American literature 199154 225235851 2008-07-12T16:47:30Z 67.234.188.136 /* American poetry */ {{Usculture}} '''American literature''' refers to written or [[literature|literary work]] produced in the area of the [[United States]] and [[Colonial America]]. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see [[Poetry of the United States]] and [[Theater in the United States]]. ==Overview== During its early history, America was a series of British colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States. Therefore, its literary tradition begins as linked to the broader tradition of [[English literature]]. However, unique American characteristics and the breadth of its production usually now cause it to be considered a separate path and tradition. ==Colonial literature== Some of the earliest forms of American literature were pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies to both a European and colonist audience. [[Captain John Smith]] could be considered the first American author with his works: ''A True Relation of ... Virginia ...'' (1608) and ''The General Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles'' (1624). Other writers of this manner included [[Daniel Denton]], Thomas Ashe, [[William Penn]], [[George Percy]], [[William Strachey]], [[John Hammond (writer)|John Hammond]], [[Daniel Coxe]], [[Gabriel Thomas]], and [[John Lawson]]. The religious disputes that prompted settlement in America were also topics of early writing. A journal written by [[John Winthrop]] discussed the religious foundations of the [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]]. [[Edward Winslow]] also recorded a diary of the first years after the ''[[Mayflower|Mayflower's]]'' arrival. Other religiously influenced writers included [[Increase Mather]] and [[William Bradford (1590-1657)|William Bradford]], author of the journal published as a [[Of Plymouth Plantation|History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47]]. Others like [[Roger Williams (theologian)|Roger Williams]] and [[Nathaniel Ward]] more fiercely argued state and church separation. Some poetry also existed. [[Anne Bradstreet]] and [[Edward Taylor]] are especially noted. [[Michael Wigglesworth]] wrote a best-selling poem, ''[[The Day of Doom]]'', describing the time of judgment. [[Nicholas Noyes]] was also known for his [[doggerel]] verse. Other late writings described conflicts and interaction with the Indians, as seen in writings by [[Daniel Gookin]], [[Alexander Whitaker]], [[John Mason (c.1600-1672)|John Mason]], [[Benjamin Church]], and [[Mary Rowlandson]]. [[John Eliot (missionary)|John Eliot]] translated the [[Bible]] into the [[Algonquin language]]. [[Jonathan Edwards (theologian)|Jonathan Edwards]] and George Whitefield represented the [[Great Awakening]], a religious revival in the early 18th century that asserted strict [[Calvinism]]. Other Puritan and religious writers include [[Thomas Hooker]], [[Thomas Shepard]], [[Uriah Oakes]], [[John Wise (clergyman)|John Wise]], and [[Samuel Willard]]. Less strict and serious writers included [[Samuel Sewall]], [[Sarah Kemble Knight]], and [[William Byrd]]. The revolutionary period also contained political writings, including those by colonists [[Samuel Adams]], [[Josiah Quincy II|Josiah Quincy]], [[John Dickinson (delegate)|John Dickinson]], and [[Joseph Galloway]], a loyalist to the crown. Two key figures were [[Benjamin Franklin]] and [[Thomas Paine]]. Franklin's ''[[Poor Richard's Almanac]]'' and ''[[The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin]]'' are esteemed works with their wit and influence toward the formation of a budding American identity. Paine's pamphlet ''[[Common Sense (Book)|Common Sense]]'' and ''The American Crisis'' writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the political tone of the period. During the revolution itself, poems and songs such as "[[Yankee Doodle]]" and "[[Nathan Hale]]" were popular. Major satirists included [[John Trumbull (poet)|John Trumbull]] and [[Francis Hopkinson]]. [[Philip Morin Freneau]] also wrote poems about the war's course. ==Early U.S. literature== [[Image:James Fenimore Cooper by Jarvis.jpg|right|thumb|[[James Fenimore Cooper]] portrait by [[John Wesley Jarvis]], 1822.]] In the post-war period, [[The Federalist]] essays by [[Alexander Hamilton]], [[James Madison]], and [[John Jay]] prepresented a historical discussion of government organization and republican values. [[Thomas Jefferson]]'s [[United States Declaration of Independence]], his influence on the Constitution, his autobiography, the [[Notes on the State of Virginia]], and the mass of his letters have led to him being considered one of the most talented early American writers. [[Fisher Ames]], [[James Otis, Jr.|James Otis]], and [[Patrick Henry]] are also valued for their political writings and orations. The first American novel is sometimes considered to be [[William Hill Brown]]'s ''[[The Power of Sympathy]]'' ([[1789]]). Much of the early literature of the new nation struggled to find a uniquely American voice. [[Europe]]an forms and styles were often transferred to new locales and critics often saw them as inferior. For example, ''[[Wieland (novel)|Wieland]]'' and other [[novel]]s by [[Charles Brockden Brown]] (1771-1810) are often seen as imitations of the [[Gothic novel]]s then being written in [[England]]. ==Unique American style== With the [[War of 1812]] and an increasing desire to produce uniquely American work, a number of key new literary figures appeared, perhaps most prominently [[Washington Irving]], [[William Cullen Bryant]], [[James Fenimore Cooper]], and [[Edgar Allan Poe]]. Irving, often considered the first writer to develop a unique American style (although this is debated) wrote humorous works in ''[[Salmagundi]]'' and the well-known satire ''[[A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker]]'' (1809). Bryant wrote early romantic and nature-inspired poetry, which evolved away from their European origins. In 1832, Poe began writing short stories -- including "[[The Masque of the Red Death]]," "[[The Pit and the Pendulum]]," "[[The Fall of the House of Usher]]," and "[[The Murders in the Rue Morgue]]" -- that explore previously hidden levels of human psychology and push the boundaries of fiction toward [[mystery fiction|mystery]] and [[fantasy]]. Cooper's [[Leatherstocking]] tales about [[Natty Bumppo]] were popular both in the new country and abroad. Humorous writers were also popular and included [[Seba Smith]] and [[Benjamin P. Shillaber]] in [[New England]] and [[Davy Crockett]], [[Augustus Baldwin Longstreet]], [[Johnson J. Hooper]], [[Thomas Bangs Thorpe]], [[Joseph G. Baldwin]], and [[George Washington Harris]] writing about the American frontier. The [[Boston Brahmin|New England Brahmins]] were a group of writers connected to [[Harvard University]] and its seat in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]]. The core included [[James Russell Lowell]], [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]], and [[Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.]] In 1836, [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]] (1803-1882), an ex-minister, published a startling nonfiction work called ''Nature'', in which he claimed it was possible to dispense with organized religion and reach a lofty spiritual state by studying and responding to the natural world. His work influenced not only the writers who gathered around him, forming a movement known as [[Transcendentalism]], but also the public, who heard him lecture. Emerson's most gifted fellow-thinker was perhaps [[Henry David Thoreau]] (1817-1862), a resolute nonconformist. After living mostly by himself for two years in a cabin by a wooded pond, Thoreau wrote ''[[Walden]]'', a book-length memoir that urges resistance to the meddlesome dictates of organized society. His radical writings express a deep-rooted tendency toward individualism in the American character. Other writers influenced by Transcendentalism were [[Bronson Alcott]], [[Margaret Fuller]], [[George Ripley]], [[Orestes Brownson]], and [[Jones Very]]. The political conflict surrounding [[Abolitionism]] inspired the writings of [[William Lloyd Garrison]] and his paper ''[[The Liberator]]'', along with poet [[John Greenleaf Whittier]] and [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]] in her world-famous ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]''. In 1837, the young [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]] (1804-1864) collected some of his stories as ''[[Twice-Told Tales]]'', a volume rich in symbolism and occult incidents. Hawthorne went on to write full-length "romances," quasi-allegorical novels that explore such themes as guilt, pride, and emotional repression in his native [[New England]]. His masterpiece, ''[[The Scarlet Letter]]'', is the stark drama of a woman cast out of her community for committing adultery. {{History of literature4}} Hawthorne's fiction had a profound impact on his friend [[Herman Melville]] (1819-1891), who first made a name for himself by turning material from his seafaring days into exotic novels. Inspired by Hawthorne's example, Melville went on to write novels rich in philosophical speculation. In ''[[Moby-Dick]]'', an adventurous whaling voyage becomes the vehicle for examining such themes as obsession, the nature of evil, and human struggle against the elements. In another fine work, the short novel ''[[Billy Budd (novel)|Billy Budd]]'', 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 early decades of the 20th century. Anti-transcendental works from Melville, Hawthorne, and Poe all comprise the [[Dark romanticism|Dark Romanticism]] subgenre of literature popular during this time. ==American poetry== [[Image:Whitman-young.jpg|thumb|left|[[Walt Whitman]], 1856.]] America's two greatest 19th-century poets could hardly have been more different in temperament and style. [[Walt Whitman]] (1819-1892) was a working man, a traveler, a self-appointed nurse during the [[American Civil War]] (1861-1865), and a poetic innovator. His magnum opus was ''[[Leaves 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, in ''[[Song of Myself]]'', the long, central poem in ''Leaves of Grass'', Whitman writes: "These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me...." Whitman was also a poet of the body -- "the body electric," as he called it. In ''Studies in Classic American Literature'', the English novelist [[D. 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." [[Emily Dickinson]] (1830-1886), on the other hand, lived the sheltered life of a genteel unmarried woman in small-town [[Amherst, Massachusetts]]. Within its formal structure, her poetry is ingenious, witty, exquisitely wrought, and psychologically penetrating. Her work was unconventional for its day, and little of it was published during her lifetime. Many of her poems dwell on death, often with a mischievous twist. "[[Because I could not stop for Death]]" one 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?" American poetry arguably reached its peak in the early to mid 20th century, with such noted writers as [[Wallace Stevens]], [[Sylvia Plath]], [[Anne Sexton]] [[Ezra Pound]], [[T. S. Eliot]], [[William Carlos Williams]], [[Robert Frost]], [[Carl Sandburg]], [[Robinson Jeffers]], [[Hart Crane]], [[e. e. cummings]], [[John Berryman]], [[Allen Ginsberg]], [[Robert Lowell]], [[Edna St. Vincent Millay]], and many others ==Realism, Twain and James== [[Image:MarkTwain1907.jpg|left|thumb|[[Mark Twain]], 1907.]] Mark Twain (the pen name of [[Mark Twain|Samuel Langhorne Clemens]], 1835-1910) was the first major American writer to be born away from the East Coast -- in the border state of [[Missouri]]. His regional masterpieces were the memoir ''[[Life on the Mississippi]]'' and the novel ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]''. Twain's style -- influenced by journalism, wedded to the vernacular, direct and unadorned but also highly evocative and irreverently funny -- 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 were [[George 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]]). [[William Dean Howells]] also represented the [[realism (arts)|realist]] tradition through his novels, including ''[[The Rise of Silas Lapham]]'' and his work as editor of the ''[[Atlantic Monthly]]''. [[Henry James]] (1843-1916) confronted the Old World-New World dilemma by writing directly about it. Although born in [[New York City]], he spent most of his adult years 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, James's fiction can be daunting. Among his more accessible works are the novellas ''[[Daisy Miller]]'', about an enchanting American girl in Europe, and ''[[The Turn of the Screw]]'', an enigmatic ghost story. ==Turn of the century== [[Image:Hemingway WorldWarIYoung.gif|thumb|[[Ernest Hemingway]] in [[World War I]] uniform.]] At the beginning of the 20th century, American novelists were expanding fiction's social spectrum to encompass both high and low life and sometimes connected to the [[naturalism (literature)|naturalist]] 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. One of her finest books, ''[[The Age of Innocence]]'', centers on a man who chooses to marry a conventional, socially acceptable woman rather than a fascinating outsider. At about the same time, [[Stephen Crane]] (1871-1900), best known for his Civil War novel ''[[The Red Badge of Courage]]'', depicted the life of New York City prostitutes in ''[[Maggie: A Girl of the Streets]]''. And in ''[[Sister Carrie]]'', [[Theodore Dreiser]] (1871-1945) portrayed a country girl who moves to [[Chicago, Illinois|Chicago]] and becomes a kept woman. [[Hamlin Garland]] and [[Frank Norris]] wrote about the problems of American farmers and other social issues from a naturalist perspective. More directly political writings discussed social issues and power of corporations. Some like [[Edward Bellamy]] in ''[[Looking Backward]]'' outlined other possible political and social frameworks. [[Upton Sinclair]], most famous for his meat-packing novel ''[[The Jungle]]'', advocated [[socialism]]. Other political writers of the period included [[Edwin Markham]], [[William Vaughn Moody]]. Journalistic critics, including [[Ida M. Tarbell]] and [[Lincoln Steffens]] were labeled the [[The Muckrakers]]. [[Henry Adams]]' literate autobiography, ''[[The Education of Henry Adams]]'' also depicted a stinging description of the education system and modern life. Experimentation in style and form soon joined the new freedom in subject matter. In 1909, [[Gertrude Stein]] (1874-1946), by then an expatriate in [[Paris]], published ''[[Three Lives]]'', an innovative work of fiction influenced by her familiarity with cubism, jazz, and other movements in contemporary art and music. Stein labeled a group of American literary notables who lived in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s as the "[[Lost Generation]]". The poet [[Ezra Pound]] (1885-1972) was born in [[Idaho]] but spent much of his adult life in Europe. His work is complex, sometimes obscure, with multiple references to other art forms and to a vast range of literature, both Western and Eastern. He influenced many other poets, notably [[T. S. Eliot]] (1888-1965), another expatriate. Eliot wrote spare, cerebral poetry, carried by a dense structure of symbols. In "The 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 of ''[[The Waste Land]]'' come with footnotes supplied by the poet. In 1948, Eliot won the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]]. American writers also expressed the disillusionment following upon the war. The stories and novels of [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]] (1896-1940) capture the restless, pleasure-hungry, defiant mood of the 1920s. Fitzgerald's characteristic theme, expressed poignantly in ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'', is the tendency of youth's golden dreams to dissolve in failure and disappointment. [[Sinclair Lewis]] and [[Sherwood Anderson]] also wrote novels with critical depictions of American life. [[John Dos Passos]] wrote about the war and also the [[U.S.A. trilogy]] which extended into the Depression. [[Image:Francis Scott Fitzgerald 1937 June 4 (1) (photo by Carl van Vechten).jpg|thumb|left|[[F. Scott Fitzgerald]], photographed by [[Carl van Vechten]], 1937.]] [[Ernest Hemingway]] (1899-1961) saw violence and death first-hand as an ambulance driver in [[World War I]], and the carnage persuaded him that abstract language was mostly empty and misleading. He cut out unnecessary words from his writing, simplified the sentence structure, and concentrated on concrete objects and actions. He adhered to a moral code that emphasized grace under pressure, and his protagonists were strong, silent men who often dealt awkwardly with women. ''[[The Sun Also Rises]]'' and ''[[A Farewell to Arms]]'' are generally considered his best novels; in 1954, he won the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]]. Five years before Hemingway, another American novelist had won the Nobel Prize: [[William Faulkner]] (1897-1962). Faulkner managed to encompass an enormous range of humanity in [[Yoknapatawpha County]], a [[Mississippi]]an region of his own invention. He recorded his characters' seemingly unedited ramblings in order to represent their inner states, a technique called "[[Stream of consciousness writing|stream of consciousness]]." (In fact, these passages are carefully crafted, and their seemingly chaotic structure conceals multiple layers of meaning.) He also jumbled time sequences to show how the past -- especially the slave-holding era of the [[Deep South]] -- endures in the present. Among his great works are ''[[The Sound and the Fury]]'', ''[[Absalom, Absalom!]]'', ''[[Go Down, Moses]]'', and ''[[The Unvanquished]]''. [[Great Depression|Depression]] era literature was blunt and direct in its social criticism. [[John Steinbeck]] (1902-1968) was born in [[Salinas, California]], where he set many of his stories. His style was simple and evocative, winning him the favor of the readers but not of the critics. Steinbeck often wrote about poor, working-class people and their struggle to lead a decent and honest life; he was probably the most socially aware writer of his period. ''[[The Grapes of Wrath]]'', considered his masterpiece, is a strong, socially-oriented novel that tells the story of the Joads, a poor family from Oklahoma and their journey to [[California]] in search of a better life. Other popular novels include ''[[Tortilla Flat]]'', ''[[Of Mice and Men]]'', ''[[Cannery Row (novel)|Cannery Row]]'', and ''[[East of Eden]]''. He was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1962. Other writers sometimes considered part of the [[proletarian]] school include [[Nathanael West]], [[Fielding Burke]], [[Jack Conroy]], [[Tom Kromer]], [[Robert Cantwell]], [[Albert Halper]], and [[Edward Anderson]]. [[Henry Miller]] assumed a unique place in American Literature in the 1930's when his semi-autobiographical novels, written and published in Paris, were banned from the US. Although his major works, which include [[Tropic of Cancer (novel)]] and [[Black Spring]], wouldn't be cleared for American sale and publication until 1962, their themes and stylistic innovations had already exerted a major influence on succeeding generations of American writers. ==Post-World War II== [[Image:Normanmailer.jpg|thumb|right|Norman Mailer, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1948]] The period in time from the end of [[World War II]] up until, roughly, the late 1960s and early 1970s saw to the publication of some of the most popular works in American history. The last few of the more realistic [[Modernist]]s along with the wildly Romantic [[Beatnik]]s largely dominated the period, while the direct respondents to America’s involvement in World War II contributed in their notable influence. Though born in Canada, Chicago-raised [[Saul Bellow]] would become the most influential novelist in America in the decades following World War II. In works like [[Augie March]] and [[Henderson the Rain King]], Bellow painted vivid portraits of the American city and the distinctive characters peopling it. Bellow went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. From [[J.D. Salinger]]’s ''[[Nine Stories]]'' and ''[[The Catcher in the Rye]]'' to [[Sylvia Plath]]’s ''[[The Bell Jar]]'', America’s madness was placed to the forefront of the nation’s literary expression. Émigré Authors such as [[Vladimir Nabokov]], with ''[[Lolita]]'', forged on with the theme, and, at almost the same time, the [[Beatnik]]s took a concerted step away from their [[Lost Generation]] predecessors. The poetry and fiction of the "[[Beat Generation]]," largely born of a circle of intellects formed in [[New York City]] around [[Columbia University]] and established more officially some time later in [[San Francisco]], came of age. The term, Beat, referred, all at the same time, 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, and specifically through [[Zen Buddhism]]. [[Allen Ginsberg]] set the tone of the movement in his poem ''[[Howl]]'' a Whitmanesque work that began: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness...." At the same time, his good friend [[Jack Kerouac]] (1922-1969) celebrated the Beats' rollicking, spontaneous, and vagrant life-style in, among many other works, his masterful and most popular novel ''[[On the Road]]''. Regarding the war novel specifically, there was a literary explosion in America during the post-[[World War II]] era. Some of the most well known of the works produced included [[Norman Mailer]]'s ''[[The Naked and the Dead]]'' (1948), [[Joseph Heller]]'s ''[[Catch-22]]'' (1961) and [[Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]]'s ''[[Slaughterhouse-Five]]'' (1969). ''[[MacBird]]'', written by [[Barbara Garson]], was another well-received work exposing the absurdity of war. In contrast, [[John Updike]] showcased what could be called the more idyllic side of American life, approaching it from a quiet, but subversive writing style. His 1960 book [[Rabbit, Run]] broke new ground on its release by its characterization and detail of the American middle class. It is also credited as one of the first novels to ever use the present tense in its narration. [[Ralph Ellison]]'s 1953 novel [[Invisible Man]] was instantly recognized as among the most powerful and sensational works of the immediate post-war years. The story of a black man in the urban north, the novel laid bare the often repressed racial tension still prevailing in the nation while also succeeding as an existential character study. [[Flannery O'Connor]] (b. March 25, 1925 in Georgia – d. August 3, 1964 in Georgia) also explored and developed the theme of 'the South' in American literature that was dear to [[Mark Twain]] and other leading authors of American literary history (''[[Wise Blood]]'' 1952 ; ''[[The Violent Bear It Away]]'' 1960 ; ''[[Everything That Rises Must Converge]]'' - her best known short story, and an eponymous collection published posthumously in 1965). ==Contemporary American fiction== From roughly the early 1970s until present day, the most well known literary category, though often contested as a proper title, has been [[Postmodernism]]. Notable, intellectually well-received writers of the period have included [[Thomas Pynchon]], [[Tim O'Brien]], [[Robert Stone]], [[Don DeLillo]], [[Paul Auster]], [[Toni Morrison]], [[Philip Roth]], [[Cormac McCarthy]], [[Raymond Carver]], [[John Cheever]], [[Joyce Carol Oates]] and [[Annie Dillard]]. Authors typically labeled Postmodern have dealt with and are today dealing directly with many of the ways that popular culture and mass media have influenced the average American's perception and experience of the world, which is quite often criticized along with the American government, and, in many cases, with America's history, but especially with the average American's perception of his or her own history. Many Postmodern authors are also well known for setting scenes in fast food restaurants, on subways, or in shopping malls; they write about drugs, plastic surgery, and television commercials. Sometimes, these depictions look almost like celebrations. But simultaneously, writers in this school take a knowing, self-conscious, sarcastic, and (some critics would say) condescending attitude towards their subjects. [[Bret Easton Ellis]], [[Dave Eggers]], [[Chuck Palahniuk]], and [[David Foster Wallace]] are, perhaps, most well known for these particular tendencies. ==Minority focuses in American literature== *[[Southern literature]] *[[African American literature]] *[[Jewish American literature]] *[[List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas]] *[[List of Asian American Writers]] *[[Armenian American literature]] *[[LGBT literature]] *[[List of Arab American writers]] *[[:Category:Hispanic American writers|Hispanic American writers]] ==Additional genres== *[[Detective fiction]] *[[Horror fiction]] *[[Romance novel]] *[[Science fiction]] and [[fantasy fiction|fantasy]] *[[Western fiction]] ==References== * ''New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage'' by Alpana Sharma Knippling (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996) * ''Asian American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook'' by Emmanuel S. Nelson (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000) ==External links== * [http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/esimonds/bl-esimonds-student-1-1.htm A Student's History of American Literature (1902) by Edward Simonds] * [http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/ Electronic Texts in American Studies] {{United States topics}} [[Category:American culture]] [[Category:American studies]] [[Category:American literature| ]] [[ar:أدب أمريكي]] [[bs:Američka književnost]] [[bg:Американска литература]] [[ca:Literatura dels Estats Units d'Amèrica]] [[cs:Americká literatura]] [[de:Amerikanische Literatur]] [[es:Literatura de Estados Unidos]] [[fr:Littérature américaine]] [[hi:अमेरिकी साहित्य]] [[it:Letteratura americana]] [[ka:ამერიკული ლიტერატურა]] [[hu:Az USA irodalma]] [[ja:アメリカ文学]] [[pl:Literatura amerykańska]] [[pt:Literatura dos Estados Unidos da América]] [[ru:Американская литература]] [[sk:Americká literatúra]] [[sv:Litteratur i USA]] [[vi:Văn học Mỹ]] [[tr:ABD edebiyatı]] [[zh:美国文学]]