The ministry of higher and secondary education of the republic of uzbekistan

THE MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND SECONDARY EDUCATION OF THE

REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
SAMARQAND STATE INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN LANGUANGES
FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

On the theme: Contribution of American writers on the American literature.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

RESEACHER: SHARIPOVA SHAXLO

SCIENTIFIC ADVISER: ZAFAR DAMINOVICH ERDANOV
Group 2103
The work is defended on “____”______
And is assessed at “________”scores
CONTENTS

Introduction……………………………………………………………..…………3

MAIN PART:
CHAPTER I. Literature.
1.1.What is an American literature?………………….……..8
1.2. Colonial literature and Post-Indipendence literature…12
CHAPTER II. The Greatest an American literature.
2.1. Who are the most American authors?…………………19
2.2. Why are American writers important?……………..…24
Conclusion…….………………………………………………29
The list of the used literature……….……………………….31
INTRODUCTION.
Relevance of the topic - English literature is a component part of the world literature. Its best national traditions have played an important role in enriching and development of the world literature. English literature consists of poetry, prose and drama written in the English language by authors in England, Scotland, and Wales. These lands have produced many outstanding writers. English literature is a rich literature. It includes masterpieces in many forms, particularly a novel, a short story, an epic and lyric poetry, an essay, literary criticism, and drama. English literature is also one of the oldest national literatures in the world. The masters of English literature from the turn of the XIV century to the present rank among the world's greatest literary figures. Such names as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, George Gordon Byron, Charles Dickens, Bernard Shaw, John Galsworthy and many others are famous all over the world. Their manner of writing has influenced a great number of writers, poets and playwrights from other countries. National literature is the reflection of the history and national peculiarities of people. Each national literature has much in common with the world literary progress, but at the same time has its own specific features as well. One of the characteristic features of the English authors is that they have always been deeply interested. in political and social environment of their time. They are parts of the real world, which dramatically influences what and how they write. What takes place in the writer's study is crucial, but it alsoemphasizes the importance of what takes place in the larger world.
American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also includes literature of other traditions produced in the United States and in other immigrant languages.[1] Furthermore, a rich tradition of oral storytelling exists amongst Native Americans.[2]
The American Revolutionary Period (1775–1783) is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. An early novel is William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy published in 1791. Writer and critic John Neal in the early-mid nineteenth century helped advance America's progress toward a unique literature and culture, by criticizing predecessors like Washington Irving for imitating their British counterparts and influencing others like Edgar Allan Poe.[3] Edgar Allan Poe took American poetry and short fiction in new directions. Ralph Waldo Emerson pioneered the influential Transcendentalism movement; Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, was influenced by this movement. The conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired the writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe and by slave narratives, such as those by Frederick Douglass. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the dark side of American history, as did Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). Major American poets of the nineteenth century include Walt Whitman, Melville, and Emily Dickinson. Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born away from the East Coast. Henry James achieved international recognition with novels like The Portrait of a Lady (1881).
American Literature reflects the author 's life and the experiences that he or she has faced in their life. I find American literature very unique due to the fact that it itself is unique. Everyone has different backgrounds that inspire their writing and that is reflected by what they put on paper. No one in the world has had the same exact experiences as each other and that is why everyone’s writing is so unique.Every person from all sorts of backgrounds contribute to the literary world of America.
Since the end of the Second World War to the present day, he people of the United States of America have witnessed the incredible economic and technological growth of their nation into a global cultural and military superpower. These years of growth also have often been times of radical cultural transformation, during which the nation reassessed its traditions. Americans in this period lived through times of war and times of peace, decades of cultural conformity and decades of social revolt. For the first two decades of this period, Americans lived in a racially segregated nation; they now live in a multicultural nation that has twice elected a black president. For much of this period, Americans lived in a world of ideologically warring superpowers poised on the brink of nuclear annihilation; they now live in a world intimately connected by massive computer networks and a complex global economy, yet one still riven by dangerous religious and economic disputes. In popular culture, Americans’ tastes in music have moved from jazz and rock and roll to hip-hop and electronic music. In the visual arts, Americans have seen the explosive canvases of abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock become the Campbell’s Soup cans of pop artists such as Andy Warhol and then the video screens of cable television’s MTV and multimedia artists on YouTube. Their art and entertainment have come to them increasingly through technologies, starting with film and radio, then television, and now the Internet. In the literature of this amazingly transformative era, we find a record of how the nation has known, questioned, and even redefined itself. When the United States ended the Second World War by dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nation was well positioned to assume a role of global leadership. While the cities and factories of both its enemies Germany and Japan and its allies Britain and the Soviet Union were destroyed in the war, the continental U.S. was never attacked. The American industries that won the war quickly retooled to win the peace, selling cars, radios, and washing machines within an increasingly global economy and ushering in an era of unparalleled American prosperity. The United States government spent tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to rebuild its former enemies Germany and Japan, ensuring that they would be both economic and military allies in the future. The GI Bill paid for an unprecedented number of young American men to attend colleges and buy homes, creating a huge professional middle class eager to work for the nation’s mighty high-tech corporations and live in its swiftly growing new suburbs. The decade and a half following the Second World War is often called the age of conformity, as the nation’s large, college-educated middle class embraced the values of the nuclear family and sought happiness, after years of desperate war, in their society’s newfound abundance of consumer goods. Yet the peace was short lived, and there was dissent at home. In the midst of this postwar era of prosperity, Allen Ginsberg composed his great poem “Howl,” in which he lambasted the nation’s conformist culture for destroying its best and brightest citizens. Authors of the Beat movement of the 1950s such as Ginsberg celebrated America’s countercultures and sought to free literature from traditional Page | 720 Writing the Nation American Literature Since 1945 (1945 - Present) formalism and align it more closely with the improvisatory musical solos of jazz, the spontaneous drips and splashes of abstract expressionist action painting, and the everyday utterances of the American street. Storytellers of the second wave of the Southern Renaissance resisted America’s culture of conformity and embraced their distinctive regionality, with Georgia author Flannery O’Connor lamenting in her essay, “The Fiction Writer and His Country,” that the traditional American South was “getting more and more like” the rest of the materialistic, money-hungry nation. Poets during this period, such as Theodore Roethke and Sylvia Plath, began sharing intimate, sometimes disturbing details from their lives in a newly confessional mode of poetry that showed how the nuclear family could be a source of stress as well as stability, ultimately showing the nation how the personal situation of the writer could represent the politics of the nation as a whole. On the world stage, the Soviet Union organized the Eastern European nations it had conquered during the Second World War into a political bloc dedicated to Russian-led state socialism under which the state owns all businesses and administers all social services as opposed to American-led free-market capitalism, under which private individuals own all businesses. The former allies found themselves competing for the hearts and minds of the world over the value of their respective social systems. When the Soviet Union tested its own atomic bomb in 1949, the U.S. and the Soviet Union entered into a conflict called the Cold War. The two enemies proceeded to build tens of thousands of nuclear weapons over the following decades to deter each from attacking the other, accumulating enough atomic bombs to destroy human civilization many times over. The U.S. committed itself to a policy of Soviet containment, checking the influence of the so-called red menace abroad through foreign aid and limited military action, and prosecuting American artists and activists with leftist sympathies at home through such venues as the House Un-American Activities Committee. Some of the authors in this chapter had their careers curtailed during this fearful period because of their political beliefs, as when poet William Carlos Williams was stripped of his consultancy to the Library of Congress in 1952 for once having written a poem titled “Russia.” In addition to grappling with the threats of nuclear war and the red menace, Americans at this time were also grappling with the homegrown injustice of racial segregation. Up until 1965, Americans in many states lived under Jim Crow laws that disenfranchised African-Americans, keeping black American citizens socially separate from and legally inferior to white citizens. The civil rights and black power movements of the 1950s and 60s, led by Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, increasingly showed the nation that the experience of its prosperous, college-educated white middle class was not the experience of all Americans. The often-violent struggle to desegregate America was televised across the nation, unifying the country within a new television culture in the very act of displaying its deep ideological divisions.

CHAPTER I. Literature.

1.1.What is an American literature.
The American cultural identity and civilization are both transcribed in the body of literature that this nation has produced. The rich literary output reflects the general characteristics of the country’s ongoing reinvention and redefinition. These features are part of what makes of the American literary scene a highly representative and dynamic construction. A brief survey of examples from the different literary genres shows to what extent such works are anchored in their American context out of the writers’ great desire to affirm the American identity and values. Therefore, this essay is going to show that although American literature has a rather short history, compared with the European literary tradition, it nevertheless captures the spirit of the American nation and goes along with the significant evolution that America has known. The first social background that shaped American literature is Puritanism. Actually, the early American tradition goes back to the Puritans and to their doctrine that they instilled in literature starting from the seventeenth century and even later on. Puritans were mostly settlers of British origin, which influenced the cultural atmosphere in New England, though, subsequently, Puritans wanted to assert their break-up from England. For instance, the founding fathers of American literature copied the formal English style of writing. Puritans’ lifestyle was rather ascetic, and came to be labelled as ‘Puritanism’. This doctrine is an assortment of values such as hard work, self-restraint, piety, sobriety, and the belief in predestination. One of the most representative works that reflects the age is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) which illustrates the stern conservatism and rigidity with which the Puritan Massachusetts’s community sanctions an adulteress and shames her in public. Other Puritan values are defended in the early Puritan literature, journals, letters, and the like. Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanac” reflects the austerity of Puritans’ social and moral codes. Their rules lay emphasis on work ethics which are consequently thought to be the very foundations of American democracy and sense of enterprise, since they point the way for the ordinary individual to rise from poverty to wealth and fame. American literature’s adoption of such values makes it diverge from British literature which enhances social hierarchy as a natural order. Soon, these differences nurtured the desire for separation from Britain. Paine’s Common Sense is among the best examples illustrating such itch for independence. Pamphlets of this kind served as a stepping-stone towards separation from Old Britain. Common Sense and American Crisis support an independent and self-governing America. They filled the audience with a strong sense of patriotism during the American Independence War. This will to cut ties with Old Britain could be found in every genre: in Paine’s pamphlets, Frenau’s poems, M. Warren’s drama, Madison’s articles, and the like. It nearly goes without saying that exploring the Americanness of American literature should refer to the most typically American trend, namely Transcendentalism. As another intellectual product of New England, this philosophy is born from the need to give America its specific literary identity, as was Emerson’s wish. Actually, like British Romanticism, both trends meet in taking interest in nature and in ascribing imaginative and emotional qualities to poetry. However, Transcendentalism goes steps further in emphasizing the importance of the individual as a distinct being, but also as a part of the Oversoul which is the union of all human beings with the spirit of God, as Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman maintain in their works. A telling example of this tendency can be seen in Whitman’s seminal collection of poems known as Leaves of Grass, in particular in his epic poem titled “Song of Myself.” Whitman devotes this long poem to the celebration of the modern, democratic American individual who believes in the values of equality and freedom for all citizens, regardless of their race, gender, or social background. Whitman’s ideas represent a major source of inspiration to a large number of novelists and poets, such as Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson, to name but the most prominent ones. A different set of themes and new writing styles goes along with the country’s subsequent progress. The latter half of the 19th century is marked by a widening contrast between wealth and poverty owing to the impact of the American Civil War and the growing Industrialization. This resulted in a common feeling of frustration and disillusionment among Americans, which led to the adoption of a new literary movement, namely Realism. While Realism comes as a reaction to the fantasy of Romanticism, it offers a fair portrayal of real life: the misery of ordinary people, the hardships faced by poor and middle classes, the discrimination undergone by minorities, as well as the importance of places in America, known as « Regionalism » or « Local Colorism. » Indeed, Realists stress the impact of society on the individual, as in works by Mark Twain. Known for his blatantly rough humor and coarse social satire, Twain provides a detailed illustration of the Mississipian context in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In a humorous, though seriously solemn and reverent style, Twain’s novels attempt to expose the dark facet of what writers previously idealized. Other novelists, like Henry James, targeted the psychological side of Americans through the textualization of an innocent American’s encounter with the sophisticated European civilization. James significantly contributed new aspects to Realism by being the forerunner of the « stream of consciousness » novels and the founder of Psychological Realism. His Daisy Miller tells the story of a love affair between a European young man and an American girl, Daisy Miller. Her erratic, provocative and teasing behavior confuses her lover, since she acts against European social norms. Eventually, the fact that Winterbourne leaves her by the end of the novel spawns deeper significances beneath the lines. During the last decade of the 19th century, American literature moved towards Naturalism as a new trend. Naturalism developed from Realism and from the influence of the nineteenth century French literature. American Naturalists, like Stephen Crane or Franck Norris, chose to be the spokesmen of American working classes. They portrayed the anguish of the miserable underdogs of American lower classes who were eventually depicted as the victims of Nature and society. The Puritans’ belief in Predestination might be very influential to Naturalists, too, since they both agree that Natural laws and forces always prevail over people. Crane’s Maggie, A Girl of The Street centers on a young girl who suffers the abuse of her brutish parents and the overwhelming misery of poverty and solitude. Such social aspects are significant in late nineteenth century literature and are considered as the repercussions of Industrialization, for even though economy was prosperous, there was no fair share of wealth. These facts were recorded in novels deploring poverty in America like Norris’ McTeague which narrates the story of an American couple falling prey to destitution; driven by the spell of greed and envy, the eponymous hero kills his beloved Trina. Twentieth century modernism bears the imprint of a general crisis despite material prosperity. Moral standards were in absolute decline. The First World War and Industrialization engendered a spiritual shallowness alongside a dominant feeling of fear, disorientation, and disillusionment among citizens as reflected in multiple works. In fact, Modernism’s rejection of religion has resulted in writers’ focus on man’s spiritual void and triviality, as can be seen in modern poetry, for instance, in its depiction of the complacency of modern man. Ezra Pound and Robert Frost were at the origin of a Modernist poetic style characterized by a direct handling of subjects, the rejection of ornamental and superfluous language, and experimentation with verse. The importance of the individual dwindled down, and as a protest against self-importance, E.E. Cummings disregarded punctuation and capital letters, as in his use of « i » instead of « I ». Similarly, Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway are the chief representatives of the crisis of a « Lost Generation, » as coined by Gertrude Stein. Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises points out the purposeless life of American expatriates in post-World War 1 Europe, while it also exposes the changing gender roles in relation to the birth of the “New Woman.” Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby deplores the failure of the “American Dream” and the decline of all traditional values. The same set of ideas is to be found in a number of plays, for instance in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. On another plane, the ideals of freedom and equality and the quest for a new identity marked the twentieth century with the emergence of black voices from the Harlem Renaissance, notably poets like Langston Hughes and Claude McKay. The language used by Modernist writers captures the variety of social backgrounds shaping American cultures. Accordingly, this brief description of American literature has tried to expose some of the facets of the tight relationship between text and context. Through reference to history and to different trends, the essay has sought not only to show how American history and civilization are transcribed in different literary genres, but also how different ages and social backgrounds provide its literature with an American imprint. More importantly, the essay has explored a few literary features that qualify a whole body of literature as typically American.

1.2.Colonial literature and Post-Indipendence literature.

The Thirteen 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, and the dominance of the English language in American culture was not yet apparent. The first item printed in Pennsylvania was in German and was the largest book printed in any of the colonies before the American Revolution. Spanish and French had two of the strongest colonial literary traditions in the areas that now comprise the United States, and discussions of early American literature commonly include texts by Samuel de Champlain alongside English-language texts by Thomas Harriot and Captain John Smith. Moreover, a wealth of oral literary traditions existed on the continent among the numerous different Native American tribes. Political events, however, would eventually make English the lingua franca as well as the literary language of choice for the colonies at large. Such events included the English capture of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1664, with the English renaming it New York and changing the administrative language from Dutch to English.
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.
Back then, some of the American literature were 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 works: A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Happened in Virginia ... (1608) and The Generall 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, Daniel Coxe, Gabriel Thomas, and John Lawson.
Tropic of early prose -The religious disputes that prompted settlement in America were important topics of early American literature. A journal written by John Winthrop, The History of New England, discussed the religious foundations of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Edward Winslow also recorded a diary of the first years after the Mayflower's arrival. "A modell of Christian Charity" by John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, was a Sermon preached on the Arbella (the flagship of the Winthrop 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 included Increase Mather and William Bradford, author of the journal published as a History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47. Others like Roger Williams and Nathaniel Ward more fiercely argued state and church separation. Others, such as Thomas Morton, cared little for the church; Morton's The New English Canaan mocked the Puritans and declared that the local Native Americans were better people than them.
Other late writings described conflicts and interaction with the Indians, as seen in writings by Daniel Gookin, Alexander Whitaker, John Mason, Benjamin Church, and Daniel J. Tan. John Eliot translated the Bible into the Algonquin language (1663) as Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God.[10] 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.
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 the Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), the Wonders of the Invisible World and The Biblia Americana.
Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield represented the Great Awakening, a religious revival in the early 18th century that emphasized Calvinist thought. Other Puritan and religious writers include Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shepard, John Wise, and Samuel Willard. Less strict and serious writers included Samuel Sewall (who wrote a diary revealing the daily life of the late 17th century), and Sarah Kemble Knight (who likewise wrote a diary).
New England was not the only area in the colonies with a literature: southern literature was also growing at this time. The diary of planter William Byrd and his The History of the Dividing Line (1728) described the expedition to survey the swamp between Virginia and North Carolina but also comments on the differences between American Indians and the white settlers in the area. 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.
As the colonies moved toward independence from Britain, an important discussion of American culture and identity came from the French immigrant J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, whose Letters 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.
This same period saw the beginning of African-American literature, through the poet Phillis Wheatley and the slave narrative of Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789). At this time American Indian literature also began to flourish. Samson Occom published his A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul and a popular hymnbook, Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs, "the first Indian best-seller".
American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also includes literature of other traditions produced in the United States and in other immigrant languages. Furthermore, a rich tradition of oral storytelling exists amongst Native Americans. The American Revolutionary Period (1775–1783) is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. An early novel is William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy published in 1791. Writer and critic John Neal in the early-mid nineteenth century helped advance America's progress toward a unique literature and culture, by criticizing predecessors like Washington Irving for imitating their British counterparts and influencing others like Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe took American poetry and short fiction in new directions. Ralph Waldo Emerson pioneered the influential Transcendentalism movement; Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, was influenced by this movement. The conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired the writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe and by slave narratives, such as those by Frederick Douglass. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the dark side of American history, as did Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). Major American poets of the nineteenth century include Walt Whitman, Melville, and Emily Dickinson. Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born away from the East Coast. Henry James achieved international recognition with novels like The Portrait of a Lady (1881).
Following World War I, modernist literature rejected nineteenth century forms and values. F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the carefree mood of the 1920s, but John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway, who became famous with The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, and William Faulkner adopted experimental forms. American modernist poets included diverse figures: Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, and E. E. Cummings. Depression era writers included John Steinbeck, author of The Grapes of Wrath (1939). America's involvement in World War II influenced works such as Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead (1948), Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961) and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Prominent playwrights of these years include Eugene O'Neill, who won a Nobel Prize. In the mid-twentieth century, drama was dominated by Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, as well as the musical theater.
In late 20th century and early 21st century there has been increased popular and academic acceptance of the literature written by immigrant, ethnic, Native American, and LGBT writers, and of writings in other languages than English Examples of pioneers in these areas include Asian American authors such as Maxine Hong Kingston, the Native American Louise Erdrich, and African Americans Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and 1993 Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. In 2016, the folk-rock songwriter Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Native American literature
Oral literature -
Further information: Mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, American Indian literary nationalism, Hawaiian literature, Indigenous literatures in Canada, List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas, Mesoamerican literature, and Mexican literature § Pre-Columbian literature
Oral literature existed amongst the various Native American 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 different cultures of these peoples.
Published books - Native American Renaissance
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) by John Rollin Ridge (Cherokee, 1827–67) was the first novel by a Native American, and O-gi-maw-kwe Mit-I-gwa-ki (Queen of the Woods) (1899) by Simon Pokagon (Potawatomi, 1830–99) was "the first Native American novel devoted to the subject of Indian life".
A significant event in the development of Native American literature in English came with the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 to N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa tribe) for his novel House Made of Dawn (1968)
Revolutionary period - The Revolutionary period also contained political writings, including those by colonists Samuel Adams, Josiah Quincy, John Dickinson, and Joseph Galloway, the last being a loyalist to the crown. Two key figures were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack 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 and The American Crisis writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the political tone of the time.
During the Revolutionary War, poems and songs such as "Nathan Hale" were popular. Major satirists included John Trumbull and Francis Hopkinson. Philip Morin Freneau also wrote poems about the War.
During the 18th century, writing shifted from the Puritanism of Winthrop and Bradford to Enlightenment ideas of reason. 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 by Isaac Newton. One of these was Cotton Mather. The first book published in North America that promoted Newton and natural theology was Mather's The Christian Philosopher (1721). The enormous scientific, economic, social, and philosophical, changes of the 18th century, called the Enlightenment, 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. 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 of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography.
Even earlier than Franklin was Cadwallader Colden (1689 - 1776), whose book The History of the Five Indian Nations, published in 1727 was one of the first texts published on Iroquois history. Colden also wrote a book on botany, which attracted the attention of Carl Linnaeus, and he maintained a long term correspondence with Benjamin Franklin. In the post-war period, Thomas Jefferson established his place in American literature through his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, his influence on the U.S. Constitution, his autobiography, his Notes on the State of Virginia, and his many letters. The Federalist essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay presented a significant historical discussion of American government organization and republican values. Fisher Ames, James Otis, and Patrick 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.
The first American novel
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 are Thomas Attwood Digges's Adventures of Alonso, published in London in 1775 and William Hill Brown's The 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 novel Charlotte: A Tale of Truth, published in London in 1791. 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. 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's Uncle 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's The 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.
Both The Coquette and Charlotte 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.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.
Charles Brockden Brown is the earliest American novelist whose works are still commonly read. He published Wieland in 1798, and in 1799 published Ormond, Edgar Huntly, and Arthur Mervyn. These novels are of the Gothic genre.
The first writer to be able to support himself through the income generated by his publications alone was Washington Irving. He completed his first major book in 1809 titled A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty.
Of the picaresque genre, Hugh Henry Brackenridge published Modern Chivalry in 1792–1815; Tabitha Gilman Tenney wrote Female Quixotism: Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventure of Dorcasina Sheldon in 1801; Royall Tyler wrote The Algerine Captive in 1797. Other notable authors include William Gilmore Simms, who wrote Martin Faber in 1833, Guy Rivers in 1834, and The Yemassee in 1835. Lydia Maria Child wrote Hobomok in 1824 and The Rebels in 1825. John Neal wrote Keep Cool in 1817, Logan, A Family History in 1822, Seventy-Six in 1823, Randolph in 1823, Errata in 1823, Brother Jonathan in 1825, and Rachel Dyer (earliest use of the Salem witch trials as the basis for a novel) in 1828. Catherine Maria Sedgwick wrote A New England Tale in 1822, Redwood in 1824, Hope Leslie in 1827, and The Linwoods in 1835. James Kirke Paulding wrote The Lion of the West in 1830, The Dutchman's Fireside in 1831, and Westward Ho! in 1832. Omar ibn Said, a Muslim slave in the Carolinas, wrote an autobiography in Arabic in 1831, considered an early example of African-American literature. Robert Montgomery Bird wrote Calavar in 1834 and Nick of the Woods in 1837. James Fenimore Cooper was a notable author best known for his novel The Last of the Mohicans written in 1826. George Tucker produced in 1824 the first fiction of Virginia colonial life with The 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.

CHAPTER II. THE Greatest an American literature

2.1. Who are the most American authors?

America might not be one of the oldest countries, particularly when compared to England, but the United States has had its fair share of prolific authors over the years. Even though many American authors draw inspiration from their English counterparts, the United States is a country of immigrants. One of the unique facets of its literary history is the multiculturalism that shines through.

This is reflected in the numerous books that you can pick up and read for yourself. So, who are some of the best American authors of all time, and what are their best works? With authors such as Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, there is no shortage of famous American authors to read. 
1. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910 - Without a doubt, one of the best American authors of all time is Mark Twain. Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Clemens, who had an interesting life during the 19th and early 20th century. He worked in the mines of Nevada, served in the Confederate Army, and piloted a steamboat on the river. His unique life experiences gave him a treasure trove of information with which he crafted countless works over the years. 
The first work that put marks playing on the map was The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. He would go on to write a variety of bestsellers, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Prince of the Pauper. There is a reason why many people refer to him as the father of American literature.
2. Ernest Hemingway, 1899 – 1961 - Another prolific American author is Ernest Hemingway. He was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. When World War 1 broke out, he served as an ambulance driver. He was wounded in the line of duty, forcing him to return home. After the war, he worked as a journalist for a few years. Then, he decided to become a novelist. The book that positioned Ernest Hemingway as a prolific novelist is The Sun Also Rises. While the book did not receive amazing reviews at a time, it is widely considered to be an iconic piece of literature from the early 20th century. From there, Ernest Hemingway produced several works considered to be among the best books of all time. Some of his best-known works include A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man in the Sea. Undoubtedly, Ernest Hemingway is one of the greatest American writers ever and has had a massive influence on 20th-century writing. If you want to read more of his works, check out our guide to the best Ernest Hemingway books.
3. Herman Melville, 1819 – 1891
Herman Melville via Wikipedia, Public Domain
Herman Melville is a poet, writer, and novelist of the 19th century. He was born in New York City to a merchant who did well for himself. However, after his father died in 1832, the family was in a dire financial situation. At the age of twenty, he got a job as a sailor on a merchant ship. He spent much of his life chasing whales in the ocean. He spent a lot of time adventuring on the Marquesas Islands. His first book, Typee, was about the people he ran into on that island.
Herman Melville would go on to produce several other books during his literary career. He published various short fiction works, including Bartleby the Scrivener, but his marquee work is Moby Dick, which he published in 1851. In the early 20th century, there was a significant Melville Revival, positioning him as one of the greatest American authors of all time. 
4. F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1896 – 1940
F. Scott Fitzgerald via Wikipedia, Public Domain
F. Scott Fitzgerald may have had a short life, but he is still considered one of the greatest American authors of all time. He was born into an upper-class family but had difficulty finding love. He used his struggles as inspiration for his work, publishing one of his greatest novels in 1920 at the age of 24, This Side of Paradise. This work ultimately led to him marrying the love of his life.
Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda Sayre became a celebrity couple. In 1924, they moved to Paris. The following year, F. Scott Fitzgerald published his most famous work, The Great Gatsby. Even though the book received a lot of negative attention at the time, it is one of the greatest books ever.
Unfortunately, the couple drank and suffered from mental health issues due to the book’s negative criticism. Because the family was having a hard time, they moved to Hollywood and got a job as a scriptwriter. In 1940, he died of a heart attack. However, his work remains popular. The Great Gatsby was turned into a hit film in 1974 and again in 2013.
5. John Steinbeck, 1902 – 1968
John Steinbeck via Wikipedia, Public Domain
John Steinbeck is one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He always desired a career in literature, and he studied English literature at Stanford University. However, he never graduated. After leaving Stanford, he moved to New York City. He picks up various jobs, trying to make it as a writer. Unfortunately, he could not publish any of his work, eventually returning to California.
He published his first novel, titled Cup of Gold, in 1929. He also achieved significant success in 1935, thanks to Tortilla Flat. He would go on to write 33 books in his career. Some of his most famous works include The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and East of Eden. Many of his books have gone on to become classics in the world of Western literature. 
6. Toni Morrison, 1931 – 2019
Toni Morrison via Wikipedia, Public Domain
Toni Morrison is one of the most popular contemporary American writers. She was born in Ohio and graduated from Howard University after studying English. She continued to earn a master’s degree at Cornell University. She took a job as an English teacher at Howard University and Texas Southern University.
She eventually left teaching and became the first African-American female editor at Random House, one of the largest publishing companies in the world. She published her first novel in 1970, The Bluest Eye. However, Song of Solomon, published in 1977, was her breakthrough book. This work went on to win the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1978.
In 1987, Morrison published her most famous work, Beloved, a bestseller for 25 weeks. Her book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988 and was eventually turned into a movie. Sadly, she died in 2019. She is characterized as a prolific, influential, and visionary writer who has indelibly influenced the future of American writing.
7. J. D. Salinger, 1919 – 2010
J. D. Salinger via Wikipedia, Public Domain
Jerome David Salinger, usually shortened to J. D. Salinger, is one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century. He’s spent a short amount of time studying at New York University and Columbia University. However, he devoted himself entirely to writing with his work starting to show up in periodic publications in 1940. In 1942, he was drafted to serve in World War II. He saw combat overseas and was present at some of the war’s biggest battles, including D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge.
When he returned from the war, he picked up his career as a writer. His most famous work, The Catcher in the Rye, was immediately successful. It has been listed among some of the greatest books of the 20th century. Unfortunately, his success also brought him much-unwanted attention, forcing him to become a recluse. He continued to publish other works, including Seymour: An Introduction and Raise High in the Roof Beam, Carpenters. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American authors.
8. Joseph Heller, 1923 – 1999
Joseph Heller via Wikipedia, Public Domain
Joseph Heller was the son of Jewish immigrants who migrated to the United States from Russia. He graduated high school in 1941 and picked up a job as a clerk at a local Insurance Agency period when the United States joined World War Two, Heller enlisted in the Army as well. If word 60 combat missions as a bombardier and a B-25 Bomber. After the war, he returned to the United States, receiving an English degree from Columbia in 1949. He got a job as a teacher before he decided to begin writing.
He positioned himself among the race of American literature by publishing Catch 22. It has become one of the greatest literary works of all time. He went on to write six other novels, which also sold well. However, none of his future works would perform as well as Catch 22. He also wrote an autobiography of his life as a soldier in World War 2 and a writer after the war. Some of his other famous works include Closing Time, and Something Happened. 
9. William Faulkner, 1897-1962
William Faulkner via Wikipedia, Public Domain
William Faulkner is considered the great American writer of Southern literature. Before becoming a successful author, he served during World War I, although did not experience combat. He wrote short stories and novels set in Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional county in Mississippi. His most famous works include The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying and Go Down Moses.
He typically wrote about themes and topics such the Ku Klux Klan, racism, the impact of the American Civil War and the Confederacy. When not writing novels, he earned money from writing screenplays for Hollywood. Faulkner’s last book, The Reivers was published in 1962 and won the Nobel prize for fiction. Faulkner died in 1962 from a heart attack after falling from his horse a month previously.
10. Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007
Kurt Vonnegut via Wikipedia, Public Domain
Kurt Vonnegut wrote dozens of novels, plays, short stories and fiction during his prolific fifty-year career. He was also an artist. Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis and served during World War II like many successful American writers. The Germans took him prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he became a reporter and wrote fiction on the side with the support of his wife.
Vonnegut achieved critical and commercial success with his sixth book, Slaughterhouse-Five, also known as the Children’s Crusade. Published in 1969, it resonated with an American public, wrestling with the Vietnam War. It remains his most famous work. Vonnegut died in 2007 as a result of brain injuries from a fall. To learn more about his process, read our guide to Kurt Vonnegut’s rules of writing.
11. James Baldwin, 1924-1987
James Baldwin via Wikipedia, Public Domain
James Baldwin was born in 1924 in Harlem, New York City, to a single mother. He experienced much hardship and poverty during his early life and never knew his father. Baldwin said about his early life, ” “I never had a childhood … I did not have any human identity … I was born dead.”
He moved to Paris aged 24, attempting to find success as a writer and artist. There, he began to write and publish essays and stories, including what became Go Tell It On a Mountain. He moved back to America after nine years and went on to write the American classics Notes of a Native Son and Giovanni’s Room. Baldwin became a good friend to novelist Toni Morrison, too. He died of stomach cancer in France in 1987.
Final Word on Best American Authors
These are a few of the many amazing American authors who have contributed their talents to the history of Western literature. American works come from all periods, with many drawing on their authors’ personal experiences. Each generation of authors inspires the next, as American writers of all backgrounds share their works with the world.
Many of these works are readily available so you can find them quickly. If you are looking for a new book, consider checking out a few of the titles from the authors mentioned above. Then, don’t hesitate to read a few books by other authors. These books have the power to transport you to another place and time, creating a lasting impact on your life.
2.2. Why are American writers important?
American Literature- American literature generally refers to literature from the United States that is written in English. This article will adhere to the aforementioned definition of American literature and briefly outline the history and trajectory of literature in the United States. However, it is important to note that some object to the term “American literature” to refer to English-language literature in the United States because the term erases literature from elsewhere in the Americas that is written in Spanish, Portuguese, French, or other languages.
History of American Literature - The history of American literature is intertwined with the history of the United States itself, and many of the following facts illustrate that relationship. Puritan and Colonial Literature (1472-1775)-American literature began as the first English-speaking colonists settled along the eastern seaboard of the United States. The purpose of these early texts was usually to explain the process of colonization and describe the United States to future immigrants back home in Europe.British explorer John Smith (1580-1631 — yes, the same one from Pocahontas!) is sometimes credited as the first American author for his publications that include A True Relation of Virginia (1608) and The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Like much literature from the colonial period, the format of these texts was non-fiction and utilitarian, focusing on the promotion of European colonization in America. Revolutionary and Early National Literature (1775-1830)-During the American Revolution and the years of nation-building that followed, fiction writing was still uncommon in American literature. The fiction and poetry that was published remained heavily influenced by literary conventions established in Great Britain. In place of novels geared towards entertainment, writing was commonly used to further political agendas, namely the cause of independence. Political essays emerged as one of the most important literary forms, and historical figures like Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Samuel Adams (1722-1803), and Thomas Paine (1737-1809) produced some of the most notable texts of the era. Propaganda pamphlets to influence the colonists’ cause also became an essential literary outlet. Poetry was likewise employed in the cause of the revolution. Lyrics of popular songs, such as Yankee Doodle, were often used to convey revolutionary ideas. Post-independence, Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), and James Madison (1751-1836), continued to use the political essay to convey ideas related to the construction of new government and the future of the country. These include some of the most important texts in American history, for example, the Federalist papers (1787-1788) and, of course, The Declaration of Independence-The literature of the late 18th and early 19th century was not all political in nature, however. In 1789, William Hill Brown was credited with the publication of the first American novel, The Power of Sympathy. This period also saw some of the first texts published by both freed and enslaved Black authors, including Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). 19th Century Romanticism (1830-1865)- During the 19th century, American literature really began to come into its own. For the first time, American authors began to consciously distinguish themselves from their European counterparts and develop a style that was considered uniquely American. Writers like John Neal (1793-1876) spearheaded this initiative by arguing that American authors should forge a new path, not relying on borrowed literary conventions from Great Britain and other European countries.-The American novel began to flourish, and the 19th century saw the emergence of many writers that we continue to read today. By the early 19th century, Romanticism, already well-established in Europe, had arrived in the United States. Although the proliferation of Romanticism could be seen as a further continuation of European literary influence, American Romantics were distinct. They maintained their sense of individualism while invoking the Romanticism of the American landscape and focusing on the novel more than their British counterparts. Herman Melville’s classic, Moby Dick (1851), is an example of this American Romanticism as a novel that is filled with emotion, the beauty of nature, and the struggle of the individual. Edger Allen Poe (1809-1849) was also one of American Romanticism’s more important writers. His poetry and short stories, including detective stories and gothic horror stories, influenced writers worldwide. The works of the poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892), sometimes referred to as the father of free verse, was also published during this period, as was the poetry of Emily Dickinson (1830-1886).- The early- to mid-19th century also saw the emergence of Transcendentalism, a philosophical movement that Whitman belonged to, but also included essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854), a philosophical account of the author’s solitary life on the shore of Walden Pond. By the middle of the century, during the build-up to the Civil War, more texts were written by and about both free and enslaved African Americans. Perhaps the most important of these was Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), an anti-slavery novel written by white abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe. 19th Century Realism and Naturalism (1865-1914)-In the second half of the 19th century, Realism took hold in American literature as writers grappled with the aftermath of the Civil War and the ensuing changes to the nation. These authors sought to depict life realistically, telling the stories of real people living real lives in the United States. To achieve this, novels and short stories often focused on showing American life in specific pockets of the country. The authors used colloquial language and regional details to capture a sense of place. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name, Mark Twain (1835-1910), was one of the most influential proponents of this local-color fiction. His novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) exemplified American Realism and remain today some of the most indispensable novels in the American literary canon.
Naturalism, a deterministic form of Realism that examines the effects of environment and circumstance on its characters, followed Realism towards the end of the 19th century. 20th Century Literature-With World War I and the start of the Great Depression, American literature took a decidedly gloomy turn at the beginning of the 20th century. As Realism and Naturalism transitioned into Modernism, writers began using their texts as social critiques and commentaries. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) spoke of disillusionment with the American Dream, John Steinbeck told the story of the difficulties faced by dust bowl era migrants in The Grapes of Wrath (1939), and Harlem Renaissance writers including Langston Hughes (1902-1967) and Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) used poetry, essays, novels, and short stories to detail the African American experience in the United States. Ernest Hemingway, who was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, rose to prominence with the publication of novels such as The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929). Other American writers who have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature include William Faulkner in 1949, Saul Bellow in 1976, and Toni Morrison in 1993. The 20th century was also an important period for drama, a form that had previously received little attention in American literature. Famous examples of American drama include Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire which premiered in 1947, closely followed by Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in 1949. By the mid to late-20th century, American literature had become so varied that it is difficult to discuss as a unified whole. Perhaps, like the United States, American literature can be defined, not by its similarities, but rather by its diversity. Features of American Literature- It can be difficult to generalize the features of American literature due to the breadth, variety, and diversity of American authors. However, many of the literature’s identifiable features can be linked and attributed to typical ideas of the American experience and American identity.
Early on, American literature was characterized by its self-conscious effort to break away from literary forms established in Great Britain and other European countries.
American authors, such as John Neal (1793-1876), were inspired to create their own literary style emphasizing the realities of American life, including the use of colloquial language and unmistakably American settings.
A sense of individualism and celebration of the individual experience is one of the central features of American literature.
American literature can also be characterized by its many forms of regional literature. These include Native American literature, African American literature, Chicano literature, and the literature of various diasporas.

Importance of American Literature-American literature has played a significant role in shaping the culture and identity of the United States as well as influencing the development of literature around the world. The novels, poetry, and short stories of writers such as Edger Allen Poe, Ernest Hemingway, and Mark Twain have made an enormous contribution to the existence of literature as we know it today.

American literature was also important in developing American identity by telling the story of the nation. The literature helped the new country establish itself as independent from past literary traditions hailing from Great Britain and the rest of Europe. Literature also helped to develop the nation by articulating ideas central to national identity. Examples of American Literature-The following are some examples of important writers in American literature: American Literature: Novelists
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1906)
William Faulkner (1897-1962)
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
John Steinbeck (1902-1968)
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
Harper Lee (1926-2016)
Toni Morrison (1931-2019)
American Literature: Essayists
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Malcolm X (1925-1965)
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
American Literature: Poets
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Emily Dickenson (1830-1886)
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
Maya Angelou (1928-2014) American Literature: Dramatists
Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953)
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)
Arthur Miller (1915-2005)
Edward Albee (1928-2016).
Some of these writers, such as James Baldwin, could be placed in any of these categories as they wrote novels, essays, poems, and plays! American Literature: Books The following are some examples of important books in American literature:
Moby Dick(1851) by Herman Melville
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain
The Great Gatsby(1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Sun Also Rises(1926) by Ernest Hemingway
The Grapes of Wrath(1939) by John Steinbeck
Native Son(1940) by Richard Wright
Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut
Beloved(1987) by Toni Morrison American Literature - Key takeaways 1.Early American literature was often non-fiction, focusing instead on history, and describing the process of colonization. 2.During the American Revolution and Post-Revolutionary Period, the political essay was the dominant literary format. 3.The 19th century saw the formation of styles specific to American literature. The novel rose in prominence, and many important poets also became famous. 4.In the middle of the 19th century, the dominant literary style shifted from Romanticism to Realism. 5.Many texts from early 20th century American literature explore social commentary, critique, and disillusionment themes. 6.By the end of the 20th century, American literature had developed into the highly diversified and varied body of work that we see today.

CONCLUSION.

American Literature and the Question of CircumferenceWhile the term American literature, as William C. Spengemann records, was first used in the 1780s, in the immediate aftermath of the country’s political separation from Great Britain (Mirror 152), the first university course in this subject was not taught until 1875, by Moses Coit Tyler at the University of Michigan (Graff 211). As noted in chapter 2, Tyler also published in 1878 the first History of American Literature, intended originally to be a “history of American literature from the earliest Eng-lish settlements in this country, down to the present time” (v), although the later parts of his survey were never completed. For the chronological parameters of his first two volumes, Tyler took the years 1607 through 1765, a span that, of course, preceded the birth of the new nation. His project thus anticipated the style of prolepsis that was to become charac-teristic of American literary scholarship, since, in the interests of what he called “unity and completeness” (v), Tyler reread “early” American litera-ture in order to bring it forcibly into alignment with the postrevolution-ary world, so as to create discursive space for his narrative centered on an emerging “single nation” (vi). This nationalist agenda, in different guises, was also to inspire key critical works in the early part of the twentieth century, when there was a consistent attempt to explicate American arts and letters by setting them in the context of cultural conditions constitu-tionally different from those of Europe: we see this in V. L. Parrington’s Main Currents in American Thought (1927–30), in Norman Foerster’s collection of essays The Reinterpretation of American Literature (1928), and in F. O. Matthiessen’s American Renaissance (1941). After 1945, these systematic mappings of American literature in relation to domestic culture were often reproduced institutionally through the academic prac-tice of American studies, an interdisciplinary matrix predicated on what Vicente L. Rafael has described as an “integrationist logic” (98), through which a science of national identity could shed light on cultural matters.The purpose of American studies in the decades after World War II was to mediate between disciplines, examining African American traditions and issues of civil rights, for example, within a holistic framework through which the literary and historical dimensions of U.S. culture might mutu-ally illuminate each other.
Conclusion l95 American influences and that of earlier British authors, especially Shakespeare and Spenser. Nevertheless, the influence of contemporary British authors is worth isolating and examining in its own right for it was the most extensive, initial literary influence on the period as a whole. Eastern and continental writers did not have a direct influence on American authors until the middle of the nineteenth century. In the first half of the nineteenth century the popularity of contemporary British authors was extensive and such was the demand for their work that American printing houses published them, often in pirated editions, in preference to their own countrymen. The bestseller entered the American book trade for the ftrst time in the early nineteenth century as Americans demanded the latest work by the most established British writers. In some ways the popularity of contemporary British authors in nineteenth-century America hindered the development of American literature. The most popular American writers of the day were often those who wrote of American subjects in a style, language and form imitative of their British contemporaries. They appealed to the American public interested in British literature and prepared to see their own authors writing along the same basic lines. The only positive result of this extensive imitation of British writers was that it pressured American publishers into recognising their own countrymen and thus helped to make it possible for more original American writers to get into print. Despite the imitation of British contemporaries by lesser American writers, however, the early nineteenth century was a period of rejuvenation for American letters. The demand for the end of imitation and for a distinctive, American literature was impelled by the national aspirations of the day.

THE LIST OF THE USED LITERATURE

Nelson, Emmanuel S. Asian American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000)
1. "Drawbridge Press: Publisher of Jonathan Bayliss". Drawbridge Press.
2. "Ann Fairbairn, Author, Was 70". The New York Times. February 11, 1972. Retrieved March 18, 2018.– Crane, Stephen. Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Lanham: Dancing Unicorn Books, 2016. Print. -Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: C. Scribner’s sons, 1925. Print.
-Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography, and Other Writings. New York :Dodd, Mead, 1963. Print. -Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York, U.S.A.: Signet Classic, 1988. Print. -Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Scribner, 1954. Print.
-Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin Books, 1976. Print.
-Norris, Franck. McTeague: A Story of San Francisco. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1899. Print.
-Paine, Thomas. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense: The Call to Independence. Woodbury, New York, U.S.A.: Barron’s Educational Series, 1975. Print.
-Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. London: Penguin Books, 1994. Print. -Whitman, Walt. Leaves Of Grass. Champaign, Ill. : Boulder, Colo. : Project Gutenberg ; NetLibrary, 1990–1999. Print.
-Wood, Gordon S. The American Revolution: A History. New York, Modern Library, 2002. Print.
External links
Wikisource has original works on the topic: American literature
Wikiquote has quotations related to American literature.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Literature of the United States. 19th Century American Fiction and Poetry The Ohio State University Libraries Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection
Audio lectures on American Literature in TheEnglishCollection.com (clickable timeline)
Electronic Texts in American Studies