daisy and her husband Tom, a former classmate of Nick's at Yale - they introduce him to Jordan Baker, a beautiful, cynical young golfer with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship - Nick also learns a bit about Daisy and Tom's marriage: Tom has a lover - Nick learns more about Gatsby: Gatsby knew Daisy in 1917, and is deeply in love with her - he spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion - his extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to impress her - Nick arranges for Gatsby and Daisy to reunite, rekindling their love; they begin an affair - Tom finds out about Daisy's infidelity, and confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York - Tom announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal - his fortune comes from bootlegging illegal alcohol and other criminal activities - Daisy realizes that her love is Tom, but he contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby - Gatsby's car struck and killed Myrtle, Tom's lover; they rush back to Long Island - Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car, but Gatsby intends to take the blame - Tom tells Myrtle's husband George that Gatsby was the driver of the car; George finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion, and shoots him dead - Nick stages a small funeral for Gatsby, and ends his relationship with Jordan - he moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels with the characters surrounding Gatsby - Nick disapproves of Gatsby's life, but finds beauty in the hope with which Gatsby pursued his dream - a novel about a young westerner who moves to NY to get rich in order to marry well - a crisp, concise prose told by Nick Carraway, a satiric yet sympathetic narrator - through his eyes we can see the glamour and the moral ugliness of the 20s - the story of Jay Gatsby, a young American ne'er-do-well from the Midwest - Gatsby becomes a bootlegger (seller of illegal liquor) in order to attain the wealth and lavish way of life he feels are necessary to win the love of Daisy Buchanan - she is a married, upper-class woman who had once rejected him - the story ends tragically with Gatsby's destruction - narrator denounces Daisy and others who confuse the American dream with the pursuit of wealth and power - he sympathizes with those like Gatsby who pursue the dream for a redeeming end such as love - this novel combines symbolism with the psychological realism - it is full of the truthfulness of emotions, melancholy and dramatic force - Gatsby symbolizes the American belief that money can buy love and happiness - his failure makes him a tragically heroic figure who continues hoping to the end of his life - ending - is tragical (Gatsby is shot by accident - new phenomenon in American Literature) - Gatsby, the only "good" character compared to the others, is killed and with him the dream he had Tender is the Night - the most autobiographical (Fitzgerald's wife lived in Riviera, was mentally ill) - it is reflection of his wish that his wife will get cured - this novel is said to be Fitzgerald's dramatization of Zelda's slide into insanity - it is a story of a young doctor who marries one of his psychiatric patients - the characters of the story are tragic as they live in their own visions and illusions and are not able to face reality The Last Tycoon, All the Sad Young Man, Tales of the Jazz Age

William Faulkner

(1897-1962) - American novelist, the most important author of the South; modernist writer - he is known for his epic portrayal of the tragic conflict between the old and the new South - he has mastered complex plots and narrative style - in WW I he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force but never saw battle action - he uses complex, convoluted sentences, sometimes longer than a page - he juggled time, spliced narratives, experimented with multiple narrators - he interrupted simple stories with rambling, stream-of-consciousness soliloquies - he was interested in multigenerational family chronicles, many characters appear in more than one book - he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 Soldier's Pay - his first novel - deals with a wounded soldier who returns home to the "wasteland" of post-war society Sartoris - set in the mythical Yoknapatawpha County (based on Lafayette County, Mississippi) - main character, Bayard Sartoris (the model for it was his grandfather), the expilot, returns home after WWI - his dissatisfaction with his life makes him want to destroy it As I Lay Dying - the story of a family's journey to bury a mother The Sound and Fury - one of his modernist masterpieces - a tragic story of the Compson family from four different points of view: - Benjy, the idiot; Quentin, his brother who kills himself at Harvard; Jason, the evil, money-hungry brother; and Dilsey, the black servant who keeps the family together with her love - the novel contains many of the experimental features - quick change of different points of view, inner monologues, present, past and future events are mixed Absolom, Absolom! - a historical novel narrated in experimental modernist style - again set in Yoknapatawpha country - it deals with Thomas Sutpen who plans to establish a great family - racism, mental illness and a family tragedy destroy his plans Light in August - a novel showing how racism has made the community of the South crazy - the central character is Joe Christmas who belongs to neither race - he is half white and half black - unhappy and confused, he kills a woman who protected him - this gives the white community an excuse for killing him The Wild Palms, Go Down Moses, Sanctuary, Intruder in the Dust, A Fable, Requiem for a Nun

Mark Twain

(pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens; 1835-1910) - born in the South (the area of slavery); is said to be the 1st truly American writer - writer and journalist (in Nevada), his works are full of the specific American humor - it was him who started to use American idioms - for a part of his life work as a pilot on the Mississippi River - he is a representative of the period known as the "Gilded Age" - a period of prosperity and optimistic hopes for future development of America - he began his literary career as a frontier humorist and story-teller - his best works are characterized by broad, often irreverent humor or biting social satire - his writing is characterized by realism of place and language, memorable characters, and hatred of hypocrisy and oppression - Twain's work was inspired by the unconventional West - his most appreciated are the novels based on his own experience along the Mississippi The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - adventures of his boyhood The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - a sequel to Tom Sawyer, it is considered Twain's masterpiece - the story of a boy who flees his father by rafting down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave - the pair's adventures show the cruelty of which men and women are capable - another theme of the novel is the conflict between Huck's feelings of friendship with Jim, and his knowledge that he is breaking the laws of the time by helping Jim escape -the book is almost entirely narrated from Huck's point of view (cutting edge of criticism with regard to the hypocrisy and inhumanity of what Huck calls "sivilization") - it is noted for its authentic language and for its deep commitment to freedom - also contains a panorama of American life along the Mississippi before the Civil War - race and hypocrisy, friendship and freedom are the main themes The Life on the Mississippi - autobiographical account of his experiences as a river pilot - autobiographical prose which starts with the history of the river - the following chapters deal with Twain's life on the river - in the second part he returns after 21 years to New Orleans and meets the old pilot who taught him - the actual hero is the Mississippi, a mysterious river which is the backbone of the United States - the river is the symbol of perpetual migration a symbol of the moving frontier The Innocents Abroad - about his experience from traveling to Europe and Palestine Roughing It - recounts his early adventures as a miner and journalist A Tramp Abroad - describes a walking trip through the Black Forest of Germany and the Swiss Alps The Prince and the Pauper - a children's book, focuses on switched identities in Tudor England The Innocents Abroad - innocents = Americans; about a pilgrimage to Palestine The Jumping Frog of the Calaveras County - his 1st work; different language (he was the first important writer who introduced English as it was spoken at that time; used Black English, southern English, west American English) A Gilded Age (pun - Golden Age) - about an age that pretended to be gold; about an ordinary life in north America

Jerome David Salinger

- American novelist and short story writer - was born and grew up in Manhattan, New York, a son of a prosperous Jewish importer - after studies in prep schools, he was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy (which he attended briefly) - Salinger spent five months in Europe in 1937 - in 1939 he took a class in short story writing at Columbia University under Whit Burnett (founder-editor of the Story Magazine) - during WW II he was served in the infantry and was involved in the invasion of Normandy - during the first months in Europe Salinger wrote stories and met Ernest Hemingway (in Paris) - after serving in the Army from 1942 to 1946, he devoted himself to writing - he considered Hemingway and Steinbeck second rate writers but praised Melville - his early short stories appeared in magazines (Story, Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, New Yorker) - he wrote many very fine short stories, some of his short stories are based on his war experience - most of them were concerned with the inner life of children or young people - concerned also with the relationship between the world of the young and the old For Esmé - With Love and Squalor - Salinger depicted a fatigued American soldier - he starts correspondence with a thirteen-year-old British girl, which helps him to get a grip of life again (Salinger himself was hospitalized for stress according to his biographer Ian Hamilton) A Perfect Day for Bananafish - introduced Seymour Glass, who commits suicide. - it was the earliest reference to the Glass family (their stories go on to form the main corpus of his writing) Franny and Zoey, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, Seymour: an Introduction - collections - continuing of the "Glass cycle" - several of the stories are narrated by Buddy Glass; they reflect Salinger's war experience Hapworth 16, 1924 - written in the form of a letter from summer camp, in which the seven-year-old Seymour draws a portrait of him and his younger brother Buddy The Catcher in the Rye - his only novel - the story of an adolescent boy, Holden Caulfield, who feels very unhappy and misunderstood - that doesn't take from him the ability to realize the adult world as an ugly place full of awkward and illogical events, full of mediocrity and hypocrisy - Salinger knows the mind of a young boy and he analyzes his character with gentle and bright feeling for the queer ways of the sensitive boy's pilgrimage in New York - the boy is rescued from the danger of the city and his age because he is frank with himself and his surroundings and because he loves all that is innocent (his little sister Phoebe and his dead brother Allie) - it became immediately a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and gained a huge international success - first reviews of the work were mixed, although most critics considered it brilliant - the novel took its title from a line by Robert Burns, Holden Caulfied sees himself as a "catcher in the rye" who must keep the world's children from falling off "some crazy cliff" - the story is written in a monologue and in lively slang - it tells about 16-year old restless Caulfield (as Salinger in his youth) who runs away from school to New York to find himself and lose his virginity - he spends an evening going to nightclubs, has an unsuccessful encounter with a prostitute, and meets next day an old girlfriend; after getting drunk he sneaks home - Holden's former schoolteacher makes homosexual advances to him - he meets his sister to tell her that he is leaving home and has a nervous breakdown - the humor of the novel places it in the tradition of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Hucleberry Finn - but its world view is more disillusioned - Holden describes everything as "phoney", is constantly in search of sincerity and represented the early hero of adolescent angst

Theodore Dreiser

Early 20th-century American Realistic Fiction (1871-1945) - American novelist and journalist, a leading representative of the naturalistic school - was born to a family of Pennsylvanian Dutch people who could not speak English was often criticized for strange English in his works (recently immigrant origin) - born in Indiana, at that time little populated and not very developed area - his parents devote, almost fanatic, Catholics, put him into parochial school (worst possible preparation for life) - his childhood was full of narrow-mindedness in education - as a novelist he was influenced by determinism (the theory that all facts in life and society are causally determined), was interested in social ideas ( like modernists) - there are two themes dominating his novels - money and sexual desires - he was persuaded that in the contemporary society nobody could survive and be successful without being driven by these two forces - he stresses the force of sex in motivating the deeds of his characters Sister Carrie - the first Dreiser's novel - autobiographical novel, about the opportunity to become rich and the dangers of it - critics blamed him for allowing the immoral behavior of the main heroine, who escapes moral punishment - the publisher withdrew the book from public sale for its depiction of unrepentant and unpunished characters and for its frank treatment of sexual issues - novel about a small-town girl who moves to Chicago and actually becomes a Broadway star - the book also traces the decline and eventual suicide of her lover - Carrie is a poor, pretty country girl who comes to Chicago, completely penniless, and becomes an actress (Dreiser's sister also wanted to become rich, she married a rich man who kept her) - she became rich by her own right (Dreiser tried to write a very idealized story) - she was seduced by a commercial traveler and first lived with him and then with a manager of a saloon - the latter is ruined by stealing money which he wants to use for taking her to New York - in spite of her immoral life, she is finally well-treated by a man whose mistress she becomes the novel has a contradictory development - Carrie as a character - was she a responsible sort of a person or not??? - she is unusually self-centered person, never reflects on other people - Carrie Meeber is an ordinary girl who rises from a low-paid wage earner to a high-paid actress - George Hurstwood is a member of the upper middle class who falls from his comfortable lifestyle to a life on the streets - neither Carrie nor Hurstwood earn their fates through virtue or vice, but through random circumstance - their successes and failures have no moral value - the novel ends in two contradictory ways; "I am rich, but am I happy?" (reported as having been added on the publisher's wife's request) - without this ending the tone of the whole book would be very different - it would be very unusual for that time that the evil was not punished - unhappy - the bankruptcy and consequential decline of Carrie's lover and protector - open - Carrie sitting at the chair reflecting her life - "I am rich, but am I happy?" - Carrie comes to Chicago in hopes for easier and better life - at first, she lives with her sister's family and can't find any work that wouldn't be too hard and badly paid - when traveling to Chicago, she meets a professional traveler (Drouet) who falls for her - later she meets him in Chicago again and goes to live with him, letting him keep her - she is quite settled with him, but not happy - then Drouet introduces his (George Hurstwood) friend to Carrie and they felt attracted to each other - Carrie starts to be unfaithful to Drouet with his friend, a wealthy saloon manager, who is married - it then, when she tries being an actress for the first time, she loves it, and is quite good - when she discovers that her lover is married, she doesn't want to see him anymore - but he tricks her into running away from Chicago with him (his wife learned about his affair and wants money, he foolishly steels some from his partners in the saloon) - they run away to Montreal, and then to New York, Carrie not knowing about Hurstwood's crime - in New York, the life is not too bad, Hurstwood found work and they can live quite comfortably - everything goes bad when Hurstwood loses his job and cannot find a new one - Carrie is disappointed with him and looks for job herself - she becomes a little crew-actress, but tries hard to be more - she is lucky in that, not so much Hurstwood - when he tells Carrie that they have to move once again, and they are poor, she runs away from him - he then tries to find work, but is unsuccessful - Carrie forgets all about him, he commits suicide when Carrie is well settled and rich, though unhappy American Tragedy - again novel reflecting trying to become rich, not autobiographical this time - based on an actual murder case and concerned with the efforts of a weak young man to rise from pious poverty into glamorous society, - it was dramatized and made into a motion picture (it made Dreiser rich) - the main character - a son of rich parents - revolts against their ideals, has only one value - money - his uncle owns a factory, helps him to escape his parents - the man goes to his uncle, who employs him as a foreman in his factory; he's relatively well-paid - through his relationship with his uncle, he meets high society members - he meets a rich girl whom he wants to marry - then he falls in love with a working woman, who is pregnant with his child - he has a dilemma - marrying a rich woman and so getting rid of the poor woman, or marrying the poor one and forgetting the prospect of being rich - he decides to get rid of a poor girl - he invites her for a ride with the intention to kill her - on the boat he changes his mind, finds out that he couldn't kill her - but he's so nervous that he upsets the boat and the girl gets drowned - he gets to the land and realizes that he would be the one to be blamed, so he fakes his own drowning - there's a long trial, though, and he is sentenced to death Jenny Gerhardt, The Financier, The Titan, The "Genius" - portraits of a type of ruthless businessman, a study of the artistic temperament in a mercenary society

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Transcendentalism (1803-1882) - American essayist and poet, a leader of the philosophical movement of transcendentalism - created (together with Thoreau) so called new spirituality - he wrote for The Dial, the journal of New England transcendentalism - in his essay Nature he tried to define the Transcendentalist ideas - he was convinced that man's relationship with nature should "transcend" the idea of usefulness - he speaks o the "Divine soul of Nature" that can be experienced in a spiritual awakening - was educated as a Unitarian priest, which gave him the main dogma (they impeach Divinity of Christ, only appreciate him as prophet) - his main subject is the divinity of man (in it, he is a real speaker of his time) - Unitarianism also opposed the idea of inherited sin, gave man the right of fairly independent thinking - he lived in a shadow of death (for long years, he had tuberculosis), lived as an atheist - his new spirituality was based on positive thinking ( to put emphasis on positive things in life) - believed that self-reliance is a means which transforms every man into a superman (men can become perfect) - put emphasis on meditation (influence of Buddhism) - believed in an "Oversoul" (= God, something over us) - traveled to Europe twice, met famous writers (Coleridge, Wordsworth) who influenced him deeply Self Reliance - an essay - intense belief in the individual - the history of mankind is the history of great personalities - every truth is relative The American Scholar, Love, Friendship, Nature, Character, Experience, The Poet, The Conduct of Life (other essays) English Traits - gathered impressions from traveling, a study of English society Letters and Social Aims; Natural History of Intellect

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Transcendentalism (1811-1896) - American writer and abolitionist - born in Connecticut, was a schoolteacher before she married - her novels are not only a piece of literature, they had also their role in American history - they aroused public sentiment and thus did much to urge the Civil War Uncle Tom's Cabin - bestseller, strongly against the slavery - was an important factor in precipitating the American Civil War - one of the best examples of the so-called sentimental fiction in the 1800s - focused on domestic scenes, and their work evoked strong emotions Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp - another anti-slavery novel A Collection of Real Incidents - her most famous novel, the first one - describes the brutality of some slave-owners under the system of slavery, the suffering of Negroes, the separation of husbands from wives, mothers from children

Henry David Thoreau

Transcendentalism (1817-1862) - American writer, philosopher, and naturalist, his work demonstrates how the abstract ideals of libertarianism and individualism can be effectively instilled in a person's life - put transcendentalist theories into practice - represented the transcendental philosophy of individualism and self-reliance - demonstrated personal revolt against the conventions of the organized society - openly expressed anti-slavery attitudes (as the only one from of the Transcendentalist circles) - his works were very influential in the 20th century (Gandhi - passive resistance, American civil rights demonstrators, Martin Luther King) - educated at Harvard, for a while worked as a tutor and gardener to Emerson's family - associated with a group of transcendentalists who edited The Dial - his prose is simple, direct, but attractive - his transcendentalism was empirical, not theoretical - he believed in men - was strongly against the war between America and Mexico (refused to pay taxes because war is very aggressive and the government doesn't do anything for abolishing the slavery) Walden, or Life at Woods - his most famous work, gives the day-by-day account of his life in woods - he spent two years living a simple life on the edge of Walden Pond in Massachusetts - he describes his experience - the essay contains loving descriptions of nature and celebrates the triumph of individual dignity and resourcefulness over the trappings of materialistic world Civil Disobedience - a political essay - it deals with personal freedom and the search for individual identity - full of his radical ideas (probably written in prison where he was taken for refusing to pay a poll tax, he did not want to support government returning slaves back to the South) - based on his own experience

The lost generation

the post-war (the World War II) generation - after the war - the lifestyle changed completely, was much faster thanks to the cars and airplanes - more varied life - the rise of films and talking movies (since 1929), radio, recordings - America at that time had a larger amount of technologies spread than any other country - the rise of Jazz music - the prohibition law (1919) caused the rise of gangs smuggling alcohol - all Americans started to lead a new way of life - hedonism - enjoying life in all respects, America became more materialistic - the atmosphere and the experience during the war deeply affected a generation of young American writers - they shared the disillusionment and anxiety of modern chaotic world - their experiences resulted in a mood of disenchantment and cynicism - all authors referred to the war as the biggest influence on their writing, though only two actually fought in the war (E. Hemingway and John Dos Passos) - this period was the most productive in American fiction - the authors pictured sadness and lost hopes, but also the exuberant life they experienced in Europe - the writers were influenced by the ideas of S. Freud who emphasized the unconscious aspects of the individual and stressed the importance of sex in the behavior of people - period characterized by experimentation and creative inventiveness as writers attempted to come to terms with new philosophical and psychological interpretation of reality - discovery of the subconscious and new concepts regarding time - the scope of literature was broadened, orthodox beliefs of the past were laid open to question - Realism and Naturalism continued to prevail in the 1920s and '30s, as novelists extended their ciriticism of society to all walks of American life - aesthetic considerations were formalized anew, American literary criticism matured - critics (Pound, Elliot, Wallace Stevens, Hemingway, Stein) analyzed the writer's craft - literary criticism developed into a serious and systematic genre - conventional standards and established authors were questioned - so called "little magazines" (independent-minded periodicals more concerned with publishing new authors and establishing new critical standards) were published - the stories show the influence of both Freud and the experimental writing of Gertrude Stein

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(1807-1882) - the most popular American poet of the 19th century - was heavily influenced by European culture and writing - born in Portland, Maine; a student at Bowjoin College, where he became professor of modern languages - went to Europe (3 years), on his return published textbooks and magazine articles on European literature - he was made professor of modern languages at Harward - went to Europe again, in Heidelberg studied German Romanticism - received honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge - was more at home in the world of poetry - much of his verse (in terms of form and content) tends to be derivative and conforms to literary taste of that time - adapted European methods of storytelling and versified to poems dealing with American history - as a poet, he had an abundant talent, had his own unique melody - he used the American folklore very reasonably - and was the most widely known and influential American outside his country (until the time of S. Lewis) The Song of Hiawatha - deals with the legends of American Indians - a technically interesting poem, draws on the trochaic meter of the Finnish epic Calevala Hyperion (romance) Voices of Night (1st volume of poems); Ballads and Other Poems (2nd volume) Poems on Slavery (written on the return from Europe); The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems The Spanish Student (a verse play) The Courtship of Miles Standish Masque of Pandora - includes the ode Morituri Salutamus and some fine sonnets

Kate Chopin

(1851-1904) - the main part of her work are short-stories - she was not accepted by critics, she was described by them as a woman writing about "local" problems (depictions of culture in New Orleans, Louisiana; women's struggles for freedom) - her husband died, leaving her alone with six children (either-or existential problems) - wrote only 2 novels - The Awakening and At Fault - very bold as for her subjects (e.g. miscegenation, ...) The Awakening - about a conflict between the life of a married woman and her desire to grow - between her social role and her own needs - negative criticism for lyrical depiction of a woman's developing independence and sensuality; received negative criticism and social ostracism - depiction of a woman with active sexual desires, who dares to leave her husband and have an affair - this caused shock to her contemporaries - it is associated with the local-color movement, naturalism, and modern-day feminism - it portrays the Creole culture of Louisiana in vivid detail - Edna, the main protagonist, is a prototypical feminist - Edna learns to think of herself as an autonomous human being - she rebels against social norms by leaving her husband Leónce and having an affair - Edna meets a young gallant named Robert Lebrun; Edna greatly enjoys his company - she begins to develop a sense of herself as a whole person, with unique wants, interests, and desires - she is not content to be simply a wife and a mother, she begins to assert herself to her husband - When Robert realizes that he and Edna are becoming too close, he suddenly departs the island - Edna is upset and becomes depressed after he leaves - after returning to the city, Edna settles into her usual routine at first - but then begins to take up painting and starts behaving in an uncharacteristic manner - she is simply deciding to do what she wants, regardless of what her husband or society may think - she enjoys her new-found freedom, visits her friends, paints, goes to the racetracks to bet on horses - she sleeps with a man for the first time and feels a medley of emotions, but no shame - it makes her feel free from the usual social constraints - she runs into Robert, he returns home with her; they profess their love to each other - she goes to see her friend in labor, when she comes back, Robert is gone for ever - Edna returns home, begins to swim out into the ocean; she thinks triumphantly that she escaped her children and their claim on her and continues to swim until she is exhausted - memories of her childhood flash before her eyes as she slowly drowns

Edith Wharton

(1862-1937) - wrote novels, short-stories, tourist guide books - her style is very elegant, with lyrical description, sophisticated dialogs and the sense of outer details and atmosphere - is known for her portraits of manners and mores at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century - works typically concern the ethical dilemmas of upper-class characters. These characters are often punished by social codes that encourage selfish and cruel behavior in the name of respectability - in many of her works, a paralyzing dilemma over whether to follow the dictates of the head or the instincts of the heart is at the core of the characters' conflicts - many of her stories record the suffering of characters who lose their social position in the wake of the shifting economic forces that followed the American Civil War (like the modernists) The Age of Innocence - novel which brought her the Pulitzer Prize in 1920 - a tale of a man and two women - a gentle, nostalgic, backwards glance upon the New York gentry of the 1870s - main character is a young, promising lawyer, Newland Archer - he has got a fiancée, May Welland; but falls in love with her cousin Ellen Olenska - he realizes that there is a kind of privileged, selfish innocence "that seals the mind against imagination and the heart against experience" in the New York society - he is not able to escape it, though, for his passionate affection to a woman with a dark past - he ends up in a conventional marriage The Marne, A Son of a Front - novels reflecting her war experience A Backward Glance - an autobiography about her personal life and her literary and critical opinions

Willa Carther

(1876-1947) - she gave herself completely to the material of her novels and short stories - these were written with insight of the immigrant families from Scandinavia, Bohemia, or Germany - she met many of them in Nebraska and understood the dignified strength of people struggling to establish their homes and their communities - at the same time she encountered meeting with the intolerance of the frontier town inhabitants - at first, she learned from life and books, later she went to high school and University of Nebraska - she then worked as a journalist and schoolteacher - she traveled Europe and south-west of America - she is a regional writer of a pure talent - her books are full of seriousness of conveyance and warmhearted affection for people and their struggle - theme of her works - purity of heart exemplified in simple virtuous characters pioneering in the new land, and in sensitive artists capable of perceiving the values of life - she also had an eye for the vast beauty of Nebraska landscape, of the prairies and of the climate - she is realistic in portrayal and descriptions - her characters show the ability of their author to convey their moral values and their hardship with deep sympathy and warmth O, Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, My Antonia - deal with frontier life in Nebraska A Lost Lady, The Professor's House - deal with characters who sadly lament for the passing of the pioneering time in the West Death Comes for the Archbishop - she chronicles a Catholic mission in New Mexico Shadows on the Rocks - takes place in seventeenth-century Quebec

Sinclair Lewis

(1885-1951) - the first American to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930 - born in Minnesota, in a doctor's family - he graduated from Yale and after several adventurous jobs being full of ideas, he began to write - described in detail and with satirical sense the bourgeois and her narrow life full of social prejudices and negative approach to everybody and everything that is new and unexpected Babbit - in it, Lewis exposes a self-satisfied business-man of Zenith, a mid-western small town - he at first fully accepts the conventions of middle-class society - but later questions them and rebels against the ideas of the life he had been leading - he is boycotted by his society and excluded from it for his behavior - disillusioned and lonely in his new life, he returns to his previous way of living Arrowsmith - based upon a wide research - Lewis portraits here the life of an honest doctor who has to oppose the corruption of his older and wealthier colleagues - Martin Arrowsmith is an entirely positive figure, so positive, that he is almost unreal - After he finds out (during his 2nd marriage with a wealthy woman) that the success of a social career would ruin his ability to work, he immediately abandons the tempting but vain easy life - he returns to his research which brings him pleasure and satisfaction - Arrowsmith is an ideal man of Lewis's time Main Street - realistic description of the life in a small town called Gopher Prairee Elmer Gentry, The Man Who Knew Coolidge, Dodsworth - after writing these he won the NP Ann Vickers, It Can't Happen Here, Kingsblood Royal - later novels

Carl Sandburg

(1887-1967) - made a significant contribution to American verse - he celebrated life on the prairies and in Middle Western cities - his treatment of the urban landscape (industry, working people) was something new in American poetry - "anything that a poet can effectively lift from its dull bed by force of the imagination becomes his material" - his frequently long and unconventionally structured poems are characterized by strong, loose rhythm and a sinewy language which attempt to reproduce the vivid slang and idiom of Midwest Spoon River Anthology - collection of verse - he took his inspiration from Epigrams from the Greek Anthology - a series of free-verse ironic and objective epitaphs in the form of monologues - record the dreams and disappointments of the author's youth in a small midwestern town: being dead, the town inhabitants are at last free to tell all - their own bitter revelations constitute an exposé of the small town mentality and a whole way of life in America Chicago Poems - marked the arrival of another important voice in American poetry - "Whitmanesque" free verse

John Dos Passos

(1896-1970) - an American writer; born in Chicago as a son of a lawyer (son of the Portuguese immigrant) - graduated from Harvard and then went to Europe, in 1917 he joined the Ambulance Corps in France - after the war he worked for several years as a journalist - he belonged to the disillusioned generation and the grievance he felt fills all his books - he sees the world as a brutal force which depresses sensitive men - his bitter impressionistic novels attack the hypocrisy and materialism in America of the 1920s and 1930s - his writings influenced several generations of American and European novelists - his wartime experience as an ambulance driver in France provided background material for his novels - he tries to paint the confusion he sees as predominant in his time, the complicated social body - he is not interested in the inner relations of his characters - from a picture of one city, he goes over to a picture of all America - experimented with the techniques - the "newsreel" technique (inserted fragments of popular songs and news headlines into his text) - the "camera eye" technique (he provided short, poetic responses to give the author's point of view) Three Soldiers - one of the best novels about WW I, antiwar - the book presents the psychological analysis of three different types of men Manhattan Transfer - novel; a panoramic view of life in New York City between 1890 and 1925 U.S.A. - Dos Passos's masterpiece - a trilogy (The 42nd Parallel, 1919, The Big Money) depicting the growth of American materialism from the 1890s to the Great Depression of the early 1930s - the whole book is a survey of public life in the US - the author follows 18 characters through their lives in the first three decades of the 20th century - he uses new and unusual style in literature combining fiction with documentary methods - a hopeless portrait of America, indictment of the country (there is no one happy throughout the whole novel) - there is no hope in the three books

Carson McCullers

(1917-1967; a pseudonym of Lula Carson Smith) - American author, her psychological novels and stories examined the secrets of lonely, isolated people - many of her works are set in the South - she depicted homosexual characters (had a female lover), the theme of homosexuality is set into a broader context of alienation and dislocation in modern culture - born in Columbus, Georgia, at the age of 15 she got a typewriter - she worked in menial jobs and devoted herself to writing - studied creative writing at Columbia and New York universities - all her novels were written with elegant, plain style - in the grotesque world of her fiction her eccentric characters suffer from loneliness that she interpreted with deep empathy - she confessed: "Writing, for me, is a search for God" Reflections in a Golden Eye - psychological horror story set in a military base - her first novels, both have been filmed Wunderkind - an autobiographical piece, it depicted a musical prodigy's failure and adolescent insecurity The Square Root of Wonderful - bitter-sweet play, an attempt to examine the traumatic experiences of her husband's death The Member of the Wedding - described the feelings of a young girl at her brother's wedding Illumination and night Glare - her last book, dictated during her final months The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - a novel in the Southern Gothic tradition - set in the 1930s in a small Georgian mill town - the central characters: an adolescent girl (with a passion to study music), an unsuccessful socialist agitator, a black physician (struggling to maintain his personal dignity), a widower, and John Singer (deaf-mute protagonist) - he is confidante of people who talk to him about loneliness and misery - when Singer's Greek mute friend goes insane, Singer is left alone - he takes a room with the Kelly family, where he is visited by the town's misfits - after discovering that his mute friend has died, Singer shoots himself as there is no one left to communicate with him

Naturalism

(S. Crane, J. London) - an attempt to describe human behavior and surroundings or to represent figures and objects exactly as they act or appear in life - as Imagist (Pound) - sometimes realism and naturalism overlap - the primary goal of the late nineteenth-century American Naturalists was not to demonstrate the overwhelming and oppressive reality of the material forces present in our lives, they wanted to present the intermingling of controlling forces and individual worth in life - Naturalism abstracts the best from Realism and Romanticism - detailed accuracy and philosophical depth - Naturalist believe that a character is fundamentally an animal, without free will - the characterization of the fiction - the subject matter deals with the raw and unpleasant experiences which reduce characters to "degrading" behavior in their struggle to survive - characters are mostly from the lower middle or the lower classes - poor, uneducated, unsophisticated - life is usually the dull round of daily existence - characters do not have free will, external and internal forces are involved ( determinism) - determinists believe in the existence of the will, but the will is often enslaved - fate affects a character; the controlling force is society and the surrounding environment - characters are conditioned and controlled by environment, heredity, chance, or instinct - they have humanistic values which affirm their individuality and life - their struggle for life becomes heroic and they maintain human dignity - they do not dehumanize their characters - the new topics - prostitution and seduction - in Maggie, The Octopus, and Sister Carrie - exposure of social conditions and social evils - Main-Travelled Roads, A Member of the Third House, The Octopus - overall view - all realists, naturalists, and modernists were interested in the possibility of changing the society - modernists were usually radical (in continental Europe leftists, in America rightists, in GB mix) - most modernists were politically engaged, they wanted to understand and change the society - they stood in for equality (gender and racial) - they saw themselves as being obliged to form the society

The Beatniks

- American love to the suburbs began in the 1950s (full of rebellion, sarcasm, idealism and embitterment) - the myth of the "Beat Generation" arose in 1957, after publishing On the Road by J. Kerouac - according to Kerouac, the name comes from the word "beatitude" (blaženost) - unlike previous avant-garde movements, the Beatniks had a great deal of publicity - but it was dangerous, great success killed this generation almost at the time of its beginning - by media, the Beatniks were introduced as "bad guys", they defined themselves by their hostility to the mixture of American "main stream" - the Beatniks took drugs, admired Jazz and supported the idea of free sex - they loved the "life on the road" and raised the ability to shock - their literature is about the bonds between blokes, about their love, about the sadness after the discovery that love and desire cannot hold - we can trace devotion to Eastern philosophy, flirting with existentialism, fascination by dreams, political radicalism, love for drugs, irresponsible attitude towards sex - they feared imprisonment by relationship, style or place - Allen Ginsberg - Kaddish, Howling - Jack Kerouac - On the Road, Mexico City Blues - Gregory Corso - Vision of Rotterdam, The Happy Birthday of Death - William S. Burroughs - Junkie, The Naked Lunch - Gary Snider - Riprap - Charles Bukowski - Lawrence Ferlingheti - Pictures of the Gone World

Transcendentalism

- an American version of romanticism, rejected the 18th-century rationalism and established religion (the Puritan tradition in particular); the "Boston Transcendentalists" (Thoreau, Emerson) - transcendentalism was a philosophical, literary, social, and theological movement - German and English Romanticism provided some inspiration towards the search for some deeper truth - Transcendentalism represented a complex response to the democratization of American life (to the rise of science and the new technology, and to the new industrialism) - the question of the redefinition of the relation of man to nature and to other men was demanded - the transcendentalists celebrated the power of the human imagination to communicate with the universe and transcend the limitations of the material world - the transcendentalists found their chief source of inspiration in nature - "Abolitionism movement" - the transcendentalists wanted to abolish the slavery in the South - basic premises - an individual is the spiritual center of the universe - in an individual can be found the clue to nature (which is symbolic), history, and the cosmos itself - the structure of the universe duplicates the individual self all knowledge begins with self-knowledge - individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization - every individual is to be respected because everyone has a portion of that Oversoul (God) - the external is united with the internal - the Transcendentalists believed that "knowing yourself" and "studying nature" is the same activity - nature mirrors our psyche; if one cannot understand himself, maybe understanding nature will help - God can be found in both nature and human nature (Nature, Emerson stated, has spiritual manifestations) - more important than a concern about the afterlife is a concern for this life - the unity of life and universe must be realized; there is a relationship between all things

The Colonial and Early American Period

- at the end of 1400s, America was a vast wilderness, inhabited by Indians - Europeans were excited about the discovery of the new land, saw prospects of wealth and new resources - they saw an opportunity to gain personal wealth and riches - 1607 the British (led by Captain John Smith) set in the process of colonization - the 13 colonies were established by the middle of 18th cen. and were answerable to the British crown - America - a land of equal opportunities, unfettered by the social, economic and class traditions - by 1750s colonial America became a melting pot (in terms of religion and race) - America was divided into 3 cultural areas - New England (Massachusetts - Boston), cultural center, developed political practices and social beliefs - Mid-Atlantic states (New York, Pennsylvania), the British took over from Dutch and Swedish - South (Alabama, Georgia, Carolina), imported many black slaves - in all three areas, three very different cultures sprung out - the biggest difference between New England and South - North - no slavery, completely different life-style, Founding Fathers (1620) first settlers (puritans) - dedicated to literacy, education (great emphasis; much more educated and literate than Br.) - very fast economic progress - South - slaves kept from literacy, people coming there wanted easy life, founded completely different culture and life-style - the relationship between Britain and the colonies deteriorated as time went by (times of George III) - measures restricting freedom of the colonies, new taxes, army settled to prevent colonist go deeper west - 1770 3 Boston civilians killed this united American public opinion - 1773 Boston Tea Party 1774 Intolerable Acts (repressive measures) 1775 First Continental Congress of Philadelphia (end to trade with Br.) George refused to step down 1775 War of Independence broke in Massachusetts 1776 the Congress officially declared independence - 1776 Thomas Jefferson - Declaration of Independence - 1783 Treaty of Paris - by it the 13 colonies became a new and independent country (the USA) - four oldest universities: Harvard (1636, Massachusetts), William and Mary (1693), Yale (1701, Connecticut), Philadelphia (1740)

Enlightenment

- brought to the US in 18th century by English, French, Dutch and German immigrants - in the American colonies Enlightenment thought was expressed chiefly through political discourse - beginning of liberalism freedom, age of revolution, experimentation in science, and many others - believes in the ability of reason to control human destiny and improve the human condition - a growing belief in the supremacy of reason over church doctrine - the importance of the individual and freedom over and above established authorities and institutions - the only creative writers at that time were the poets Hector St. John De Crévecoeur (1735-1813) - spread enlightenment - he promoted America and American Dream (America - the country of unlimited opportunities) - he claimed that America is prepared to accept anyone => equality, liberty (except in the South) - wrote epistolary essays; was very influential on later US writers Letters from an American Farmer, What is an American? Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) - started as a printer published the first modern newspaper Pennsylvania Gazette - wrote about progress of science (dogma of enlightenment - science can solve everything) - was not a very creative writer, but was a very influential person - a prototype of American - was scientist, inventor (lightning rod) Poor Richard's Almanac - a type of calendar for farmers (general and practical advice, also contained first American proverbs, e.g. "A penny saved is a penny earned, God helps those who help themselves") The Autobiography (1771-1788) - about his life, "from-rags-to-riches" story (about his poor beginnings, shows how by working hard he became a rich "self-made man", wrote a recipe how to do it in 13 rules, e.g. frugality, coyness, tranquility, chastity, humility, etc.) Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) - the 3rd President of the USA - main author of the Declaration of Independence (American version of French Enlightenment, but with less emphasis on reason, more religious) - 1. people are created equal (have natural right to freedom) 2. all people have right to pursuit happiness - was diplomat in France, wrote many essays Thomas Paine (1737-1809) - the most efficient propagator of the American revolution - British-born writer, not a creative one (the last non-creative author) - an adventurer, lead very colorful life (Howard Fast: Citizen Tom Paine - about Paine's life) Common Sense - very popular article about how the Americans are stupid to obey the British - persuades the Americans to revolt against the British rules; every consideration of common sense called for the Colonies to establish an independent republican government The Age of Reason - book in which he tried to persuade people that God does not exist (which shocked Americans great deal, condemned him as an author) - after the Declaration of Independence about 90% of literature published in America was of British origin - the main ideas of the British romanticism were followed - poetry started to be read and appreciated Philip Freneau & Joel Barlow - first American poets who had good standards - well-written poetry, very much read and appreciated at that time - both wrote about nature, very topical (patriotic poems against the British) - inspired by British romanticis

Romanticism I

- during the late 1700s and early 1800s, romanticism was the dominant literary mode in Europe - in reaction to the Enlightenment (emphasis on reason) romanticism stressed emotions, the imagination, and subjectivity of approach - until about 1870 romanticism influenced the major forms of American prose: transcendentalist writings, historical fiction, and sentimental fiction - escape from the reality and civilization to the past, history, nature, from reality to dream world - frontier: vast expanse, freedom, no geographic limitations; optimism - experimentation in science, in institutions - romantic subject matters - the quest for beauty (non-didactic, "pure" beauty) - the use of the far-away and non-normal - escapism from American problems - interest in nature for itself and for its beauty (Nature as source for the knowledge of the primitive, nature as refuge, nature as revelation of God to the individual) - romantic attitudes - appeals to imagination; use of the "willing suspension of disbelief" - stress on emotion rather than reason; optimism, geniality - subjectivity: in form and meaning - romantic techniques - remoteness of settings in time and space; inadequate or unlikely characterization - improbable plots - experimentation in new forms: picking up and using obsolete patterns - authorial subjectivity (subjective form of writing) - organic principle in writing - form rises out of content, is non-formal

Colonial Poetry

- mainly of religious nature; the 1st book published Bay Psalm Book (intended for church singing) - a group of poets Connecticut Wits (John Trumbull, Timothy Humphreys, Joel Barlow) Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) - English-born American poetess, 1st woman to win recognition for her poetry - the first important poet in the American colonies (is remembered for her evocative poems that provide intimate glimpses into the home life of inhabitants of colonial New England) - her poetry was first published without her knowledge by her brother-in-law in London - she was a devout Puritan, her poetry reflects the piety of her religious views - occasionally she sounds feminist (protesting that women are capable of reason) - her poetry concerns the arduous life of the early settlers - her work provides an excellent view of the difficulties she and her fellow colonists encountered - addressed broad and universal themes, also used poetry to examine religious struggles (she was unable to accept Calvinism completely) The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America - generally considered the first book of original poetry in colonial America; she asserted the right of women to learning and expression of thought The Flesh and the Spirit - the conflict between living a pleasant life and living a Christian life Meditations Divine and Moral - recounts to her children her doubts about Puritanism Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) - African black slave (born in Senegal), brought to US as a child, set free by a Puritan family - learned English and started to write poetry (received a favorable mention from Voltaire) - in the white family she learned to read English, basic Latin, mythology, ancient history and contemporary English poets; wrote her first poems when 13 - when 20, she went to London, was received and became popular in London society - her life ended in tragedy and poverty Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, by Phillis Wheatley, Negro Servant to ... Memoirs and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, The Letters of Phillis Wheatley, the Negro Slave-poet of Boston (published in 1834 by M.M. Odell) Edward Taylor - poet, author of religious verse, reminiscence of English metaphysical poets

Colonial literature

- the puritans - the most literate people, came to America in 17th century - protestants who wanted to purify the Church of England - no literature for pure amusement, no Am. novel or play for that period - religious writings, expedition and travel narratives, biography (American native heroes), accounts of explorations and colonization, histories and narratives of settlement, diaries, sermons, public documents - plain style without unnecessary ornaments recommended for prose works - prose - dominated by the works of New Englanders (religious writings) - poetry - consisting mostly of contemplating in a plain form - fiction only after the colonies gained independence novels based on events in America's past - in the mid-1800s, fiction had become the dominant literary genre in America - the literature of the period of Revolution was largely political (The Declaration of Independence) - until the War of Independence literature was mostly based on the Puritan tradition - favoring the virtues of courage, earnestness, seriousness - literature had rather instructive (educational) than aesthetic function - prevailing genres - sermons, tracts, historical writing, first lyrical poetry appeared - New England Primer - America's 1st textbook (used to help people learn to read)

John Steinback

American fiction - the most important writer of 1930s - received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1960s (for books written in the 30s) - one of the first American writers with not an English name (was of German-Irish origin) - he was a deliberately regional writer (he made myths about California, where his best works are set) - he wrote more about Mexicans than blacks - he was the first to indicate that it is not good to despise other races - he preferred the life of Mexicans who were enjoying life to the rushed life of Americans - he is considered a precursor of the "Beatniks" - born in Salinas, California; studied at Stanford University; then came to NY, was farm hand, bricklayer, carpenter, painter, chemist, factory worker, and a journalist - he did not like journalism much, went back to California and started to write Cup of Gold, The Pastures of Heaven - his first novels Tortila Flat - his first successful book - about people and their everyday lives in a lowly place on the coast of California, Tortilla Flat - Danny, returning from overseas attains two houses from his dead grandfather - he allows his friends Pilon and Pablo to share in his happiness - he rents one house to Pilon, but it burns and he moves in with Danny - happier with their slow lives the three pass the day away on wine and talk of the happenings - throughout the novel the Pirate and his dogs move in with Danny as well as Big Joe - those five are always together, they deal with the many different problems in their desolate town Cannery Row - a book without much of a plot, an attempt to capture the feeling and people of a place - the main plot is frequently interrupted to introduce various denizens of the Row, most of whom are not directly connected with the central story - about the adventures of a group of unemployed yet resourceful men - they inhabit a converted fish-meal shack on the edge of a vacant lot down on the Row East of Eden Of Mice and Men - a beautiful concerned with the wandering poor people - was also dramatized and made a successful play - takes place during the Great Depression beside the Salinas River near Soledad, California - two migrant workers, Lennie Small and George Milton, walk to a nearby ranch - they escaped from a farm where Lennie, a mentally deficient man, was wrongly accused of rape (he touched a woman to feel her soft dress) - dream: he and Lennie will raise money to buy a small farm with a vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch - George tells Lennie that, if he gets into trouble as he did in Weed, he should return to the brush near the river and wait for George to find him - George and Lennie reach the farm where they will work - the boss questions George and Lennie and finds them suspicious because George speaks for Lennie - the boss's son, Curley, is a short man who hates larger men out of jealousy and insecurity - he has a new wife who everyone suspects is unfaithful (she flirts with the other men) - Lennie gets a puppy, - when George tells Lennie the story about the house that they will have, Candy says that he knows about an available house that they could have if the three men pooled their money - the men discuss the plan for a small farm, and even Crooks shows some interest - when Lennie is playing with his new puppy, he accidentally kills it when he bounces it too hard - Curley's Wife finds him in the barn with the dead puppy, and when she allows him to feel how soft her hair is, he handles her too forcefully - when she screams, Lennie covers her mouth and snaps her neck - Lennie escapes the ranch, Candy and George find the body and realize that Lennie killed her - Candy alerts the other men, and Curley forms a party to search for Lennie, Curley intends to murder him - George points Curley and the other men in the wrong direction, he finds Lennie in the brush where he told him to go at the beginning of the novel - Lennie thinks that George will be angry at him for killing Curley's Wife and that he has lost the possibility of having a house with a rabbit hutch - George tells Lennie about their plans for a house and the rabbit hutch and shoots Lennie The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck's greatest novel, grandiose and touching realistic book rendering the fate of a huge mass of American working people - a great social novel - Steinbeck was influenced by the deep agrarian crisis in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas - small farmers in these southern states lost their land because they had been in heavy debts - thousands of families had to leave their homes to go and seek a living in California - Steinbeck was deeply affected by the events and wrote a series of newspaper articles about their fate

J Kerouac

Beatnics - was born in working-class Lowell, Massachusetts - he spoke a local dialect of French called joual before he learned English - he was heartbroken when his older brother Gerard died of rheumatic fever at the age of nine - he was driven to create stories from a young age, inspired first by the mysterious radio show The Shadow, and later by novels of Thomas Wolfe, the writer he would model himself after - studied at Columbia University, but had to leave school - he tried and failed to fit in with the military (beginning of WW II), ended up sailing with the Merchant Marine - he was hanging around New York with a crowd of depraved young Columbia students (Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady) - he begun writing a novel, stylistically reminiscent of Thomas Wolfe, about the torments he was suffering as he tried to balance his wild city life with his old-world family values The Town and the City - Kerouac's first and most conventional novel which earned him respect and some recognition as a writer The Dharma Bums - an excellent novel, describes a joyous mountain climbing trip Kerouac had taken - it captures the tentative, sometimes comic steps he and his friends took towards spiritual realization - trying to live up to the wild image he presented in On The Road, he developed a severe drinking habit that dimmed his natural brightness and aged him prematurely - he could not resist a drinking binge, his friends began viewing him as needy and unstable - Kerouac expressed his unhappiness nakedly in his art and was not taken seriously - he returned to San Francisco to drink himself into oblivion - he was cracking up, and he laid out the entire chilling experience in his last great novel, Big Sur On the Road - Kerouac took cross-country trips while working on his novel - in his attempt to write about these trips he had begun experimenting with freer forms of writing - was inspired by the unpretentious, spontaneous prose he found in Neal Cassady's letters - he decided to write about his cross-country trips exactly as they had happened, without pausing to edit, fictionalize or even think - he presented the resulting manuscript to his editor (who didn't share his enthusiasm) - Kerouac would suffer seven years of rejection before it would be published.

Emily Dickinson

Early American poetry - America's best-known female poet, one of the foremost authors in American literature - intellectual writings with the subject issues vital to humanity: -the agonies and ecstasies of love, sexuality, the unfathomable nature of death - the horrors of war, God and religious belief, the importance of humor - musings on the significance of literature, music, and art - she used common language in startling ways, a strategy called defamiliarization - this technique "distills amazing sense from ordinary meanings" and from "familiar species" - she used intense metaphors, extensive ellipsis which contrasted sharply with the style of Walt Whitman - she later began to attend to the visual aspects of her work - arranged and broke lines of verse in highly unusual ways to underscore meaning, - created extravagantly shaped letters of the alphabet to emphasize or play with a poem's sense - few of Dickinson's poems were formally published during her lifetime - the men critics did not take her writings as serious - naïve poetry (she had little formal education), tendency to reclusiveness - imperfect rhymes, irregular rhythm, complicated English, frequent religious imageries - she never published anything in her lifetime (wanted her poems to be burnt after her death) - she wanted to tell truths, to secularize religious truths (inspiration from protestant songs) - she hasn't read poetry of anyone else - she used riddles as a pattern for her poems (many about nature, not very consistent) - "poetry of everyday life" - joy from little ordinary things - influence of Calvinism - pain can be the source of strength - she is often compared to the English Metaphysical writers, her main themes being love, death and natural universe Bolts of Melody The Poems of Emily Dickinson - 3 volumes of her poetry - published only after her death by Thomas H. Johnson

Colonial Prose

Puritans: William Bradford, John Winthrop, Edward Johnson, Cotton Mather - introduced the "American Dream" (God's Chosen People in God's Chosen Country) Cotton Mather - most versatile and prolific writer - the greatest Puritan thinkers and writers, represented all positive puritan things (love to work, education) Magnalia Christi Americana - two volume ecclesiastical history of New England John Winthrop Journal - described life in the Massachusetts Bay colony, an advocation of the theocratic state William Bradford The History of Plymouth Plantation (~ Journal) - account of the Pilgrim Fathers' foundation of the Plymouth colony Jonathan Edwards - leader of the religious revival movement the Great Awakening Freedom of Will - influential philosophical treatise written in defense of Calvinistic doctrine Captain John Smith - 1st American writer; traveled all around Europe - his books must be taken with reserve (pathological liar) - in 1606 king James decided to establish a colony in America, Smith survived the journey - came to contact with Indians (was appointed to exchange trade with them), he learned a lot about them - was imprisoned by Indians, an Indian woman - Pocahontas - saved him (one of the oldest stories in US) The General History of Virginia, A true Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate...

Early American Realism

Realism (H. James, E. Wharton) - in America in the 60s and 70s of the 19th century - so called "Local Color School" of realism - an important part of American literature, it tried to show a typical character of a particular region in America - the philosophy of Realism is known as "descendental" or non-transcendental - principles of realism - insistence upon and defense of "the experienced commonplace" - character more important than plot - attack upon romanticism and romantic writers - emphasis upon morality often self-realized and upon an examination of idealism - concept of realism as a realization of democracy - characteristics of realistic writing - the purpose of writing is to instruct and to entertain - realists were pragmatic, relativistic, democratic, and experimental - the subject matter of Realism is drawn from "our experience," - it treated the common, the average, the non-extreme, the representative, the probable - relations between people and society are explored - emphasis is placed upon scenic presentation, de-emphasizing authorial comment and evaluation - there is an objection towards the omniscient - the Realists believe that humans control their destinies - characters act on their environment rather than simply reacting to it, character overrule circumstance - the use of symbolism is controlled and limited, the authors depend more on the use of images - techniques - settings thoroughly familiar to the writer - plots emphasizing the norm of daily experience - ordinary characters, studied in depth - complete authorial objectivity - responsible morality; a world truly reported

Charles Brockden Brown

Romanticism I (1771-1810) - the first American novel-writer, the first person in the United States to earn his living by writing - he was a magazine writer and editor and also wrote political pamphlets and gothic tales Wieland; Or, The Transformation - a tale of horror, in the style of the Gothic romance Arthur Mervyn - the same style; great description of the 1793 yellow-fever epidemic in Philadelphia Edgar Huntly - here the Native American first appears in American fiction

James Fenimore Cooper

Romanticism I (1789-1851) - the first American master of the form, began his career as a specifically American novelist - was much more read outside the States, was largely published in Europe at the beginning of 20th century - he is criticized for not to be profound in physical characterization (rather flat characters) - escape from reality (some of his works can be described as "ladies' reading) - wrote about Indians and their fight about Quebec (a founder of subgenre "Indian story") - exotic for Europeans => was read more outside the US - son of a prosperous landowner, studied at Yale (did not take a degree); in 1806 he went to sea - in 1826 he went to Europe and met Scott and others Leather-Stocking Tales (1823-1841) - collective name for five historical novels - they are noted for their portrayal of American subject matter in American settings - the story of Natty Bumppo, the first fictional hero, one of the most famous characters - he is silent, resilient, courageous a romantic myth of a 'frontier' - he seeks to conquer evil single handedly in the wilderness of the hostile yet tempting frontier - he embodies the conflict between preserving nature and using it in the name of progress - he is a white frontiersman with ties to the settlers, but also frequents with Native Americans - he is thus positioned between two modes of living - the novels were popular with children, but they were not written directly for children Precaution (1st work, unsuccessful) The Spy, The Pioneer, The Last of the Mohicans The Prairie, The Pathfinder, The Deerslayer, The Conquest of the West

Edgar Alan Poe

Romanticism I (1809-1849) - 1st great true American writer of the 19th century - was born in Boston to theater actors, his mother died when he was two, he was adopted by a rich family - he didn't have a good relationship with his adoptive parents - he started to drink and gamble, was a real Bohemian; but studied at university - poet, editor, critic, short-story writer, essayist; deeply responsive to the Romantic tradition - the founder of the short-story and sci-fi genre - inventor of the modern detective story (with the character of C. Auguste Dupin - a very thoughtful and deductive type of policeman; there is always a genius private detective and normal policemen struggling to find out what happened; poetic imagination important; a lot of mystery) - mystery is the main principle of his works, the stories are not about what is really happening, but what people imagine is happening - he concentrates on the inner self, the dual personality, mystery and supernatural, on hallucinatory world - Poe's intention was not to write about the real life, he was not to tell the reader anything real, he just wanted to create emotions and effect (of curiosity), wanted to be original - he counted every little thing in his poetry to affect the readers (poems = almost mathematics) - lead an unusual life which was an inspiration for his works (alcohol, etc.) - always knew exactly what he wanted to write => essays Philosophy of Composition, The Poetic Principle, the Rationale of Verses - essays on how to write literature - a highly important figure, as a short-story writer he laid down rules for creating a successful work of art - as a poet he was a reaction against the Puritan didacticism, believed that "a poem must not mean but be" - he had a great influence on French symbolists (at home he was not appreciated - was not educational) - his works were translated into French by Malarmé - also influenced the Pre-Raphaelite movement in GB POETRY: The Raven, Lenore, The City in the Sea, Tamerlane and Other Poems SHORT STORIES (published in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier): The Gold-Bug, The Purloined Letter, The Mask of te Red Death, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (his best short stories) SCI-FI: Von Kempelen and His Discovery, A Tale of the Ragged Mountains HUMOUR: The Man Who Was Used Up, Diddling, Considered as One of the Exact Sciences HORROR: The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, Some Words With the Mummy

Gertrude Stein

The lost generation (1874-1946) - writer and critic, interested in literature and painting - born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; studied psychology and medicine; spent most of her life in France - her impact on 20th-century culture derives from the influence of her personality and her role as a patron of the arts, as well as from her own creative writings - was not an established writer, though some of her themes are original - she was an important innovator of form, in the literary language - emphasized the verb as the most important component in a sentence, omitted nouns where possible - formed short, original sentences - her experiments with prose (with form and words) were frequently misunderstood and erroneously construed as meaningless - she influenced the work of other American writers staying in Paris after the WWII - her remark to Hemingway "You are all a lost generation" gave name to the whole literary phenomenon - she tried to break the convention and to achieve the simplicity in writing - she wanted to apply in literature the methods of modern artists (mostly cubists Picaso, Braque; met them in Paris) - like they she wanted to do away with convention in art, to be simple, unemotional, abstract - the modernist element in her writing - the things seems to speak directly and immediately The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas - her own autobiography (as if written by her secretary) Three lives - three portraits of ordinary women Tender Buttons - gender pictures ("still lives") The Making of Americans - a family chronicle

Ernest Hemingway

The lost generation (1899-1961) - won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 (for The Old Man and the Sea) -American novelist and short-story writer, redactor and reporter - his style is characterized by crispness, laconic dialogue, and emotional understatement - his writings and his personal life exerted a profound influence on American writers of his time - served as a volunteer ambulance driver in Italy during World War I - After the war he served as a correspondent for the Toronto Star and then settled in Paris - he drew heavily on his experiences as a fisherman, hunter, and bullfight enthusiast in his writing - his characters - one type consisted of men and women deprived by the war, faith in the moral values in which they believed, they lived with cynical disregard for anything but their own emotional needs - the other type were men of simple character and primitive emotions - prizefighters and bullfighters - he wrote of courageous and usually futile battles against circumstances - Hemingway used an economical writing style - so called iceberg-method (only 1/8 can be seen) - he detached descriptions of action, he used simple nouns and verbs to capture scenes precisely - he avoided describing his characters' emotions and thoughts directly - instead, in providing the reader with the raw material of an experience and eliminating the authorial viewpoint, he made the reading of a text approximate the actual experience as closely as possible - Hemingway was also deeply concerned with authenticity in writing - he succeeded in reaching a very compact objective style - his sentences are usually short and simple, he tries to omit descriptive adjectives - the language is rarely emotional, he holds the emotions in to suggest a kind of stoicism of his characters - the characters are virile, fond of adventure, yet they are affected by some deeper reality - the characters are all afflicted with some physical or mental defects, they are spiritually mutilated - used shorter sentences (so called "Hemingwayesque" style) through his journalistic experience - he describes things but deliberately omits commenting objective neutral point of view In Our Time, Men Without Women - early short-story collections Death in the Afternoon - a novel with bull fights in Spain as a main setting The Sun Also Rises - deals with young people like Hemingway (the lost generation, disillusioned intellectuals) - Hemingway uses the first person narrator, a wounded hero Jake Burnes - he is an American journalist who was wounded during the war and thus cut off from normal life - he is hopelessly in love with Brett Ashley, they both are honest - he is trying to survive mostly, by means of some activities that keep him sound - Cohn is selfish, concentrated upon his own person; he also loves Brett and is unable to stay back although he knows that she doesn't love him - Jake, unlike Cohn, avoids self-pity (that is beautiful about the character of Jake) - Brett's love to Jake can't be fulfilled, and she is about to marry Mike, an irresponsible sponger - the climax of the novel - Mike is drunk and quarrels with Cohn - Brett falls in love with a young bull-fighter; Cohn finds out and goes to the fighter's room and wounds him - Brett nurses the fighter, who later kills his bull; they both leave for Madrid - in Madrid, Brett realizes that she can't marry either fighter or Mike and sends for Jake - their physical love and their happiness can't fulfilled, though, they are stigmatized by the war - they must console themselves with the knowledge that they "could have had such a damned good time together" - this knowledge is the only bit of optimism in the pessimistic book A Farewell to Arms - an epic description of WWI - he presents a charming and moving love story of an American lieutenant and an English nurse - the story is set in the war on the Italian front - it shows what happened to the hero before the events of The Sun Also Rises - he opts out of war, he makes a separate peace - Catherine with whom Frederic Henry has fallen in love is pregnant - they escape to Switzerland, Catherine dies in childbirth, and Frederic is left alone with bitter experience - Hemingway underlines here actions on emotional level by using natural scenery to match the dramatic procedure of the story: rain accompanies the worst situations of tragedy (mud of front, Catherine's dying) For Whom the Bell Tolls - a quotation from John Donne's poem - psychological picture of an American taking part with the Republican Army in Spanish Civil War - Hemingway himself actively supported Republican ideas and was fully aware of what a fascist victory in Europe would mean - this novel is set against the background of Spanish scenery (Hemingway loved Spain, especially the people) - Robert Jordan, the main character, is a capable and conscientious American - he comes to Spain as a volunteer to help in the fight against fascism - he is ready to fulfill his mission: to blow up a bridge to prevent a train with Fascists troops being brought to meet a Republican attack - it's a difficult task and Jordan has only a little chance to save his life - he is staying with guerrilla band in a cave in the mountains - the leader of the group, Pablo, doesn't like this action, he wants to save his life - but his woman, Pilar (a throughout positive character) helps Jordan - Jordan agrees with the guerrillas that Pablo should be shot - but Pablo overhears the talk and offers his help in the operation, yet he disappears with Jordan's detonators - then he comes back again, confesses to a moment of cowardice and is willing to help Jordan carry out - Jordan succeeds with the help of the guerrillas - but as they prepare themselves to escape, Jordan is severely wounded - in the last minutes of his life, Jordan covers the escape of his friends - facing his own certain death in a guerilla action, he realizes what a beautiful place world really is, and how much it is worth fighting for - the novel has a subplot: Maria (her parents had been shot and she raped by Falangists) was rescued by the guerrillas from the train of political prisoners; now she stays with the guerrillas - she and Jordan fall in love, to Pilar's joy (she nursed Maria to physical and mental recovery) - the complete perfection of their relationship is too ideal to last, has the foreshadowing of tragic end - the three days of happiness give Jordan a new joy of life (this makes his following death the more tragic) - Hemingway experiments here with the novel construction: he enlarges the story without negatively affecting its unity - the action of the novel takes place in a valley in the Spanish mountains within four days with only a few characters (few guerrillas and a partisan agent) - he succeeded to construct a tight story of wide epic proportions (Robert thinks about the time before he came and about what brought him here, so do the members of the partisan group) - the finest character of guerrillas is Anselmo, the gentle peasant who embodies all qualities Hemingway admired (is not revengeful, wishes that those who fought against them should see their error) - the perfectness of this character sprung out of Hemingway's belief in mankind, in human beings, in ordinary men The Old Man and the Sea - very humanistic short novel - it depicts the eternal fight between nature and a man - the man is predestined to lose if he fights alone - the novel deals with an old Cuban fisherman who struggles to catch a big fish but finally loses it - he does not give up fighting, however - it is the story of an old fisherman who, without any aid, fights with a giant marlin in the Gulf Stream near Havana - it's an allegory of fighting a good fight with the environment, with oneself - the story of the fisherman is a symbol of Hemingway's fight to maintain his ability to write - it's the summit of his work, it is very simple, yet very complex, so closely organized and very human - here, Hemingway redefined values like solidarity, responsibility and courage - for this novel, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1970 - until the time of the "Lost Generation", a happy ending was compulsory - it is not so in Hemingway or Fitzgerald, they rather used an open ending