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PRESORTED STANDARD U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT NO. 57842 BOSTON, MA “TStanding alone in the world… she cast away the THE HEATH ANTHOLOGY OF fragments of a broken chain. AMERICAN LITERATURE The world’s law was no law for her mind.” Fall 2001 • Number 23 - Nathaniel Hawthorne, from The Scarlet Letter newsletter editorial board Teaching American Literature in Spain: Paul Lauter Trinity College Approaches and Contexts for General Editor Integrated Programs Richard Yarborough Ana Manzanas Calvo (Universidad de Salamanca) University of California, Los Angeles Associate General Editor Jesús Benito Sánchez (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha)

Jackson Bryer It seems a long time ago now since many cases the borders between the University of Maryland Prof. Javier Coy started teaching a two positions are clear cut in Spanish King-Kok Cheung course on American Literature at the Academe. The traditional core curricu- University of California, Los Angeles University of Salamanca, Spain, in lum has been fragmented through 1968. It was actually the beginning of optional courses, introduced mainly Anne Goodwyn Jones the teaching of American literature in through a series of curriculum revi- University of Florida the country. Since then, and particular- sions carried out in the late eighties Wendy Martin ly in the last decades, the teaching of and early nineties; as a result American Claremont Graduate University American Literature has undergone a Literature has become a “bifurcated” process of enormous diversification as discipline between those who general- Charles Molesworth new generations of Americanists have ly teach required courses devoted to Queens College, City University entered Academe. The so called “clas- traditional figures in the field, and of New York sics” are still studied and figure promi- those who commit themselves to the Raymund Paredes nently in university syllabi, but these teaching of optional courses and cover University of California, Los Angeles new waves of Americanists have intro- what are generally known as “margin- duced the study of literature written al” figures or “new” voices. For the tra- Ivy T. Schweitzer by women, as well as by “minoritized” ditional group the study of these Dartmouth College writers, and, to a lesser extent, other “new” writers is merely circumstantial genres traditionally considered sublit- and fashionable. They explain their Linda Wagner-Martin erary such as detective or science fic- presence in university syllabi as a University of North Carolina, tion. As a result, and to a certain extent question of political correctness which Chapel Hill mirroring the debate over the nature, has nothing to do with literary excel- Andrew O. Wiget origins and limits of American lence, and perhaps more importantly, New Mexico State University Literature between traditionalists and does not alter the presumably truthful so called “New Americanists” in the and durable vision of what American Sandra Zagarell United States, American literature has Literature is. At most, these scholars Oberlin College become a rather contested arena. The are ready to concede a certain “cultural John Alberti conflict is well known and goes back, diversity” (in Bhabha’s terminology) in Northern Kentucky University as Gerald Graff e.a. remind us, to a America, and only in so far as the Editor, Instructor’s Guide longstanding tension in the discipline “Other” cultures are located and between “the impulse to rigorously explained within the accepted Randall Bass, Georgetown University define and circumscribe the field,” Angloamerican grid. Distrust works Lois Leveen, Reed College proposing a clear description of high the other way too; the new generations Edward Maloney, Georgetown literature and a set of presumably ade- of Americanists in Spanish Academe University quate critical procedures, and “the seriously downplay the contacts and Electronic Resources Editors competing impulse to broaden and interactions between the dominant tra- James Kyung-Jin Lee extend the discipline’s borders” (1996: dition and all the others, and are will- The University of Texas at Austin 263), through the introduction of new ing to promote so-called ethnic Associate Editor voices and new critical practices. In American literatures by separating the

For more information, consult college.hmco.com. diverse groups into particular tradi- be further qualified when we compare what extent this comparative approach tions studied separately. This process it with Margaret Fuller’s vision of to American literature can work has a professional parallel, as the new women, or with the distinctive voice beyond the academic centers of the Americanists in Spain somewhat show of slaves such as Frederick Douglass’s discipline, or how well it translates in forms of the “anxiety of influence” or Harriet Jacobs’. The problematic different cultural and historical con- which makes them negate the work of construction of the American takes on texts. If we center particularly on the the previous generations of scholars in new nuances when we compare the Spanish academic world we outlined order to affirm their new own way of underlying principles of Franklin’s before, the new model of American understanding the field. autobiography with those of Paine, studies proves especially fecund, Jefferson, Olaudah Equiano and despite (or maybe as a result of) its How to break out of this dichotomy? Samson Occom. The meaning of tradi- obvious specificity. Just like many In Canons and Contexts (1991) Paul tion and its representation in other countries in Western Europe, Lauter proposes what seems a most contemporary Spain has been witness- balanced approach to the study of ing an incredible influx of immigrants American Literature, what he terms “a …American literature has coming from Latin America, Asia, and, comparativist mode.” The compara- more significantly, from North Africa. tivist approach seems a powerful cor- become a “bifurcated” Despite increasing cases of racial seg- rective to the growing divide between regation and xenophobia it seems the different generations of discipline between those… impossible to deny that these immi- Americanists, and, in our view, can devoted to traditional grants are not only solving the prob- prove especially useful in the context lem of the scarcity of fieldworkers, and of American Studies in Spain. The figures in the field, and alleviating one of the lowest birth rates great advantage of this perspective is those who commit them- in the world, but also infusing the tra- not only that it immerses the reader ditional homogeneity of Spanish soci- and teacher in the unknown, but also selves to…“marginal” ety and culture with some diversity. provides new perspectives on tradi- figures or “new” voices. For others, this still moderate influx of tional works: immigrants is the price we pay for becoming an affluent country, and for the comparative study of American literatures finally entering Europe (a secular allows us to examine traditionally established works from fresh perspectives provided by Modernist poetry is somewhat refract- claim for a country traditionally con- minority and white female texts. Frederick ed when studied in the context of the sidered as “in-between” Europe and Douglass’ use of books illuminates in quite Harlem Renaissance. The compara- Africa, not fully either one). new ways Emerson’s ideas of the value of let- tivist perspective these examples illus- ters; Harriet Jacobs’ [Linda Brent] years in an attic cast an oblique light on Thoreau’s more trate not only puts together names and It is rather ironic, however, that the comfortable notions of simplification, of where visions of literature and writing, but moment we are finally entering one lives, and what one lives for . . . Most of rather advocates a more dialogical Europe, the African “Other” is enter- all, a comparative strategy allows us to see Anglo-European male writing as but one approach which helps us understand ing us again. In our flight North our voice, albeit loud and various, in the chorus of different works relationally. Traditional history has finally caught up with us. ‘American’ culture’. (1991: 51) and non-traditional works create new Asimple and significant image can sets of relationships which destabilize clarify this process. We need only pic- This comparative perspective could both the alleged canonicity of the first ture the Spanish middle-class citizen only become real, especially in the aca- group as well as the liminal or margin- glorying at the sight of the beautiful demic world outside the U.S., when al status of the second. This is the Alhambra in Granada, with its magnif- the necessary editorial steps were destabilizing frame of the compara- icent Moorish decoration, while the taken to offer students and scholars tivist approach which the publishing Moroccan immigrant at the entrance easy access to a whole new set of texts. of The Heath made possible, and which faces the threat of expulsion. The ille- That editorial void has been magnifi- we have tried to illustrate in the pro- gal Moroccan immediately becomes a cently filled by The Heath Anthology of gram below. If the opening of the sign charged with distress. The sight American Literature, which since its first canon in American Literature has dis- forces us to question the construction edition in 1989 has truly offered new covered, as Sacvan Bercovitch pointed of a homogeneous national society and vistas in the study of American out in the introduction to The culture in Spain, a country traditional- Literature, at home as much as abroad. Cambridge History of American Literature ly traversed by settlers (mainly Arabs, The Heath allows students and teachers (1995, 1996, 1999), what he terms “a Jews and gypsies), and radically deter- alike to dialogue both with traditional new-found-land” (1995: 2), the com- mined by its long and vast history of and non-traditional voices, and to parative perspective critics such as colonization in Latin-America. In this multiply the analyses of interactions Paul Lauter or Ramón Saldívar advo- context of a clearly homogeneous between texts and writers over differ- cate, also opens a new world of liter- national culture, constructed through ent issues, breaking up all monocultur- ary dialogues and interconnections. the silent and continuous erasure of al illusions. Our ideas about the presence of the African and Latin- Transcendentalism, for example, can But the question still remains as to American Other, the introduction of a

2 Houghton Mifflin Company • College Division • 222 Berkeley Street • Boston, MA • 02116 revised American Studies curriculum London: Routledge. “How America Was Discovered” can produce most significant cultural (according to Handsome Lake) (HAAL work. As Latin American and North PROGRAM I 182-84) African immigrants increasingly trans- “Talk Concerning the First Beginning” gress the well-defined borders of the The study of American Literature at (Zuni) (HAAL I 27-41) homogeneous national culture and the University of Salamanca is divided “Wohpe and the Gift of the Pipe” geography, Spain is starting to con- into the introductory course we (Lakota) (HAAL I 54-56) front its colonial and intercultural his- describe below, as well as other tory, and to redefine its own cultural required courses such as “Nineteenth- 2. The Literature of Colonization identity. In a certain sense, Spain is Century American Literature,” being forced to go through the differ- “Twentieth-Century American Poetry,” Columbus and the vision of the New ent stages American culture and soci- “The American Novel Between the World and its inhabitants. The New ety have been going through over the Wars,” “Twentieth-Century American World as earthly “Paradise”. “Indian” last few decades. It is in this arena Drama,” and “The American Novel as a misnomer. Other explorers and where the academic introduction of a After World War II,” together with accounts. curriculum in American literature other optional courses. which lays the emphasis on fusion and The Anglo-Americans and the New interaction, on the spaces in-between World. Travel writing and English cultures and nations, on discovering …Spain is starting to explorers. John Smith as a promoter of the inevitable mestizaje still informing colonization. Pocahontas and the pat- any national culture, proves all its ide- confront its colonial and tern of submission to a “superior” civi- ological importance. This compara- lization. tivist perspective on American litera- intercultural history, and ture can highlight for the Spanish stu- to redefine its own Readings: dents the full “transnational and trans- Columbus: from Journals (HAAL I lational” (Bhabha 1994: 5) nature of cultural identity. 117-128) culture, and bring all the complex John Smith: from The Generall interweavings of history to the fore. Historie of Virginia (HAAL I 186-191); The program we propose intends to N.B. This article was prepared proir to the from A Description of New England highlight the “contact zones,” to use publication of the Fourth Edition of the (HAAL I 192-194) Mary Louise Pratt’s term (1992: 6), in Heath Anthology. Page references are to American literature, those processes of the Third Edition. 3. Puritans and Puritanism interaction, appropriation, fusion and revision between the diverse cultures I: General Introduction to the Study Religion, politics and literature in the involved in the construction of the of American Literature colonies. The vision of the New World U.S.; it is also designed to make the as the New Canaan. The writing of a Spanish student rethink the very First Year Providential history. The natives. process of national construction at 6 Credits (42 hours) home. Readings: 1. PROGRAM AND READINGS: William Bradford: from Of Plymouth Works Cited Plantation (HAAL I 247-66) INTRODUCTION: Thomas Morton: from New English Bhabha, Homi 1994. The Location of The nature of “American Civilization.” Canaan (HAAL I 212-18) Culture. London: Routledge. America vs. Europe. Introduction to Anne Bradstreet: “The Prologue”; major themes in American literature “The Author to Her Book”; Gerald Graff and Evan Carton 1996. and culture. “Contemplations” (HAAL I 291-302) “Criticism Since 1940.” In The Mary Rowlandson: from A Narrative Cambridge History of American 1. Native American Traditions of the Captivity (HAAL 343-66) Literature. Volume VIII: Poetry and Jonathan Edwards: from “Sinners in Criticism. Ed. Sacvan Bercovitch. The diversity of the cultural traditions. the Hands of an Angry God” (HAAL Cambridge: Cambridge University The power of the word. The concep- 592-603) Press. tion of “authorship”. The “perfor- mance” of literature. Major themes. 4. The Revolution and the emergence Lauter, Paul 1991. Canons and Contexts The encounter with the Europeans. of the “American voice” in literature Oxford: Oxford University Press. Readings: Political thought and the Pratt, Mary Louise 1992. Imperial Eyes: “The Beginning of Sickness”; “The Enlightenment. The problematic con- Travel Writing and Transculturation. Europeans Arrive” (HAAL I 7) struction of the “American”: visions

For more information, consult college.hmco.com. 3 on identity, ethnicity and the nation in Nathaniel Hawthorne and the vision 132-139) Benjamin Franklin, St. Jean De of puritanism. The use of allegory. Harris: “The Wonderful Tar-Baby Crèvecoeur, Thomas Paine, John Herman Melville; the complexity of Story” (HAAL II 337-38) Henry Adams, Thomas Jefferson, his style. Melville as our contempo- Dunbar: “We Wear the Mask” (HAAL Olaudah Equiano and Samson Occom. rary. II 389-390) Chesnutt: “The Passing of Grandison” Readings: African American novelists: William (HAAL II 365-76) Franklin: from Autobiography (HAAL Wells Brown. I 762-819) 10. Visions of Realism II: Mark Crèvecoeur: “What is an American” Readings: Twain, William Dean Howells and (HAAL I 854-59) Hawthorne: “Young Goodman Brown” Henry James Paine: from Common Sense (HAAL I 885-90) Adams: from Autobiography of John This comparativist perspective on American literature can Adams (HAAL I 904-905) Jefferson: from Autobiography of highlight for the Spanish students the full “transnational Thomas Jefferson (HAAL I 919-923) Equiano: from The Interesting and translational” nature of culture, and bring all the Narrative of the Life of Olaudah complex interweavings of history to the fore. Equiano (HAAL I 1019-36) Occom: from A Short Narrative of My Life (HAAL I 981-87) (HAAL I 2207-16) “Rappaccini’s Twain and his vision of realism. The 5. Explorations of the “American Daughter”(HAAL I 2236-56) use of the vernacular. The point of Self”: Melville: “Bartleby, the Scrivener” view. Humorous vs comic. (HAAL I 2402-28) Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Brown: from Clotelle (HAAL I 2588- Howells and the unromanticized view Frederick Douglass: a comparative 96) of commonplace American experience. approach. Different responses to The affirmation of middle-class values. “what is an American.” Romantic 8. The Poetry of Walt Whitman and The agency of the individual. impulses, freedom and its limitations. Emily Dickinson James and the combination of realism Readings: Whitman’s poetic revolution; the poet and psychological exploration. The Emerson: “The American Scholar”; of democracy; poetic evolution. Emily point of view. The use of imagery and “Self-Reliance” (HAAL I 1609-38); Dickinson and a new aesthetic. Her symbolism. America vs Europe. “The Poet” (HAAL I 1646-61) vision of love, death, religion and Thoreau: from Walden (HAAL I 2107- nature. Readings: 17) Twain: “Sociable Jimmy” (HAAL II Margaret Fuller: from Woman in the Readings: 274-76) Nineteenth Century (HAAL I 1634-62) Whitman: from Leaves of Grass: “Song James: from Daisy Miller (HAAL II Frederick Douglass: Narrative of the of Myself” (HAAL I 2743-94) 452-470) Life of Frederick Douglass (HAAL I Dickinson: poems 14, 280; 324 (HAAL 1762-70; 1777-81) I 2861-62; 2867-68; 2875) 11. Women and Writing

6. The Fiction: The Short Story 9. Visions of Realism I: “The Local The literature of “The new woman.” Color School” Common themes of inequality, repres- Washington Irving, James Fenimore sion, and racism. Frances Harper, Kate Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe “The Local color school” and the Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, exploration of different spaces, from Pauline Hopkins and Edith Wharton. Readings: rural areas to Jewish slums. The belief Irving: “Rip Van Winkle”; “The in the free moral agency of the indi- Readings: Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (HAAL I vidual. Sarah Orne Jewett, George Harper: from Iola Leroy (HAAL II 697- 1342-73) Washington Cable, Bret Harte, Joel 704) Cooper: from The Pioneers (HAAL I Chandler Harris, Paul Laurence Chopin: “Désirée’s Baby” (HAAL II 1406-25) Dunbar, Charles Chesnutt. 529-33) Poe: “Ligeia” (HAAL I 1450-1461) Gilman: “The Yellow Wall-Paper” Readings: (HAAL II 725-37) 7. The Flowering of Narrative Jewett: “A White Heron” (HAAL II

4 Houghton Mifflin Company • College Division • 222 Berkeley Street • Boston, MA • 02116 12. Naturalism ...” “since feeling is first” (HAAL II Pietro Di Donato: “Christ in Concrete” 1386-87; 1387-88; 1388; 1389-90) (HAAL II 1984-93) Environmental forces vs human Morning Dove: from Coyote Stories agency. Naturalism and the American 16. “The Harlem Renaissance” (HAAL II 1830-36) Dream. The questioning of popular notions of heroism. The comparison Connections with Modernism. Harlem 19. The Literature of the South with O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape. as a cultural mecca. The influence of Locke and Du Bois. The vernacular as The short story and its tradition. The Readings: a literary theme. The historical con- Southern elements. Humor. The Stephen Crane: “The Bride Comes to sciousness. grotesque. Yellow Sky” (HAAL II 624-32) Jack London: “South of the Slot” Readings: Readings: (HAAL II 637-48) Alain Locke: “The New Negro” Katherine Ann Porter: “The Jilting of Theodore Dreiser: “Typhoon” (HAAL (HAAL II 1584-92) Granny Weatherall” (HAAL II 1486-92) II 1179-1204) Jean Toomer: “Karintha”; “Song of the Eudora Welty: “The Wide Net” Upton Sinclair: from The Jungle Son”; “Blood-Burning Moon” (HAAL (HAAL II 2133-48) (HAAL II 782-802) II 1594-95; 1595-96; 1596-1601) Flannery O’Connor: “A Good Man Is Rebecca Harding Davies: “Life in the Langston Hughes: “I, Too”; “Harlem”; Hard to Find” (HAAL II 2165-75) Iron-Mills (HAAL II 45-70) ( HAAL II 1618-19) Ambrose Bierce: “Chickamauga” Countee Cullen: “From the Dark 20. Fiction in the ’50s (HAAL 555-59) Tower” (HAAL II 1644) Gwendolyn B. Bennet: “Heritage” Different developments of post-war 14. Modernism (HAAL II 1650-51) fiction. Jewish and African American Sterling Brown: “Ma Rainey” (HAAL fictions. The Beat Generation. J. D. Transitional figures. Late realism and II 1663-64) Salinger. The New Journalism. John pre-modernism. Edwin Arlington Claude McKay: “If We Must Die”; Updike, Norman Mailer. Robinson and Robert Frost. “America” (HAAL II 1689; 1691) Readings: The reaction against the past and the 17. Modernist Fiction Joyce Carol Oates: “Where Are You critique of the modern age. Alienation Going ...?” (HAAL II 2178-89) and fragmentation. The new Poetry The modernist novel and its peculiari- James Baldwin: “Sonny’s Blues” and formal experimentation. ties. The treatment of new and tabu (HAAL II 2222-44) issues. The influence of the cinema. Tillie Olsen: “Tell Me a Riddle” Readings: The feeling of alienation and formal (HAAL II 2267-94) Edwin Arlington Robinson: “Mr. experimentalism. The different per- Norman Mailer: from The Armies of Flood’s Party” (HAAL II 998-999) spectives. Fragmentation vs continuity. the Night (HAAL II 3014-24) Robert Frost: “Mending Wall” (HAAL Expatriates and the new vision of the Bernard Malamud: “The Magic Barrel” II 1149-50) American hero. (HAAL II 2592-2604) Ezra Pound: “A Pact”; “In a Station of the Metro”; “A Retrospect” (HAAL II Readings: 21. Poetry from the ’50s to the ’70s 1219-21) Ernest Hemingway: “Hills Like White H.D.: “Sea Rose” (HAAL 1341-42) Elephants” (HAAL II 1522-25) The formal, impersonal poetry of the Gertrude Stein: from The Geographical William Faulkner: “A Rose for Emily”; post-war. The Black Mountain School. History of America (HAAL II 1261-64) “Barn Burning” (HAAL 1548-66) The Beat Generation. The Confessional William Carlos Williams: “Portrait of a poets. African American poetry. lady”; “Spring and All”; ”The Red 18. Social Writing in the ’30s. Wheelbarrow” (HAAL II 1272-73; Immigrant Writing Readings: 1277) Elizabeth Bishop: “Filling Station” T.S. Eliot: “The Love Song of J. Alfred The return to realism. Visions of the (HAAL II 2326-28) Prufrock”; “Tradition and the American dream. Other traditions. Robert Lowell: “Memories of West Individual Talent” (HAAL II 1399- Street and Lepke” (HAAL II 2329-31) 1403; 1405-11) The drama: Clifford Odets, Lillian Gwendolyn Brooks: “The Mother”; Marianne Moore: “England”; “What Hellman, Elmer Rice and Thornton “We Real Cool”; “The Last Quatrain Are Years” (HAAL 1503-05; 1509) Wilder. ...” (HAAL II 2343-44; 2344; 2348-49) Wallace Stevens: “Sunday Morning” Margaret Walker: “For My People” (HAAL 1534-38) Readings: (HAAL II 1970-72) e. e. cummings: “Buffalo Bill’s”; “The Anzia Yezierska: “America and I” Sylvia Plath: “Daddy”; (HAAL II 2407- Cambridge Ladies ...” “i like my body (HAAL II 1745-52) 09)

For more information, consult college.hmco.com. 5 Anne Sexton: “Her Kind”; 40) 1960s. The ethnic and multicultural “Housewife” (HAAL II 2417-18) Joy Harjo: “New Orleans” (HAAL II roots of American literature are totally Allen Ginsberg: “America” (HAAL II 3119-21) erased. Further updates and revisions 2452-54) have not significantly changed the 2. AIMS: To offer the student a com- slant of this work. Spiller’s Cycle of 22. Fiction in the ‘60s and ‘70s: prehensive and integrated survey of American Literature (1965) presents Postmodernism the history of American Literature, its major American writers (from major writers and movements as well Edwards to Faulkner) as they undergo The dissolution of social and political as other voices from the colonial peri- different and gradual stages: accep- markers. The disappearance of the od to the present. It is also the purpose tance of European conventions; later “grand narratives.” The breaking of of this course to be an introduction to abandonment of these conventions; boundaries between high and popular “American Culture” and civilization. the gradual construction of an cultures. Ethnic difference as a central American literature. expression of postmodern life. 3. FURTHER ACTIVITIES Experimental forms: the mixing of Film projections: Marcus Cunliffe in The Literature of the incongruous elements, voices and Birth of a Nation United States (1954, rev. ed. 1986) offers points of view. The rejection of closure. Winds of Change (Scott Momaday on biographical as well as sociocultural Native Americans) (USIA) information about the writers. In the Readings: Pocahontas 1986 edition he devotes new chapters John Barth: “Lost in the Funhouse” A Rose for Emily (USIA) to women’s and Southern literature. (HAAL II 2877-93) Young Goodman Brown (USIA) Walter Blair e.a.’s American Literature Donald Barthelme: “At the End of the The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1964) is a chronological study of Mechanical Age” (HAAL II 2894-98) American literature which presents Ishmael Reed: “I’m a Cowboy in the 4. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY1 conventional divisions. Instead of a Boat of Ra” (HAAL II 2909-11) series of names, however, Blair e.a. R. W. Horton and H. W. Edwards’s divide each chapter into “Intellectual 23. Contemporary Fiction Backgrounds of American Literary Currents” and “Literary Trends.” This Thought (1952) is already a classic. It division helps to place individual writ- Neorealist and magical realistic narra- includes short biographies and brief ers and their works. For a generic tives. Jewish, African American, bibliographies of authors, with infor- approach to American Literature see Native American, and Asian American mation about their style and subjects, Ihab Hassan’s Contemporary American fictions. Minimalism along with historical outlines of liter- Literature 1945-1973. After a General ary movements. Vernon Louis Introduction Hassan devotes a chapter Readings: Parrington’s Main Currents in American to the American novel, poetry and Cynthia Ozick: “The Shawl” (HAAL II Thought (1927) is also a seminal work drama. 2606-09) that investigates the social, economic, N. Scott Momaday: from The Way to and political backgrounds of American Several modern literary histories have Rainy Mountain (HAAL II 2750-59) literature with critical judgments made broken down the tradition established Rudolfo Anaya: from Bless Me, Última on the basis of social significance, by Spiller. Sacvan Bercovitch’s (HAAL II 2632-41) rather than literary merit. Reconstructing American Literary History Leslie Marmon Silko: “Lullaby” (1986) is a first attempt at presenting (HAAL II 3202-09) Literary histories of American discontinuity and disruption as the Toni Morrison: from Sula (HAAL II Literature provide first-hand informa- driving force of American literature. A 3230-37) tion of what American literature is and more massive endeavour is Emory Raymond Carver: from Cathedral has been. Particularly interesting is Elliott’s Columbia Literary History of the (HAAL 3101-16) Moses Coit Tyler’s AHistory of United States (1988), which though American Literature 1607–1763. Written uneven in merit, offers a multicultural 24. Poetry of the Present in 1878, Tyler’s approach to literature and postmodernist revision of the is “nationalistic.” He divides his study birth and development of American Different forms and themes. Formal into “The First Colonial Period: 1607- literature into the 1980s. Also pub- experimentation. 1676” and “The Second Colonial peri- lished in 1988, Boris Ford’s edition of od 1676–1765.” The study places spe- American Literature appears as another Readings: cial emphasis on the literature of conventional history of American liter- Carolyn Forché: from The Country Virginia and New England. Though ature if compared with Elliott’s. Peter Between Us (HAAL II 3034-35) particularly outdated, Spiller’s Literary Conn’s Literature in America: An Michael Harper: “Here Where History of the United States (1948; rev. Illustrated History (1989) is a useful Coltrane Is” (HAAL II 2729-30) 1974) is still useful. It offers a homoge- study, if sometimes too restricted in Garrett Kaoru Hongo: “Stepchild” neous and monocultural reading of the the scope of writers studied. Conn’s (HAAL II 2807-17) rise of American civilization and cul- work describes literary documents Audre Lorde: “Power” (HAAL II 2939- ture from its colonial origins to the within a chronological framework and

6 Houghton Mifflin Company • College Division • 222 Berkeley Street • Boston, MA • 02116 offers a sampling of America’s accom- plishments in the visual arts. Correcting An Oversight: Suggestions for Still in the making, with only four vol- Additions to and Revisions of the Heath’s umes already out, The Cambridge History of American Literature (1994-99) Selection of Italian American Literature is particularly profound and rich in Paul Giaimo, Highland Community College detail, and it covers the full range of American literature as perceived At the time of this writing, the current exploitation of Italian workers in the today. second volume of the 4th edition of pre-union era. The novel culminates in The Heath Anthology contains a brief a dream sequence portraying the res- For the colonial period and the litera- selection of Pietro DiDonato’s ground- urrection of the exploited, wounded ture of Puritanismm see these few sug- breaking 1939 novel, Christ in Concrete. and murdered laborers, a metaphysi- gestions: Michael Gilmore’s edition of But since the 1920s, 9 anthologies, 20 cal call to Communist revolution. Early American Literature: A Collection of works of criticism, 120 poetic works Considered modernistic due to Critical Essays (1980) is particularly and 224 works of fiction including Didonato’s experimentation in linguis- interesting and varied. It covers the lit- Don Dellilo’s renowned text tic and narrative form, the novel pro- erature produced in America between Underworld, a critical success and best- vided early twentieth-century the founding of Jamestown in 1607 seller compared by reviewers to American audiences a glimpse of what and the end of the 18th century. More Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and is called Italianita, or the remnants of specific studies on Puritanism and its James Joyce’s Ulysses, have been writ- Italian language and cultural forms effects in later literature include ten by or about Italian Americans and surviving in the culture of later gener- Bercovitch’s The American Jeremiad their literature. Yet many students of ation Italian Americans. For example, (1987). Bercovitch contends that the American literature are only familiar the sumptuous description of an writers of the American Renaissance with one or two Italian American writ- Italian American feast which is participated in the Puritan notion of ings. Such critical neglect might dan- enjoyed by the characters at a wed- the elect nation. In The Puritan Origins gerously evoke the commonplace ding banquet contains both descriptive of the American Self (1975) Bercovitch stereotyping of Italian Americans as terms and secret recipes unique to turns to Puritan literature to see its non-intellectuals. My purpose here is those Italian Americans about whom imprint on 19th century literature to suggest additional texts, and offer the novel is concerned: (Hawthorne and Emerson). Another critical appraisals of the same, which important study is Emory Elliott’s could be used in an American “The chicken soup was rich with eggs, fennel, artichoke roots, grated parmesan, and noo- Puritan Influences in American Literature Literature Survey Course properly rep- (1979). In this work Elliott examines dles that melted on lips....Ah, brother and sis- resentative of the past 100 years of the ter, this is the life - cuddlingly arranged close the Puritan roots for much of Italian American contribution to to the flesh and smell and joy of them who are American’s later literature American literature. your own people...Yes dear heart and soul, (Hawthorne, Thoreau, Melville and without words I tell you I would this night last forever.” (Christ in Concrete, Chapter 11.) Dickinson). To begin, the choice of Christ in Concrete is a very suitable one for the Italianita is present in the passionate The series Taller de estudios norteameri- representation of early twentieth- canos, published by the University of tone of this passage, the tantalizing century, modernist Italian American description of the food, and the direct León (Spain), is a good tool for the writing. This literary-historical period Spanish reader. Each volume offers a address of the narrator to the reader. In (approximately 1918–1930) is charac- linguistic terms as well, the nomencla- general introduction as well as bilin- terized by autobiographical immigrant gual editions of key texts. ture and verb phrases resemble closely narratives and fiction heavily reflective those found in Italian, as well as the of the author’s own experience. abbreviated use of articles and use of 1 The bibliographies offered here are Referring to DiDonato, Italian based on the rather limited funds epithets. Though the novel is focused American novelist Helen Barolini on the sociological facts which many available at the university libraries of notes that the death of the character the University of Salamanca and the historians and literary critics have Geremio, father of the protogonist noted characterized Italian American University of Castilla - La Mancha in Paul, mirrors the real-life tragic con- Spain. life at this time, those who read the struction accident which killed novel only to observe the oppression of DiDonato’s own father. Featuring a labor and the alienation of immigrants juxtaposition of transliteral Italian miss its sensuous beauty. (grammatically proper English speech “dubbed in,” as it were, from the char- However, other stories and novels acters’ Italian) and broken English, would also serve equally well to aug- Christ in Concrete is a poignant and ment representation of early twentieth haunting outcry against the criminal century Italian American literature in

For more information, consult college.hmco.com. 7 anthologies. Jerre Mangione’s Mount erent in his truculent attitude toward “The Old Italians Dying” indicates the Allegro, a colorful sketch about life in mainstream social conventions and poet’s appreciation of Italianita. The an Italian American urban enclave, mores. Yet Fante himself, unlike Pietro latter poem politicizes Italian ethnicity captures the complex interrelation- Didonato, Hemingway and many in its references to anarchist Italian ships amongst family members and other American writers of this time, publications and to the famous trial of neighbors. Tales of estrangement and did not advocate contemporaneous Sacco and Vanzetti, which had gar- superstition (use of the “maloggio” or American Communism as the antidote nered tremendous support in the polit- evil eye against one’s perceived ene- to the social ills and personal mean- ical/literary left in the U.S. Italianness mies) are intertwined with positive inglessness of modern life. During the in Ferlinghetti is a rich source of emo- images of the more beautiful aspects of Second World War, Fante’s apolitical tion, well-suited to the Beats’ tendency the subculture, sirinati amidst guitars views are typified in his further com- toward primal lyric tones. Also a and wine. In Mangione’s writings, ment to Covici that he would “type unique opportunity to criticize though the immigrant laborer com- with one hand, the fingers of the other American politics from a culturally plained of America as the “maliditta pinching my nostrils,” (166) while “other” or outsider point of view. terra” wherein he “spend(s) his Ferlinghetti is internationally celebrat- strength in factories and ditches” and ed as a major literary figure, but not as “thinks of nothing but money” (Mount …critical neglect might often acknowledged as an Italian Allegro Chapter 2), he or she also American writer of the twentieth cen- takes the time to enjoy life and tell dangerously evoke the tury. His position as a Beat poet folktales from the old country. enabled future generations of writers Mangione chronicles day-to-day life as commonplace stereotyping to get beyond the issues of labor, anti- the Italian Americans of the ’30s and of Italian American as Italian discrimination, and epicurean ’40s lived it, going beyond the dichoto- uses of the Italian love for “la bella my of old and new world towards a non-intellectuals. vita” as a means of anesthetizing our- new “Italian American” vision. selves against the harsh realities of the ethnic alienation we sometimes experi- Throughout this early modern period, Allied, Nazi and Communist forces ence. Italian Americans, like African “(tore) this over-rated civilization American authors of earlier times, apart” (166). One should read Fante’s As an Italian American teacher of struggled to break out of the cycle of lack of political sympathy in a wider American Literature survey courses, I oppression. Writers in particular suf- context. Italian Americans at this junc- like to call my students’ attention to fered from a lack of recognition culti- ture in the twentieth century felt the contemporary works of Italian vated by mainstream stereotyping of divided loyalties and experienced con- American men and women. Such texts Italian Americans. John Fante, a third flict as their friends and relatives in as Tina DeRosa’s Paper Fish, nominat- major author of this era, struggled Italy fought against the United States. ed for the Carl Sandburg award, fit in with dire poverty and inconsistent Some were even sent to internment nicely with the postmodern philoso- profit from his texts. Despite positive camps as were Japanese immigrants at phy and literary theories currently reviews of his first novel Wait Until this time. As is true of other cultures, used and advocated in many of our Spring, Bandini, by literary giants H.L. the Second World War drained the cre- classrooms. This later Italian American Mencken and James T. Farrell, later ative energy of Italian American novel presents ancestry both as pre- acclaims from the likes of William authors and slowed important devel- serving memory of the old country Saroyan, and sales of his work to opments in written text. and creating a mythic Italian land- MGM studios, Fante struggled. Fante scape in the minds of later genera- wrote to an advisor at Viking Press, However, with the post-war period tions. The protagonist, Carmolina, Pascal Covici, of his poverty, came new visions and interrelation- engages her surviving grandmother, ships in Italian American writing. Doria, in dialogue throughout the “We face eviction here (Manhattan Beach Groups such as the Beat poets utilized novel, allowing the stories and memo- California). If that happens, my wife will go north to live with her mother, but I’ll stick it out literature to make political statements ries of her grandmother to structure for a couple of weeks … This address is good against war, injustice, and social her own unending journey toward for another ten days however.”(Cooney 163-4) hypocrisy. The late 1950s and the greater consciousness. Grandma tells entire 1960s were a time of enormous Carmolina of “Italy, the land that got Fante died before completing his four- liberation for all Americans in terms of lost across the sea, the land that was novel length epic of Arturo Bandini, a both political and literary self-expres- hidden on the other side of the self-styled Italian American writer sion. The role of Italian American Beat world.” (15) In this scene, it is the who crosses the country in search of generation poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti power of first-generation Italian the opportunity for self-expression has been duly noted, but the presence American memory which propels and the meaning of life in America. of Italianita in his work is barely Carmolina into an early philosophical Anticipating the philosophical quests noticed or brought to the surface by quest: of later Beat poets and ’60s radicals, criticism. Ferlinghetti’s use of Italian in Fante’s protagonist is shockingly irrev- such poems as “Dove Sta Amore” and “And Carmolina would wonder, sometimes, if

8 Houghton Mifflin Company • College Division • 222 Berkeley Street • Boston, MA • 02116 she really were in the kitchen and watching Bildungsroman. tion of ethnic heritage which Vanessa, two people on the porch. If she were, if she were really in the kitchen, then she could look narrator and protagonist, must out the window with its blue paper stapled In other fiction as well, the recent reverse. (217) As in DeRosa’s text, the against the screens, and see a little girl with trends in literary production involving memory of earlier generations helps brown eyes looking up at her Grandma laugh- women’s studies and women’s writ- preserve ethnic identity as a basis for a ing.” (15) ing, there are other noteworthy texts. critical consciousness. Maso’s protago- Carole Maso’s Ghost Dance presents nist/narrator intersperses memory of DeRosa portrays how within Italian what Fred Gardaphe calls “the experi- her grandfather and his insights about American culture the sense of another ence of the third generation ethnic Italy: past, a world and reality intimately who, unlike earlier generations, has bound within the identity of the writ- the option of picking and choosing “These are the leaves!” he said. “These ing or thinking self, leads to the critical leaves. Back in Italy when I was a little boy, from the many traditions that make up ability to reflect objectively upon the my grandfather used to dip these in egg and American culture.” (Gardaphe, 149) As flour and fry them! “ and he turned them over self: DeRosa’s main “she” is both in the memory of older generations in their imaginary batter...the memory warmed the experience and watching from afar. him and the warmth spilled onto us.”(92-93) From chroniclers of both injustice and la bella vita, the Italian American This emotional warmth guides the author becomes a philosopher with …ancestral memory in narrator in reunion with her brother personal and social insight to impart Italian American writing Fletcher and also in other relation- to the reader. ships. Whether Italian American should not be mis-read as authors are being nostalgic or philo- But ancestral memory in Italian some sort of “Italy as lost sophically skeptical, a critique of soci- American writing should not be mis- ety remains at the forefront of their fic- read as some sort of “Italy as lost par- paradise”… tion in many cases. Unlike DeRosa, adise,” a distortion similar to the ideal- Maso draws from Native American izations of agricultural Africa, Native imagery, Black Hills Sioux symbolism, America, or any treatment of the eth- fades, and signs of Italianita in a prophecy and Ghost Dance ritual to nic past as part of an erroneous “noble writer’s surrounding environment align Italian American critique of savage” view of the ethnic point of ori- grow more rare, he or she must work mainstream American capitalist gin. In Paper Fish, there is also the dark harder to recapture an ethnic identity lifestyle with Native American critique presence (real or re-imagined) of an which fades in memory and culture. of the same. (272) In doing the Ghost Italy of cutthroats hiding out in the The narrator’s mother is symbolically Dance with her brother, Vanessa is mountains. This negative memory representative of the tendency able to symbolically reconnect with the gives the reader a sense that the earlier amongst certain ethnics to want to agrarian values and lifestyle of her generation’s memory of a mythic eth- erase the past, an experience of Italian Italian American ethnic past. (216-217) nic past provides both positive and Americanness as negative or stifling, Maso’s novel takes Italian American negative parameters for the search to as this description of Mother’s house narrative out of its East Coast ethnic live an authentic life in the late twenti- indicates: enclave and contextualizes it in multi- eth century. The incredible bonding ethnic terms. which occurs between prior and later “There are no curtains on the windows of my generations and the sense of gratitude mother’s house. There is little furniture. At Further, the achievement of Italian the author feels towards these figures night you can look straight through to the other side. There is nothing to obscure the American women poets is significant; who prompted the birth of this con- strangeness of the fact that we live in boxes indeed, these women have been prolif- scious emerges in the highly lyrical made of wood. A whole family lives in this sad ic in recent times. Recent develop- tribute which follows: “Her sight is box—though the father is not home much, has ments in Italian American women’s fragile, her heart is fragile, she is the never been home much. He works at the silk mill, two and three shifts a day...”(111) poetry include work by Diane Di strongest woman in the world.” (16) Prima, Daniela Gioseffi, Diane Readers who search Paper Fish for an As with Christ in Concrete, the urban Raptosh, Dana Gioia, Phyllis Capello, ending to Carmolina’s philosophical ethnic experience of Italian Americans and Rachel Guido DeVries, as well as quest need to bear in mind DeRosa’s is frequently imbued with poverty and several others. DeVries’ 1996 collection vision of philosophical thought as oppression. As such, some seek to How to Sing to a Dago is comprised of recursive, of experience and memory erase all trace of Italianita and Italian lyric love poems. To cite one example, of it facing each other in a mirror as if American identity from their lives. In “Moaning and laughing like the for all time. DeRosa’s philosophical the novel Ghost Dance, such an erasure sea/soon I will sprawl alongside of relativism and focus on self-awareness is simply accomplished by the change you./ At last, I’ll sigh, beneath my can be compared to the philosophical of a name: Angelo to Andy, Maria to fierce desire /to believe your face.” paradigm of post-modern relativism, Mary. (Gardaphe, 143) When Christine, (from Daydream/Soon). DeVries’ style which undermines our assumptions the second generation mother, of love-lyric is evocative of Dickinson about objective truth and narrative clo- destroys the roots of her garden, this and Claude McKay’s passionate direct sure, especially that of the action symbolizes the cultural destruc- statements of amorous emotion.

For more information, consult college.hmco.com. 9 Perhaps the most important event in instance of the kind of thinking which American worldview. Nick refers to recent American fiction has been the propelled the Cold War. In Nick’s the Italian language as follows, 1997 publication of Italian American choice to mock himself by impersonat- “There’s a word in Italian. Dietrologia. author Don Delillo’s epic novel ing a mafiosi, we see such insularity; It means the science of what is behind Underworld. Topping the New York further, we see it in the following nar- something. A suspicious event. The Times Fiction Bestseller list for several rative commentary: science of what is behind an event.“ weeks, and receiving glowing reviews (280) The “suspicious event” which in every major literary American pop- “The Italians. They sat on the stoop with Nick will come to see behind involves paper fans and orangeades. They made their ular periodical of the late twentieth world. They said, Who’s better than me? She contemporary nuclear violence. century, Underworld has placed Italian could never say that. They knew how to sit Dietrologia is part of Nick Shay’s American writing “on the map” of there and be happy.” (Underworld p. 207) Italianita; it enables him to ultimately American letters indelibly. Unlike see beyond the ideological and cultur- prior Italian American fiction writers, ”She” in this passage is Rosemary al veneer which makes nuclear Delillo uses Italian American ethnic Shay, Nick’s mother, “Italian American destruction thinkable. Dietrologia pro- identity as metaphor for fundamental by marriage,” to her dead husband pels Nick’s quest ultimately to visit his questions of human existence. Having Russian counterpart, Viktor, with as its central theme the nuclear arms whom he observes the sinister and race and the Cold War which pro- Unlike prior Italian destructive power of nuclear weapons pelled it, Underworld’s central charac- testing and waste: ters are members of an Italian/ American fiction writers, American family. Their surname, the “All those decades,” he says, “when we Delillo uses Italian thought about weapons all the time and never “Shays,” suggests an erasure or thought about the dark multiplying byproduct. Anglicization similar to that effected in American ethnic identity “And in this case,” I say. “In our age. What Ghost Dance. Here, however, the we excrete comes back to consume us.” Italian/Americanness of the story’s as metaphor for funda- (Underworld 784) central character Nick Shay, an envi- mental questions of ronmental waste management bureau- On his dietrologic quest through life, crat, darts in and out of the spotlight human existence. Nick is finally forced to confront the in several significant ways. First of all, consequences of Cold War life in Nick’s role as micromanager in the which all citizens of superpower industry of radioactive poison evokes nations share a complicit part: perma- the politics of ethical rationalization in and Nick’s father Jimmy, who Nick nent personal and environmental the nuclear age. Nick literally makes believes pretty accurately to have been destruction. Touring a hospital full of the unthinkable thinkable. About his violently executed to end his career as victims of Soviet nuclear testing, Nick workplace, the Italian American narra- a mob numbers runner. The inappro- comes to the conscious realization that tor admits that he imitates a mafiosi priate pride alluded to in this quote the victim’s disfigurations, cancers and for a living. As mentioned above, this (orangeade and paper fans are not other nearly unspeakable sufferings mafiosi mask is how the majority per- exactly flattering representations of are “all part of the same surreal” land- ceive Italian Americans. Nick has here Italianita) shows Rosemary and scape of nuclear violence. (800) This become the great Italian American Jimmy’s insularity within and relative intuitive dietrologia is the aspect of simulacrum, a walking self-satire simi- to the Italian American community: Italian American identity which Delillo lar to an African American in minstrel Rosemary feels inferior to the “happi- the author celebrates by portraying it blackface, or Bruce Lee clowning as a ness” of this ethnic enclave. In this in Nick’s point of view as at least foppish Chinese farmhand. Nick’s passage by Delillo the attitude of this potentially radical. Once aware of our unreal mask, the Italian fake mafiosi, particular group of Italian Americans social evils, we can work to change perfectly suits the unreality he deals in forms a metaphor for American soci- them. Despite Nick’s conclusion that everyday, the unreal faith in the ety during the Cold War, proud, self- he has come through life all right, he unlikely possibility of controlling protected and ethnocentric, yet caught remains altered by his visit to Viktor in nuclear war and nuclear waste which up in a Faustian bargain with deadly Moscow. made the arms race ethically feasible violence. However, Delillo is careful in the minds of Cold Warriors of not to demonize Italian American eth- In conclusion, from DiDonato to Nick’s time and other nuclear warriors nicity by portraying it only or even Delillo, and from Ferlinghetti to Guido of ours. primarily in terms of the Mafia. DeVries, Italian American writers have Rather, the violence of Underworld is been making significant contributions Secondly, to the degree that the Italian nuclear violence, the production, use to the socio-political critique and epis- American ethnic enclave is a source and deployment of weapons of mass temological quests which enliven for a politically radical vision, Delillo destruction. Against the negative twentieth century American letters. In celebrates it in narrative prose. But he vision of Italian American ethnicity, the words of Heath contributor Helen also criticizes ethnic insularity in the Delillo also notes a potentially radical Barolini, author of the novel Umbertina Italian American community as an vision of politics in the Italian and the anthology The Dream Book

10 Houghton Mifflin Company • College Division • 222 Berkeley Street • Boston, MA • 02116 (winner of the 1985 American Book Award) : “The very feeling of being Houghton Mifflin outsiders, the estrangement from both old traditions and new ways, the clash Bringing all the voices of America of generations as the children of immi- grants remade themselves outside the to your students traditions—all this has been the very stuff of literature for Americans, Italians and otherwise.” (127) New! Paul Giaimo The Heath Anthology Freeport Illinois July 17, 2001 of American Literature, 4/e Works Cited Paul Lauter, General Editor 1. Cooney, Seamus. John Fante: Selected ©2002 • Paperback Letters 1932-1981 Santa Rosa, Black Vol. 1 (Colonial Period–1865): 0-618-10919-6 Sparrow, 1991. Vol. 2 (1865–Present): 0-618-10920-X

2. Barolini, Helen. Chiaroscuro: Essays of Identity. Madison, Univ. of Wisconsin The New Riverside Editions Press, 1997. Paul Lauter, Series Editor New! Charles Chesnutt New! Nathaniel Hawthorne 3. DeLillo, Don. Underworld. New Selected Writings The Scarlet Letter York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. SallyAnn H. Ferguson, Editor Rita K. Gollin, Editor Stephen Crane New! Henry James 4. DeRosa, Tina. Paper Fish. New York: The Red Badge of Courage, Maggie: A The Portrait of a Lady CUNY The Feminist Press, 1980. Girl of the Streets, and Other Selected Jan Cohn, Editor Writings 5. Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. Selected Phyllis Frus and Stanley J. Corkin, Editors Henry David Thoreau Walden and “Civil Disobedience” Poems. The Heath Anthology of New! Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller Paul Lauter, Editor American Literature, Vol 2, Second Selected Works Edition. Lauter et als, eds. Lexington: John Carlos Rowe, Editor Mark Twain DC Heath and Co. ,1994. (2370-2377.) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Olaudah Equiano, Mary Rowlandson, Susan K. Harris, Editor and Others 6. Gardaphe, Fred. Italian Signs, American Captivity Narratives Edith Wharton American Streets:The Evolutions of Italian Gordon M. Sayre, Editor The Age of Innocence American Narrative. Durham and Carol J. Singley, Editor London, Duke University Press, 1996. For more information and complete Tables of Contents, visit our web site at 7. Guido deVries, Rachel. How to Sing college.hmco.com/instructors. to A Dago, Toronto: Guernica Press, 1996. TO ORDER AN EXAMINATION COPY: • Consult the College Division: college.hmco.com 8. Maso, Carol. Ghost Dance. Hopewell, • Call of fax the Faculty Services Center: Tel: 800/733-1717 • Fax: 800/733-1810 Ecco Press, 1995. • Contact your Houghton Mifflin sales representative

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