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American literature is literature written or produced in theUnited States of America and in theBritish colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition ofEnglish-language literature, but also includes literature produced inlanguages other than English.[1]
The American Revolutionary Period (1775–1783) is notable for the political writings ofBenjamin Franklin,Alexander Hamilton,Thomas Paine, andThomas Jefferson. An early novel isWilliam Hill Brown'sThe Power of Sympathy, published in 1791. The writer and criticJohn Neal in the early-to-mid-19th century helped to advance America toward a unique literature and culture, by criticizing his predecessors, such asWashington Irving, for imitating their British counterparts and by influencing writers such asEdgar Allan Poe, who took American poetry and short fiction in new directions.[2]Ralph Waldo Emerson pioneered the influentialTranscendentalism movement;Henry David Thoreau, the author ofWalden, was influenced by this movement. The conflict surroundingabolitionism inspired writers, likeHarriet Beecher Stowe, and authors of slave narratives, such asFrederick Douglass.Nathaniel Hawthorne'sThe Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the dark side of American history, as didHerman Melville'sMoby-Dick (1851). Major American poets of the 19th century includeWalt Whitman, Melville, andEmily Dickinson.Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born in the West.Henry James achieved international recognition with novels likeThe Portrait of a Lady (1881).
FollowingWorld War I,modernist literature rejected nineteenth-century forms and values.F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the carefree mood of the 1920s, butJohn Dos Passos andErnest Hemingway, who became famous withThe Sun Also Rises andA Farewell to Arms, andWilliam Faulkner, adopted experimental forms. American modernist poets included diverse figures such asWallace Stevens,T. S. Eliot,Robert Frost,Ezra Pound, andE. E. Cummings.Great Depression-era writers includedJohn Steinbeck, the author ofThe Grapes of Wrath (1939) andOf Mice and Men (1937). America's involvement inWorld War II led to works such asNorman Mailer'sThe Naked and the Dead (1948),Joseph Heller'sCatch-22 (1961) andKurt Vonnegut Jr.'sSlaughterhouse-Five (1969). Prominent playwrights of these years includeEugene O'Neill, who won aNobel Prize in Literature. In the mid-twentieth century, drama was dominated byTennessee Williams andArthur Miller.Musical theater was also prominent.
In the late-20th and early-21st centuries, there has been increased popular and academic acceptance of literature written by immigrant, ethnic, andLGBT writers, and of writings in languages other than English.[3] Examples of pioneers in these areas include the LGBT authorMichael Cunningham, theAsian American authorsMaxine Hong Kingston andOcean Vuong, andAfrican American authors such asRalph Ellison,James Baldwin, andToni Morrison. In 2016, the folk-rock songwriterBob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Oral literature andstorytelling has existed among the variousIndigenous tribes, prior to the arrival of European colonists. The traditional territories of some tribes traverse national boundaries and such literature is not homogeneous but reflects the differentcultures of these peoples.[4]
In 1771 the first work by a Native American in English,A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian, by Samson Occom, from the Mohegan tribe, was published and went through 19 editions.The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta (1854) byJohn Rollin Ridge (Cherokee, 1827–67) was the first novel by a Native American, andO-gi-maw-kwe Mit-I-gwa-ki (Queen of the Woods) (1899) bySimon Pokagon (Potawatomi, 1830–99) was "the first Native American novel devoted to the subject of Indian life".[5]
A significant event in the development of Native American literature in English came with the awarding of thePulitzer Prize in 1969 toN. Scott Momaday (Kiowa tribe) for his novelHouse Made of Dawn (1968).
TheThirteen Colonies have often been regarded as the center of early American literature. However, the first European settlements in North America had been founded elsewhere, many years earlier.[6] The first item printed inPennsylvania was in German and was the largest book printed in any of the colonies before the American Revolution.[6] Spanish and French had two of the strongest colonial literary traditions in the areas that now comprise the United States. Moreover, a wealth oforal literary traditions existed on the continent among the numerous differentNative American tribes. However, with the onset of English settlement of North America, the English language established a foothold in North America that would spread with the growth of England's political influence in the continent and the continued arrival of settlers from the British Isles. This included the English capture of the Dutch colony ofNew Amsterdam in 1664, with the English renaming it New York and changing the administrative language from Dutch to English.[7]
From 1696 to 1700, only about 250 separate items were issued from the major printing presses in the American colonies. This is a small number, compared to the output of the printers in London at the time. London printers published materials written by New England authors, so, the body of American literature was larger than what was published in North America. However, printing was established in the American colonies before it was allowed in most of England. In England, restrictive laws had long confined printing to four locations, where the government could monitor what was published: London, York, Oxford, and Cambridge. Because of this, the colonies ventured into the modern world earlier than their provincial English counterparts.[6]
Some American literature of the time consisted of pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies to both a European and colonial audience.Captain John Smith could be considered the first American author with his worksA True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Happened in Virginia ... (1608) andThe Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Other writers of this genre includedDaniel Denton,Thomas Ashe,William Penn,George Percy,William Strachey,Daniel Coxe, Gabriel Thomas, andJohn Lawson.
The religious disputes that prompted settlement in America were important topics of early American literature. A journal written byJohn Winthrop,The History of New England, discussed the religious foundations of theMassachusetts Bay Colony.Edward Winslow also recorded a diary of the first years after theMayflower's arrival. "A modell of Christian Charity" by John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, was a Sermon preached on theArbella (theflagship of theWinthrop Fleet) in 1630. This work outlined the ideal society that he and the other Separatists would build, in an attempt to realize a "Puritan utopia". Other religious writers includedIncrease Mather andWilliam Bradford, author of the journal published as aHistory of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47. Others likeRoger Williams andNathaniel Ward more fiercely argued state and church separation. Others, such asThomas Morton, cared little for the church; Morton'sThe New English Canaan mocked thePuritans and declared that the local Native Americans were better people than them.[8]
Other late writings described conflicts and interaction with the Indians, as seen in writings byDaniel Gookin,Alexander Whitaker,John Mason,Benjamin Church, andDaniel J. Tan.John Eliot translated the Bible into theAlgonquin language (1663) asMamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God.[9] It was the first complete Bible printed in the Western hemisphere;Stephen Daye printed 1,000 copies on the first printing press in the American colonies.[10]
Of the second generation of New England settlers,Cotton Mather stands out as a theologian and historian, who wrote the history of the colonies with a view to God's activity in their midst and to connecting the Puritan leaders with the great heroes of the Christian faith. His best-known works include theMagnalia Christi Americana (1702), theWonders of the Invisible World andThe Biblia Americana.[11]
Jonathan Edwards andGeorge Whitefield represented theGreat Awakening, a religious revival in the early 18th century that emphasizedCalvinist thought. Other Puritan and religious writers includeThomas Hooker,Thomas Shepard,John Wise, andSamuel Willard. Less strict and serious writers includedSamuel Sewall (who wrote a diary revealing the daily life of the late 17th century),[8] andSarah Kemble Knight (who likewise wrote a diary).[12]
New England was not the only area in the colonies with a literature: southern literature was also growing at this time. The diary ofWilliam Byrd, aplanter, and hisThe History of the Dividing Line (1728) described the expedition to survey the swamp betweenVirginia andNorth Carolina but also comments on the differences betweenAmerican Indians and the white settlers in the area.[8] In a similar book,Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West,William Bartram described the Southern landscape and the Indian tribes he encountered; Bartram's book was popular in Europe, being translated into German, French and Dutch.[8]
As the colonies moved toward independence from Britain, an important discussion of American culture and identity came from the French immigrantJ. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, whoseLetters from an American Farmer (1782) addresses the question "What is an American?", by moving between praise for the opportunities and peace offered in the new society and recognition that the solid life of the farmer must rest, uneasily, between the oppressive aspects of the urban life and the lawless aspects of the frontier, where the lack of social structures leads to the loss of civilized living.[8]
This same period saw the beginning ofAfrican-American literature, through the poetPhillis Wheatley and theslave narrative ofOlaudah Equiano,The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789). At this time, American Indian literature also began to flourish.Samson Occom published hisA Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul and a popular hymnbook,Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs, "the first Indian best-seller".[13]
The Revolutionary period also contained political writings, including those by colonistsSamuel Adams,Josiah Quincy,John Dickinson, andJoseph Galloway, the last being a loyalist to the crown. Two key figures wereBenjamin Franklin andThomas Paine. Franklin'sPoor Richard's Almanack andThe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works, with their wit and influence toward the formation of a budding American identity. Paine's pamphletCommon Sense andThe American Crisis writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the political tone of the time.
During theAmerican Revolutionary War, poems and songs such as "Nathan Hale" were popular. Major satirists includedJohn Trumbull andFrancis Hopkinson.Philip Morin Freneau also wrote poems about the War.
During the 18th century, writing shifted from the Puritanism of Winthrop and Bradford[clarification needed] to ideas of reason in theAge of Enlightenment. The belief that human and natural occurrences were messages from God no longer fit with the budding anthropocentric culture. Many intellectuals believed that the human mind could comprehend the universe through the laws of physics, as described byIsaac Newton. One of these wasCotton Mather. The first book published in North America that promoted Newton and natural theology was Mather'sThe Christian Philosopher (1721). The enormous scientific, economic, social, and philosophical, changes of the 18th century, called theEnlightenment, impacted the authority of clergyman and scripture, making way for democratic principles. The increase in population helped account for the greater diversity of opinion in religious and political life, as seen in the literature of this time. In 1670, the population of the colonies numbered approximately 111,000. Thirty years later, it was more than 250,000. By 1760, it reached 1,600,000.[6] The growth of communities, and therefore social life, led people to become more interested in the progress of individuals and their shared experience in the colonies. These new ideas can be seen in the popularity ofBenjamin Franklin'sAutobiography.
Even earlier than Franklin wasCadwallader Colden (1689–1776), whose bookThe History of the Five Indian Nations, published in 1727 was one of the first texts published onIroquois history.[14] Colden also wrote a book on botany, which attracted the attention ofCarl Linnaeus, and he maintained a long term correspondence with Franklin.[15][16]
In the post-war period,Thomas Jefferson established his place in American literature through his authorship of theDeclaration of Independence, his influence on theU.S. Constitution, his autobiography, hisNotes on the State of Virginia, and his many letters.The Federalist essays byAlexander Hamilton,James Madison, andJohn Jay presented a significant historical discussion of American government organization and republican values.Fisher Ames,James Otis, andPatrick Henry are also valued for their political writings and orations.
Early American literature struggled to find a unique voice in existing literary genre, and this tendency was reflected in novels. European styles were frequently imitated, but critics usually considered the imitations inferior.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the first American novels were published. These fictions were too lengthy to be printed for public reading. Publishers took a chance on these works in hopes they would become steady sellers and need to be reprinted. This scheme was ultimately successful because male and female literacy rates were increasing at the time. Among the first American novels areThomas Attwood Digges'sAdventures of Alonso, published in London in 1775 andWilliam Hill Brown'sThe Power of Sympathy published in 1789. Brown's novel depicts a tragic love story between siblings who fell in love without knowing they were related.
In the next decade, important women writers also published novels.Susanna Rowson is best known for her novelCharlotte: A Tale of Truth, published in London in 1791.[18] In 1794 the novel was reissued in Philadelphia under the title,Charlotte Temple.Charlotte Temple is a seduction tale, written in the third person, which warns against listening to the voice of love and counsels resistance. She also wrote nine novels, six theatrical works, two collections of poetry, six textbooks, and countless songs.[18] Reaching more than a million and a half readers over a century and a half,Charlotte Temple was the biggest seller of the 19th century before Stowe'sUncle Tom's Cabin. Although Rowson was extremely popular in her time and is often acknowledged in accounts of the development of the early American novel,Charlotte Temple often is criticized as a sentimental novel of seduction.
Hannah Webster Foster'sThe Coquette: Or, the History of Eliza Wharton was published in 1797 and was extremely popular.[19] Told from Foster's point of view and based on the real life of Eliza Whitman, the novel is about a woman who is seduced and abandoned. Eliza is a "coquette" who is courted by two very different men: a clergyman who offers her a comfortable domestic life and a noted libertine. Unable to choose between them, she finds herself single when both men get married. She eventually yields to the artful libertine and gives birth to an illegitimate stillborn child at an inn.The Coquette is praised for its demonstration of the era's contradictory ideas of womanhood.[20] even as it has been criticized for delegitimizing protest against women's subordination.[21]
BothThe Coquette andCharlotte Temple are novels that treat the right of women to live as equals as the new democratic experiment. These novels are of the sentimental genre, characterized by overindulgence in emotion, an invitation to listen to the voice of reason against misleading passions, as well as an optimistic overemphasis on the essential goodness of humanity. Sentimentalism is often thought to be a reaction against the Calvinistic belief in the depravity of human nature.[22]While many of these novels were popular, the economic infrastructure of the time did not allow these writers to make a living through their writing alone.[23]
Charles Brockden Brown is the earliest American novelist whose works are still commonly read. He publishedWieland in 1798, and in 1799 publishedOrmond,Edgar Huntly, andArthur Mervyn. These novels are of theGothic genre.
The first writer to be able to support himself through the income generated by his publications alone wasWashington Irving. He completed his first major book in 1809 titledA History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty.[24]
Of the picaresque genre,Hugh Henry Brackenridge publishedModern Chivalry in 1792–1815;Tabitha Gilman Tenney wroteFemale Quixotism: Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventure of Dorcasina Sheldon in 1801; Royall Tyler wroteThe Algerine Captive in 1797.[22]
Other notable authors includeWilliam Gilmore Simms, who wroteMartin Faber in 1833,Guy Rivers in 1834, andThe Yemassee in 1835.Lydia Maria Child wroteHobomok in 1824 andThe Rebels in 1825.John Neal wroteKeep Cool in 1817,Logan in 1822,Seventy-Six in 1823,Randolph in 1823,Errata in 1823,Brother Jonathan in 1825, andRachel Dyer (earliest use of theSalem witch trials as the basis for a novel[25]) in 1828.Catherine Maria Sedgwick wroteA New England Tale in 1822,Redwood in 1824,Hope Leslie in 1827, andThe Linwoods in 1835.James Kirke Paulding wroteThe Lion of the West in 1830,The Dutchman's Fireside in 1831, andWestward Ho! in 1832.Omar ibn Said, a Muslim slave in the Carolinas, wrote an autobiography inArabic in 1831, considered an early example ofAfrican-American literature.[26][27][28]Robert Montgomery Bird wroteCalavar in 1834 andNick of the Woods in 1837.James Fenimore Cooper was a notable author best known for his novelThe Last of the Mohicans written in 1826.[22]George Tucker produced in 1824 the first fiction of Virginia colonial life withThe Valley of Shenandoah. He followed in 1827 with one of the country's first science fictions:A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Manners and Customs, Science and Philosophy, of the People of Morosofia, and Other Lunarians.
After theWar of 1812 against Britain, there was an increasing desire to produce a uniquely American literature and culture. Literary figures who took up the cause includedWashington Irving,William Cullen Bryant, andJames Fenimore Cooper. Irving wrote humorous works inSalmagundi and the satireA History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809). Bryant wrote early romantic and nature-inspired poetry, which evolved away from their European origins. Cooper'sLeatherstocking Tales aboutNatty Bumppo (which includesThe Last of the Mohicans, 1826) treated uniquely American material in ways that were popular both in the new country and Europe.
John Neal as a critic played a key role in developingAmerican literary nationalism. Neal criticized Irving and Cooper for relying on old British conventions of authorship to frame American phenomena,[29] arguing that "to succeed ... [the American writer] must resemble nobody ... [he] must be unlike all that have gone before [him]" and issue "another Declaration of Independence, in the great Republic of Letters."[30] As a pioneer of the literary device he referred to "natural writing",[31] Neal was "the first in America to be natural in his diction"[32] and his work represents "the first deviation from ... Irvingesque graciousness."[33]
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston but raised in Virginia and identified with theSouthern U.S. In 1832, he began writing short stories, such as "The Masque of the Red Death", "The Pit and the Pendulum", and "The Fall of the House of Usher", that explore hidden depths of human psychology and push the boundaries of fiction. Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", is seen as the firstdetective story.
Humorous writers were also popular and includedSeba Smith andBenjamin Penhallow Shillaber inNew England andDavy Crockett,Augustus Baldwin Longstreet,Johnson J. Hooper,Thomas Bangs Thorpe, andGeorge Washington Harris writing about theAmerican frontier.
InNew England, a group of writers known asBoston Brahmins includedJames Russell Lowell, then in later yearsHenry Wadsworth Longfellow andOliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
In 1836,Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had renounced his ministry, published his essayNature, which argued that men should dispense with organized religion and reach a lofty spiritual state by studying and interacting with the natural world. He expanded his influence with his lecture "The American Scholar", delivered in Cambridge in 1837, which called upon Americans to create a uniquely American writing style. Both the nation and the individual should declare independence.Emerson's influence fostered the movement now known asTranscendentalism. Among the leaders was Emerson's friendHenry David Thoreau, a nonconformist and critic of American commercial culture. After living mostly by himself for two years in a nearby cabin by a wooded pond, Thoreau wroteWalden (1854), a memoir that urges resistance to the dictates of society. Other Transcendentalists includedAmos Bronson Alcott,Margaret Fuller,George Ripley,Orestes Brownson, andJones Very.[34]
As one of the great works of the Revolutionary period was written by a Frenchman, so too was a work about America from this generation. The French politicianAlexis de Tocqueville's two-volumeDemocracy in America (1835 and 1840) described his travels through the young nation, making observations about the relations between American politics, individualism, and community.
The political conflict surroundingabolitionism inspired the writings ofWilliam Lloyd Garrison and his paperThe Liberator, along with the poetJohn Greenleaf Whittier andHarriet Beecher Stowe in her world-famousUncle Tom's Cabin (1852). These efforts were supported by the continuation of the slave narrative autobiography.
In 1837, the youngNathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) collected some of his stories asTwice-Told Tales, a volume rich in symbolism and occult incidents. Hawthorne went on to write full-length "romances", quasi-allegorical novels that explore the themes of guilt, pride, and emotional repression. His masterpiece,The Scarlet Letter (1850), is a drama, set inPuritan Massachusetts, about a woman cast out of her community for committing adultery with a minister who refuses to acknowledge his own sin.
Herman Melville (1819–1891) made a name for himself withTypee andOmoo, adventure tales based loosely on his own life at sea and jumping ship to live among South Sea natives. Becoming a friend of Hawthorne's in 1850, Melville was inspired by his work.Moby-Dick (1851) became not only an adventure tale about the pursuit of a white whale, but also an exploration of obsession, the nature of evil, and human struggle against the elements. It was a critical and commercial failure, as were his subsequent novels. He turned to poetry and did not return to fiction until the short novelBilly Budd, Sailor, which he left unfinished at his death in 1891. In it, Melville dramatizes the conflicting claims of duty and compassion on board a ship in time of war. His more profound books sold poorly, and he had been long forgotten by the time of his death. He was rediscovered in the 1920s.
Anti-transcendental works from Melville, Hawthorne, and Poe all comprise theDark romanticism sub-genre of popular literature at this time.
Slave narrative autobiography from this period includeFrederick Douglass'sNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) andHarriet Jacobs'sIncidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). At this time, American Indian autobiography develops, most notably inWilliam Apess'sA Son of the Forest (1829) andGeorge Copway'sThe Life, History and Travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh (1847). Moreover, minority authors were beginning to publish fiction, as inWilliam Wells Brown'sClotel; or, The President's Daughter (1853),Frank J. Webb'sThe Garies and Their Friends, (1857)Martin Delany'sBlake; or, The Huts of America (1859–62) andHarriet E. Wilson'sOur Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859) as early African American novels, andJohn Rollin Ridge'sThe Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta (1854), which is considered the first American Indian novel but is also an early story that talks aboutMexican-American issues.
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Mark Twain (the pen name used bySamuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910) was among the first major American writers to be born away from the East Coast – in the border state ofMissouri. His regional masterpieces were the memoirLife on the Mississippi and the novelsAdventures of Tom Sawyer andAdventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Twain's style – influenced by journalism, wedded to the vernacular, direct and unadorned but also highly evocative and irreverently humorous – changed the way Americans write their language. His characters speak like real people and sound distinctively American, using local dialects, newly invented words, and regional accents.
Other writers interested in regional differences and dialect wereGeorge W. Cable,Thomas Nelson Page,Joel Chandler Harris,Mary Noailles Murfree (Charles Egbert Craddock),Sarah Orne Jewett,Mary E. Wilkins Freeman,Henry Cuyler Bunner, and William Sydney Porter (O. Henry). A version of local color regionalism that focused on minority experiences can be seen in the works ofCharles W. Chesnutt (writing about African Americans), ofMaría Ruiz de Burton, one of the earliestMexican-American novelists to write in English, and in theYiddish-inflected works ofAbraham Cahan.
William Dean Howells also represented therealist tradition through his novels, includingThe Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) and his work as editor ofThe Atlantic Monthly.
Henry James (1843–1916) confronted the Old World-New World dilemma by writing directly about it. Although he was born in New York City, James spent most of his adult life in England. Many of his novels center on Americans who live in or travel to Europe. With its intricate, highly qualified sentences and dissection of emotional and psychological nuance. His masterpieces includeWashington Square (1880),The Portrait of a Lady (1881),The Bostonians (1886),The Wings of the Dove (1902),The Ambassadors (1903), andThe Golden Bowl (1904).
Stephen Crane (1871–1900), best known for hisAmerican Civil War novelThe Red Badge of Courage (1895), depicted the life of New York City prostitutes inMaggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893). And inSister Carrie (1900),Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) portrayed a country girl who moves to Chicago and becomes a kept woman.Frank Norris's (1870–1902) fiction was predominantly in thenaturalist genre. His notable works includeMcTeague: A Story of San Francisco (1899),The Octopus: A Story of California (1901) andThe Pit (1903). Norris along withHamlin Garland (1860–1940) wrote about the problems of American farmers and other social issues from a naturalist perspective. Garland is best known for his fiction involving hard-workingMidwestern farmers.[35] (Main-Travelled Roads (1891),Prairie Folks (1892),Jason Edwards (1892).[36])
Edward Bellamy'sutopian novelLooking Backward (1888) was concerned with political and social issues.
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At the beginning of the 20th century, American novelists were expanding fiction to encompass a broader range of experiences, and sometimes connected these to thenaturalist school of realism. In her stories and novels,Edith Wharton (1862–1937) scrutinized the upper-class,Eastern-seaboard society in which she had grown up.The Age of Innocence (1920) centers on a man who chooses to marry a conventional, socially acceptable woman rather than a fascinating outsider.
Social issues and the power of corporations was the central concern of some writers at this time.Upton Sinclair (1878–1968), most famous for hismuckraking novelThe Jungle (1906), advocatedsocialism.Jack London (1876–1916) was also very committed to social justice and socialism through some of his books asThe Iron Heel orThe People of the Abyss. Other political writers of the period includedEdwin Markham (1852–1940) andWilliam Vaughn Moody. Journalistic critics, includingIda M. Tarbell andLincoln Steffens, were labeled "The Muckrakers".Henry Brooks Adams's literate autobiography,The Education of Henry Adams (1907), also depicted a stinging description of the education system and modern life.
Race was a common issue as well, as seen in the work ofPauline Hopkins, who published five influential works from 1900 to 1903. Similarly,Sui Sin Far wrote about Chinese-American experiences, andMaria Cristina Mena wrote about Mexican-American experiences.
Prominent among mid-western and western American writers wereWilla Cather (1873–1947) andWallace Stegner (1909–1993), both of whom had a major opus set largely in their regions.
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Experimentation in style and form soon joined the new latitudes in subject matter. In 1909,Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), by then an expatriate in Paris, publishedThree Lives, an innovative work influenced by her familiarity withcubism, jazz, and other movements in contemporary art and music. Stein labeled a group of expatriate literary figures who lived in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s the "Lost Generation," a term later used as by Ernest Hemingway.
The 1920s brought sharp changes to American literature. Many writers had direct experience ofWorld War I, and they used it to frame their writings.[37] Writers like Henry James, Gertrude Stein, and the poetsEzra Pound,H.D. andT. S. Eliot demonstrate the growth of an international perspective in American literature. American writers had long looked to European models for inspiration, but whereas the literary breakthroughs of the mid-19th century came from finding distinctly American styles and themes, writers from this period were finding ways of contributing to a flourishing international literary scene, not as imitators but as equals. Something similar was happening back in the States, as Jewish writers (such asAbraham Cahan) used the English language to reach an international Jewish audience.
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The period of peace and debt-fueled economic expansion that followed WWI was the setting for many of the stories and novels ofF. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940). Fitzgerald's work captured the restless, pleasure-hungry, defiant mood of the 1920s, a decade he namedthe Jazz Age. Fitzgerald's characteristic theme, expressed poignantly in his masterpieceThe Great Gatsby, is the tendency of youth's golden dreams to dissolve in failure and disappointment. Fitzgerald also dwells on the collapse of long-held American Ideals, such as liberty, social unity, good governance and peace, features which were severely threatened by the pressures of modern early 20th century society.[38]Sinclair Lewis andSherwood Anderson also wrote novels with critical depictions of American life.John Dos Passos wrote a famous anti-war novel,Three Soldiers, describing scenes of blind hatred, stupidity, and criminality; and the suffocating regimentation of army life.[39] He also wrote about the war in theU.S.A. trilogy which extended into the Depression.[40] Experimental in form, the U.S.A. trilogy weaves together various narrative strands, which alternate with contemporary news reports, snatches of the author's autobiography, and capsule biographies of public figures includingEugene Debs,Robert La Follette andIsadora Duncan.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), once labelled the "brightest talent of the modern American epoch,"[41] was most famous for his production of short stories and novels such as "The Sun Also Rises" and "A Farewell to Arms." In contrast to writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway is regarded as the predecessor of literaryminimalism, and preferred to write using short prose, avoiding the usage of adverbs and adjectives wherever possible. Hemingway's adoption of this minimalist style came as a result of his time working as a journalist at theKansas City Star.[42] In 1954, Hemingway was awarded theNobel Prize in Literature, and has persisted as one of the most influential writers, both culturally and stylistically, to have emerged from early 20th-Century America.[43]
William Faulkner (1897–1962) won the Nobel Prize in 1949. Faulkner encompassed a wide range of humanity inYoknapatawpha County, aMississippian region of his own invention. He recorded his characters' seemingly unedited ramblings to represent their inner states, a technique called "stream of consciousness". He also jumbled time sequences to show how the past – especially the slave-holding era of theDeep South – endures in the present. Among his great works areAbsalom, Absalom!,As I Lay Dying,The Sound and the Fury, andLight in August.[44]
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Great Depression-era literature offered blunt, direct social criticism.John Steinbeck (1902–1968) set many of his stories inSalinas, California, where he was born. His style was simple and evocative, winning him the favor of the readers but not of the critics. His poor, working-class characters struggled to lead a decent and honest life.The Grapes of Wrath (1939), considered his masterpiece, is a strong, socially-oriented novel of the Joads, a poor family from Oklahoma and their journey to California in search of a better life. Other of his popular novels includeTortilla Flat,Of Mice and Men,Cannery Row, andEast of Eden. He was awarded theNobel Prize in Literature in 1962.
In his short life,Nathanael West produced two short novels that later came to be considered classics.Miss Lonelyhearts plumbs the life of reluctant (and, to comic effect, male)advice columnist who cannot deal with the tragic letters he receives.The Day of the Locust satirizes Hollywood stereotypes and the dark ironies of Hollywood life.
In non-fiction,James Agee'sLet Us Now Praise Famous Men observes and depicts the lives of three struggling tenant-farming families in Alabama in 1936. Combining factual reporting with poetic beauty, Agee presented an accurate and detailed report of what he had seen coupled with insight into his feelings about the experience and the difficulties of capturing it for a broad audience. In doing so, he created an enduring portrait of a nearly invisible segment of the American population.
Henry Miller's semi-autobiographical novels of sexual exploration, written and published in Paris, were deemed pornographic and officially banned from the United States until 1962. By then, the themes and stylistic innovations inTropic of Cancer (1934) andBlack Spring had already set an example that paved the way for sexually frank novels of personal experience of the 1950s and 1960s.
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The period was dominated by the last few of the realisticmodernists, the wildly Romanticbeatniks, and explorations of personal, racial, and ethnic themes.
World War II was the subject of several major novels:Norman Mailer'sThe Naked and the Dead (1948),Joseph Heller'sCatch-22 (1961) andKurt Vonnegut Jr.'sSlaughterhouse-Five (1969). While the Korean war was a source of trauma for the protagonist ofThe Moviegoer (1962), by Southern authorWalker Percy, winner of the National Book Award; his attempt at exploring "the dislocation of man in the modern age."[45]
Though born in Canada, Chicago raisedSaul Bellow became one of the most influential American writers. Works likeThe Adventures of Augie March (1953) andHerzog (1964), Bellow painted vivid portraits of Jewish life in America that opened the way for further work. He was honored by the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976. Other noteworthy novels areJ.D. Salinger'sThe Catcher in the Rye (1951),Sylvia Plath'sThe Bell Jar (1963), and Russian-AmericanVladimir Nabokov'sLolita (1955). The highly popularTo Kill a Mockingbird (1960) byHarper Lee was a less intense novel of racial inequality and white responsibility.
The 1950s poetry and fiction of the "Beat Generation" developed, initially from a New York circle of intellectuals and then established more officially later in San Francisco. The termBeat referred to the countercultural rhythm of the Jazz scene, to a sense of rebellion regarding the conservative stress of post-war society, and to an interest in new forms of spiritual experience through drugs, alcohol, philosophy, and religion (specificallyZen Buddhism).Allen Ginsberg set the tone with his Whitmanesque poemHowl (1956), a work that begins: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness". Among the achievements of the Beats, in the novel, areJack Kerouac'sOn the Road (1957), the chronicle of a soul-searching travel through the continent, andWilliam S. Burroughs'sNaked Lunch (1959), a more experimental work structured as a series of vignettes relating, among other things, the narrator's travels and experiments withhard drugs.
In contrast,John Updike approached American life from a more reflective but no less subversive perspective. His 1960 novelRabbit, Run, the first of four chronicling the rising and falling fortunes ofHarry "Rabbit" Angstrom over the course of four decades against the backdrop of the major events of the second half of the 20th century, broke new ground on its release in its characterization and detail of the American middle class and frank discussion oftaboo topics such asadultery. Notable among Updike's characteristic innovations was his use of present-tense narration, his rich, stylized language, and his attention to sensual detail. His work is also deeply imbued with Christian themes. The two final installments of the Rabbit series,Rabbit is Rich (1981) andRabbit at Rest (1990), were both awarded thePulitzer Prize for Fiction. Other notable works include theHenry Bech novels (1970–98),The Witches of Eastwick (1984),Roger's Version (1986) andIn the Beauty of the Lilies (1996), which literary criticMichiko Kakutani called "arguably his finest".[46]
Frequently linked with Updike is the novelistPhilip Roth. Roth vigorously exploresJewish identity in American society, especially in the postwar era and the early 21st century. Frequently set inNewark, New Jersey, Roth's work is known to be highly autobiographical, and many of Roth's main characters, most famously the Jewish novelistNathan Zuckerman, are thought to bealter egos of Roth. With these techniques, and armed with his articulate and fast-paced style, Roth explores the distinction between reality and fiction in literature while provocatively examining American culture. His most famous work includes the Zuckerman novels, the controversialPortnoy's Complaint (1969), andGoodbye, Columbus (1959). Among the most decorated American writers of his generation, he has won every major American literary award, including the Pulitzer Prize for his major novelAmerican Pastoral (1997).
In the realm of African-American literature,Ralph Ellison's 1952 novelInvisible Man was instantly recognized as among the most powerful and important works of the immediate post-war years. The story of a blackUnderground Man in the urban north, the novel laid bare the often repressed racial tension that still prevailed while also succeeding as anexistential character study.Richard Wright was catapulted to fame by the publication in subsequent years of his now widely studied short story, "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" (1939), and his controversial second novel,Native Son (1940), and his legacy was cemented by the 1945 publication ofBlack Boy, a work in which Wright drew on his childhood and mostlyautodidactic education in the segregated South, fictionalizing and exaggerating some elements as he saw fit. Because of its polemical themes and Wright's involvement with theCommunist Party, the novel's final part, "American Hunger", was not published until 1977.
Perhaps the most ambitious and challenging post-war American novelist wasWilliam Gaddis, whose uncompromising, satiric, and large novels, such asThe Recognitions (1955) andJ R (1975) are presented largely in terms of unattributed dialog that requires almost unexampled reader participation. Gaddis's primary themes include forgery, capitalism, religious zealotry, and the legal system, constituting a sustained polyphonic critique of modern American life. Gaddis's work, though largely ignored for years, anticipated and influenced the development of such ambitious "postmodern" writers of fiction such asThomas Pynchon,David Foster Wallace,Joseph McElroy,William H. Gass, andDon DeLillo. Another neglected and challenging postwar American novelist, albeit one who wrote much shorter works, wasJohn Hawkes, whose surrealvisionary fiction addresses themes of violence and eroticism and experiments audaciously with narrative voice and style. Among his most important works is the short nightmarish novelThe Lime Twig (1961).
In the postwar period, the art of the short story again flourished. Among its most respected practitioners wasFlannery O'Connor, who developed a distinctiveSouthern gothic esthetic in which characters acted at one level as people and at another as symbols. A devout Catholic, O'Connor often imbued her stories, including the contents of the widely studied collectionsA Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories andEverything That Rises Must Converge, and two novels,Wise Blood (1952);The Violent Bear It Away (1960), with deeply religious themes, focusing particularly on the search for truth and religious skepticism against the backdrop of the nuclear age. Other important practitioners of the form includeKatherine Anne Porter,Eudora Welty,John Cheever,Raymond Carver,Tobias Wolff, and the more experimentalDonald Barthelme.
Major American essayists of the 20th century included writers such asJames Baldwin,Gore Vidal,Susan Sontag,Flannery O'Connor[47] andJoan Didion.
Though its exact parameters remain disputable, from the early 1990s to the present day the most salient literary movement has beenpostmodernism.Thomas Pynchon, a seminal practitioner of the form, drew in his work on modernist fixtures such as temporal distortion, unreliable narrators, andinternal monologue and coupled them with distinctly postmodern techniques such asmetafiction,ideogrammatic characterization, unrealistic names (Oedipa Maas, Benny Profane, etc.), plot elements and hyperbolic humor, deliberate use ofanachronisms andarchaisms, a strong focus onpostcolonial themes, and a subversive commingling of high and low culture. In 1973, he publishedGravity's Rainbow, a leading work in this genre, which won theNational Book Award and was unanimously nominated for thePulitzer Prize for Fiction that year. His other major works include his debut,V. (1963),The Crying of Lot 49 (1966),Mason & Dixon (1997), andAgainst the Day (2006).
Toni Morrison, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, writing in a distinctive lyrical prose style, published her controversial debut novel,The Bluest Eye, to critical acclaim in 1970. Coming on the heels of the signing of theCivil Rights Act of 1965, the novel, widely studied in American schools, includes an elaborate description of incestuous rape and explores the conventions of beauty established by a historically racist society, painting a portrait of a self-immolating black family in search of beauty in whiteness. Since then, Morrison has experimented with lyric fantasy, as in her two best-known later works,Song of Solomon (1977) andBeloved (1987), for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; along these lines, the criticHarold Bloom has drawn favorable comparisons toVirginia Woolf,[48] and the Nobel committee to "Faulkner and to the Latin American tradition [ofmagical realism]."[49]Beloved was chosen in a 2006 survey conducted byThe New York Times as the most important work of fiction of the last 25 years.[50]
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Writing in a lyrical, flowing style that eschews excessive use of the comma and semicolon, recallingWilliam Faulkner andErnest Hemingway in equal measure,Cormac McCarthy seizes on the literary traditions of several regions of the United States and includes multiple genres. He writes in theSouthern Gothic aesthetic in his Faulknerian 1965 debut,The Orchard Keeper, andSuttree (1979); in theEpic Western tradition, with grotesquely drawn characters and symbolic narrative turns reminiscent of Melville, inBlood Meridian (1985), which Harold Bloom styled "the greatest single book since Faulkner'sAs I Lay Dying", calling the character ofJudge Holden "short ofMoby Dick, the most monstrous apparition in all of American literature";[51] in a much more pastoral tone in his celebratedBorder Trilogy (1992–98) ofbildungsromans, includingAll the Pretty Horses (1992), winner of theNational Book Award; and in thepost-apocalyptic genre in the Pulitzer Prize-winningThe Road (2007). His novels are noted for achieving both commercial and critical success, several of his works having beenadapted to film.
Don DeLillo, who rose to literary prominence with the publication of his 1985 novel,White Noise, a work broaching the subjects of death and consumerism and doubling as a piece of comic social criticism, began his writing career in 1971 withAmericana. He is listed by Harold Bloom as being among the preeminent contemporary American writers, in the company of such figures as Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, and Thomas Pynchon.[52] His 1997 novelUnderworld chronicles American life through and immediately after theCold War and is usually considered his masterpiece. It was also the runner-up in a survey that asked writers to identify the most important work of fiction of the last 25 years.[50] Among his other important novels areLibra (1988),Mao II (1991) andFalling Man (2007).
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Seizing on the distinctly postmodern techniques ofdigression, narrative fragmentation and elaboratesymbolism, and strongly influenced by the works of Thomas Pynchon,David Foster Wallace began his writing career withThe Broom of the System, published to moderate acclaim in1987. His second novel,Infinite Jest (1996), a futuristic portrait of America and a playful critique of the media-saturated nature of American life, has been consistently ranked among the most important works of the 20th century,[53] and his final novel, unfinished at the time of his death,The Pale King (2011), has garnered much praise and attention. In addition to his novels, he also authored three acclaimed short story collections:Girl with Curious Hair (1989),Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999) andOblivion: Stories (2004).Jonathan Franzen, Wallace's friend and contemporary, rose to prominence after the 2001 publication of hisNational Book Award-winning third novel,The Corrections. He began his writing career in1988 with the well-receivedThe Twenty-Seventh City, a novel centering on his nativeSt. Louis, but did not gain national attention until the publication of his essay,"Perchance to Dream", inHarper's Magazine, discussing the cultural role of the writer in the new millennium through the prism of his own frustrations.The Corrections, atragicomedy about the disintegrating Lambert family, has been called "the literary phenomenon of [its] decade"[54] and was ranked as one of the greatest novels of the past century.[53] In 2010, he publishedFreedom to great critical acclaim.[54][55][56]
Other notable writers at the turn of the century includeMichael Chabon, whose Pulitzer Prize-winningThe Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) tells the story of two friends, Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, as they rise through the ranks of the comics industry in its heyday;Denis Johnson, whose 2007 novelTree of Smoke about falsified intelligence during Vietnam both won the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was called by the criticMichiko Kakutani "one of the classic works of literature produced by [theVietnam War]";[57] andLouise Erdrich, whose 2008 novelThe Plague of Doves, a distinctly Faulknerian, polyphonic examination of the tribal experience set against the backdrop of murder in the fictional town of Pluto, North Dakota, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and her 2012 novelThe Round House, which builds on the same themes, was awarded the2012 National Book Award.[58]
Autofiction is a literary movement that has gained steam in American literature throughout the 21st century. Coined in 1977 by French authorSerge Doubrovsky, the autofictional subgenre blends autobiography and fiction, thereby allowing authors to go beyond the limitations of form and substance imposed by these genres.[59] A well-established term in the French literary world, it has been less discussed in American literary criticism, despite the recent proliferation of such novels.[60]
Of the autofiction genre, English professor Bran Nicol states:
American autofiction is best regarded less as a form which interrogates the complex workings of memory and their effect on subjectivity and more as evidence of the preoccupation with the conditions of authorship, especially institutional, which has characterized American writing in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries.[61]
Notable American authors known to have written in the autofiction genre includeBret Easton Ellis,Sheila Heti,Maggie Nelson,Chris Kraus, andBen Lerner.[62][61]
Puritan poetry was highly religious, and one of the earliest books of poetry published was theBay Psalm Book (1640), a set of translations of the biblicalPsalms; however, the translators' intention was not to create literature, but to create hymns that could be used in worship.[8] Among lyric poets, the most important figures areAnne Bradstreet, who wrote personal poems about her family and homelife; the pastorEdward Taylor, whose poems thePreparatory Meditations were written to help him prepare for leading worship; andMichael Wigglesworth, whose best-selling poem,The Day of Doom (1660), describes the time of judgment. It was published in the same year that anti-PuritanCharles II was restored to the British throne. He followed it two years later withGod's Controversy With New England.Nicholas Noyes was also known for hisdoggerel verse.
The 18th century saw an increasing emphasis on America itself as fit subject matter for its poets. This trend is most evident in the works ofPhilip Freneau (1752–1832), who is also notable for the unusually sympathetic attitude to Native Americans, which was reflective of his skepticism towardAmerican culture.[63] However, this late colonial-era poetry generally was influenced by contemporary poetry in Europe. The work ofRebecca Hammond Lard (1772–1855), is still relevant today, writing about the environment as well as also human nature.[64]
TheFireside Poets (also known as the Schoolroom or Household Poets) were some of America's first major poets domestically and internationally. They were known for their poems being easy to memorize due to their general adherence to poetic form (standardforms, regularmeter, andrhymedstanzas) and were often recited in the home (hence the name) as well as in school (such as "Paul Revere's Ride"), as well as working with distinctly American themes, including some political issues such as abolition. They includedHenry Wadsworth Longfellow,William Cullen Bryant,John Greenleaf Whittier,James Russell Lowell, andOliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Longfellow achieved the highest level of acclaim and is often considered the first internationally acclaimed American poet, being the first American poet given a bust in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.[65]
Walt Whitman (1819–1892) andEmily Dickinson (1830–1886), considered two of America's greatest 19th-century poets, could hardly have been more different in temperament and style.Walt Whitman was a working man, a traveler, a self-appointed nurse during theAmerican Civil War (1861–1865), and a poetic innovator. His magnum opus wasLeaves of Grass, in which he uses a free-flowing verse and lines of irregular length to depict the all-inclusiveness of American democracy. Taking that motif one step further, the poet equates the vast range of American experience with himself without being egotistical. For example, inSong of Myself, the long, central poem inLeaves of Grass, Whitman writes: "These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me".
In his words Whitman was a poet of "the body electric". InStudies in Classic American Literature, the English novelistD. H. Lawrence wrote that Whitman "was the first to smash the old moral conception that the soul of man is something 'superior' and 'above' the flesh."
By contrast,Emily Dickinson lived the sheltered life of a genteel unmarried woman in small-townAmherst, Massachusetts. Her poetry is ingenious, witty, and penetrating. Her work was unconventional for its day, and little of it was published during her lifetime. Many of her poems dwell on the topic of death, often with a mischievous twist. One, "Because I could not stop for Death", begins, "He kindly stopped for me". The opening of another Dickinson poem toys with her position as a woman in a male-dominated society and an unrecognized poet: "I'm nobody! Who are you? / Are you nobody too?"[66]
American poetry arguably reached its peak in the early-to-mid-20th century, with such noted writers asWallace Stevens and hisHarmonium (1923) andThe Auroras of Autumn (1950),T. S. Eliot and hisThe Waste Land (1922),Robert Frost and hisNorth of Boston (1914) andNew Hampshire (1923),Hart Crane and hisWhite Buildings (1926) and the epic cycle,The Bridge (1930),Ezra Pound,The Cantos (1917–1969).William Carlos Williams and his epic poem about his New Jersey hometown,Paterson,Marianne Moore,E. E. Cummings,Edna St. Vincent Millay andLangston Hughes.
Pound's poetry is complex and sometimes obscure, with references to other art forms and to a vast range of Western and Eastern literature.[67] He influenced many poets, notablyT. S. Eliot (1888–1965), another expatriate. Eliot wrote spare, cerebral poetry, carried by a dense structure of symbols. InThe Waste Land, he embodied a jaundiced vision of post–World War I society in fragmented, haunted images. Like Pound's, Eliot's poetry could be highly allusive, and some editions ofThe Waste Land come with footnotes supplied by the poet. In 1948, Eliot won theNobel Prize in Literature.[68]
Among the most respected postwar American poets are:John Ashbery, the key figure of the surrealisticNew York School of poetry, and his celebratedSelf-portrait in a Convex Mirror (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1976);Elizabeth Bishop and herNorth & South (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1956) and "Geography III" (National Book Award, 1970);Richard Wilbur and hisThings of This World, winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for Poetry in 1957;John Berryman and hisThe Dream Songs, (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1964, National Book Award, 1968);A.R. Ammons, whoseCollected Poems 1951–1971 won a National Book Award in 1973 and whose long poemGarbage earned him another in 1993;Theodore Roethke and hisThe Waking (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1954);James Merrill and his epic poem of communication with the dead,The Changing Light at Sandover (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1977);Louise Glück forThe Wild Iris (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1993) andFaithful and Virtuous Night (National Book Award, 2014), who is additionally the only living American author publishing primarily written poetry awarded theNobel Prize in Literature;[69]W.S. Merwin forThe Carrier of Ladders (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1971) andThe Shadow of Sirius (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 2009);Mark Strand forBlizzard of One (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1999);Robert Hass forTime and Materials, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for Poetry in 2008 and 2007 respectively; andRita Dove forThomas and Beulah (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1987).
In addition, in this same period theconfessional, whose origin is often traced to the publication in 1959 ofRobert Lowell'sLife Studies,[70] andbeat schools of poetry enjoyed popular and academic success, producing such widely anthologized voices asAllen Ginsberg,Charles Bukowski,Gary Snyder,Anne Sexton, andSylvia Plath, among many others. Other notable poets of the late 20th century includeLouise Glück,Mary Oliver,Gary Snyder,Robert Pinsky, and others.
Stylistic and cultural diversity remain distinguishing features of American poetry.[72] Notable poets of the 21st century includeAmanda Gorman,Saul Williams,Ocean Vuong,Saeed Jones,Alex Dimitrov,Ada Limón,Ben Lerner, and others.
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Although the American theatrical tradition can be traced back to the arrival ofLewis Hallam's troupe in the mid-18th century and was very active in the 19th century, as seen by the popularity ofminstrel shows and ofadaptations ofUncle Tom's Cabin, American drama attained international status only in the 1920s and 1930s, with the works ofEugene O'Neill, who won fourPulitzer Prizes and theNobel Prize.
American dramatic literature, by contrast, remained dependent on European models, although many playwrights did attempt to apply these forms to American topics and themes, such as immigrants, westward expansion, temperance, etc. At the same time, American playwrights created several long-lasting American character types, especially the "Yankee", the "Negro" and the "Indian", exemplified by the characters ofJonathan,Sambo andMetamora. In addition, new dramatic forms were created in theTom Shows, theshowboat theater and theminstrel show. Among the best plays of the period areJames Nelson Barker'sSuperstition; or, the Fanatic Father,Anna Cora Mowatt'sFashion; or, Life in New York,Nathaniel Bannister'sPutnam, the Iron Son of '76,Dion Boucicault'sThe Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana, andCornelius Mathews'sWitchcraft; or, the Martyrs of Salem.
Realism began to influence American drama, partly through Howells, but also through Europeans such asHenrik Ibsen andÉmile Zola. Although realism was most influential in set design and staging—audiences loved the special effects offered up by the popular melodramas—and in the growth oflocal color plays, it also showed up in the more subdued, less romantic tone that reflected the effects of the Civil War and continued social turmoil on the American psyche.
The most ambitious attempt at bringing modern realism into the drama wasJames Herne'sMargaret Fleming (1890), which addressed issues of social determinism through realistic dialogue, psychological insight, and symbolism. The play was not successful, and both critics and audiences thought it dwelt too much on unseemly topics and included improper scenes, such as the main character nursing her husband's illegitimate child onstage.
In the middle of the 20th century, American drama was dominated by the work of the playwrightsTennessee Williams andArthur Miller, as well as by the maturation of the American musical, which had found a way to integrate script, music and dance in such works asOklahoma! andWest Side Story. Later American playwrights of importance includeEdward Albee,Sam Shepard,David Mamet,August Wilson andTony Kushner.
One of the developments in late-20th-century American literature was the increase of literature written by and about ethnic minorities beyond African Americans and Jewish Americans. This development came alongside the growth of the Civil Rights Movement and its corollary, the ethnic pride movement, which led to the creation ofEthnic Studies programs in most major universities. These programs helped establish the new ethnic literature as worthy objects of academic study, alongside such other new areas of literary study aswomen's literature,gay and lesbian literature,working-class literature,postcolonial literature, and the rise ofliterary theory as a key component of academic literary study.
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The second half of the twentieth century saw the emergence of American Jewish writers such asSaul Bellow,Norman Mailer,Joseph Heller,Philip Roth,Chaim Potok, andBernard Malamud. Potok's novels about a young New York Jewish boy's coming of age,The Chosen andThe Promise figured prominently in this movement.
After being relegated to cookbooks and autobiographies for most of the 20th century, Asian American literature achieved widespread notice throughMaxine Hong Kingston's fictional memoir,The Woman Warrior (1976), and her novelsChina Men (1980) andTripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book. The Chinese-American authorHa Jin in 1999 won theNational Book Award for his second novel,Waiting, about a Chinese soldier in theRevolutionary Army who has to wait 18 years to divorce his wife for another woman, all the while having to worry about persecution for his protracted affair, and twice won thePEN/Faulkner Award, in 2000 forWaiting and in 2005 forWar Trash.
Other notable Asian-American novelists includeAmy Tan, best known for her novel,The Joy Luck Club (1989), tracing the lives of four immigrant families brought together by the game ofMahjong, and Korean American novelistChang-Rae Lee, who has publishedNative Speaker,A Gesture Life, andAloft. Such poets asMarilyn Chin andLi-Young Lee,Kimiko Hahn andJanice Mirikitani have also achieved prominence, as has playwrightDavid Henry Hwang. Equally important has been the effort to recover earlier Asian American authors, started byFrank Chin and his colleagues; this effort has broughtSui Sin Far,Toshio Mori,Carlos Bulosan,John Okada,Hisaye Yamamoto and others to prominence.
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TheIndian-American authorJhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her debut collection of short stories,Interpreter of Maladies (1999), and went on to write a well-received novel,The Namesake (2003), which was shortly adapted tofilm in 2007. In her second collection of stories,Unaccustomed Earth, released to widespread commercial and critical success, Lahiri shifts focus and treats the experiences of thesecond and third generation.
Hispanic literature also became important during this period, starting with acclaimed novels byTomás Rivera (...y no se lo tragó la tierra) andRudolfo Anaya (Bless Me, Ultima), and the emergence of Chicano theater withLuis Valdez andTeatro Campesino. Latina writing became important thanks to authors such asSandra Cisneros, an icon of an emergingChicano literature whose 1983bildungsromanThe House on Mango Street is taught in schools across the United States,Denise Chavez'sThe Last of the Menu Girls andGloria Anzaldúa'sBorderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza.
TheDominican-American authorJunot Díaz received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his 2007 novelThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which tells the story of an overweight Dominican boy growing up as asocial outcast inPaterson, New Jersey. Another Dominican author,Julia Alvarez, is well known forHow the García Girls Lost Their Accents andIn the Time of the Butterflies. TheCuban American authorOscar Hijuelos won a Pulitzer forThe Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, andCristina García received acclaim forDreaming in Cuban.
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Celebrated Puerto Rican novelists who write in English and Spanish includeGiannina Braschi, author of theSpanglish classicYo-Yo Boing! andRosario Ferré, best known for "Eccentric Neighborhoods".[74][75] Puerto Rico has also produced important playwrights such asRené Marqués (The Oxcart),Luis Rafael Sánchez (The Passion of Antigone Perez), andJosé Rivera (Marisol). Major poets ofPuerto Rican diaspora who write about the life of American immigrants includeJulia de Burgos (I was my own route fui),Giannina Braschi (Empire of Dreams), andPedro Pietri (Puerto Rican Obituary). Pietri was a co-founder of theNuyorican Poets Café, a performance space for poetry readings.[75]Lin-Manuel Miranda, aNuyorican poet and playwright, wrote the popularBroadway musicalsHamilton andIn the Heights.[76]
Spurred by the success ofN. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer Prize–winningHouse Made of Dawn, Native American literature showed explosive growth during this period, known as theNative American Renaissance, through such novelists asLeslie Marmon Silko (e.g.,Ceremony),Gerald Vizenor (e.g.,Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles and numerous essays on Native American literature),Louise Erdrich (Love Medicine and several other novels that use a recurring set of characters and locations in the manner ofWilliam Faulkner),James Welch (e.g.,Winter in the Blood),Sherman Alexie (e.g.,The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven), and the poetsSimon Ortiz andJoy Harjo. The success of these authors has brought renewed attention to earlier generations, includingZitkala-Sa,John Joseph Mathews,D'Arcy McNickle andMourning Dove.
More recently,Arab American literature, largely unnoticed since theNew York Pen League of the 1920s, has become more prominent through the work ofDiana Abu-Jaber, whose novels includeArabian Jazz andCrescent and the memoirThe Language of Baklava.
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