Outline of AMERICAN ❦ REVISED EDITION

AMERICAN LITERATURE REVISED EDITION

Early Published by the Department of State American and Colonial Period to 1776 3

Democratic Origins staff and Revolutionary , Written By: Kathryn VanSpanckeren Executive Editor: George Clack 1776-1820 14 Managing Editor: Paul Malamud Contributing Editor: Kathleen Hug Art Director / Designer: he omantic eriod R P , 1820-1860: Thaddeus A. Miksinski, Jr. Essayists and 26 Picture Editor: Joann Stern

The Romantic Period, Front Cover: © 1994 Christopher Little 1820-1860: 36 ABOUT THE Kathryn VanSpanckeren is The Rise of : Professor of English at the 1860-1914 47 University of Tampa, has lectured in widely abroad, and is former and director of the Fulbright- Experimentation: 1914-1945 60 sponsored Summer Institute in American Literature for international scholars. Her American , publications include poetry and scholarship. She received 1945­–1990: The Anti-Tradition 79 her Bachelors degree from the University of , Berkeley, and her Ph.. from American , 1945–1990: . Realism and Experimentation 97

ISBN (paper) 978-1-625-92035-5 Contemporary 121 ISBN (ePub) 978-1-625-92036-2 ISBN (mobi) 978-1-625-92037-9 Contemporary American Literature 136

Glossary 157

Index 163 The text materials may not be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder. “In a Station of the Metro” (page 63) by . From Ezra Pound Personae. Copyright © 1926 by Ezra Pound. Translated and reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (page 65) by . From The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923. © 1969 by Henry Holt and Co., Inc., © 1951 by Robert Frost. Reprinted and translated by permission of Henry Holt and Co., Inc. “Disillusionment of Ten ’Clock” (page 66) by . From Selected Poems by Wallace Stevens. Copyright 1923 and renewed 1951 by Wallace Stevens. Reprinted by permis- sion of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. “The Red Wheelbarrow” (page 66) and “The Young Housewife” (page 67) by . Collected Poems. 1909-1939. Vol. I. Copyright 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (page 69) by . From Selected Poems by Langston Hughes. Copyright 1926 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and renewed 1954 by Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” (page 80) by from Randall Jarrell: Selected Poems; © 1945 by Randall Jarrell, © 1990 by Mary Von Schrader Jarrell, published by Farrar Straus & Giroux. Permission granted by Rhoda Weyr Agency, . “The Wild Iris” (page 125) from The Wild Iris by Louise Glück. Copyright © 1993 by Louise Glück. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc. “Chickamauga” (page 126) from Chickamauga by . Copyright © 1995 by Charles Wright. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. “To The Engraver of my Skin” (page 129) from Source by . Copyright © 2001 by Mark Doty. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc. “Mule Heart” (page 130) from The Lives of The Heart by Jane Hirshfield. Copyright © 1997 by Jane Hirshfield. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc. “The Black Snake” (page 131) copyright © 1979 by . Used with permission of the Molly Malone Cook Literary Agency. “The Dead” (page 132) is from Questions About Angels by , © 1991. Reprinted by permission of the University of Press. “The Want Bone” (page 133) from The Want Bone by . Copyright © 1991 by Robert Pinsky. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc. , “Facing It” (page 134) from Dien Cai Dau in Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems, © 2001 by Yusef Komunyakaa and reprinted by permission of Press.

A number of the illustrations appearing in this volume are also copyrighted, as is indicated on the illustrations themselves. These may not be reprinted without the permission of the copyright holder.

The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.. government.

2 elsewhere. However, there are no long, stan- dardized religious cycles about one supreme divinity. The closest equivalents to Old World spiritual are often accounts of shamans’ initiations and voyages. Apart from these, there are stories about heroes such as the Ojibwa ’s Manabozho or the 1 tribe’s Coyote. These tricksters are early american and treated with varying degrees of respect. In one colonial period to 1776 tale they may act like heroes, while in another they may seem selfish or foolish. Although merican literature begins with the orally past authorities, such as the Swiss psycholo- transmitted myths, legends, tales, and gist Carl Jung, have deprecated trickster tales Alyrics (always songs) of Indian . as expressing the inferior, amoral side of There was no written literature among the the psyche, contemporary scholars — some more than 500 different Indian languages and of Native — point out that tribal cultures that existed in Odysseus and Prometheus, the revered Greek before the first Europeans arrived. As a result, heroes, are essentially tricksters as well. Native American oral literature is quite diverse. Examples of almost every oral genre can be Narratives from quasi-nomadic hunting cul- found in American : lyrics, tures like the Navaho are different from stories chants, myths, fairy tales, humorous anec- of settled agricultural tribes such as the pueblo- dotes, incantations, riddles, , epics, dwelling Acoma; the stories of northern lakeside and legendary . Accounts of migra- dwellers such as the Ojibwa often differ radically tions and ancestors abound, as do vision or from stories of desert tribes like the Hopi. healing songs and tricksters’ tales. Certain Tribes maintained their own — creation stories are particularly popular. In one worshipping gods, animals, plants, or sacred well-known creation story, told with variations persons. Systems of government ranged from among many tribes, a turtle holds up the world. democracies to councils of elders to theocra- In a Cheyenne version, the creator, Maheo, has cies. These tribal variations enter into the oral four chances to fashion the world from a watery literature as well. universe. He sends four water birds diving Still, it is possible to make a few generaliza- to try to bring up earth from the bottom. The tions. Indian stories, for example, glow with snow goose, loon, and mallard soar high into reverence for nature as a spiritual as well as the sky and sweep down in a dive, but cannot physical mother. Nature is alive and endowed reach bottom; but the little coot, who cannot with spiritual forces; main characters may fly, succeeds in bringing up some mud in his be animals or plants, often totems associated bill. Only one creature, humble Grandmother with a tribe, group, or individual. The closest to Turtle, is the right shape to support the mud the Indian sense of holiness in later American world Maheo shapes on her shell — hence the literature is ’s transcen- Indian name for America, “Turtle Island.” dental “Over-Soul,” which pervades all of life. The songs or poetry, like the narratives, The Mexican tribes revered the divine Quet- range from the sacred to the light and humor- zalcoatl, a god of the Toltecs and Aztecs, and ous: There are lullabies, war chants, love songs, some tales of a high god or culture were told and special songs for children’s games, 3 gambling, various chores, magic, or dance cer- European record of exploration in America is in emonials. Generally the songs are repetitive. a Scandinavian language. The Old Norse Vin- Short poem-songs given in dreams sometimes land Saga recounts how the adventurous Leif have the clear imagery and subtle mood asso- Ericson and a band of wandering Norsemen ciated with Japanese or Eastern-influ- settled briefly somewhere on the northeast enced imagistic poetry. A Chippewa song runs: coast of America — probably Nova Scotia, in Canada — in the first of the 11th cen- A loon I thought it was tury, almost 400 years before the next recorded But it was European discovery of the . My love’s The first known and sustained contact splashing oar. between the Americas and the rest of the world, however, began with the famous voyage of an Vision songs, often very short, are anoth- Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus, funded distinctive form. Appearing in dreams or by the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella. visions, sometimes with no warning, they may Columbus’s journal in his “Epistola,” printed in be healing, hunting, or love songs. Often they 1493, recounts the trip’s drama — the terror of are personal, as in this Modoc song: the men, who feared monsters and thought they might fall off the edge of the world; the near- I mutiny; how Columbus faked the ships’ logs the song so the men would not know how much farther I walk here. they had travelled than anyone had gone before; and the first sighting of land as they neared Indian and its relation to America. American literature as a whole is one of the Bartolomé de las Casas is the richest source richest and least explored topics in American of information about the early contact between studies. The Indian contribution to America is American Indians and Europeans. As a young greater than is often believed. The hundreds priest he helped conquer . He transcribed of Indian words in everyday Columbus’s journal, and late in life wrote a include “canoe,” “tobacco,” “potato,” “mocca- long, vivid of the Indians criticizing sin,” “moose,” “persimmon,” “raccoon,” “tom- their enslavement by the Spanish. ahawk,” and “totem.” Contemporary Native Initial English attempts at colonization were American , discussed in chapter 8, also disasters. The first colony was set up in 1585 at contains works of great beauty. Roanoke, off the coast of ; all its colonists disappeared, and to this day legends THE LITERATURE OF EXPLORATION are told about blue-eyed Croatan Indians of the ad history taken a different turn, the area. The second colony was more permanent: United States easily could have been Jamestown, established in 1607. It endured Ha part of the great Spanish or French starvation, brutality, and misrule. However, the overseas empires. Its present inhabitants literature of the period paints America in glow- might speak Spanish and form one nation with ing colors as the land of riches and opportunity. Mexico, or speak French and be joined with Accounts of the colonizations became world- Canadian Francophone Quebec and Montreal. renowned. The exploration of Roanoke was Yet the earliest explorers of America were carefully recorded by Thomas Hariot in A Brief not English, Spanish, or French. The first and True Report of the New-Found Land 4 of (1588). Hariot’s was quickly THE COLONIAL PERIOD IN NEW translated into , French, and German; the ENGLAND text and pictures were made into engravings t is likely that no other colonists in the and widely republished for over 200 years. history of the world were as intellectual The Jamestown colony’s main record, the Ias the . Between 1630 and 1690, of Captain , one of its lead- there were as many university graduates in ers, is the exact opposite of Hariot’s accurate, the northeastern section of the United States, scientific account. Smith was an incurable known as , as in the mother coun- romantic, and he seems to have embroidered try — an astounding fact when one considers his adventures. To him we owe the famous story that most educated people of the time were of the Indian maiden, Pocahontas. Whether fact aristocrats who were unwilling to risk their or fiction, the tale is ingrained in the American lives in wilderness conditions. The self-made historical imagination. The story recounts how and often self-educated Puritans were notable Pocahontas, favorite daughter of Chief Pow- exceptions. They wanted education to under- hatan, saved Captain Smith’s life when he was stand and execute God’s will as they established a prisoner of the chief. Later, when the English their colonies throughout New England. persuaded Powhatan to give Pocahontas to The Puritan definition of good writing was them as a hostage, her gentleness, , that which brought home a full awareness and beauty impressed the English, and, in 1614, of the importance of worshipping God and of she married John Rolfe, an English gentleman. the spiritual dangers that the soul faced on The initiated an eight-year peace Earth. Puritan style varied enormously — between the colonists and the Indians, ensuring from complex metaphysical poetry to homely the survival of the struggling new colony. journals and crushingly pedantic religious In the 17th century, pirates, adventurers, and history. Whatever the style or genre, certain explorers opened the way to a second wave themes remained constant. Life was seen as of permanent colonists, bringing their wives, a test; failure led to eternal damnation and children, farm implements, and craftsmen’s hellfire, and success to heavenly bliss. This tools. The early literature of exploration, made world was an arena of constant battle between up of diaries, , travel journals, ships’ logs, the forces of God and the forces of Satan, a and reports to the explorers’ financial backers formidable enemy with many disguises. Many — European rulers or, in mercantile England Puritans excitedly awaited the “millennium,” and Holland, joint stock companies — gradu- when Jesus would return to Earth, end ally was supplanted by records of the settled misery, and inaugurate 1,000 years of peace colonies. Because England eventually took pos- and prosperity. session of the North American colonies, the Scholars have long pointed out the link best-known and most-anthologized colonial between Puritanism and : Both rest literature is English. As American minority lit- on ambition, hard work, and an intense striv- erature continues to flower in the 20th century ing for success. Although individual Puritans and American life becomes increasingly multi- could not know, in strict theological terms, cultural, scholars are rediscovering the impor- whether they were “saved” and among the tance of the continent’s mixed ethnic heritage. elect who would go to heaven, Puritans tended Although the story of literature now turns to to feel that earthly success was a sign of elec- the English accounts, it is important to recog- tion. Wealth and status were sought not only for nize its richly cosmopolitan beginnings. themselves, but as welcome reassurances 5 Painting courtesy Smithsonian Institution

“The First Thanksgiving,” a painting by ... Ferris, depicts America’s early settlers and Native Americans celebrating a bountiful harvest. of spiritual health and promises of eternal life. saith the Lord.” Despairing of purifying the Moreover, the concept of stewardship encour- Church of England from within, “Separatists” aged success. The Puritans interpreted all formed underground “covenanted” churches things and events as symbols with deeper that swore loyalty to instead of the spiritual meanings, and felt that in advancing king. Seen as traitors to the king as well as their own profit and their community’s well- heretics damned to hell, they were often perse- being, they were also furthering God’s plans. cuted. Their separation took them ultimately to They did not draw lines of distinction between the New World. the secular and religious spheres: All of life was an expression of the divine will — a that William Bradford (1590-1657) later resurfaces in . William Bradford was elected of In recording ordinary events to reveal their Plymouth in the Bay Colony spiritual meaning, Puritan commonly shortly after the Separatists landed. He was cited the , chapter and verse. History was a deeply pious, self-educated who had a symbolic religious panorama leading to the learned several languages, including Hebrew, Puritan triumph over the New World and to in order to “see with his own eyes the ancient God’s kingdom on Earth. oracles of God in their native beauty.” His The first Puritan colonists who settled New participation in the migration to Holland and England exemplified the seriousness of Refor- the voyage to Plymouth, and his mation . Known as the “Pilgrims,” duties as governor, made him ideally suited to they were a small group of believers who had be the first historian of his colony. His history, migrated from England to Holland — even (1651), is a clear and then known for its religious tolerance — in compelling account of the colony’s beginning. 1608, during a time of persecutions. His description of the first view of America is Like most Puritans, they interpreted the justly famous: Bible literally. They read and acted on the text Being thus passed the vast ocean, and a sea of the Second Book of Corinthians — “Come of troubles...they had now no friends to wel- out from among them and be ye separate, come them nor inns to entertain or refresh 6 their weatherbeaten bodies; no houses or much but contemporary readers most enjoy the witty towns to repair to, to seek for succor...sav- poems on subjects from daily life and her warm age barbarians...were readier to fill their sides and loving poems to her husband and children. with arrows than otherwise. And for the reason She was inspired by English metaphysical - it was winter, and they that know the winters ry, and her book The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung of that country, know them to be sharp and Up in America (1650) shows the influence violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms... of Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney, and other all stand upon them with a weatherbeaten face, English poets as well. She often uses elaborate and the whole country, full of woods and thick- conceits or extended metaphors. “To My Dear ets, represented a wild and savage hue. and Loving Husband” (1678) uses the oriental imagery, love theme, and idea of comparison radford also recorded the first document popular in Europe at the time, but gives these a of colonial self-governance in the English pious meaning at the poem’s conclusion: BNew World, the “Mayflower Compact,” drawn up while the Pilgrims were still on board If ever two were one, then surely we. ship. The compact was a harbinger of the If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; Declaration of Independence to come a century If ever wife was happy in a man, and a half later. Compare with me, ye women, if you can. Puritans disapproved of such secular amuse- I prize thy love more than whole mines of ments as dancing and card-playing, which gold were associated with ungodly aristocrats and Or all the riches that the East doth hold. immoral living. or writing “light” My love is such that rivers cannot quench, also fell into this category. Puritan minds Nor ought but love from thee, give poured their tremendous energies into non- recompense. fiction and pious genres: poetry, sermons, Thy love is such I can no way repay, theological tracts, and histories. Their intimate The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. diaries and meditations record the rich inner Then while we live, in love let’s so lives of this introspective and intense people. persevere That when we live no more, we may live (. 1612-1672) ever. The first published book of poems by an American was also the first American book to (c. 1644-1729) be published by a woman — Anne Bradstreet. Like Anne Bradstreet, and, in fact, all of New It is not surprising that the book was pub- England’s first writers, the intense, brilliant lished in England, given the lack of printing poet and minister Edward Taylor was born in presses in the early years of the first American England. The son of a yeoman farmer — an colonies. Born and educated in England, Anne independent farmer who owned his own land Bradstreet was the daughter of an earl’s estate — Taylor was a teacher who sailed to New - manager. She emigrated with her family when land in 1668 rather than take an oath of loyalty she was 18. Her husband eventually became to the Church of England. He studied at Har- governor of the , vard College, and, like most Harvard-trained which later grew into the great city of . ministers, he knew Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. She preferred her long, religious poems on A selfless and pious man, Taylor acted as a mis- conventional subjects such as the seasons, sionary to the settlers when he accepted his 7 lifelong job as a minister in the town a New England whose quest for forbid- of Westfield, Massachusetts, 160 kilometers den knowledge sinks the ship of American into the thickly forested, wild interior. Taylor humanity in Moby-Dick (1851). (Moby-Dick was the best-educated man in the area, and he was the favorite novel of 20th-century Ameri- put his knowledge to use, working as can , whose profound minister, doctor, and civic leader. and disturbing works suggest that the dark, Modest, pious, and hard-working, Taylor metaphysical vision of Protestant America has never published his poetry, which was discov- not yet been exhausted.) ered only in the 1930s. He would, no doubt, have seen his work’s discovery as divine provi- ike most colonial literature, the poems of dence; today’s readers should be grateful to early New England imitate the form and have his poems — the finest examples of 17th- Ltechnique of the mother country, though century poetry in North America. the religious passion and frequent biblical ref- Taylor wrote a variety of verse: funeral ele- erences, as well as the new setting, give New gies, lyrics, a medieval “debate,” and a 500- England writing a special identity. Isolated New page Metrical History of Christianity (mainly a World writers also lived before the advent of history of martyrs). His best works, according rapid transportation and electronic communica- to modern critics, are the series of short prepa- tions. As a result, colonial writers were imitating ratory meditations. writing that was already out of date in England. Thus, Edward Taylor, the best American poet of Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705) his day, wrote metaphysical poetry after it had Michael Wigglesworth, like Taylor an Eng- become unfashionable in England. At times, as lish-born, Harvard-educated Puritan minister in Taylor’s poetry, rich works of striking origi- who practiced medicine, is the third New Eng- nality grew out of colonial isolation. land colonial poet of note. He continues the Colonial writers often seemed ignorant of Puritan themes in his best-known work, The such great English authors as Ben Jonson. Day of Doom (1662). A long that Some colonial writers rejected English poets often falls into doggerel, this terrifying popu- who belonged to a different sect as well, there- larization of Calvinistic doctrine was the most by cutting themselves off from the finest lyric popular poem of the colonial period. This first and dramatic models the had American best-seller is an appalling portrait of produced. In addition, many colonials remained damnation to hell in ballad meter. ignorant due to the lack of books. It is terrible poetry — but everybody loved The great model of writing, belief, and con- it. It fused the fascination of a horror story duct was the Bible, in an authorized English with the authority of John Calvin. For more that was already outdated when it than two centuries, people memorized this came out. The age of the Bible, so much older long, dreadful monument to religious terror; than the Roman church, made it authoritative children proudly recited it, and elders quoted to Puritan eyes. it in everyday speech. It is not such a leap New England Puritans clung to the tales of from the terrible punishments of this poem to the Jews in the Old Testament, believing that the ghastly self-inflicted wound of Nathaniel they, like the Jews, were persecuted for their ’s guilty Puritan minister, Arthur faith, that they knew the one true God, and that Dimmesdale, in The Scarlet (1850) or they were the chosen elect who would establish ’s crippled Captain Ahab, the New — a heaven on Earth. 8 The Puritans were aware of the see the change from the early, parallels between the ancient Jews strict religious life of the Puritans of the Old Testament and them- to the later, more worldly Yankee selves. Moses led the Israelites out period of mercantile wealth in of captivity from Egypt, parted the the New England colonies; his Red Sea through God’s miraculous Diary, which is often compared assistance so that his people could to Samuel Pepys’s English diary escape, and received the divine law of the same period, inadvertently in the form of the Ten Command- records the transition. ments. Like Moses, Puritan lead- Like Pepys’s diary, Sewall’s is ers felt they were rescuing their a minute record of his daily life, people from spiritual corruption in reflecting his interest in living England, passing miraculously over piously and well. He notes little a wild sea with God’s aid, and fash- purchases of sweets for a woman ioning new laws and new forms of he was courting, and their dis- government after God’s wishes. agreements over whether he Colonial worlds tend to be archa- should affect aristocratic and ic, and New England certainly was expensive ways such as wearing no exception. New England Puri- a wig and using a coach. tans were archaic by choice, convic- tion, and circumstance. Mary Rowlandson (c. 1635-c.1678) (1652-1730) The earliest woman prose Easier to read than the highly of note is Mary Rowland- religious poetry full of Biblical son, a minister’s wife who gives references are the historical and a clear, moving account of her secular accounts that recount real 11-week captivity by Indians dur- events using lively details. Gover- ing an Indian massacre in 1676. nor ’s Journal (1790) The book undoubtedly fanned provides the best information on the flame of anti-Indian senti- the early Massachusetts Bay Colo- ment, as did John Williams’s and Puritan political theory. The Redeemed Captive (1707), Samuel Sewall’s Diary, which describing his two years in cap- records the years 1674 to 1729, is tivity by French and Indians after lively and engaging. Sewall fits the a massacre. Such writings as pattern of early New England writ- women produced are usually ers we have seen in Bradford and domestic accounts requiring Taylor. Born in England, Sewall was no special education. It may be brought to the colonies at an early argued that women’s literature age. He made his home in the Bos- benefits from its homey real- ton area, where he graduated from ism and commonsense wit; cer- Harvard, and made a career of legal, tainly works like Sarah Kemble Engraving © The Bettmann administrative, and religious work. Archive Knight’s lively Journal (1825) of a Sewall was born late enough to daring solo trip in 1704 from Bos- 9 ton to New York and back escapes the baroque — still a fundamental principle in America complexity of much Puritan writing. today. He held that the law courts should not have the power to punish people for religious Cotton Mather (1663-1728) reasons — a stand that undermined the strict No account of New England colonial literature New England theocracies. A believer in equality would be complete without mentioning Cotton and democracy, he was a lifelong friend of the Mather, the master pedant. The third in the Indians. Williams’s numerous books include four-generation Mather dynasty of Massachu- one of the first phrase books of Indian languag- setts Bay, he wrote at length of New England in , A Key Into the Languages of America (1643). over 500 books and pamphlets. Mather’s 1702 The book also is an embryonic ethnography, Magnalia Christi (Ecclesiastical His- giving bold descriptions of Indian life based tory of New England), his most ambitious work, on the time he had lived among the tribes. exhaustively chronicles the settlement of New Each chapter is devoted to one topic — for England through a series of biographies. The example, eating and mealtime. Indian words huge book presents the holy Puritan errand and phrases pertaining to this topic are mixed into the wilderness to establish God’s kingdom; with comments, anecdotes, and a concluding its structure is a narrative progression of poem. The end of the first chapter reads: representative American “Saint’s Lives.” His zeal somewhat redeems his pompousness: “I If nature’s sons, both wild and tame, write the wonders of the Christian , Humane and courteous be, flying from the deprivations of Europe to the How ill becomes it sons of God American strand.” To want humanity.

Roger Williams (c. 1603-1683) the chapter on words about entertain- As the 1600s wore on into the 1700s, reli- ment, he comments that “it is a strange gious dogmatism gradually dwindled, despite Itruth that a man shall generally find more sporadic, harsh Puritan efforts to stem the tide free entertainment and refreshing among these of tolerance. The minister suf- barbarians, than amongst thousands that call fered for his own views on religion. An English- themselves Christians.” born son of a tailor, he was banished from Williams’s life is uniquely inspiring. On a Massachusetts in the middle of New England’s visit to England during the bloody Civil War ferocious winter in 1635. Secretly warned by there, he drew upon his survival in frigid Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts, he New England to organize firewood deliver- survived only by living with Indians; in 1636, he ies to the poor of during the winter, established a new colony at Rhode Island that after their supply of coal had been cut off. He would welcome persons of different religions. wrote lively defenses of religious toleration A graduate of Cambridge University (Eng- not only for different Christian sects, but also land), he retained sympathy for working people for non-Christians. “It is the will and com- and diverse views. His ideas were ahead of his mand of God, that...a permission of the most time. He was an early critic of imperialism, Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Antichristian insisting that European kings had no right to consciences and worships, be granted to all grant land charters because American land men, in all nations...,” he wrote in The Bloudy belonged to the Indians. Williams also believe Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience in the separation between church and state (1644). The intercultural experience of liv- 10 ing among gracious and humane writes simply of his desire to “feel Indians undoubtedly accounts for and understand their life, and the much of his wisdom. Spirit they live in.” Woolman’s jus- Influence was two-way in the tice-loving spirit naturally turns colonies. For example, John Eliot to social criticism: “I perceived translated the Bible into Narra- that many white People do often gansett. Some Indians converted sell Rum to the Indians, which, I to Christianity. Even today, the believe, is a great Evil.” Native American church is a mix- oolman was also one of the first ture of Christianity and Indian antislavery writers, publishing traditional belief. two , “Some Considerations The spirit of toleration and reli- on the Keeping of Negroes,” in gious that gradually grew 1754 and 1762. An ardent humani- in the American colonies was first tarian, he followed a path of “pas- established in Rhode Island and sive obedience” to authorities and , home of the Quak- laws he found unjust, prefiguring ers. The humane and tolerant ’s celebrat- Quakers, or “Friends,” as they were ed , “Civil Disobedience” known, believed in the sacredness (1849), by generations. of the individual conscience as the fountainhead of social order and Jonathan Edwards morality. The fundamental Quaker (1703-1758) belief in universal love and broth- The antithesis of John Wool- erhood made them deeply demo- man is Jonathan Edwards, who cratic and opposed to dogmatic was born only 17 years before religious authority. Driven out of the Quaker notable. Woolman had strict Massachusetts, which feared little formal schooling; Edwards their influence, they established a was highly educated. Woolman very successful colony, Pennsylva- followed his inner light; Edwards nia, under in 1681. was devoted to the law and author- ity. Both men were fine writers, Jonathan Edwards John Woolman (1720-1772) but they revealed opposite poles of The best-known Quaker work the colonial religious experience. is the long Journal (1774) of John Edwards was molded by his Woolman, documenting his inner extreme sense of duty and by the life in a pure, heartfelt style of rigid Puritan environment, which great sweetness that has drawn conspired to make him defend praise from many American and strict and gloomy from English writers. This remarkable the forces of liberalism springing man left his comfortable home up around him. He is best known in town to sojourn with the Indi- for his frightening, powerful ser- ans in the wild interior because mon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Engraving © The Bettmann he thought he might learn from Archive Angry God” (1741): them and share their ideas. He 11 [I] God should let you go, you would tions of conscience. immediately sink, and sinfully descend, and plunge into the bottomless gulf... William Byrd (1674-1744) The God that holds you over the pit of Southern culture naturally revolved around hell, much as one holds a or some the ideal of the gentleman. A Renaissance man loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, equally good at managing a farm and reading and is dreadfully provoked....he looks upon classical Greek, he had the power of a feudal you as worthy of nothing else but to be lord. cast into the bottomless gulf. William Byrd describes the gracious way of life at his plantation, Westover, in his famous Edwards’s sermons had enormous impact, letter of 1726 to his English friend Charles sending whole congregations into hysterical Boyle, Earl of Orrery: fits of weeping. In the long run, though, their grotesque harshness alienated people from Besides the advantages of pure air, the Calvinism that Edwards valiantly defended. we abound in all kinds of provisions Edwards’s dogmatic, medieval sermons no lon- without expense (I mean we who have ger fit the experiences of relatively peace- plantations). I have a large family of my ful, prosperous 18th-century colonists. After own, and my doors are open to everybody, Edwards, fresh, liberal currents of tolerance yet I have no bills to pay, and half-a-crown gathered force. will rest undisturbed in my pockets for many moons altogether. LITERATURE IN THE SOUTHERN AND Like one of the , I have MIDDLE COLONIES my flock and herds, my bondmen and re-revolutionary southern literature was bondwomen, and every sort of trade aristocratic and secular, reflecting the amongst my own servants, so that I live in Pdominant social and economic systems of a kind of independence on everyone but the southern plantations. Early English immi- Providence. grants were drawn to the southern colonies because of economic opportunity rather than William Byrd epitomizes the spirit of the religious freedom. southern colonial gentry. The heir to 1,040 Although many southerners were poor farm- hectares, which he enlarged to 7,160 hectares, ers or tradespeople living not much better than he was a merchant, trader, and planter. His slaves, the southern literate upper class was library of 3,600 books was the largest in the shaped by the classical, Old World ideal of a South. He was born with a lively intelligence noble landed gentry made possible by slav- that his father augmented by sending him ery. The institution released wealthy southern to excellent schools in England and Holland. whites from manual labor, afforded them lei- He visited the French Court, became a Fellow sure, and made the dream of an aristocratic of the Royal Society, and was friendly with life in the American wilderness possible. The some of the leading English writers of his day, Puritan emphasis on hard work, education, particularly William Wycherley and William and earnestness was rare — instead we hear Congreve. His London diaries are the opposite of such pleasures as horseback riding and of those of the New England Puritans, full of hunting. The church was the focus of a genteel fancy dinners, glittering parties, and womaniz- social life, not a forum for minute examina- ing, with little introspective soul-searching. 12 Byrd is best known today for his lively His- the author, an Englishman named Ebenezer tory of the Dividing Line, a diary of a 1729 trip Cook, had unsuccessfully tried his hand as a of some weeks and 960 kilometers into the tobacco merchant. Cook exposed the crude interior to survey the line dividing the neigh- ways of the colony with high-spirited humor, boring colonies of Virginia and North Carolina. and accused the colonists of cheating him. The The quick impressions that vast wilderness, poem concludes with an exaggerated curse: Indians, half-savage whites, wild beasts, and “May wrath divine then lay those regions waste every sort of difficulty made on this civilized / Where no man’s faithful nor a woman chaste.” gentleman form a uniquely American and very In general, the colonial South may fairly be southern book. He ridicules the first Virginia linked with a light, worldly, informative, and colonists, “about a hundred men, most of them realistic literary tradition. Imitative of Eng- reprobates of good families,” and that at lish literary fashions, the southerners attained Jamestown, “like true Englishmen, they built imaginative heights in witty, precise observa- a church that cost no more than fifty pounds, tions of distinctive New World conditions. and a tavern that cost five hundred.” Byrd’s writings are fine examples of the keen inter- (Gustavus Vassa) (c. est southerners took in the material world: the 1745-c. 1797) land, Indians, plants, animals, and settlers. Important black writers like Olaudah Equi- ano and Jupiter Hammon emerged during the Robert Beverley (c. 1673-1722) colonial period. Equiano, an Ibo from Niger obert Beverley, another wealthy planter (West Africa), was the first black in America to and author of The History and Present write an autobiography, The Interesting Narra- RState of Virginia (1705, 1722) records tive of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus the history of the Virginia colony in a humane Vassa, the African (1789). In the book — an and vigorous style. Like Byrd, he admired the early example of the genre — Indians and remarked on the strange European Equiano gives an account of his native land and superstitions about Virginia — for example, the horrors and cruelties of his captivity and the belief “that the country turns all people enslavement in the West Indies. Equiano, who black who go there.” He noted the great hospi- converted to Christianity, movingly laments his tality of southerners, a trait maintained today. cruel “un-Christian” treatment by Christians Humorous — a literary work in which — a sentiment many African-Americans would human vice or folly is attacked through , voice in centuries to come. derision, or wit — appears frequently in the colonial South. A group of irritated settlers Jupiter Hammon (c. 1720-c. 1800) lampooned ’s philanthropic founder, The black American poet Jupiter Hammon, a General James Oglethorpe, in a tract entitled slave on , New York, is remembered A True and Historical Narrative of the Colony for his religious poems as well as for An Address of Georgia (1741). They pretended to praise to the Negroes of the State of New York (1787), him for keeping them so poor and overworked in which he advocated freeing children of that they had to develop “the valuable virtue slaves instead of condemning them to heredi- of humility” and shun “the anxieties of any tary slavery. His poem “An Evening Thought” further ambition.” was the first poem published by a black male in The rowdy, satirical poem “The Sotweed Fac- America. ■ tor” satirizes the colony of , where 13 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, , Edgar chapter Allan Poe, , and . America’s literary independence was slowed by a lingering identification with England, an excessive imitation of English or classical liter- 2 ary models, and difficult economic and political democratic origins and conditions that hampered publishing. revolutionary writers, Revolutionary writers, despite their genuine patriotism, were of necessity self-conscious, 1776-1820 and they could never find roots in their Ameri- can sensibilities. Colonial writers of the revo- he hard-fought lutionary generation had been born English, against Britain (1775-1783) was the first had grown to maturity as English citizens, and modern war of liberation against a colo- T had cultivated English modes of thought and nial power. The triumph of American indepen- English fashions in dress and behavior. Their dence seemed to many at the time a divine sign parents and grandparents were English (or that America and her people were destined for European), as were all their friends. Added to greatness. Military victory fanned nationalistic this, American awareness of literary fashion hopes for a great new literature. Yet with the still lagged behind the English, and this time exception of outstanding political writing, few lag intensified American imitation. Fifty years works of note appeared during or soon after the after their fame in England, English neoclassic Revolution. writers such as Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, American books were harshly reviewed in Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Oliver Gold- England. Americans were painfully aware of smith, and Samuel Johnson were still eagerly their excessive dependence on English liter- imitated in America. ary models. The search for a native literature Moreover, the heady challenges of building became a national obsession. As one American a new nation attracted talented and educated magazine editor wrote, around 1816, “Depen- people to politics, law, and diplomacy. These dence is a state of degradation fraught with pursuits brought honor, glory, and financial disgrace, and to be dependent on a foreign security. Writing, on the other hand, did not mind for what we can ourselves produce is to pay. Early American writers, now separated add to the crime of indolence the weakness of from England, effectively had no modern pub- stupidity.” lishers, no audience, and no adequate legal Cultural revolutions, unlike military revo- protection. Editorial assistance, distribution, lutions, cannot be successfully imposed but and publicity were rudimentary. must grow from the soil of shared experience. Until 1825, most American authors paid Revolutions are expressions of the heart of the printers to publish their work. Obviously only people; they grow gradually out of new sensi- the leisured and independently wealthy, like bilities and wealth of experience. It would take and the New York Knicker- 50 years of accumulated history for America to bocker group, or the group of Connecticut poets earn its cultural independence and to produce knows as the Hartford Wits, could afford to the first great generation of American writers: indulge their interest in writing. The exception, Washington Irving, , , though from a poor 14 family, was a printer by trade and rious examples of pirating. Mat- could publish his own work. thew Carey, an important Ameri- was can publisher, paid a London agent more typical. The author of sev- — a sort of literary spy — to send eral interesting Gothic romances, copies of unbound pages, or even Brown was the first American proofs, to him in fast ships that author to attempt to live from his could sail to America in a month. writing. But his short life ended Carey’s men would sail out to meet in poverty. the incoming ships in the har- The lack of an audience was bor and speed the pirated books another problem. The small culti- into print using typesetters who vated audience in America wanted divided the book into sections and well-known European authors, worked in shifts around . partly out of the exaggerated Such a pirated English book could respect with which former colo- be reprinted in a day and placed on nies regarded their previous rul- the shelves for sale in American ers. This preference for English bookstores almost as fast as in works was not entirely unreason- England. able, considering the inferiority Because imported authorized of American output, but it wors- editions were more expensive and ened the situation by depriving could not compete with pirated American authors of an audience. ones, the copyright situation dam- Only journalism offered financial aged foreign authors such as Sir remuneration, but the mass audi- and Charles Dickens, ence wanted light, undemanding along with American authors. But verse and short topical essays — at least the foreign authors had not long or experimental work. already been paid by their original The absence of adequate copy- publishers and were already well right laws was perhaps the clear- known. Americans such as James est cause of literary stagnation. Fenimore Cooper not only failed American printers pirating Eng- to receive adequate payment, but lish best-sellers understandably Noah Webster they had to suffer seeing their were unwilling to pay an Ameri- works pirated under their noses. can author for unknown material. Cooper’s first successful book, The The unauthorized reprinting of Spy (1821), was pirated by four dif- foreign books was originally seen ferent printers within a month of as a service to the colonies as well its appearance. as a source of profit for printers Ironically, the copyright law of like Franklin, who reprinted works 1790, which allowed pirating, was of the and great European nationalistic in intent. Drafted books to educate the American by Noah Webster, the great lexi- public. cographer who later compiled an Engraving © The Bettmann Printers everywhere in America Archive American dictionary, the law pro- followed his lead. There are noto- tected only the work of American 15 authors; it was felt that English writers should life illustrates the impact of the Enlightenment look out for themselves. on a gifted individual. Self-educated but well- Bad as the law was, none of the early publish- read in John Locke, Lord Shaftesbury, Joseph ers were willing to have it changed because Addison, and other Enlightenment writers, it proved profitable for them. Piracy starved Franklin learned from them to apply reason to the first generation of revolutionary American his own life and to break with tradition — in writers; not surprisingly, the generation after particular the old-fashioned Puritan tradition them produced even less work of merit. The — when it threatened to smother his ideals. high point of piracy, in 1815, corresponds with While a youth, Franklin taught himself lan- the low point of American writing. Neverthe- guages, read widely, and practiced writing for less, the cheap and plentiful supply of pirated the public. When he moved from Boston to Phil- foreign books and classics in the first 50 years adelphia, Pennsylvania, Franklin already had of the new country did educate Americans, the kind of education associated with the upper including the first great writers, who began to classes. He also had the Puritan capacity for make their appearance around 1825. hard, careful work, constant self-scrutiny, and the desire to better himself. These qualities THE steadily propelled him to wealth, respectability, he 18th-century American Enlightenment and honor. Never selfish, Franklin tried to help was a movement marked by an emphasis other ordinary people become successful by Ton rationality rather than tradition, scien- sharing his insights and initiating a character- tific inquiry instead of unquestioning religious istically American genre — the self-help book. dogma, and representative government in place Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack, begun of monarchy. Enlightenment thinkers and writ- in 1732 and published for many years, made ers were devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty, Franklin prosperous and well-known through- and equality as the natural rights of man. out the colonies. In this annual book of useful encouragement, advice, and factual informa- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) tion, amusing characters such as old Father Benjamin Franklin, whom the Scottish phi- Abraham and Poor Richard exhort the reader losopher David Hume called America’s “first in pithy, memorable sayings. In “The Way great man of letters,” embodied the Enlighten- to Wealth,” which originally appeared in the ment ideal of humane rationality. Practical Almanack, Father Abraham, “a plain clean old yet idealistic, hard-working and enormously Man, with white Locks,” quotes Poor Richard at successful, Franklin recorded his early life in length. “A Word to the Wise is enough,” he says. his famous Autobiography. Writer, printer, pub- “God helps them that help themselves.” “Early lisher, scientist, philanthropist, and , to Bed, and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, he was the most famous and respected private wealthy, and wise.” Poor Richard is a psy- figure of his time. He was the first great self- chologist (“Industry pays Debts, while Despair made man in America, a poor democrat born encreaseth them”), and he always counsels in an aristocratic age that his fine example hard work (“Diligence is the Mother of Good helped to liberalize. Luck”). Do not be lazy, he advises, for “One Franklin was a second-generation immi- Today is worth two tomorrow.” Sometimes he grant. His Puritan father, a chandler (candle- creates anecdotes to illustrate his points: “A maker), came to Boston, Massachusetts, from little Neglect may breed great Mischief....For England in 1683. In many ways Franklin’s want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want 16 Benjamin Franklin

Engraving courtesy Library of 17 of a Shoe the Horse was lost; and for want of a never lost his democratic sensibility, and he Horse the Rider was lost, being overtaken and was an important figure at the 1787 convention slain by the Enemy, all for want of Care about at which the U.S. Constitution was drafted. In a Horseshoe Nail.” Franklin was a genius at his later years, he was president of an antislav- compressing a moral point: “What maintains ery association. One of his last efforts was to one Vice, would bring up two Children.” “A promote universal public education. small leak will sink a great Ship.” “Fools make Feasts, and wise Men eat them.” Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur Franklin’s Autobiography is, in part, another (1735-1813) self-help book. Written to advise his son, it Another Enlightenment figure is Hector St. covers only the early years. The most famous John de Crèvecoeur, whose Letters from an section describes his scientific scheme of self- American Farmer (1782) gave Europeans a improvement. Franklin lists 13 virtues: tem- glowing idea of opportunities for peace, wealth, perance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, and pride in America. Neither an American nor industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, clean- a farmer, but a French aristocrat who owned liness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. He a plantation outside before elaborates on each with a maxim; for example, the Revolution, Crèvecoeur enthusiastically the temperance maxim is “Eat not to Dullness. praised the colonies for their industry, toler- Drink not to Elevation.” A pragmatic scientist, ance, and growing prosperity in 12 letters that Franklin put the idea of perfectibility to the depict America as an agrarian paradise — a test, using himself as the experimental subject. vision that would inspire , To establish good habits, Franklin invented Ralph Waldo Emerson, and many other writers a reusable calendrical record book in which up to the present. he worked on one virtue each week, record- Crèvecoeur was the earliest European to ing each lapse with a black spot. His theory develop a considered view of America and the prefigures psychological behaviorism, while new American character. The first to exploit his systematic method of notation anticipates the “melting pot” image of America, in a modern behavior modification. The project of famous passage he asks: self-improvement blends the Enlightenment belief in perfectibility with the Puritan habit of What then is the American, this new moral self-scrutiny. man? He is either a European, or the descendant of a European, hence that ranklin saw early that writing could best strange mixture of blood, which you will advance his ideas, and he therefore delib- find in no other country. I could point out Ferately perfected his supple prose style, to you a family whose grandfather was not as an end in itself but as a tool. “Write an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, with the learned. Pronounce with the vulgar,” whose son married a French woman, he advised. A scientist, he followed the Royal and whose present four sons have now (scientific) Society’s 1667 advice to use “a four wives of different nations....Here close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive individuals of all nations are melted into expressions, clear senses, a native easiness, a new race of men, whose labors and bringing all things as near the mathematical posterity will one day cause changes in plainness as they can.” the world. Despite his prosperity and fame, Franklin 18 THE POLITICAL PAMPHLET: whom English might be a second (1737-1809) language. Thomas Jefferson’s The passion of Revolutionary original draft of the Declaration literature is found in pamphlets, of Independence is clear and logi- the most popular form of political cal, but his committee’s modifica- literature of the day. Over 2,000 tions made it even simpler. The pamphlets were published during Federalist Papers, written in sup- the Revolution. The pamphlets port of the Constitution, are also thrilled patriots and threatened lucid, logical arguments, suitable loyalists; they filled the role of for debate in a democratic nation. drama, as they were often read aloud in public to excite audiences. NEOCLASSISM: EPIC, American soldiers read them aloud MOCK EPIC, AND SATIRE in their camps; British Loyalists Unfortunately, “literary” writ- threw them into public bonfires. ing was not as simple and direct as political writing. When trying homas Paine’s pamphlet to write poetry, most educated Common Sense sold over authors stumbled into the pitfall of T100,000 copies in the first elegant neoclassicism. The epic, in three months of its publication. It particular, exercised a fatal attrac- is still rousing today. “The cause of tion. American literary patriots America is in a great measure the felt sure that the great American cause of all mankind,” Paine wrote, Revolution naturally would find voicing the idea of American excep- expression in the epic — a long, tionalism still strong in the United dramatic narrative poem in ele- States — that in some fundamental vated language, celebrating the sense, since America is a demo- feats of a legendary hero. cratic experiment and a country Many writers tried but none suc- theoretically open to all immigrants, ceeded. Timothy Dwight, (1752- the fate of America foreshadows the 1817), one of the group of writers fate of humanity at large. known as the Hartford Wits, is an Political writings in a democracy Thomas Paine example. Dwight, who eventually had to be clear to appeal to the vot- became the president of Yale Uni- ers. And to have informed voters, versity, based his epic, The Con- universal education was promoted quest of Canaan (1785), on the by many of the founding fathers. Biblical story of Joshua’s strug- One indication of the vigorous, if gle to enter the Promised Land. simple, literary life was the pro- Dwight cast General Washington, liferation of newspapers. More commander of the American army newspapers were read in America and later the first president of the during the Revolution than any- United States, as Joshua in his where else in the world. Immigra- allegory and borrowed the couplet Portrait courtesy Library of tion also mandated a simple style. Congress form that Alexander Pope used to was vital to a newcomer, for translate Homer. Dwight’s epic 19 was as boring as it was ambitious. English Another satirical work, the novel Modern critics demolished it; even Dwight’s friends, Chivalry, published by Hugh Henry Brack- such as John Trumbull (1750-1831), remained enridge in installments from 1792 to 1815, unenthusiastic. So much thunder and lightning memorably lampoons the excesses of the age. raged in the melodramatic battle scenes that Brackenridge (1748-1816), a Scottish immi- Trumbull proposed that the epic be provided grant raised on the , based with lightning rods. his huge, picaresque novel on ; it describes the mis-adventures of Captain ot surprisingly, satirical poetry fared Farrago and his stupid, brutal, yet appealingly much better than serious verse. The human, servant Teague O’Regan. Nmock epic genre encouraged American poets to use their natural voices and did not POET OF THE AMERICAN lure them into a bog of pretentious and pre- REVOLUTION dictable patriotic sentiments and faceless con- (1752-1832) ventional poetic epithets out of the Greek poet One poet, Philip Freneau, incorporated the Homer and the Roman poet Virgil by way of the new stirrings of European and English poets. escaped the imitativeness and vague universal- In mock epics like John Trumbull’s good- ity of the Hartford Wits. The key to both his suc- humored ’Fingal (1776-1782), stylized emo- cess and his failure was his passionately demo- tions and conventional turns of phrase are cratic spirit combined with an inflexible temper. ammunition for good satire, and the bom- The Hartford Wits, all of them undoubted bastic oratory of the Revolution is itself ridi- patriots, reflected the general cultural con- culed. Modeled on the British poet Samuel servatism of the educated classes. Freneau Butler’s Hudibras, the mock epic derides a Tory, set himself against this holdover of old Tory M’Fingal. It is often pithy, as when noting of attitudes, complaining of “the writings of an condemned criminals facing hanging: aristocratic, speculating faction at Hartford, in favor of monarchy and titular distinctions.” No man ’er felt the halter draw. With Although Freneau received a fine education good opinion of the law. and was as well acquainted with the classics as any Hartford Wit, he embraced liberal and M’Fingal went into over 30 editions, was democratic causes. reprinted for a half-century, and was appreci- From a Huguenot (radical French Protestant) ated in England as well as America. Satire background, Freneau fought as a militiaman appealed to Revolutionary audiences partly during the Revolutionary War. In 1780, he was because it contained social comment and criti- captured and imprisoned in two British ships, cism, and political topics and social problems where he almost died before man- were the main subjects of the day. The first aged to get him released. His poem “The Brit- American comedy to be performed, The Con- ish Prison Ship” is a bitter condemnation of the trast (produced 1787) by Royall Tyler (1757- cruelties of the British, who wished “to stain 1826), humorously contrasts Colonel Manly, an the world with gore.” This piece and other revo- American officer, with Dimple, who imitates lutionary works, including “Eutaw Springs,” English fashions. Naturally, Dimple is made “American Liberty,” “A Political Litany,” “A Mid- to look ridiculous. The play introduces the first night Consultation,” and “George the Third’s Yankee character, Jonathan. Soliloquy,” brought him fame as the “Poet of 20 the American Revolution.” ing the early years. Freneau edited a number of inspired publications in many journals during his life, always fields, leading to a new appre- mindful of the great cause of ciation of things American. Noah democracy. When Thomas Jef- Webster (1758-1843) devised an ferson helped him establish the American Dictionary, as well as militant, anti-Federalist National an important reader and speller Gazette in 1791, Freneau became for the schools. His Spelling Book the first powerful, crusading sold more than 100 million copies newspaper editor in America, and over the years. Updated Webster’s the literary predecessor of William dictionaries are still standard Cullen Bryant, William Lloyd Gar- he 18th- today. The American , by rison, and .L. Mencken. Tcentry American Jedidiah Morse, another landmark As a poet and editor, Freneau Enlightenment reference work, promoted knowl- adhered to his democratic ideals. edge of the vast and expanding His popular poems, published in was a movement American land itself. Some of the newspapers for the average read- marked by an most interesting, if nonliterary, er, regularly celebrated American emphasis on writings of the period are the jour- subjects. “The Virtue of Tobacco” rationality rather nals of frontiersmen and explorers concerns the indigenous plant, a than tradition, such as Meriwether Lewis (1774- mainstay of the southern econo- 1809) and Zebulon Pike (1779- my, while “The Jug of Rum” cel- scientific inquiry 1813), who wrote accounts of ebrates the alcoholic drink of the instead of expeditions across the Louisiana West Indies, a crucial commod- unquestioning Territory, the vast portion of the ity of early American trade and a religious dogma, North American continent that major New World export. Common Thomas Jefferson purchased from American characters lived in “The and representative in 1803. of Hatteras,” as well as in government in poems about quack doctors and place of monarchy. WRITERS OF FICTION bombastic evangelists. Enlightenment he first important fiction Freneau commanded a natural thinkers and writers writers widely recognized and colloquial style appropriate to Ttoday, Charles Brockden a genuine democracy, but he could were devoted Brown, Washington Irving, and also rise to refined neoclassic lyri- to the ideals of James Fenimore Cooper, used cism in often-anthologized works justice, liberty, and American subjects, historical per- such as “The Wild Honey Suckle” equality as the spectives, themes of change, and (1786), which evokes a sweet- nostalgic tones. They wrote in smelling native shrub. Not until natural rights of many prose genres, initiated new the “American Renaissance” that man. forms, and found new ways to began in the 1820s would Ameri- make a living through literature. can poetry surpass the heights that With them, American literature Freneau had scaled 40 years earlier. began to be read and appreciated Additional groundwork for later in the United States and abroad. literary achievement was laid dur- 21 Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) Nathaniel Hawthorne. Despite his talent, he Already mentioned as the first professional probably would not have become a full-time American writer, Charles Brockden Brown was professional writer, given the lack of financial inspired by the English writers Mrs. Radcliffe rewards, if a series of fortuitous incidents had and English William Godwin. (Radcliffe was not thrust writing as a profession upon him. known for her terrifying Gothic ; a novel- Through friends, he was able to publish his ist and social reformer, Godwin was the father Sketch Book (1819-1820) simultaneously in of , who wrote Frankenstein and England and America, obtaining copyrights married English poet .) and payment in both countries. Driven by poverty, Brown hastily penned four The Sketch Book of Geoffrye Crayon (Irving’s haunting novels in two years: Wieland (1798), pseudonym) contains his two best remembered (1799), Ormond (1799), and stories, “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend Edgar Huntley (1799). In them, he developed of Sleepy Hollow.” “Sketch” aptly describes the genre of . The Gothic Irving’s delicate, elegant, yet seemingly casual novel was a popular genre of the day fea- style, and “crayon” suggests his ability as a turing exotic and wild settings, disturbing colorist or creator of rich, nuanced tones and psychological depth, and much suspense. Trap- emotional effects. In the Sketch Book, Irving pings included ruined castles or abbeys, ghosts, transforms the Catskill mountains along the mysterious secrets, threatening figures, and north of New York City into a solitary maidens who survive by their wits and fabulous, magical region. spiritual strength. At their best, such novels American readers gratefully accepted Irving’s offer tremendous suspense and hints of magic, imagined “history” of the Catskills, despite the along with profound explorations of the human fact (unknown to them) that he had adapted soul in extremity. Critics suggest that Brown’s his stories from a German source. Irving gave Gothic sensibility expresses deep anxieties America something it badly needed in the about the inadequate social institutions of the brash, materialistic early years: an imaginative new nation. way of relating to the new land. Brown used distinctively American settings. No writer was as successful as Irving at A man of ideas, he dramatized scientific theo- humanizing the land, endowing it with a name ries, developed a personal theory of fiction, and and a face and a set of legends. The story championed high literary standards despite of “Rip Van Winkle,” who slept for 20 years, personal poverty. Though flawed, his works waking to find the colonies had become inde- are darkly powerful. Increasingly, he is seen pendent, eventually became . It was as the precursor of romantic writers like Edgar adapted for the stage, went into the oral tradi- Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel tion, and was gradually accepted as authentic Hawthorne. He expresses subconscious fears American legend by generations of Americans. that the outwardly optimistic Enlightenment Irving discovered and helped satisfy the raw period drove underground. new nation’s sense of history. His numerous works may be seen as his devoted attempts to Washington Irving (1789-1859) build the new nation’s soul by recreating his- The youngest of 11 children born to a well- tory and giving it living, breathing, imaginative to-do New York merchant family, Washington life. For subjects, he chose the most dramatic Irving became a cultural and diplomatic ambas- aspects of American history: the discovery sador to Europe, like Benjamin Franklin and of the New World, the first president and 22 national hero, and the westward different cultures. The son of a exploration. His earliest work was Quaker family, he grew up on his a sparkling, satirical History of father’s remote estate at Otsego New York (1809) under the Dutch, Lake (now Cooperstown) in cen- ostensibly written by Diedrich tral New York State. Although Knickerbocker (hence the name this area was relatively peaceful of Irving’s friends and New York during Cooper’s boyhood, it had writers of the day, the “Knicker- once been the scene of an Indian bocker School”). massacre. Young Fenimore Coo- per grew up in an almost feudal James Fenimore Cooper environment. His father, Judge (1789-1851) Cooper, was a landowner and James Fenimore Cooper, like leader. Cooper saw frontiersmen Irving, evoked a sense of the and Indians at Otsego Lake as a past and gave it a local habi- boy; in later life, bold white set- tation and a name. In Cooper, tlers intruded on his land. though, one finds the powerful Natty Bumppo, Cooper’s myth of a golden age and the renowned literary character, poignance of its loss. While Irving embodies his vision of the fron- and other American writers before tiersman as a gentleman, a Jef- and after him scoured Europe in fersonian “natural aristocrat.” search of its legends, castles, and Early in 1823, in The Pioneers, great themes, Cooper grasped the Cooper had begun to discover essential myth of America: that it Bumppo. Natty is the first famous was timeless, like the wilderness. frontiersman in American litera- American history was a trespass ture and the literary forerunner on the eternal; European history of countless and back- in America was a reenactment woods heroes. He is the idealized, of the fall in the Garden of Eden. upright individualist who is better The cyclical realm of nature was than the society he protects. Poor glimpsed only in the act of destroy- and isolated, yet pure, he is a ing it: The wilderness disappeared James Fenimore touchstone for ethical values and in front of American eyes, vanish- Cooper prefigures Herman Melville’s Billy ing before the oncoming pioneers Budd and ’s Huck Finn. like a mirage. This is Cooper’s Based in part on the real life of basic tragic vision of the ironic destruction of the wilderness, the — who was a Quaker like Coo- new Eden that had attracted the per — Natty Bumppo, an out- colonists in the first place. standing woodsman like Boone, Personal experience enabled was a peaceful man adopted by Cooper to write vividly of the an Indian tribe. Both Boone and transformation of the wilderness the fictional Bumppo loved nature Photo courtesy Library of and of other subjects such as the Congress and freedom. They constantly kept sea and the clash of peoples from moving west to escape the oncom- 23 ing settlers they had guided into tension between the lone indi- the wilderness, and they became vidual and society, nature and cul- legends in their own lifetimes. ture, spirituality and organized Natty is also chaste, high-mind- religion. In Cooper, the natural ed, and deeply spiritual: He is world and the Indian are funda- the Christian knight of medieval mentally good — as is the highly romances transposed to the virgin civilized realm associated with his forest and rocky soil of America. most cultured characters. Inter- The unifying thread of the five mediate characters are often sus- novels collectively known as the pect, especially greedy, poor white Leather-Stocking Tales is the life settlers who are too uneducated of Natty Bumppo. Cooper’s fin- or unrefined to appreciate nature est achievement, they constitute or culture. Like Rudyard Kipling, a vast prose epic with the North E.M. Forster, Herman Melville, American continent as setting, and other sensitive observers of Indian tribes as characters, and widely varied cultures interacting great wars and westward migra- with each other, Cooper was a tion as social background. The cultural relativist. He understood novels bring to life frontier Ameri- that no culture had a monopoly on ca from 1740 to 1804. virtue or refinement. Cooper’s novels portray the suc- Cooper accepted the American cessive waves of the frontier set- condition while Irving did not. tlement: the original wilderness Irving addressed the American set- inhabited by Indians; the arrival of ting as a European might have — the first whites as scouts, soldiers, by importing and adapting Euro- traders, and frontiersmen; the pean legends, culture, and history. coming of the poor, rough settler Cooper took the process a step far- families; and the final arrival of ther. He created American settings the middle class, bringing the first and new, distinctively American professionals — the judge, the characters and themes. He was the physician, and the banker. Each first to sound the recurring tragic incoming wave displaced the ear- note in American fiction. lier: Whites displaced the Indians, who retreated westward; the “civi- WOMEN AND MINORITIES lized” middle classes who erected lthough the colonial period schools, churches, and jails dis- produced several women placed the lower-class individu- Awriters of note, the revolu- alistic frontier folk, who moved tionary era did not further the work further west, in turn displacing of women and minorities, despite the Indians who had preceded the many schools, magazines, them. Cooper evokes the endless, newspapers, and literary clubs inevitable wave of settlers, seeing that were springing up. Colonial Engraving © The Bettmann not only the gains but the losses. Archive women such as Anne Bradstreet, Cooper’s novels reveal a deep , Ann Cotton, 24 and Sarah Kemble Knight exerted considerable Pagan land Taught my benighted soul social and literary influence in spite of primitive to understand That there’s a God, that conditions and dangers; of the 18 women who there’s a Savior too; came to America on the ship Mayflower in 1620, Once I redemption neither sought nor only four survived the first year. When every knew. Some view our sable race with able-bodied person counted and conditions were scornful eye, “Their colour is a diabolic fluid, innate talent could find expression. But as dye.” Remember, Christians, negroes, cultural institutions became formalized in the black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join ’ new republic, women and minorities gradually angelic train. were excluded from them. Other Women Writers Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784) A number of accomplished Revolutionary- Given the hardships of life in early America, era women writers have been rediscovered it is ironic that some of the best poetry of the by feminist scholars. (c. period was written by an exceptional slave 1762-1824) was one of America’s first profes- woman. The first African-American author sional . Her seven novels included the of importance in the United States, Phillis best-selling seduction story Charlotte Temple Wheatley was born in Africa and brought to (1791). She treats feminist and abolitionist Boston, Massachusetts, when she was about themes and depicts American Indians with seven, where she was purchased by the pious respect. and wealthy tailor John Wheatley to be a com- panion for his wife. The Wheatleys recognized nother long-forgotten novelist was Phillis’s remarkable intelligence and, with the Hannah Foster (1758-1840), whose help of their daughter, Mary, Phillis learned to Abest-selling novel The Coquette (1797) read and write. was about a young woman torn between virtue Wheatley’s poetic themes are religious, and and temptation. Rejected by her sweetheart, a her style, like that of Philip Freneau, is neoclas- cold man of the church, she is seduced, aban- sical. Among her best-known poems are “To doned, bears a child, and dies alone. S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820) published Works,” a poem of praise and encouragement under a man’s name to secure serious attention for another talented black, and a short poem for her works. (1728-1814) showing her strong religious sensitivity filtered was a poet, historian, dramatist, satirist, and through her experience of Christian conver- patriot. She held pre-Revolutionary gatherings sion. This poem unsettles some contemporary in her home, attacked the British in her racy critics — whites because they find it conven- plays, and wrote the only contemporary radical tional, and blacks because the poem does not history of the American revolution. protest the immorality of slavery. Yet the work Letters between women such as Mercy Otis is a sincere expression; it confronts white Warren and , and letters gener- and asserts spiritual equality. Indeed, ally, are important documents of the period. For Wheatley was the first to address such issues example, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, confidently in verse, as in “On Being Brought (later the second president of the from Africa to America”: United States), in 1776 urging that women’s independence be guaranteed in the future U.S. ’Twas mercy brought me from my constitution. ■ 25 of the self became a major theme; self-awareness, a primary method. If, chapter according to Romantic theory, self and nature were one, self-awareness was not a selfish dead end but a mode of knowledge opening 3 up the universe. If one’s self were one with all humanity, then the individual had a moral the romantic period, duty to reform social inequalities and relieve 1820-1860: human suffering. The idea of “self” — which essayists and poets suggested selfishness to earlier generations — was redefined. New compound words with he Romantic movement, which origi- positive meanings emerged: “self-realization,” nated in Germany but quickly spread to “self-expression,” “self-reliance.” TEngland, France, and beyond, reached As the unique, subjective self became impor- America around the year 1820, some 20 years tant, so did the realm of psychology. Exceptional after and Samuel Taylor artistic effects and techniques were developed Coleridge had revolutionized to evoke heightened psychological states. The by publishing Lyrical Ballads. In America as in “sublime” — an effect of beauty in grandeur Europe, fresh new vision electrified artistic and (for example, a view from a mountaintop) — intellectual circles. Yet there was an important produced feelings of awe, reverence, vastness, difference: Romanticism in America coincided and a power beyond human comprehension. with the period of national expansion and the Romanticism was affirmative and appropri- discovery of a distinctive American voice. The ate for most American poets and creative essay- solidification of a national identity and the ists. America’s vast mountains, deserts, and surging idealism and passion of Romanticism tropics embodied the sublime. The Romantic nurtured the masterpieces of “the American spirit seemed particularly suited to American Renaissance.” democracy: It stressed , affirmed Romantic ideas centered around art as inspi- the value of the common person, and looked ration, the spiritual and aesthetic dimension of to the inspired imagination for its aesthetic nature, and metaphors of organic growth. Art, and ethical values. Certainly the New England rather than science, Romantics argued, could Transcendentalists — Ralph Waldo Emerson, best express universal truth. The Romantics Henry David Thoreau, and their associates — underscored the importance of expressive art were inspired to a new optimistic affirmation for the individual and society. In his essay “The by the Romantic movement. In New England, Poet” (1844), Ralph Waldo Emerson, perhaps Romanticism fell upon fertile soil. the most influential writer of the Romantic era, asserts: TRANSCENDENTALISM The Transcendentalist movement was a reac- For all men live by truth, and stand in tion against 18th-century and a need of expression. In love, in art, in manifestation of the general humanitarian avarice, in politics, in labor, in games, we trend of 19th-century thought. The movement study to utter our painful secret. The man was based on a fundamental belief in the unity is only half himself, the other half is his of the world and God. The soul of each individu- expression. al was thought to be identical with the world 26 — a microcosm of the world itself. in 1834, and Thoreau are most The doctrine of self-reliance and closely associated with the town, individualism developed through but the locale also attracted the the belief in the identification of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, the the individual soul with God. feminist writer , Transcendentalism was inti- the educator (and father of novel- mately connected with Concord, ist ) Bronson a small New England village 32 Alcott, and the poet William Ellery kilometers west of Boston. Con- Channing. The Transcendental cord was the first inland settle- Club was loosely organized in 1836 ment of the original Massachu- and included, at various times, setts Bay Colony. Surrounded Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Chan- by forest, it was and remains a ning, Bronson Alcott, Orestes peaceful town close enough to Brownson (a leading minister), Boston’s lectures, bookstores, and Theodore Parker (abolitionist and colleges to be intensely cultivated, minister), and others. but far enough away to be serene. The Transcendentalists pub- Concord was the site of the first lished a quarterly magazine, The battle of the American Revolu- Dial, which lasted four years and tion, and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s was first edited by Margaret Full- poem commemorating the battle, er and later by Emerson. Reform “Concord Hymn,” has one of the efforts engaged them as well as most famous opening stanzas in literature. A number of Transcen- American literature: dentalists were abolitionists, and some were involved in experimen- By the rude bridge that arched tal utopian communities such as the flood nearby Brook Farm (described Their flag to April’s breeze in Hawthorne’s The Blithedale unfurled, Romance) and Fruitlands. Here once the embattled Unlike many European groups, farmers the Transcendentalists never stood Ralph Waldo Emerson issued a manifesto. They insisted And fired the shot heard round on individual differences — on the world. the unique viewpoint of the indi- vidual. American Transcendental Concord was the first rural art- Romantics pushed radical individ- ist’s colony, and the first place ualism to the extreme. American to offer a spiritual and cultural writers often saw themselves as alternative to American material- lonely explorers outside society ism. It was a place of high-minded and convention. The American conversation and simple living hero — like Herman Melville’s (Emerson and Henry David Tho- Photo courtesy National Portrait Captain Ahab, or Mark Twain’s Gallery, Smithsonian Institution reau both had vegetable gardens). Huck Finn, or ’s Emerson, who moved to Concord Arthur Gordon Pym — typically 27 faced risk, or even certain destruction, in foregoing generations beheld God and the pursuit of metaphysical self-discovery. For nature face to face; we, through their eyes. the Romantic American writer, nothing was Why should not we also enjoy an original a given. Literary and social conventions, far relation to the universe? Why should not from being helpful, were dangerous. There was we have a poetry of insight and not of tremendous pressure to discover an authentic tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, literary form, content, and voice — all at the and not the history of theirs. Embosomed same time. It is clear from the many master- for a season in nature, whose floods of life pieces produced in the three decades before stream around and through us, and invite the U.S. Civil War (1861-65) that American us by the powers they supply, to action writers rose to the challenge. proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past...? Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) The sun shines today also. There is more Ralph Waldo Emerson, the towering figure wool and flax in the fields. There are of his era, had a religious sense of mission. new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let Although many accused him of subverting us demand our own works and laws and Christianity, he explained that, for him “to be worship. a good minister, it was necessary to leave the church.” The address he delivered in 1838 at Emerson loved the aphoristic genius of the his alma mater, the Harvard Divinity School, 16th-century French essayist Montaigne, and made him unwelcome at Harvard for 30 years. he once told Bronson Alcott that he wanted to In it, Emerson accused the church of acting “as write a book like Montaigne’s, “full of fun, poet- if God were dead” and of emphasizing dogma ry, business, divinity, , anecdotes, while stifling the spirit. smut.” He complained that Alcott’s abstract style omitted “the light that shines on a man’s merson’s philosophy has been called con- hat, in a child’s spoon.” tradictory, and it is true that he conscious- Spiritual vision and practical, aphoristic Ely avoided building a logical intellectual expression make Emerson exhilarating; one system because such a rational system would of the Concord Transcendentalists aptly com- have negated his Romantic belief in intuition pared listening to him with “going to heaven in and flexibility. In his essay “Self-Reliance,” a swing.” Much of his spiritual insight comes Emerson remarks: “A foolish consistency is the from his in Eastern religion, espe- hobgoblin of little minds.” Yet he is remarkably cially Hinduism, Confucianism, and Islamic consistent in his call for the birth of American Sufism. For example, his poem “Brahma” relies individualism inspired by nature. Most of his on Hindu sources to assert a cosmic order major ideas — the need for a new national beyond the limited perception of mortals: vision, the use of personal experience, the notion of the cosmic Over-Soul, and the doctrine If the red slayer think he slay of compensation — are suggested in his first Or the slain think he is slain, publication, Nature (1836). This essay opens: They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes Far or forgot to me is near biographies, histories, criticism. and sunlight are the same; 28 The vanished gods to me Nietzsche, and . appear; And one to me are shame and Henry David Thoreau fame. (1817-1862) They reckon ill who leave me Henry David Thoreau, of French out; and Scottish descent, was born When me they fly, I am the in Concord and made it his per- wings; manent home. From a poor fam- I am the doubter and the doubt, ily, like Emerson, he worked his And I the hymn the Brahmin way through Harvard. Throughout sings his life, he reduced his needs to the simplest level and managed The strong gods pine for my to live on very little money, thus abode, maintaining his independence. In And pine in vain the sacred essence, he made living his career. Seven, A nonconformist, he attempted to But thou, meek lover of the live his life at all times according good! to his rigorous principles. This Find me, and turn thy back on attempt was the subject of many of heaven. his writings. Thoreau’s masterpiece, , This poem, published in the first or, Life in the Woods (1854), is the number of Monthly result of two years, two months, magazine (1857), confused read- and two days (from 1845 to 1847) ers unfamiliar with Brahma, the he spent living in a cabin he built highest Hindu god, the eternal at Walden Pond on property owned and infinite soul of the universe. by Emerson. In Walden, Thoreau Emerson had this advice for his consciously shapes this time into readers: “Tell them to say Jehovah one year, and the book is care- instead of Brahma.” fully constructed so the seasons The British critic Matthew are subtly evoked in order. The Arnold said the most important Henry David Thoreau book also is organized so that the writings in English in the 19th simplest earthly concerns come century had been Wordsworth’s first (in the section called “Econ- poems and Emerson’s essays. A omy,” he describes the expenses great prose-poet, Emerson influ- of building a cabin); by the ending, enced a long line of American the book has progressed to medi- poets, including Walt Whitman, tations on the stars. Emily Dickinson, Edwin Arling- In Walden, Thoreau, a lover of ton Robinson, Wallace Stevens, travel books and the author of , and Robert Frost. He several, gives us an anti-travel is also credited with influencing book that paradoxically opens the Photo © The Bettmann Archive the of , inner frontier of self-discovery as George Santayana, Friedrich no American book had up to this 29 time. As deceptively modest as of the minstrels to the Lake Thoreau’s ascetic life, it is no less Poets, Chaucer and Spenser than a guide to living the classical and Shakespeare and Milton ideal of the good life. Both poetry included, breathes no quite and philosophy, this long poetic fresh and in this sense, wild essay challenges the reader to strain. It is an essentially examine his or her life and live it tame and civilized literature, authentically. The building of the reflecting Greece and . cabin, described in great detail, is Her wilderness is a greenwood, a concrete metaphor for the care- her wildman a Robin Hood. ful building of a soul. In his jour- There is plenty of genial love nal for January 30, 1852, Thoreau of nature in her poets, but not explains his preference for living so much of nature herself. Her rooted in one place: “I am afraid chronicles inform us when to travel much or to famous places, her wild animals, but not the lest it might completely dissipate wildman in her, became extinct. the mind.” There was need of America. Thoreau’s method of retreat and concentration resembles Walden inspired William Butler Asian meditation techniques. The Yeats, a passionate Irish national- resemblance is not accidental: ist, to write “The Lake Isle of Innis- like Emerson and Whitman, he free,” while Thoreau’s essay “Civil was influenced by Hindu and Bud- Disobedience,” with its theory of dhist philosophy. His most trea- passive resistance based on the sured possession was his library moral necessity for the just indi- of Asian classics, which he shared vidual to disobey unjust laws, was with Emerson. His eclectic style an inspiration for Mahatma Gan- draws on Greek and Latin classics dhi’s Indian independence - and is crystalline, punning, and as ment and Martin Luther King’s richly metaphorical as the English struggle for black Americans’ civil metaphysical writers of the late rights in the 20th century. Renaissance. Walt Whitman Thoreau is the most attractive In Walden, Thoreau not only of the Transcendentalists today tests the theories of Transcenden- because of his ecological con- talism, he re-enacts the collective sciousness, do-it-yourself inde- American experience of the 19th pendence, ethical commitment to century: living on the frontier. abolitionism, and political theory Thoreau felt that his contribution of civil disobedience and peace- would be to renew a sense of ful resistance. His ideas are still the wilderness in language. His fresh, and his incisive poetic style journal has an undated entry from and habit of close observation are 1851: still modern. Photo courtesy from the days 30 Walt Whitman (1819-1892) the marsh at night and feeds upon small crabs.” Born on Long Island, New York, Walt Whit- Whitman seems to project himself into every- man was a part-time carpenter and man of thing that he sees or imagines. He is mass the people, whose brilliant, innovative work man, “Voyaging to every port to dicker and expressed the country’s democratic spirit. Whit- adventure, / Hurrying with the modern crowd man was largely self-taught; he left school at as eager and fickle as any.” But he is equally the age of 11 to go to work, missing the sort of the suffering individual, “The mother of old, traditional education that made most American condemn’d for a witch, burnt with dry wood, her authors respectful imitators of the English. His children gazing on....I am the hounded slave, I (1855), which he rewrote and wince at the bite of the dogs....I am the mash’d revised throughout his life, contains “Song of fireman with breast-bone broken....” Myself,” the most stunningly original poem More than any other writer, Whitman invent- ever written by an American. The enthusiastic ed the myth of democratic America. “The praise that Emerson and a few others heaped Americans of all nations at any time upon the on this daring volume confirmed Whitman in earth have probably the fullest poetical nature. his poetic vocation, although the book was not The United States is essentially the greatest a popular success. poem.” When Whitman wrote this, he daringly A visionary book celebrating all creation, turned upside down the general opinion that Leaves of Grass was inspired largely by Emer- America was too brash and new to be poetic. son’s writings, especially his essay “The Poet,” He invented a timeless America of the free which predicted a robust, open-hearted, uni- imagination, peopled with pioneering spirits of versal kind of poet uncannily like Whitman all nations. D.H. Lawrence, the British novelist himself. The poem’s innovative, unrhymed, and poet, accurately called him the poet of the free-verse form, open celebration of sexuality, “open road.” vibrant democratic sensibility, and extreme Romantic assertion that the poet’s self was one hitman’s greatness is visible in many with the poem, the universe, and the reader of his poems, among them “Crossing permanently altered the course of American WBrooklyn Ferry,” “Out of the Cradle poetry. Endlessly Rocking,” and “When Lilacs Last in Leaves of Grass is as vast, energetic, and the Dooryard Bloom’d,” a moving elegy on the natural as the American continent; it was the death of . Another important epic generations of American critics had been work is his long essay “Democratic Vistas” calling for, although they did not recognize it. (1871), written during the unrestrained mate- Movement ripples through “” rialism of industrialism’s “.” In this like restless music: essay, Whitman justly criticizes America for its “mighty, many-threaded wealth and industry” My ties and ballasts leave me... that mask an underlying “dry and flat Sahara” of I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents soul. He calls for a new kind of literature to revive I am afoot with my vision. the American population (“Not the book needs so much to be the complete thing, but the reader The poem bulges with myriad concrete of the book does”). Yet ultimately, Whitman’s sights and sounds. Whitman’s birds are not main claim to immortality lies in “Song of the conventional “winged spirits” of poetry. His Myself.” Here he places the Romantic self at the “yellow-crown’d heron comes to the edge of center of the consciousness of the poem: 31 I celebrate myself, and sing carried their genteel, European- myself, oriented views to every section of And what I assume you shall the United States, through public assume, lectures at the 3,000 lyceums (cen- For every atom belonging to me ters for public lectures) and in the as good belongs to you. pages of two influential Boston magazines, the North American Whitman’s voice electrifies Review and the Atlantic Monthly. even modern readers with his The writings of the Brahmin proclamation of the unity and poets fused American and Euro- vital force of all creation. He was pean traditions and sought to cre- enormously innovative. From him ate a continuity of shared Atlantic spring the poem as autobiography, experience. These scholar-poets the American as bard, attempted to educate and elevate the reader as creator, and the the general populace by intro- still-contemporary discovery of ducing a European dimension to “experimental,” or organic, form. American literature. Ironically, their overall effect was conser- THE BRAHMIN POETS vative. By insisting on European In their time, the Boston Brah- things and forms, they retarded mins (as the patrician, Harvard- the growth of a distinctive Ameri- educated class came to be called) can consciousness. Well-meaning supplied the most respected and men, their conservative back- genuinely cultivated literary arbi- grounds blinded them to the dar- ters of the United States. Their ing innovativeness of Thoreau, lives fitted a pleasant pattern of Whitman (whom they refused to wealth and leisure directed by the meet socially), and Edgar Allan Poe strong New England work ethic (whom even Emerson regarded as and respect for learning. the “jingle man”). They were pil- In an earlier Puritan age, the lars of what was called the “genteel Boston Brahmins would have tradition” that three generations been ministers; in the 19th cen- Henry Wadsworth of American realists had to battle. tury, they became professors, Longfellow Partly because of their benign but often at Harvard. Late in life they bland influence, it was almost 100 sometimes became ambassadors years before the distinctive Ameri- or received honorary degrees can genius of Whitman, Melville, from European institutions. Most Thoreau, and Poe was generally of them travelled or were educat- recognized in the United States. ed in Europe: They were familiar with the ideas and books of Brit- Henry Wadsworth ain, Germany, and France, and Longfellow (1807-1882) often Italy and Spain. Upper class The most important Boston in background but democratic Photo courtesy Brown Brothers Brahmin poets were Henry Wad- in sympathy, the Brahmin poets sworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell 32 Holmes, and . Longfellow, tradition with the new realism and regionalism professor of modern languages at Harvard, was based on dialect that flowered in the 1850s and the best-known American poet of his day. He came to fruition in Mark Twain. was responsible for the misty, ahistorical, leg- endary sense of the past that merged American Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) and European traditions. He wrote three long Oliver Wendell Holmes, a celebrated physi- narrative poems popularizing native legends in cian and professor of anatomy and European meters — “Evangeline” (1847), “The at Harvard, is the hardest of the three well- Song of Hiawatha” (1855), and “The Courtship known Brahmins to categorize because his of Miles Standish” (1858). work is marked by a refreshing versatility. It Longfellow also wrote textbooks on modern encompasses collections of humorous essays languages and a travel book entitled Outre-Mer, (for example, The Autocrat of the Breakfast- retelling foreign legends and patterned after Table, 1858), novels (Elsie Venner, 1861), biogra- Washington Irving’s Sketch Book. Although con- phies (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1885), and verse ventionality, sentimentality, and facile handling that could be sprightly (“The Deacon’s Mas- mar the long poems, haunting short lyrics like terpiece, or, The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay”), “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport” (1854), “My philosophical (“The Chambered Nautilus”), or Lost Youth” (1855), and “The Tide Rises, The fervently patriotic (“Old Ironsides”). Tide Falls” (1880) continue to give pleasure. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the sub- urb of Boston that is home to Harvard, Holmes James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) was the son of a prominent local minister. His James Russell Lowell, who became professor mother was a descendant of the poet Anne of modern languages at Harvard after Longfel- Bradstreet. In his time, and more so thereafter, low retired, is the Matthew Arnold of American he symbolized wit, intelligence, and charm not literature. He began as a poet but gradually lost as a discoverer or a trailblazer, but rather as an his poetic ability, ending as a respected critic exemplary interpreter of everything from society and educator. As editor of the Atlantic and co- and language to medicine and human nature. editor of the North American Review, Lowell exercised enormous influence. Lowell’s A TWO REFORMERS for Critics (1848) is a funny and apt appraisal ew England sparkled with intellectual of American writers, as in his comment: “There energy in the years before the Civil comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge NWar. Some of the stars that shine more / Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths brightly today than the famous constellation of sheer fudge.” Brahmins were dimmed by poverty or accidents Under his wife’s influence, Lowell became a of or race in their own time. Modern liberal reformer, abolitionist, and supporter of readers increasingly value the work of aboli- women’s suffrage and laws ending child labor. tionist and feminist His Biglow Papers, First Series (1847-48), cre- and social reformer Margaret Fuller. ates Hosea Biglow, a shrewd but uneducated village poet who argues for reform in dialect John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) poetry. Benjamin Franklin and Phillip Freneau John Greenleaf Whittier, the most active had used intelligent villagers as mouthpieces poet of the era, had a background very similar for social commentary. Lowell writes in the to Walt Whitman’s. He was born and raised on same vein, linking the colonial “character” a modest Quaker farm in Massachusetts, 33 had little formal education, and journalist of note in America, Full- worked as a journalist. For decades er wrote influential book reviews before it became popular, he was and reports on social issues such an ardent abolitionist. Whittier is as the treatment of women pris- respected for anti-slavery poems oners and the insane. Some of such as “Ichabod,” and his poetry these essays were published in is sometimes viewed as an early her book Papers on Literature and example of regional realism. Art (1846). A year earlier, she Whittier’s sharp images, sim- had her most significant book, ple constructions, and ballad-like Woman in the Nineteenth Century. tetrameter couplets have the It originally had appeared in the simple earthy texture of Robert Transcendentalist magazine, The Burns. His best work, the long Dial, which she edited from 1840 poem “Snow Bound,” vividly rec- to 1842. reates the poet’s deceased fam- Fuller’s Woman in the Nine- ily members and friends as he teenth Century is the earliest remembers them from childhood, and most American explora- huddled cozily around the blaz- tion of women’s role in society. ing hearth during one of New Often applying democratic and England’s blustering snowstorms. Transcendental principles, Fuller This simple, religious, intensely thoughtfully analyzes the numer- personal poem, coming after the ous subtle causes and evil con- long nightmare of the Civil War, is sequences of sexual discrimina- an elegy for the dead and a healing tion and suggests positive hymn. It affirms the eternity of the to be taken. Many of her ideas spirit, the timeless power of love in are strikingly modern. She the memory, and the undiminished stresses the importance of “self- beauty of nature, despite violent dependence,” which women lack outer political storms. because “they are taught to learn their rule from without, not to Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) unfold it from within.” Margaret Fuller, an outstanding Emily Dickinson Fuller is finally not a femi- essayist, was born and raised in nist so much as an activist and Cambridge, Massachusetts. From reformer dedicated to the cause a modest financial background, of creative human freedom and she was educated at home by her dignity for all: father (women were not allowed to attend Harvard) and became a ...Let us be wise and not child prodigy in the classics and impede the soul....Let us have modern . Her special one creative energy....Let it passion was German Romantic lit- take what form it will, and let erature, especially Goethe, whom us not bind it by the past to Daguerreotype courtesy she translated. & Bros. man or woman, black or white. The first professional woman 34 Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) often evokes the agonizing paradox of the Emily Dickinson is, in a sense, a link between limits of the human consciousness trapped in her era and the literary sensitivities of the turn time. She had an excellent sense of humor, and of the century. A radical individualist, she was her range of subjects and treatment is amaz- born and spent her life in Amherst, Massa- ingly wide. Her poems are generally known chusetts, a small Calvinist village. She never by the numbers assigned them in Thomas H. married, and she led an unconventional life Johnson’s standard edition of 1955. They bristle that was outwardly uneventful but was full of with odd capitalizations and dashes. inner intensity. She loved nature and found A nonconformist, like Thoreau she often deep inspiration in the birds, animals, plants, reversed meanings of words and phrases and and changing seasons of the New England used paradox to great effect. From 435: countryside. Much Madness is divinest sense — ickinson spent the latter part of her life To a discerning Eye — as a recluse, due to an extremely sensi- Much Sense — the starkest Madness — Dtive psyche and possibly to make time ‘Tis the Majority for writing (for stretches of time she wrote In this, as All, prevail — about one poem a day). Her day also included Assent — and you are sane — homemaking for her attorney father, a promi- Demur — you’re straightway dangerous nent figure in Amherst who became a member And handled with a chain — of Congress. Dickinson was not widely read, but knew the Her wit shines in the following poem (288), Bible, the works of , and which ridicules ambition and public life: works of classical mythology in great depth. These were her true teachers, for Dickinson I’m Nobody! Who are you? was certainly the most solitary literary figure Are you — Nobody — Too? of her time. That this shy, withdrawn village Then there’s a pair of us? woman, almost unpublished and unknown, cre- Don’t tell! they’d advertise — you know! ated some of the greatest American poetry of How dreary — to be — Somebody! the has fascinated the public since How public — like a — the 1950s, when her poetry was rediscovered. To tell one’s name — the livelong June — Dickinson’s terse, frequently imagistic style To an admiring Bog! is even more modern and innovative than Whitman’s. She never uses two words when Dickinson’s 1,775 poems continue to one will do, and combines concrete things critics, who often disagree about them. Some with abstract ideas in an almost proverbial, stress her mystical side, some her sensitivity to compressed style. Her best poems have no fat; nature; many note her odd, exotic appeal. One many mock current sentimentality, and some modern critic, R.P. Blackmur, comments that are even heretical. She sometimes shows a Dickinson’s poetry sometimes feels as if “a cat terrifying existential awareness. Like Poe, she came at us speaking English.” Her clean, clear, explores the dark and hidden part of the mind, chiseled poems are some of the most fascinat- dramatizing death and the grave. Yet she also ing and challenging in American literature. ■ celebrated simple objects — a flower, a bee. Her poetry exhibits great intelligence and 35 — lived in a complex, well-articulated, tradi- tional society and shared with their readers chapter attitudes that informed their realistic fiction. American novelists were faced with a history of strife and revolution, a geography of vast wilderness, and a fluid and relatively classless 4 democratic society. American novels frequently the romantic period, reveal a revolutionary absence of tradition. 1820-1860: fiction Many English novels show a poor main char- acter rising on the economic and social ladder, perhaps because of a good marriage or the alt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, discovery of a hidden aristocratic past. But this Herman Melville, Edgar Allan buried plot does not challenge the aristocratic WPoe, Emily Dickinson, and the social structure of England. On the contrary, Transcendentalists represent the first great lit- it confirms it. The rise of the main character erary generation produced in the United States. satisfies the wish fulfillment of the mainly In the case of the novelists, the Romantic vision middle-class readers. tended to express itself in the form Hawthorne In contrast, the American novelist had to called the “romance,” a heightened, emotional, depend on his or her own devices. America and symbolic form of the novel. Romances were was, in part, an undefined, constantly moving not love stories, but serious novels that used frontier populated by immigrants speaking special techniques to communicate complex foreign languages and following strange and and subtle meanings. crude ways of life. Thus the main character in Instead of carefully defining realistic charac- American literature might find himself alone ters through a wealth of detail, as most English among cannibal tribes, as in Melville’s Typee, or continental novelists did, Hawthorne, Mel- or exploring a wilderness like James Fenimore ville, and Poe shaped heroic figures larger than Cooper’s Leatherstocking, or witnessing lonely life, burning with mythic significance. The typ- visions from the grave, like Poe’s solitary indi- ical protagonists of the American Romance are viduals, or meeting the devil walking in the for- haunted, alienated individuals. Hawthorne’s est, like Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown. Arthur Dimmesdale or Hester Prynne in The Virtually all the great American protagonists Scarlet Letter, Melville’s Ahab in Moby-Dick, have been “loners.” The democratic American and the many isolated and obsessed characters individual had, as it were, to invent himself. of Poe’s tales are lonely protagonists pitted The serious American novelist had to invent against unknowable, dark fates that, in some new forms as well — hence the sprawl- mysterious way, grow out of their deepest ing, idiosyncratic shape of Melville’s novel unconscious selves. The symbolic plots reveal Moby-Dick, and Poe’s dreamlike, wander- hidden actions of the anguished spirit. ing Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Few One reason for this fictional exploration American novels achieve formal perfection, into the hidden recesses of the soul is the even today. Instead of borrowing tested lit- absence of settled, traditional community life erary methods, Americans tend to invent in America. English novelists — Jane Austen, new creative techniques. In America, it Charles Dickens (the great favorite), Anthony is not enough to be a traditional and definable Trollope, George Eliot, William Thackeray social unit, for the old and traditional gets 36 left behind; the new, innovative end Arthur Dimmesdale, and the force is the center of attention. sensuous, beautiful townsperson, Hester Prynne. Set in Boston THE ROMANCE around 1650 during early Puri- he Romance form is dark tan colonization, the novel high- and forbidding, indicating lights the Calvinistic obsession Thow difficult it is to create an with morality, sexual repression, identity without a stable society. guilt and confession, and spiritual Most of the Romantic heroes die salvation. in the end: All the sailors except For its time, The Scarlet Let- Ishmael are drowned in Moby- ter was a daring and even sub- Dick, and the sensitive but sinful versive book. Hawthorne’s gentle minister Arthur Dimmesdale dies style, remote historical setting, at the end of . and ambiguity softened his grim The self-divided, tragic note in themes and contented the general American literature becomes dom- public, but sophisticated writers inant in the novels, even before such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Civil War of the 1860s mani- Herman Melville recognized the fested the greater social tragedy of book’s “hellish” power. It treated a society at war with itself. issues that were usually sup- pressed in 19th-century America, Nathaniel Hawthorne such as the impact of the new, (1804-1864) liberating democratic experience Nathaniel Hawthorne, a fifth- on individual behavior, especially generation American of English on sexual and religious freedom. descent, was born in Salem, Mas- The book is superbly organized sachusetts, a wealthy seaport and beautifully written. Appropri- north of Boston that specialized ately, it uses allegory, a technique in East India trade. One of his the early Puritan colonists them- ancestors had been a judge in an selves practiced. earlier century, during trials in Hawthorne’s reputation rests on Salem of women accused of being Nathaniel Hawthorne his other novels and tales as well. witches. Hawthorne used the idea In The House of the Seven Gables of a curse on the family of an evil (1851), he again returns to New judge in his novel The House of the England’s history. The crumbling Seven Gables. of the “house” refers to a family Many of Hawthorne’s stories are in Salem as well as to the actual set in Puritan New England, and structure. The theme concerns an his greatest novel, The Scarlet Let- inherited curse and its resolution ter (1850), has become the classic through love. As one critic has portrayal of Puritan America. It noted, the idealistic protagonist tells of the passionate, forbidden Holgrave voices Hawthorne’s own love affair linking a sensitive, Photo courtesy OWI democratic distrust of old aristo- religious young man, the Rever- cratic families: “The truth is, that 37 once in every half-century, at least, a family the least likely wilderness places, Hawthorne’s should be merged into the great, obscure mass stories and novels repeatedly show broken, of humanity, and forget about its ancestors.” cursed, or artificial families and the sufferings of the isolated individual. awthorne’s last two novels were less The of revolution, too, may have successful. Both use modern settings, played a part in glorifying a sense of proud yet Hwhich hamper the magic of romance. alienated freedom. The American Revolution, The Blithedale Romance (1852) is interesting from a psychohistorical viewpoint, parallels for its portrait of the socialist, utopian Brook an adolescent rebellion away from the parent- Farm community. In the book, Hawthorne criti- figure of England and the larger family of the cizes egotistical, power-hungry social reform- British Empire. Americans won their indepen- ers whose deepest instincts are not genuinely dence and were then faced with the bewilder- democratic. The Marble Faun (1860), though ing dilemma of discovering their identity apart set in Rome, dwells on the Puritan themes of from old authorities. This scenario was played sin, isolation, expiation, and salvation. out countless times on the frontier, to the These themes, and his characteristic set- extent that, in fiction, isolation often seems the tings in Puritan colonial New England, are basic American condition of life. Puritanism trademarks of many of Hawthorne’s best- and its Protestant offshoots may have further known shorter stories: “The Minister’s Black weakened the family by preaching that the Veil,” “Young Goodman Brown,” and “My Kins- individual’s first responsibility was to save his man, Major Molineux.” In the last of these, or her own soul. a naïve young man from the country comes to the city — a common route in urbanizing Herman Melville (1819-1891) 19th-century America — to seek help from Herman Melville, like Nathaniel Hawthorne, his powerful relative, whom he has never met. was a descendant of an old, wealthy family that Robin has great difficulty finding the major, fell abruptly into poverty upon the death of the and finally joins in a strange night riot in which father. Despite his patrician upbringing, proud a man who seems to be a disgraced criminal is family traditions, and hard work, Melville found comically and cruelly driven out of town. Robin himself in poverty with no college education. At laughs loudest of all until he realizes that this 19 he went to sea. His interest in sailors’ lives “criminal” is none other than the man he grew naturally out of his own experiences, sought — a representative of the British who and most of his early novels grew out of his has just been overthrown by a revolutionary voyages. In these we see the young Melville’s American mob. The story confirms the bond wide, democratic experience and hatred of of sin and suffering shared by all humanity. tyranny and injustice. His first book, Typee, It also stresses the theme of the self-made was based on his time spent among the sup- man: Robin must learn, like every democratic posedly cannibalistic but hospitable tribe of the American, to prosper from his own hard work, Taipis in the Marquesas Islands of the South not from special favors from wealthy relatives. Pacific. The book praises the islanders and “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” casts light their natural, harmonious life, and criticizes on one of the most striking elements in Haw- the Christian missionaries, who Melville found thorne’s fiction: the lack of functioning families less genuinely civilized than the people they in his works. Although Cooper’s Leather-Stock- came to convert. ing Tales manage to introduce families into Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, Melville’s 38 masterpiece, is the epic story of nature, as it does in Emerson. the ship Pequod and its Behind Melville’s accumulation of “ungodly, god-like man,” Captain facts is a mystic vision — but Ahab, whose obsessive quest for whether this vision is evil or good, the white whale Moby-Dick leads human or inhuman, is never the ship and its men to destruction. explained. This work, a realistic adventure The novel is modern in its novel, contains a series of medi- tendency to be self-referential, tations on the human condition. or reflexive. In other words, the Whaling, throughout the book, is novel often is about itself. Mel- a grand metaphor for the pursuit ville frequently comments on of knowledge. Realistic catalogues mental processes such as writ- and descriptions of whales and ing, reading, and understanding. the whaling industry punctuate One chapter, for instance, is an the book, but these carry symbolic exhaustive survey in which the connotations. In chapter 15, “The narrator attempts a classification Right Whale’s Head,” the narra- but finally gives up, saying that tor says that the Right Whale is nothing great can ever be fin- a Stoic and the Sperm Whale is a ished (“God keep me from ever Platonian, referring to two classi- completing anything. This whole cal schools of philosophy. book is but a draught — nay, but Although Melville’s novel is the draught of a draught. O Time, philosophical, it is also tragic. Strength, Cash and Patience”). Despite his heroism, Ahab is Melville’s notion of the literary doomed and perhaps damned in text as an imperfect version the end. Nature, however beauti- or an abandoned draft is quite ful, remains alien and potentially contemporary. deadly. In Moby-Dick, Melville Ahab insists on imaging a hero challenges Emerson’s optimistic ic, timeless world of absolutes in idea that can understand which he can stand above his nature. Moby-Dick, the great white men. Unwisely, he demands a fin- whale, is an inscrutable, cosmic Herman Melville ished text, an answer. But the existence that dominates the novel shows that just as there novel, just as he obsesses Ahab. are no finished texts, there are Facts about the whale and whal- no final answers except, perhaps, ing cannot explain Moby-Dick; death. on the contrary, the facts them- Certain literary references res- selves tend to become symbols, onate throughout the novel. Ahab, and every fact is obscurely related named for an Old Testament king, in a cosmic web to every other fact. desires a total, Faustian, god- This idea of correspondence (as like knowledge. Like Oedipus in Melville calls it in the “Sphinx” Sophocles’ play, who pays tragical- Portrait courtesy Harvard chapter) does not, however, mean College Library ly for wrongful knowledge, Ahab is that humans can “read” truth in struck blind before he is wounded 39 in the leg and finally killed. Moby-Dick ends ville stresses the importance of friendship and with the word “orphan.” Ishmael, the narrator, the multicultural human community. After the is an orphan-like wanderer. The name Ishmael ship sinks, Ishmael is saved by the engraved emanates from the Book of Genesis in the Old coffin made by his close friend, the hero- Testament — he was the son of Abraham and ic tatooed harpooner and Polynesian prince Hagar (servant to Abraham’s wife, Sarah). Ish- Queequeg. The coffin’s primitive, mythological mael and Hagar were cast into the wilderness designs incorporate the history of the cosmos. by Abraham. Ishmael is rescued from death by an object of Other examples exist. Rachel (one of the death. From death life emerges, in the end. patriarch Jacob’s wives) is the name of the Moby-Dick has been called a “natural epic” boat that rescues Ishmael at book’s end. Finally, — a magnificent dramatization of the human the metaphysical whale reminds Jewish and spirit set in primitive nature — because of its Christian readers of the Biblical story of Jonah, hunter myth, its initiation theme, its Edenic who was tossed overboard by fellow sailors who island , its positive treatment of considered him an object of ill fortune. Swal- pre-technological peoples, and its quest for lowed by a “big fish,” according to the biblical rebirth. In setting humanity alone in nature, it text, he lived for a time in its belly before being is eminently American. The French writer and returned to dry land through God’s interven- politician had predicted, tion. Seeking to flee from punishment, he only in the 1835 work , that brought more suffering upon himself. this theme would arise in America as a result Historical references also enrich the novel. of its democracy: The ship Pequod is named for an extinct New England Indian tribe; thus the name suggests The destinies of mankind, man himself that the boat is doomed to destruction. Whaling taken aloof from his country and his age was in fact a major industry, especially in New and standing in the presence of Nature England: It supplied oil as an energy source, and God, with his passions, his doubts, especially for lamps. Thus the whale does liter- his rare propensities and inconceivable ally “shed light” on the universe. Whaling was wretchedness, will become the chief, if not also inherently expansionist and linked with the sole, theme of (American) poetry. the idea of manifest destiny, since it required Americans to sail round the world in search Tocqueville reasons that, in a democracy, of whales (in fact, the present state of literature would dwell on “the hidden depths of came under American domination because it the immaterial nature of man” rather than on was used as the major refueling base for Amer- mere appearances or superficial distinctions ican whaling ships). The Pequod’s crew mem- such as class and status. Certainly both Moby- bers represent all races and various religions, Dick and Typee, like Adventures of Huckleberry suggesting the idea of America as a universal Finn and Walden, fit this description. They are state of mind as well as a melting pot. Finally, celebrations of nature and pastoral subversions Ahab embodies the tragic version of democratic of class-oriented, urban . American individualism. He asserts his dignity as an individual and dares to oppose the inexo- Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) rable external forces of the universe. Edgar Allan Poe, a southerner, shares with The novel’s epilogue tempers the tragic Melville a darkly metaphysical vision mixed destruction of the ship. Throughout, Mel- with elements of realism, parody, and bur- 40 lesque. He refined the Poe’s twilight realm between life genre and invented detective fic- and death and his gaudy, Gothic tion. Many of his stories prefigure settings are not merely decora- the genres of , hor- tive. They reflect the overcivilized ror, and so popular today. yet deathly interior of his char- Poe’s short and tragic life was acters’ disturbed psyches. They plagued with insecurity. Like are symbolic expressions of the so many other major 19th-cen- unconscious, and thus are central tury American writers, Poe was to his art. orphaned at an early age. Poe’s Poe’s verse, like that of many strange marriage in 1835 to his southerners, was very musical first cousin Virginia Clemm, who and strictly metrical. His best- was not yet 14, has been interpret- known poem, in his own lifetime ed as an attempt to find the stable and today, is “” (1845). family life he lacked. In this eerie poem, the haunted, sleepless narrator, who has been oe believed that strangeness reading and mourning the death was an essential ingredient of his “lost Lenore” at midnight, Pof beauty, and his writing is is visited by a raven (a bird that often exotic. His stories and poems eats dead flesh, hence a symbol are populated with doomed, intro- of death) who perches above his spective aristocrats (Poe, like many door and ominously repeats the other southerners, cherished an poem’s famous refrain, “never- aristocratic ideal). These gloomy more.” The poem ends in a frozen characters never seem to work or scene of death-in-life: socialize; instead they bury them- selves in dark, moldering castles And the Raven, never flitting, symbolically decorated with bizarre still rugs and draperies that hide the is sitting, still is sitting real world of sun, windows, walls, On the pallid bust of Pallas just and floors. The hidden rooms above my chamber door; reveal ancient libraries, strange art Edgar Allan Poe And his eyes have all the works, and eclectic oriental objects. seeming of The aristocrats play musical instru- a demon’s that is dreaming, ments or read ancient books while And the lamp-light o’er him they brood on tragedies, often streaming throws his shadow the deaths of loved ones. Themes on the floor; of death-in-life, especially being And my soul from out that buried alive or returning like a shadow vampire from the grave, appear that lies floating on the floor in many of his works, including Shall be lifted — nevermore! “The Premature Burial,” “Ligeia,”

“The Cask of Amontillado,” and Photo © The Bettmann Archive Poe’s stories — such as “The Fall of the House of Usher.” those cited above — have been 41 described as tales of horror. Stories like “The underside of the of the self- Gold Bug” and “The Purloined Letter” are made man and showed the price of material- more tales of ratiocination, or reasoning. The ism and excessive competition — loneliness, horror tales prefigure works by such American alienation, and images of death-in-life. authors of horror fantasy as H.P. Lovecraft and Poe’s “decadence” also reflects the devalu- , while the tales of ratiocina- ation of symbols that occurred in the 19th tion are harbingers of the of century — the tendency to mix art objects Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross promiscuously from many eras and places, in Macdonald, and John D. MacDonald. There is the process stripping them of their identity and a hint, too, of what was to follow as science reducing them to merely decorative items in fiction. All of these stories reveal Poe’s fascina- a collection. The resulting chaos of styles was tion with the mind and the unsettling scientific particularly noticeable in the United States, knowledge that was radically secularizing the which often lacked traditional styles of its 19th-century world view. own. The jumble reflects the loss of coherent In every genre, Poe explores the psyche. Pro- systems of thought as immigration, urbaniza- found psychological insights glint throughout tion, and industrialization uprooted families the stories. “Who has not, a hundred times, and traditional ways. In art, this confusion found himself committing a vile or silly action, of symbols fueled the grotesque, an idea that for no other reason than because he knows Poe explicitly made his theme in his classic he should not,” we read in “The Black Cat.” To collection of stories Tales of the Grotesque and explore the exotic and strange aspect of psy- Arabesque (1840). chological processes, Poe delved into accounts of madness and extreme emotion. The pain- WOMEN WRITERS AND REFORMERS fully deliberate style and elaborate explanation merican women endured many inequal- in the stories heighten the sense of the horrible ities in the 19th century: They were by making the events seem vivid and plausible. Adenied the vote, barred from profes- Poe’s combination of decadence and roman- sional schools and most higher education, for- tic primitivism appealed enormously to Europe- bidden to speak in public and even attend ans, particularly to the French poets Stéphane public conventions, and unable to own prop- Mallarmé, , Paul Valéry, and erty. Despite these obstacles, a strong women’s Arthur Rimbaud. But Poe is not un-American, network sprang up. Through letters, personal despite his aristocratic disgust with democ- friendships, formal meetings, women’s news- racy, preference for the exotic, and themes of papers, and books, women furthered social dehumanization. On the contrary, he is almost change. Intellectual women drew parallels a textbook example of Tocqueville’s prediction between themselves and slaves. They coura- that American democracy would produce works geously demanded fundamental reforms, such that lay bare the deepest, hidden parts of as the abolition of slavery and women’s suf- the psyche. Deep anxiety and psychic insecu- frage, despite social ostracism and sometimes rity seem to have occurred earlier in America financial ruin. Their works were the vanguard than in Europe, for Europeans at least had a of intellectual expression of a larger women’s firm, complex social structure that gave them literary tradition that included the sentimental psychological security. In America, there was novel. Women’s sentimental novels, such as no compensating security; it was every man ’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for himself. Poe accurately described the were enormously popular. They appealed to 42 the emotions and often dramatized contentious President of the Woman Suffrage Association social issues, particularly those touching the for 21 years, she led the struggle for women’s family and women’s roles and responsibilities. rights. She gave public lectures in several Abolitionist Lydia Child (1802-1880), who states, partly to support the education of her greatly influenced Margaret Fuller, was a lead- seven children. er of this network. Her successful 1824 novel After her husband died, Cady Stanton deep- Hobomok shows the need for racial and reli- ened her analysis of inequality between the gious toleration. Its setting — Puritan Salem, sexes. Her book The Woman’s Bible (1895) Massachusetts — anticipated Nathaniel Haw- discerns a deep-seated anti-female bias in thorne. An activist, Child founded a private Judaeo-Christian tradition. She lectured on girls’ school, founded and edited the first jour- such subjects as divorce, women’s rights, and nal for children in the United States, and religion until her death at 86, just after writing published the first anti-slavery tract, An Appeal a letter to President Theodore Roosevelt sup- in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Afri- porting the women’s vote. Her numerous works cans, in 1833. This daring work made her noto- — at first pseudonymous, but later under her rious and ruined her financially. Her History own name — include three co-authored vol- of the Condition of Women in Various Ages and umes of History of Woman Suffrage (1881-1886) Nations (1855) argues for women’s equality by and a candid, humorous autobiography. pointing to their historical achievements. Angelina Grimké (1805-1879) and Sarah ojourner Truth (c. 1797-1883) epito- Grimké (1792-1873) were born into a large fam- mized the endurance and charisma of ily of wealthy slaveowners in elegant Charles- Sthis extraordinary group of women. Born ton, . These sisters moved to a slave in New York, she grew up speaking the North to defend the rights of blacks and Dutch. She escaped from slavery in 1827, set- women. As speakers for the New York Anti- tling with a son and daughter in the supportive Slavery Society, they were the first women to Dutch-American Van Wagener family, for whom publicly lecture to audiences, including men. In she worked as a servant. They helped her win letters, essays, and studies, they drew parallels a legal battle for her son’s freedom, and she between racism and . took their name. Striking out on her own, she (1815-1902), aboli- worked with a preacher to convert prostitutes tionist and women’s rights activist, lived for to Christianity and lived in a progressive com- a time in Boston, where she befriended Lydia munal home. She was christened “Sojourner Child. With , she organized the Truth” for the mystical voices and visions she 1848 Seneca Falls Convention for Women’s began to experience. To spread the truth of rights; she also drafted its Declaration of Senti- these visionary teachings, she sojourned alone, ments. Her “Woman’s Declaration of Indepen- lecturing, singing gospel songs, and preaching dence” begins “men and women are created abolitionism through many states over three equal” and includes a resolution to give women decades. Encouraged by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the right to vote. With Susan . Anthony, she advocated women’s suffrage. Her life is told Elizabeth Cady Stanton campaigned for suf- in the Narrative of (1850), frage in the 1860s and 1870s, formed the anti- an autobiographical account transcribed and slavery Women’s Loyal National League and edited by Olive Gilbert. Illiterate her whole life, the National Woman Suffrage Association, and she spoke Dutch-accented English. Sojourner co-edited the weekly newspaper Revolution. Truth is said to have bared her breast at a 43 women’s rights convention when sia. Its passionate appeal for an she was accused of really being end to slavery in the United States a man. Her answer to a man who inflamed the debate that, within said that women were the weaker a decade, led to the U.S. Civil War sex has become legendary: (1861-1865). Reasons for the success of I have ploughed and planted, Uncle Tom’s Cabin are obvious. It and gathered into bars, and no reflected the idea that slavery in man could head me! And ain’t I the United States, that a woman? I could work as much purportedly embodied democracy and eat as much as a man — and equality for all, was an injus- when I could get it —and bear tice of colossal proportions. the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen towe herself was a perfect children, and seen them most representative of old New all sold off to slavery, and when SEngland Puritan stock. Her I cried out with my mother’s father, brother, and husband grief, none but Jesus heard me! all were well-known, learned And ain’t I a woman? Protestant clergymen and reform- ers. Stowe conceived the idea of This humorous and irreverent the novel — in a vision of an old, orator has been compared to the ragged slave being beaten — as great singers. Harriet Beech- she participated in a church ser- er Stowe and many others found vice. Later, she said that the novel wisdom in this visionary black was inspired and “written by God.” woman, who could declare, “Lord, Her motive was the religious pas- Lord, I can love even de white folk!” sion to reform life by making it more godly. The romantic period Harriet Beecher Stowe had ushered in an era of feeling: (1811-1896) The virtues of family and love Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel reigned supreme. Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among Harriet Beecher attacked slavery precisely because the Lowly was the most popular Stowe it violated domestic values. American book of the 19th cen- Uncle Tom, the slave and cen- tury. First published serially in tral character, is a true Christian the National Era magazine (1851- martyr who labors to convert his 1852), it was an immediate suc- kind master, St. Clare, prays for cess. Forty different publishers St. Clare’s soul as he dies, and printed it in England alone, and is killed defending slave women. it was quickly translated into 20 Slavery is depicted as evil not languages, receiving the praise of for political or philosophical such authors as Georges Sand in reasons but mainly because it Photo courtesy Culver Pictures, France, Heinrich Heine in Ger- Inc divides families, destroys normal many, and Ivan Turgenev in Rus- parental love, and is inherently 44 un-Christian. The most touch- sent back to slavery and punish- ing scenes show an agonized ment, she spent almost seven slave mother unable to help her years hidden in her master’s town, screaming child and a father sold in the tiny dark attic of her grand- away from his family. These were mother’s house. She was sustained crimes against the sanctity of by glimpses of her children domestic love. seen through holes that she drilled Stowe’s novel was not original- through the ceiling. She finally ly intended as an attack on the escaped to the North, settling in South; in fact, Stowe had visited Rochester, New York, where Fred- the South, liked southerners, and erick Douglass was publishing portrayed them kindly. Southern the anti-slavery newspaper North slaveowners are good masters Star and near which (in Seneca and treat Tom well. St. Clare Falls) a women’s rights convention personally abhors slavery and had recently met. There Jacobs intends to free all of his slaves. became friends with Amy Post, a The evil master Simon Legree, Quaker feminist abolitionist, who on the other hand, is a north- encouraged her to write her auto- erner and the villain. Ironically, biography. Incidents in the Life of the novel was meant to reconcile a Slave Girl, published under the the North and South, which were pseudonym “Linda Brent” in 1861, drifting toward the Civil War a was edited by Lydia Child. It out- decade away. Ultimately, though, spokenly condemned the sexual the book was used by abolitionists exploitation of black slave women. and others as a polemic against Jacobs’s book, like Douglass’s, is the South. part of the slave narrative genre extending back to Olaudah Equia- (1818-1896) no in colonial times. Born a slave in North Carolina, Harriet Jacobs was taught to read Harriet Wilson (1807-1870) and write by her mistress. On her Harriet Wilson was the first Afri- mistress’s death, Jacobs was sold can-American to publish a novel to a white master who tried to in the United States — : force her to have sexual relations. or, Sketches from the life of a Free She resisted him, finding another Black, in a two-storey white house, white lover by whom she had two North. Showing that Slavery’s children, who went to live with Shadows Fall Even There (1859). her grandmother. “It seems less The novel realistically dramatizes degrading to give one’s self than the marriage between a white to submit to compulsion,” she can- woman and a black man, and also didly wrote. She escaped from her depicts the difficult life of a black owner and started a rumor that Photo-ambrotype cour- servant in a wealthy Christian tesy National Portrait Gallery, she had fled North. Smithsonian Institution household. Formerly thought to be Terrified of being caught and autobiographical, it is now under- 45 stood to be a work of fiction. 20th-century black American authors as Rich- Like Jacobs, Wilson did not publish under ard Wright, , , and her own name (Our Nig was ironic), and her . ■ work was overlooked until recently. The same can be said of the work of most of the women writers of the era. Noted African-American scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. — in his role of spearheading the black fiction project — reis- sued Our Nig in 1983.

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) The most famous black American anti-slav- ery leader and orator of the era, Frederick Douglass was born a slave on a Maryland plantation. It was his good fortune to be sent to relatively liberal Baltimore as a young man, where he learned to read and write. Escaping to Massachusetts in 1838, at age 21, Douglass was helped by abolitionist editor and began to lecture for anti-slavery societies. In 1845, he published his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (second version 1855, revised in 1892), the best and most popular of many “slave narratives.” Often dictated by illiterate blacks to white abolitionists and used as propaganda, these slave narratives were well-known in the years just before the Civil War. Douglass’s narrative is vivid and highly literate, and it gives unique insights into the mentality of slavery and the agony that institution caused among blacks. The slave narrative was the first black liter- ary prose genre in the United States. It helped blacks in the difficult task of establishing an African-American identity in white America, and it has continued to exert an important influence on black fictional techniques and themes throughout the 20th century. The search for identity, anger against discrimina- tion, and sense of living an invisible, hunted, underground life unacknowledged by the white majority, have recurred in the works of such

46 into the United States between 1860 and 1910. Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino contract labor- chapter ers were imported by Hawaiian plantation own- ers, railroad companies, and other American business interests on the West Coast. In 1860, most Americans lived on farms or in 5 small villages, but by 1919 half of the population the rise of realism: 1860-1914 was concentrated in about 12 cities. Problems of urbanization and industrialization appeared: poor and overcrowded housing, unsanitary conditions, low pay (called “wage slavery”), he U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) between difficult working conditions, and inadequate the industrial North and the agricultural, restraints on business. Labor unions grew, and Tslave-owning South was a watershed in strikes brought the plight of working people to American history. The innocent optimism of national awareness. Farmers, too, saw them- the young democratic nation gave way, after selves struggling against the “money interests” the war, to a period of exhaustion. American of the East, the so-called robber barons like J.P. idealism remained but was rechanneled. Before Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. Their eastern the war, idealists championed human rights, banks tightly controlled mortgages and credit especially the abolition of slavery; after the so vital to development and agricul- war, Americans increasingly idealized progress ture, while railroad companies charged high and the self-made man. This was the era of the prices to transport farm products to the cities. millionaire manufacturer and the speculator, The farmer gradually became an object of ridi- when Darwinian evolution and the “survival of cule, lampooned as an unsophisticated “hick” the fittest” seemed to sanction the sometimes or “rube.” The ideal American of the post-Civil unethical methods of the successful business War period became the millionaire. In 1860, tycoon. there were fewer than 100 millionaires; by Business boomed after the war. War produc- 1875, there were more than 1,000. tion had boosted industry in the North and From 1860 to 1914, the United States was given it prestige and political clout. It also gave transformed from a small, young, agricultural industrial leaders valuable experience in the ex-colony to a huge, modern, industrial nation. management of men and machines. The enor- A debtor nation in 1860, by 1914 it had become mous natural resources — iron, coal, oil, gold, the world’s wealthiest state, with a population and silver — of the American land benefitted that had more than doubled, rising from 31 business. The new intercontinental rail system, million in 1860 to 76 million in 1900. By World inaugurated in 1869, and the transcontinental War I, the United States had become a major telegraph, which began operating in 1861, gave world power. industry access to materials, markets, and As industrialization grew, so did alienation. communications. The constant influx of immi- Characteristic American novels of the period grants provided a seemingly endless supply — ’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, of inexpensive labor as well. Over 23 million ’s Martin Eden, and later Theodore foreigners — German, Scandinavian, and Irish Dreiser’s An American Tragedy — depict the in the early years, and increasingly Central and damage of economic forces and alienation on Southern Europeans thereafter — flowed the weak or vulnerable individual. Sur- 47 vivors, like Twain’s Huck Finn, Finn, a poor boy who decides to Humphrey Vanderveyden in follow the voice of his conscience London’s The Sea-Wolf, and Drei- and help a Negro slave escape to ser’s opportunistic , freedom, even though Huck thinks endure through inner strength this means that he will be damned involving kindness, flexibility, to hell for breaking the law. and, above all, individuality. Twain’s masterpiece, which appeared in 1884, is set in the Samuel Clemens River village of St. (Mark Twain) (1835-1910) Petersburg. The son of an alcoholic amuel Clemens, better bum, Huck has just been adopted known by his pen name of by a respectable family when his SMark Twain, grew up in the father, in a drunken stupor, threat- frontier town ens to kill him. Fearing for his life, of Hannibal, . Ernest Huck escapes, feigning his own Hemingway’s famous state- death. He is joined in his escape ment that all of American litera- by another , the slave Jim, ture comes from one great book, whose owner, Miss Watson, is Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry thinking of selling him down the Finn, indicates this author’s tow- river to the harsher slavery of the ering place in the tradition. Early . Huck and Jim float on 19th-century American writers a raft down the majestic Missis- tended to be too flowery, senti- sippi, but are sunk by a steamboat, mental, or ostentatious — par- separated, and later reunited. tially because they were still trying They go through many comical to prove that they could write as and dangerous shore adventures elegantly as the English. Twain’s that show the variety, generosity, style, based on vigorous, realistic, and sometimes cruel irrationality colloquial American speech, gave of society. In the end, it is discov- American writers a new apprecia- ered that Miss Watson had already tion of their national voice. Twain freed Jim, and a respectable fam- was the first major author to come ily is taking care of the wild boy from the interior of the country, Huck. But Huck grows impatient and he captured its distinctive, with civilized society and plans humorous slang and . to escape to “the territories” — For Twain and other American Indian lands. The ending gives writers of the late 19th century, the reader the counter-version Samuel Clemens realism was not merely a liter- of the classic American success (Mark Twain) ary technique: It was a way of myth: the open road leading to speaking truth and exploding the pristine wilderness, away from worn-out conventions. Thus it was the morally corrupting influences profoundly liberating and poten- of “civilization.” James Fenimore Illustration by Thaddeus A. tially at odds with society. The Miksinski, Jr. Cooper’s novels, Walt Whitman’s most well-known example is Huck hymns to the open road, William 48 Faulkner’s The Bear, and ’s On the FRONTIER HUMOR AND REALISM Road are other literary examples. wo major literary currents in 19th-cen- Huckleberry Finn has inspired countless lit- tury America merged in Mark Twain: erary interpretations. Clearly, the novel is a Tpopular frontier humor and local color, or story of death, rebirth, and initiation. The “regionalism.” These related literary approach- escaped slave, Jim, becomes a father figure es began in the 1830s — and had even earlier for Huck; in deciding to save Jim, Huck grows roots in local oral traditions. In ragged frontier morally beyond the bounds of his slave-owning villages, on riverboats, in mining camps, and society. It is Jim’s adventures that initiate Huck around cowboy campfires far from city amuse- into the complexities of human nature and give ments, flourished. Exaggeration, him moral courage. tall tales, incredible boasts, and comic working- The novel also dramatizes Twain’s ideal of men heroes enlivened frontier literature. These the harmonious community: “What you want, humorous forms were found in many frontier above all things, on a raft is for everybody to regions — in the “old Southwest” (the present- be satisfied and feel right and kind toward the day inland South and the lower Midwest), the others.” Like Melville’s ship the Pequod, the raft mining frontier, and the Pacific Coast. Each sinks, and with it that special community. The region had its colorful characters around whom pure, simple world of the raft is ultimately over- stories collected: Mike Fink, the Mississippi riv- whelmed by progress — the steamboat — but erboat brawler; Casey Jones, the brave railroad the mythic image of the river remains, as vast engineer; John Henry, the steel-driving African- and changing as life itself. American; Paul Bunyan, the giant logger whose The unstable relationship between fame was helped along by advertising; western- and illusion is Twain’s characteristic theme, ers Kit Carson, the Indian fighter, and Davy the basis of much of his humor. The magnifi- Crockett, the scout. Their exploits were exag- cent yet deceptive, constantly changing river gerated and enhanced in ballads, newspapers, is also the main feature of his imaginative and magazines. Sometimes, as with Kit Carson landscape. In , Twain and , these stories were strung recalls his training as a young steamboat pilot together into book form. when he writes: “I went to work now to learn Twain, Faulkner, and many other writers, the shape of the river; and of all the eluding particularly southerners, are indebted to fron- and ungraspable objects that ever I tried to get tier pre-Civil War such as Johnson mind or hands on, that was the chief.” Hooper, Harris, Augustus Twain’s moral sense as a writer echoes his Longstreet, Thomas Bangs Thorpe, and Joseph pilot’s responsibility to steer the ship to safety. Baldwin. From them and the American frontier Samuel Clemens’s pen name, “Mark Twain,” is folk came the wild proliferation of comical new the phrase Mississippi boatmen used to signify American words: “absquatulate” (leave), “flab- two fathoms (3.6 meters) of water, the depth bergasted” (amazed), “rampagious” (unruly, needed for a boat’s safe passage. Twain’s seri- rampaging). Local boasters, or “-tailed ous purpose combined with a rare genius for roarers,” who asserted they were half horse, humor and style keep Twain’s writing fresh half alligator, also underscored the boundless and appealing. energy of the frontier. They drew strength from natural hazards that would terrify lesser men. “I’m a regular tornado,” one swelled, “tough as hickory and long-winded as a nor’wester. 49 I can strike a blow like a falling remembered for their fine depic- tree, and every lick makes a gap tions of New England: Mary in the crowd that lets in an acre of Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930), sunshine.” Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811- 1896), and especially Sarah Orne LOCAL COLORISTS Jewett (1849-1909). Jewett’s origi- ike frontier humor, local nality, exact observation of her color writing has old roots characters and setting, and Lbut produced its best works sensitive style are best seen in her long after the Civil War. Obviously, fine story “The White Heron” in many pre-war writers, from Henry Country of the Pointed Firs (1896). David Thoreau and Nathaniel Harriet Beecher Stowe’s local Hawthorne to James Greenleaf color works, especially The Pearl Whittier and James Russell Lowell, of Orr’s Island (1862), depicting paint striking portraits of specific humble Maine fishing communi- American regions. What sets the ties, greatly influenced Jewett. colorists apart is their self-con- Nineteenth-century women writ- scious and exclusive interest in ers formed their own networks of rendering a given location, and moral support and influence, as their scrupulously factual, realistic their letters show. Women made technique. up the major audience for fiction, Bret Harte (1836-1902) is and many women wrote popu- remembered as the author of lar novels, poems, and humorous adventurous stories such as “The pieces. Luck of Roaring Camp” and “The All regions of the country cel- Outcasts of Poker Flat,” set along ebrated themselves in writing the western mining frontier. As influenced by local color. Some of the first great success in the local it included social protest, especial- colorist school, Harte for a brief ly toward the end of the century, time was perhaps the best-known when social inequality and eco- writer in America — such was the nomic hardship were particularly appeal of his romantic version of pressing issues. Racial injustice the gunslinging West. Outwardly and inequality between the sexes realistic, he was one of the first appear in the works of southern to introduce low-life characters — writers such as George Washing- cunning gamblers, gaudy prosti- ton Cable (1844-1925) and Kate tutes, and uncouth robbers — into Chopin (1851-1904), whose pow- serious literary works. He got away erful novels set in Cajun/French with this (as had Charles Dickens Louisiana transcend the local in England, who greatly admired color label. Cable’s The Grandis- Harte’s work) by showing in the simes (1880) treats racial injus- end that these seeming derelicts tice with great artistry; like Kate really had hearts of gold. Photo © The Bettmann Archive Chopin’s daring novel The Awak- Several women writers are ening (1899), about a woman’s 50 doomed attempt to find her own with the emotions of ordinary identity through passion, it was middle-class Americans. ahead of its time. In The Awak- Love, ambition, idealism, and ening, a young married woman temptation motivate his charac- with attractive children and an ters; Howells was acutely aware indulgent and successful husband of the moral corruption of busi- gives up family, money, respect- ness tycoons during the Gilded ability, and eventually her life in Age of the 1870s. Howells’s The search of self-realization. Poetic Rise of Silas Lapham uses an iron- evocations of ocean, birds (caged ic title to make this point. Silas and freed), and music endow this Lapham became rich by cheating short novel with unusual intensity an old business partner; and his and complexity. immoral act deeply disturbed his Often paired with The Awaken- family, though for years Lapham ing is the fine story “The Yel- could not see that he had acted low Wallpaper” (1892) by Char- improperly. In the end, Lapham lotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935). is morally redeemed, choosing Both works were forgotten for a bankruptcy rather than unethi- time, but rediscovered by feminist cal success. Silas Lapham is, like literary critics late in the 20th Huckleberry Finn, an unsuccess century. In Gilman’s story, a con- story: Lapham’s business fall is his descending doctor drives his wife moral rise. Toward the end of his mad by confining her in a room life, Howells, like Twain, became to “cure” her of nervous exhaus- increasingly active in political tion. The imprisoned wife projects causes, defending the rights of her entrapment onto the wallpa- labor union organizers and deplor- per, in the design of which she ing American colonialism in the sees imprisoned women creeping . behind bars. COSMOPOLITAN MIDWESTERN REALISM NOVELISTS or many years, the editor (1843-1916) of the important Atlantic Henry James once wrote that FMonthly magazine, William art, especially literary art, “makes Dean Howells (1837-1920) pub- life, makes interest, makes impor- lished realistic local color writing tance.” James’s fiction and criti- by Bret Harte, Mark Twain, George cism is the most highly conscious, Washington Cable, and others. sophisticated, and difficult of its He was the champion of realism, era. With Twain, James is gener- and his novels, such as A Modern ally ranked as the greatest Ameri- Instance (1882), The Rise of Silas can novelist of the second half of Lapham (1885), and A Hazard of the 19th century.

New Fortunes (1890), carefully Photo © The Bettmann Archive James is noted for his “inter- interweave social circumstances national theme” — that is, the 51 complex relationships between reality, James’s constant concern naïve Americans and cosmopoli- is perception. In James, only self- tan Europeans. What his biogra- awareness and clear perception of pher Leon Edel calls James’s first, others yields wisdom and self-sac- or “international,” phase encom- rificing love. As James develops, passed such works as Transatlan- his novels become more - tic Sketches (travel pieces, 1875), logical and less concerned with The American (1877), external events. In James’s later (1879), and a masterpiece, The works, the most important events Portrait of a Lady (1881). In The are all psychological — usually American, for example, Christo- moments of intense illumination pher Newman, a naïve but intel- that show characters their previ- ligent and idealistic self-made ous blindness. For example, in millionaire industrialist, goes to The Ambassadors, the idealistic, Europe seeking a bride. When aging Lambert Strether uncov- her family rejects him because he ers a secret love affair and, in lacks an aristocratic background, doing so, discovers a new com- he has a chance to revenge him- plexity to his inner life. His rigid, self; in deciding not to, he demon- upright, morality is humanized strates his moral superiority. and enlarged as he discovers a capacity to accept those who have ames’s second period was sinned. experimental. He exploit- Jed new subject matters (1862-1937) — and social reform Like James, Edith Wharton grew in The Bostonians (1886) and up partly in Europe and eventually political intrigue in The Princess made her home there. She was Casamassima (1885). He also descended from a wealthy, estab- attempted to write for the theater, lished family in New York society but failed embarrassingly when and saw firsthand the decline of his play Guy Domville (1895) was this cultivated group and, in her booed on the first night. Henry James view, the rise of boorish, nou- In his third, or “major,” phase veau-riche business families. This James returned to international social transformation is the back- subjects, but treated them with ground of many of her novels. increasing sophistication and Like James, Wharton contrasts psychological penetration. The Americans and Europeans. The complex and almost mythical The core of her concern is the gulf Wings of the Dove (1902), The separating social reality and the Ambassadors (1903) (which James inner self. Often a sensitive char- felt was his best novel), and The acter feels trapped by unfeeling Golden Bowl (1904) date from this Photogravure courtesy National characters or social forces. Edith Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian major period. If the main theme of Institution Wharton had personally expe- Twain’s work is appearance and rienced such entrapment, as a 52 young writer suffering a long ner- but as a perfect one, invented by vous breakdown partly due to the God and tending toward progress conflict in roles between writer and human betterment. Natural- and wife. ists imagined society, instead, as Wharton’s best novels include a blind machine, godless and out The House of Mirth (1905), The of control. Custom of the Country (1913), The 19th-century American his- Summer (1917), The Age of Inno- torian constructed cence (1920), and the beauti- an elaborate theory of history fully crafted novella Ethan Frome involving the idea of the dynamo, (1911). or machine force, and entropy, or decay of force. Instead of progress, AND Adams sees inevitable decline in MUCKRAKING human society. harton’s and James’s Stephen Crane, the son of a dissections of hidden clergyman, put the loss of God Wsexual and financial most succinctly: motivations at work in soci- ety link them with writers who A man said to the universe: seem superficially quite differ- “Sir, I exist!” ent: Stephen Crane, Jack London, “However,” replied the , , universe, and . Like the cos- “The fact has not created in me mopolitan novelists, but much A sense of obligation.” more explicitly, these naturalists used realism to relate the individ- Like Romanticism, naturalism ual to society. Often they exposed first appeared in Europe. It is social problems and were influ- usually traced to the works of enced by Darwinian thought and Honoré de Balzac in the 1840s the related philosophical doctrine and seen as a French literary of , which views indi- movement associated with Gus- viduals as the helpless pawns of Stephen Crane tave Flaubert, Edmond and Jules economic and social forces beyond Goncourt, Émile Zola, and Guy de their control. Maupassant. It daringly opened Naturalism is essentially a lit- up the seamy underside of society erary expression of determinism. and such topics as divorce, sex, Associated with bleak, realis- adultery, poverty, and crime. tic depictions of lower-class life, Naturalism flourished as Amer- determinism denies religion as a icans became urbanized and motivating force in the world and aware of the importance of large instead perceives the universe as economic and social forces. By a machine. Eighteenth-century 1890, the frontier was declared Photo courtesy Library of Enlightenment thinkers had also Congress officially closed. Most Americans imagined the world as a machine, resided in towns, and business 53 dominated even remote farmsteads. the region of and the Cana- dian . Other of his best-sellers, including Stephen Crane (1871-1900) (1903) and The Sea-Wolf Stephen Crane, born in New Jersey, had (1904), made him the highest paid writer in the roots going back to Revolutionary War soldiers, United States of his time. clergymen, sheriffs, judges, and farmers who The Martin Eden had lived a century earlier. Primarily a journal- (1909) depicts the inner stresses of the Ameri- ist who also wrote fiction, essays, poetry, and can dream as London experienced them dur- plays, Crane saw life at its rawest, in slums ing his meteoric rise from obscure poverty to and on battlefields. His short stories — in par- wealth and fame. Eden, an impoverished but ticular, “The Open Boat,” “The Blue Hotel,” and intelligent and hardworking sailor and laborer, “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” — exempli- is determined to become a writer. Eventually, fied that literary form. His haunting Civil War his writing makes him rich and well-known, novel, , was published but Eden realizes that the woman he loves to great acclaim in 1895, but he barely had time cares only for his money and fame. His despair to bask in the attention before he died, at 29, over her inability to love causes him to lose having neglected his health. He was virtually faith in human nature. He also suffers from forgotten during the first two decades of the class alienation, for he no longer belongs to the 20th century, but was resurrected through a working class, while he rejects the materialis- laudatory biography by Thomas Beer in 1923. tic values of the wealthy whom he worked so He has enjoyed continued success ever since hard to join. He sails for the South Pacific and — as a champion of the common man, a real- commits suicide by jumping into the sea. Like ist, and a symbolist. many of the best novels of its time, Martin Eden is an unsuccess story. It looks ahead to F. Scott rane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) Fitzgerald’s in its revelation of is one of the best, if not the earliest, despair amid great wealth. Cnaturalistic American novels. It is the harrowing story of a poor, sensitive young girl Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) whose uneducated, alcoholic parents utterly The 1925 work An American Tragedy by fail her. In love and eager to escape her violent Theodore Dreiser, like London’s Martin Eden, home life, she allows herself to be seduced into explores the dangers of the American dream. living with a young man, who soon deserts her. The novel relates, in great detail, the life of When her self-righteous mother rejects her, Clyde Griffiths, a boy of weak will and little Maggie becomes a prostitute to survive, but self-awareness. He grows up in great poverty in soon commits suicide out of despair. Crane’s a family of wandering evangelists, but dreams earthy subject matter and his objective, scien- of wealth and the love of beautiful women. A tific style, devoid of moralizing, earmark Maggie rich uncle employs him in his factory. When as a naturalist work. his girlfriend Roberta becomes pregnant, she demands that he marry her. Meanwhile, Clyde Jack London (1876-1916) has fallen in love with a wealthy society girl who A poor, self-taught worker from California, represents success, money, and social accep- the naturalist Jack London was catapulted from tance. Clyde carefully plans to drown Roberta poverty to fame by his first collection of stories, on a boat trip, but at the last minute he begins The Son of the Wolf (1900), set largely in to change his mind; however, she acciden- 54 tally falls out of the boat. Clyde, provided an important impetus to a good swimmer, does not save social reform. her, and she drowns. As Clyde is The great tradition of American brought to justice, Dreiser replays investigative journalism had its his story in reverse, masterfully beginning in this period, during using the vantage points of pros- which national magazines such as ecuting and defense attorneys to McClures and Collier’s published analyze each step and motive that Ida M. Tarbell’s History of the Stan- led the mild-mannered Clyde, with dard Oil Company (1904), Lincoln a highly religious background and Steffens’s The Shame of the Cit- good family connections, to com- ies (1904), and other hard-hitting mit murder. exposés. Muckraking novels used eye-catching journalistic tech- espite his awkward style, niques to depict harsh working Dreiser, in An American conditions and . Popu- DTragedy, displays crush- list Frank Norris’s The Octopus ing authority. Its precise details (1901) exposed big railroad com- build up an overwhelming sense panies, while socialist Upton Sin- of tragic inevitability. The novel is clair’s (1906) painted a scathing portrait of the American the squalor of the meat- success myth gone sour, but it is packing houses. Jack London’s also a universal story about the dystopia The Iron Heel (1908) stresses of urbanization, modern- anticipates ’s 1984 ization, and alienation. Within it in predicting a class war and the roam the romantic and dangerous takeover of the government. of the dispossessed. Another more artistic response An American Tragedy is a reflec- was the realistic portrait, or group tion of the dissatisfaction, envy, of portraits, of ordinary charac- and despair that afflicted many ters and their frustrated inner poor and working people in Amer- lives. The collection of stories ica’s competitive, success-driven Main-Travelled Roads (1891), by society. As American industrial Theodore Dreiser William Dean Howells’s protégé, power soared, the glittering lives (1860-1940), is a of the wealthy in newspapers and portrait gallery of ordinary people. photographs sharply contrasted It shockingly depicted the poverty with the drab lives of ordinary of midwestern farmers who were farmers and city workers. The demanding agricultural reforms. media fanned rising expectations The title suggests the many trails and unreasonable desires. Such westward that the hardy pioneers problems, common to moderniz- followed and the dusty main ing nations, gave rise to muck- streets of the villages they settled. raking journalism — penetrat- Close to Garland’s Main-Trav- ing investigative reporting that Photo © The Bettmann Archive elled Roads is Winesburg, , by documented social problems and (1876-1941), 55 begun in 1916. This is a loose collection of own words. It presents a panorama of a country stories about residents of the fictitious town village through its cemetery: 250 people buried of Winesburg seen through the eyes of a naïve there speak, revealing their deepest secrets. young newspaper reporter, George Willard, Many of the people are related; members of who eventually leaves to seek his fortune in about 20 families speak of their failures and the city. Like Main-Travelled Roads and other dreams in free-verse monologues that are sur- naturalistic works of the period, Winesburg, prisingly modern. Ohio emphasizes the quiet poverty, loneliness, and despair in small-town America. (1878-1967) A friend once said, “Trying to write briefly THE “CHICAGO SCHOOL” OF POETRY about Carl Sandburg is like trying to pic- hree Midwestern poets who grew up ture the Grand Canyon in one black-and-white in Illinois and shared the midwestern snapshot.” Poet, historian, biographer, novel- Tconcern with ordinary people are Carl ist, musician, essayist — Sandburg, son of a Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, and Edgar Lee railroad blacksmith, was all of these and more. Masters. Their poetry often concerns obscure A journalist by profession, he wrote a massive individuals; they developed techniques — real- biography of Abraham Lincoln that is one of the ism, dramatic renderings — that reached out classic works of the 20th century. to a larger readership. They are part of the To many, Sandburg was a latter-day Walt Midwestern, or Chicago School, that arose Whitman, writing expansive, evocative urban before to challenge the East and patriotic poems and simple, childlike Coast literary establishment. The “Chicago and ballads. He traveled about reciting Renaissance” was a watershed in American and recording his poetry, in a lilting, melliflu- culture: It demonstrated that America’s interior ously toned voice that was a kind of singing. had matured. At heart he was totally unassuming, notwith- standing his national fame. What he wanted Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950) from life, he once said, was “to be out of jail...to By the turn of the century, Chicago had eat regular..to get what I write printed,...a little become a great city, home of innovative archi- love at home and a little nice affection hither tecture and cosmopolitan art collections. Chi- and yon over the American landscape,...(and) cago was also the home of Harriet Monroe’s to sing every day.” Poetry, the most important A fine example of his themes and his Whit- of the day. manesque style is the poem “Chicago” (1914): Among the intriguing contemporary poets the journal printed was Edgar Lee Masters, Hog Butcher for the World, author of the daring Spoon River Anthology Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, (1915), with its new “unpoetic” colloquial style, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s frank presentation of sex, critical view of vil- Freight Handler; lage life, and intensely imagined inner lives of Stormy, husky, brawling, ordinary people. City of the Big Shoulders... Spoon River Anthology is a collection of por- traits presented as colloquial epitaphs (words Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) found inscribed on gravestones) summing up Vachel Lindsay was a celebrant of small- the lives of individual villagers as if in their town midwestern populism and creator of 56 strong, rhythmic poetry designed ome of the best known of to be declaimed aloud. His work Robinson’s dramatic mono- forms a curious link between the Slogues are “Luke Havergal” popular, or folk, forms of poetry, (1896), about a forsaken lover; such as Christian gospel songs “Miniver Cheevy” (1910), a por- and vaudeville (popular theater) trait of a romantic dreamer; and on the one hand, and advanced “Richard Cory” (1896), a somber modernist poetics on the other. An portrait of a wealthy man who extremely popular public reader in commits suicide: his day, Lindsay’s readings prefig- ure “Beat” poetry readings of the Whenever Richard Cory went post-World War II era that were down town, accompanied by jazz. We people on the pavement To popularize poetry, Lindsay looked at him: developed what he called a “high- He was a gentleman from sole er vaudeville,” using music and to crown, strong rhythm. Racist by today’s Clean favored, and imperially standards, his famous poem “The slim, Congo” (1914) celebrates the his- tory of Africans by mingling jazz, And he was always quietly poetry, music, and chanting. At the arrayed, same time, he immortalized such And he was always human figures on the American land- when he talked; scape as Abraham Lincoln (“Abra- But still he fluttered pulses ham Lincoln Walks at Midnight”) when he said, and John Chapman (“Johnny App- “Good-morning,” and he leseed”), often blending facts with glittered when he walked. myth. And he was rich — yes, richer than a king — (1869-1935) And admirably schooled in every Edwin Arlington Robinson is the : best U.S. poet of the late 19th cen- In fine, we thought that he was tury. Like Edgar Lee Masters, he is everything known for short, ironic character To make us wish that we were studies of ordinary individuals. in his place. Unlike Masters, Robinson uses traditional metrics. Robinson’s So on we worked, and waited imaginary Tilbury Town, like Mas- for the light, ters’s Spoon River, contains lives And went without the meat, and of quiet desperation. cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm

Photo courtesy OWI summer night, Went home and put a bullet 57 through his head. pioneering immigrants — later immortalized in O Pioneers! “Richard Cory” takes its place (1913), My Antonia (1918), and her alongside Martin Eden, An Ameri- well-known story “Neighbour Ros- can Tragedy, and The Great Gatsby icky” (1928). During her lifetime as a powerful warning against the she became increasingly alien- overblown success myth that had ated from the materialism of mod- come to plague Americans in the ern life and wrote of alternative era of the millionaire. visions in the American South- west and in the past. Death Comes TWO WOMEN REGIONAL for the Archbishop (1927) evokes NOVELISTS the idealism of two 16th-century ovelists priests establishing the Catholic (1873-1945) and Willa Church in the New Mexican des- NCather (1873-1947) ert. Cather’s works commemorate explored women’s lives, placed in important aspects of the Ameri- brilliantly evoked regional settings. can experience outside the liter- Neither novelist set out to address ary mainstream — pioneering, specifically female issues; their the establishment of religion, and early works usually treat male pro- women’s independent lives. tagonists, and only as they gained artistic confidence and maturity THE RISE OF BLACK did they turn to depictions of wom- AMERICAN LITERATURE en’s lives. Glasgow and Cather can he literary achievement of only be regarded as “women writ- African-Americans was one ers” in a descriptive sense, for Tof the most striking liter- their works resist categorization. ary developments of the post-Civil Glasgow was from Richmond, War era. In the writings of Booker Virginia, the old capital of the T. Washington, .E.B. Du Bois, Southern Confederacy. Her real- James Weldon Johnson, Charles istic novels examine the transfor- Waddell Chesnutt, Paul Laurence mation of the South from a rural Booker T. Washington Dunbar, and others, the roots of to an industrial economy. Mature black American writing took hold, works such as Virginia (1912) notably in the forms of autobiog- focus on the southern experience, raphy, protest literature, sermons, while later novels like Barren poetry, and song. Ground (1925) — acknowledged as her best — dramatize gifted Booker T. Washington women attempting to surmount (1856-1915) the claustrophobic, traditional Booker T. Washington, educa- southern code of domesticity, tor and the most prominent black piety, and dependence for women. leader of his day, grew up as a slave

Cather, another Virginian, grew Photo courtesy Brown Brothers in Franklin , Virginia, born up on the Nebraska among to a white slave-holding father and 58 a slave mother. His fine, simple autobiography, Of mixed white and black ancestry, John- Up From Slavery (1901), recounts his suc- son explored the complex issue of race in his cessful struggle to better himself. He became fictional Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man renowned for his efforts to improve the lives of (1912), about a mixed-race man who “passes” African-Americans; his policy of accommoda- (is accepted) for white. The book effectively tion with whites — an attempt to involve the conveys the black American’s concern with recently freed black American in the main- issues of identity in America. stream of American society — was outlined in his famous Atlanta Exposition Address (1895). Charles Waddell Chesnutt (1858-1932) Charles Waddell Chesnutt, author of two col- W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) lections of stories, The Conjure Woman (1899) Born in New England and educated at Har- and The Wife of His Youth (1899), several nov- vard University and the University of Berlin els, including The Marrow of Tradition (1901), (Germany), W.E.B. Du Bois authored “Of Mr. and a biography of Frederick Douglass, was Booker T. Washington and Others,” an essay ahead of his time. His stories dwell on racial later collected in his landmark book The Souls themes, but avoid predictable endings and of Black Folk (1903). Du Bois carefully demon- generalized sentiment; his characters are dis- strates that despite his many accomplishments, tinct individuals with complex attitudes about Washington had, in effect, accepted segrega- many things, including race. Chesnutt often tion — that is, the unequal and separate shows the strength of the black community and treatment of black Americans — and that affirms ethical values and racial solidarity. ■ segregation would inevitably lead to inferiority, particularly in education. Du Bois, a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), also wrote sen- sitive appreciations of the African-American traditions and culture; his work helped black intellectuals rediscover their rich folk literature and music.

James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) Like Du Bois, the poet James Weldon John- son found inspiration in African-American spirituals. His poem “O Black and Unknown Bards” (1917) asks:

Heart of what slave poured out such melody As “Steal Away to Jesus?” On its strains His spirit must have nightly floated free, Though still about his hands he felt his chains.

59 their wildest dreams. For the first time, many Americans enrolled in higher education — in chapter the 1920s college enrollment doubled. The middle-class prospered; Americans began to enjoy the world’s highest national average 6 income in this era, and many people purchased modernism and the ultimate status symbol — an automobile. experimentation: The typical urban American home glowed with 1914-1945 electric lights and boasted a radio that con- nected the house with the outside world, and perhaps a telephone, a camera, a typewriter, or a sewing machine. Like the businessman any historians have characterized the protagonist of ’s novel period between the two world wars (1922), the average American approved of Mas the United States’ traumatic “com- these machines because they were modern and ing of age,” despite the fact that U.S. direct because most were American inventions and involvement was relatively brief (1917-1918) American-made. and its casualties many fewer than those of Americans of the “” fell its European allies and foes. in love with other modern entertainments. expressed America’s postwar disillusionment Most people went to the movies once a week. in the novel Three Soldiers (1921), when he Although Prohibition — a nationwide ban on noted that civilization was a “vast edifice of the production, transport, and sale of alco- sham, and the war, instead of its crumbling, hol instituted through the 18th Amendment was its fullest and most ultimate expression.” to the U.S. Constitution — began in 1919, Shocked and permanently changed, Americans underground “speak-easies” and nightclubs returned to their homeland but could never proliferated, featuring jazz music, cocktails, regain their innocence. and daring modes of dress and dance. Danc- Nor could soldiers from rural America easily ing, moviegoing, automobile touring, and radio return to their roots. After experiencing the were national crazes. American women, in par- world, many now yearned for a modern, urban ticular, felt liberated. Many had left farms and life. New farm machines such as planters, villages for homefront duty in American cities harvesters, and binders had drastically reduced during World War I, and had become resolutely the demand for farm jobs; yet despite their modern. They cut their hair short (“bobbed”), increased productivity, farmers were poor. Crop wore short “flapper” dresses, and gloried in prices, like urban workers’ wages, depended on the right to vote assured by the 19th Amend- unrestrained market forces heavily influenced ment to the Constitution, passed in 1920. They by business interests: Government subsidies boldly spoke their mind and took public roles for farmers and effective workers’ unions had in society. not yet become established. “The chief busi- Western youths were rebelling, angry and ness of the American people is business,” disillusioned with the savage war, the older President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed in 1925, generation they held responsible, and difficult and most agreed. postwar economic conditions that, ironically, In the postwar “Big Boom,” business flour- allowed Americans with dollars — like writ- ished, and the successful prospered beyond ers F. Scott Fitzgerald, , 60 , and Ezra Pound — to live left the Midwest for California in search of abroad handsomely on very little money. Intel- jobs, as vividly described in ’s lectual currents, particularly Freudian psychol- (1939). At the peak of the ogy and to a lesser extent Marxism (like the Depression, one-third of all Americans were earlier Darwinian theory of evolution), implied out of work. Soup kitchens, shanty towns, and a “godless” world view and contributed to the armies of — unemployed men illegally breakdown of traditional values. Americans riding freight trains — became part of national abroad absorbed these views and brought them life. Many saw the Depression as a punishment back to the United States where they took root, for sins of excessive materialism and loose firing the imagination of young writers and living. The dust storms that blackened the artists. William Faulkner, for example, a 20th- midwestern sky, they believed, constituted an century American novelist, employed Freudian Old Testament judgment: the “whirlwind by day elements in all his works, as did virtually all and the darkness at noon.” serious American fiction writers after World The Depression turned the world upside War I. down. The United States had preached a gospel Despite outward gaiety, modernity, and of business in the 1920s; now, many Ameri- unparalleled material prosperity, young Ameri- cans supported a more active role for govern- cans of the 1920s were “the ” ment in the New Deal programs of President — so named by literary portraitist Gertrude Franklin D. Roosevelt. Federal money created Stein. Without a stable, traditional structure of jobs in public works, conservation, and rural values, the individual lost a sense of identity. electrification. Artists and intellectuals were The secure, supportive family life; the familiar, paid to create murals and state handbooks. settled community; the natural and eternal These remedies helped, but only the industrial rhythms of nature that guide the planting and build-up of World War II renewed prosperity. harvesting on a farm; the sustaining sense of After Japan attacked the United States at Pearl patriotism; moral values inculcated by religious Harbor on December 7, 1941, disused ship- beliefs and observations — all seemed under- yards and factories came to bustling life mass- mined by World War I and its aftermath. producing ships, airplanes, jeeps, and supplies. Numerous novels, notably Hemingway’s The War production and experimentation led to new Sun Also Rises (1926) and Fitzgerald’s This Side technologies, including the nuclear bomb. Wit- of Paradise (1920), evoke the extravagance and nessing the first experimental nuclear blast, disillusionment of the lost generation. In T.S. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of an international Eliot’s influential team of nuclear scientists, prophetically quoted (1922), Western civilization is symbolized by a a Hindu poem: “I am become Death, the shat- bleak desert in desperate need of rain (spiritual terer of worlds.” renewal). The world depression of the 1930s affected MODERNISM most of the population of the United States. he large cultural wave of Modernism, Workers lost their jobs, and factories shut which gradually emerged in Europe and down; businesses and banks failed; farmers, Tthe United States in the early years of unable to harvest, transport, or sell their crops, the 20th century, expressed a sense of modern could not pay their debts and lost their farms. life through art as a sharp break from the past, Midwestern droughts turned the “breadbasket” as well as from Western civilization’s classical of America into a dust bowl. Many farmers traditions. Modern life seemed radically dif- 61 ferent from traditional life — more scientific, moviehouses, and watchtowers to illumine a faster, more technological, and more mecha- forbidding outer darkness suggesting igno- nized. Modernism embraced these changes. rance and old-fashioned tradition. In literature, Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) Photography began to assume the status developed an analogue to modern art. A resi- of a fine art allied with the latest scientific dent of and an art collector (she and her developments. The photographer Alfred Stieg- brother Leo purchased works of the artists Paul litz opened a in New York City, and by Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1908 he was showing the latest European Pablo Picasso, and many others), Stein once works, including pieces by Picasso and other explained that she and Picasso were doing European friends of Gertrude Stein. Stieglitz’s the same thing, he in art and she in writing. salon influenced numerous writers and artists, Using simple, concrete words as counters, including William Carlos Williams, who was she developed an abstract, experimental prose one of the most influential American poets of poetry. The childlike quality of Stein’s simple the 20th century. Williams cultivated a photo- vocabulary recalls the bright, primary colors graphic clarity of image; his aesthetic dictum of modern art, while her repetitions echo the was “no ideas but in things.” repeated shapes of abstract visual composi- tions. By dislocating grammar and punctua- ision and viewpoint became an essen- tion, she achieved new “abstract” meanings tial aspect of the modernist novel as as in her influential collection Tender Buttons Vwell. No longer was it sufficient to write (1914), which views objects from different a straightforward third-person narrative or angles, as in a cubist painting: (worse yet) use a pointlessly intrusive narrator. The way the story was told became as important A Table A Table means does it not my as the story itself. dear it means a whole steadiness. Is it Henry James, William Faulkner, and many likely that a change. A table means more other American writers experimented with than a glass even a looking glass is tall. fictional points of view (some are still doing so). James often restricted the information in Meaning, in Stein’s work, was often subor- the novel to what a single character would have dinated to technique, just as subject was less known. Faulkner’s novel The Sound and The important than shape in abstract visual art. Fury (1929) breaks up the narrative into four Subject and technique became inseparable in sections, each giving the viewpoint of a differ- both the visual and literary art of the period. ent character (including a mentally retarded The idea of form as the equivalent of content, a boy). cornerstone of post-World War II art and litera- To analyze such modernist novels and poetry, ture, crystallized in this period. a school of “” arose in the United Technological innovation in the world of States, with a new critical vocabulary. New factories and machines inspired new atten- Critics hunted the “epiphany” (moment in tiveness to technique in . To take one which a character suddenly sees the transcen- example: Light, particularly electrical light, dent truth of a situation, a term derived from fascinated modern artists and writers. Posters a holy saint’s appearance to mortals); they and advertisements of the period are full of “examined” and “clarified” a work, hoping to images of floodlit skyscrapers and light rays “shed light” upon it through their “insights.” shooting out from automobile headlights, 62 POETRY 1914-1945: and brilliant, if sometimes flawed, EXPERIMENTS IN FORM introduced new lit- Ezra Pound (1885-1972) erary possibilities from many Ezra Pound was one of the most cultures to modern writers. His influential American poets of this life-work was , which century. From 1908 to 1920, he he wrote and published until his resided in London where he asso- death. They contain brilliant pas- ciated with many writers, includ- sages, but their allusions to works ing William Butler Yeats, for whom of literature and art from many he worked as a secretary, and T.S. eras and cultures make them diffi- Eliot, whose Waste Land he dras- cult. Pound’s poetry is best known tically edited and improved. He for its clear, visual images, fresh was a link between the United rhythms, and muscular, intelli- States and Britain, acting as con- gent, unusual lines, such as, in tributing editor to Harriet Mon- Canto LXXXI, “The ant’s a centaur roe’s important Chicago magazine in his dragon world,” or in poems Poetry and spearheading the new inspired by Japanese haiku, such school of poetry known as Imag- as “In a Station of the Metro” ism, which advocated a clear, (1916): highly visual presentation. After , he championed various The apparition of these faces in poetic approaches. He eventually the crowd; moved to Italy, where he became Petals on a wet, black bough. caught up in Italian Fascism. T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) ound furthered Imagism Thomas Stearns Eliot was in letters, essays, and an born in St. Louis, Missouri, to T.S. Eliot Panthology. In a letter to a well-todo family with roots in Monroe in 1915, he argues for the northeastern United States. a modern-sounding, visual poet- He received the best education ry that avoids “clichés and set of any major American writer of phrases.” In “A Few Don’ts of his generation at , an Imagiste” (1913), he defined the Sorbonne, and Merton College “image” as something that “pres- of Oxford University. He studied ents an intellectual and emo- and Oriental philosophy, tional complex in an instant of which influenced his poetry. Like time.” Pound’s 1914 anthology of his friend Pound, he went to Eng- 10 poets, Des Imagistes, offered land early and became a towering examples of Imagist poetry by out- figure in the literary world there. standing poets, including William One of the most respected poets of Carlos Williams, H.D. (Hilda his day, his modernist, seemingly Doolittle), and Amy Lowell. illogical or abstract iconoclastic Pound’s interests and reading Photo courtesy Photos poetry had revolutionary impact. were universal. His adaptations He also wrote influential essays 63 and dramas, and championed the Let us go and make our visit. importance of literary and social traditions for the modern poet. Similar imagery pervades The As a critic, Eliot is best remem- Waste Land (1922), which echoes bered for his formulation of the Dante’s Inferno to evoke London’s “objective correlative,” which he thronged streets around the time described, in The Sacred Wood, as of World War I: a means of expressing emotion through “a set of objects, a situa- Unreal City, tion, a chain of events” that would Under the brown fog of a winter be the “formula” of that particu- dawn, lar emotion. Poems such as “The A crowd flowed over London Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” Bridge, so many (1915) embody this approach, I had not thought death had when the ineffectual, elderly Pru- undone so many... (I, 60-63) frock thinks to himself that he has “measured out his life in coffee The Waste Land’s vision is ulti- spoons,” using coffee spoons to mately apocalyptic and worldwide: reflect a humdrum existence and a wasted lifetime. Cracks and reforms and bursts The famous beginning of Eliot’s in the violet air “Prufrock” invites the reader into Falling towers tawdry alleys that, like modern Jerusalem, Athens, Alexandria life, offer no answers to the ques- Vienna London tions life poses: Unreal (, 373-377)

Let us go then, you and I, liot’s other major poems When the evening is spread include “Gerontion” (1920), out against the sky Ewhich uses an elderly man Like a patient etherized upon to symbolize the decrepitude of a table; Western society; “The Hollow Men” Let us go, through certain half- (1925), a moving dirge for the deserted streets, death of the spirit of contemporary The muttering retreats humanity; Ash-Wednesday (1930), Of restless nights in one-night in which he turns explicitly toward cheap hotels Robert Frost the Church of England for meaning And sawdust restaurants with in human life; and Four Quartets oyster-shells: (1943), a complex, highly subjec- Streets that follow like a tive, experimental meditation on tedious argument transcendent subjects such as Of insidious intent time, the nature of self, and spiri- To lead you to an overwhelming tual awareness. His poetry, espe- Photo © Kosti Ruohamaa, Black question... Star cially his daring, innovative early Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” work, has influenced generations. 64 Robert Frost (1874-1963) queer Robert Lee Frost was born in To stop without a farmhouse California but raised on a farm near in the northeastern United States Between the woods and frozen until the age of 10. Like Eliot lake and Pound, he went to England, The darkest evening of the year. attracted by new movements in poetry there. A charismatic pub- He gives his harness bells a lic reader, he was renowned for shake his tours. He read an original To ask if there is some mistake. work at the inauguration of Presi- The only other sound’s the dent John F. Kennedy in 1961 that sweep helped spark a national interest Of easy wind and downy flake. in poetry. His popularity is easy to explain: He wrote of traditional The woods are lovely, dark and farm life, appealing to a nostal- deep, gia for the old ways. His subjects But I have promises to keep, are universal — apple picking, And miles to go before I sleep, stone walls, fences, country roads. And miles to go before I sleep. Frost’s approach was lucid and accessible: He rarely employed Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) pedantic allusions or ellipses. Born in Pennsylvania, Wallace His frequent use of also Stevens was educated at Harvard appealed to the general audience. College and Frost’s work is often deceptively Law School. He practiced law in simple. Many poems suggest a New York City from 1904 to 1916, deeper meaning. For example, a a time of great artistic and poet- quiet snowy evening by an almost ic activity there. On moving to hypnotic rhyme scheme may sug- Hartford, Connecticut, to become gest the not entirely unwelcome an insurance executive in 1916, approach of death. From: “Stop- he continued writing poetry. His ping by Woods on a Snowy Eve- life is remarkable for its compart- ning” (1923): mentalization: His associates in the insurance company did not Whose woods these are I think know that he was a major poet. I know. Wallace Stevens In private he continued to develop His house is in the village, extremely complex ideas of aes- though; thetic order throughout his life in He will not see me stopping aptly named books such as Har- here monium (enlarged edition 1931), To watch his woods fill up with Ideas of Order (1935), and Parts of snow. a World (1942). Some of his best Photo © The Bettmann Archive known poems are “Sunday Morn- My little horse must think it ing,” “Peter Quince at the Clavier,” 65 “The of Ice-Cream,” “Thirteen Ways William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) of Looking at a Blackbird,” and “The Idea of William Carlos Williams was a practicing Order at Key West.” pediatrician throughout his life; he delivered Stevens’s poetry dwells upon themes of the over 2,000 babies and wrote poems on his imagination, the necessity for aesthetic form and prescription pads. Williams was a classmate of the belief that the order of art corresponds with poets Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle, and his an order in nature. His vocabulary is rich and early poetry reveals the influence of Imagism. various: He paints lush tropical scenes but also He later went on to champion the use of collo- manages dry, humorous, and ironic vignettes. quial speech; his ear for the natural rhythms of Some of his poems draw upon popular cul- American English helped free American poetry ture, while others poke fun at sophisticated from the iambic meter that had dominated society or soar into an intellectual heaven. He English verse since the Renaissance. His sym- is known for his exuberant word play: “Soon, pathy for ordinary working people, children, with a noise like tambourines / Came her and everyday events in modern urban settings attendant Byzantines.” make his poetry attractive and accessible. “The Stevens’s work is full of surprising insights. Red Wheelbarrow” (1923), like a Dutch still life, Sometimes he plays tricks on the reader, as in finds interest and beauty in everyday objects: “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock” (1931): So much depends The houses are haunted upon By white night-gowns. None are green, a red wheel Or purple with green rings, barrow Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. glazed with rain None of them are strange, water With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. beside the white People are not going chickens. To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Williams cultivated a relaxed, natural poetry. Drunk and asleep in his boots, In his hands, the poem was not to become a Catches tigers perfect object of art as in Stevens, or the care- In red weather. fully recreated Wordsworthian incident as in Frost. Instead, the poem was to capture an his poem seems to complain about instant of time like an unposed snapshot — a unimaginative lives (plain white night- concept he derived from photographers and Tgowns), but actually conjures up vivid artists he met at galleries like Stieglitz’s in New images in the reader’s mind. At the end a York City. Like photographs, his poems often drunken sailor, oblivious to the proprieties, hint at hidden possibilities or attractions, as in does “catch tigers” — at least in his dream. “The Young Housewife” (1917): The poem shows that the human imagina- tion — of reader or sailor — will always find a At ten a.m. the young housewife creative outlet. moves about in negligee behind 66 the wooden walls of her road theme of American literature huband’s house. and gives a sense of new vis- I pass solitary in my car. tas even open to the poor people who picnic in the public park on Then again she comes to the Sundays. Like Whitman’s persona curb, in Leaves of Grass, Dr. to call the ice-man, fish-man, moves freely among the working and stands people: shy, uncorseted, tucking in stray ends of hair, and I -late spring, compare her a Sunday afternoon! To a fallen leaf. - and goes by the footpath to the The noiseless wheels of my car cliff (counting: the proof) rush with a crackling sound over himself among others dried leaves as I bow and pass - treads there the same stones smiling. on which their feet slip as they climb, He termed his work “objectiv- paced by their dogs! ist” to suggest the importance of concrete, visual objects. His work laughing, calling to each other - often captured the spontaneous, emotive pattern of experience, Wait for me! and influenced the “Beat” writing (II, i, 14-23) of the early 1950s. Like Eliot and Pound, Williams BETWEEN THE WARS tried his hand at the epic form, but while their epics employ liter- (1887-1962) ary allusions directed to a small umerous American poets of number of highly educated read- stature and genuine vision ers, Williams instead writes for a Narose in the years between more general audience. Though Robinson Jeffers the world wars, among them poets he studied abroad, he elected to from the West Coast, women, and live in the United States. His epic, African-Americans. Like the nov- Paterson (five vols., 1946-1958), elist John Steinbeck, Robinson celebrates his hometown of Pat- Jeffers lived in California and erson, New Jersey, as seen by an wrote of the Spanish rancheros autobiographical “Dr. Paterson.” and Indians and their mixed tradi- In it, Williams juxtaposed lyric tions, and of the haunting beauty passages, prose, letters, autobiog- of the land. Trained in the classics raphy, newspaper accounts, and and well-read in Freud, he recre- Photo © UPI/The Bettmann historical facts. The layout’s ample Archive ated themes of Greek tragedy set white space suggests the open in the rugged coastal seascape. He 67 is best known for his tragic narra- piracies and it’s spring... tives such as Tamar (1924), Roan Stallion (1925), The Tower Beyond Hart Crane (1899-1932) Tragedy (1924) — a recreation of Hart Crane was a tormented Aeschylus’s Agamemnon — and young poet who committed suicide Medea (1946), a recreation of the at age 33 by leaping into the sea. tragedy by . He left striking poems, including an epic, (1930), which Edward Estlin Cummings was inspired by the (1894-1962) Bridge, in which he ambitiously Edward Estlin Cummings, com- attempted to review the American monly known as e.e. cummings, cultural experience and recast it wrote attractive, innovative verse in affirmative terms. His luscious, distinguished for its humor, grace, overheated style works best in celebration of love and eroticism, short poems such as “Voyages” and experimentation with punc- (1923, 1926) and “At Melville’s tuation and visual format on the Tomb” (1926), whose ending is a page. A painter, he was the first suitable epitaph for Crane: American poet to recognize that poetry had become primarily a monody shall not wake the visual, not an oral, art; his poems mariner. used much unusual spacing and This fabulous shadow only the indentation, as well as dropping sea keeps. all use of capital letters. ike Williams, Cummings (1887-1972) also used colloquial lan- Marianne Moore once wrote Lguage, sharp imagery, and that poems were “imaginary gar- words from popular culture. Like dens with real toads in them.” Williams, he took creative liberties Her poems are conversational, yet with layout. His poem “in Just —” elaborate and subtle in their syl- (1920) invites the reader to fill in labic versification, drawing upon the missing ideas: extremely precise description and historical and scientific fact. A in Just — “poet’s poet,” she influenced such Langston Hughes later poets as her young friend Spring when the world is . mudluscious the little lame balloonman Langston Hughes (1902-1967) whistles far and wee One of many talented poets of the of

and eddieandbill come Photo courtesy Knopf, Inc. the 1920s — in the company of running from marbles and James Weldon Johnson, Claude 68 McKay, , and oth- went down to , and ers — was Langston Hughes. He I’ve seen its muddy embraced African-American jazz bosom turn all golden in the rhythms and was one of the first sunset black writers to attempt to make a profitable career out of his writ- I’ve known rivers ing. Hughes incorporated blues, Ancient, dusky rivers. spirituals, colloquial speech, and folkways in his poetry. My soul has grown deep like the An influential cultural organiz- rivers. er, Hughes published numerous black anthologies and began black PROSE WRITING, 1914-1945: theater groups in and AMERICAN REALISM Chicago, as well as New York City. lthough American prose He also wrote effective journal- between the wars experi- ism, creating the character Jesse Amented with viewpoint B. Semple (“simple”) to express and form, Americans wrote more social commentary. One of his realistically, on the whole, than most beloved poems, “The Negro did Europeans. Novelist Ernest Speaks of Rivers” (1921, 1925), Hemingway wrote of war, hunt- embraces his African — and uni- ing, and other masculine pursuits versal — heritage in a grand epic in a stripped, plain style; William catalogue. The poem suggests Faulkner set his powerful southern that, like the great rivers of the novels spanning generations and world, African culture will endure cultures firmly in Mississippi heat and deepen: and dust; and Sinclair Lewis delin- eated bourgeois lives with ironic I’ve known rivers: clarity. I’ve known rivers ancient as The importance of facing reality the world and older than the became a dominant theme in the flow of human blood in 1920s and 1930s: Writers such as F. human veins. Scott Fitzgerald and the playwright Eugene O’Neill repeatedly por- My soul has grown deep like trayed the tragedy awaiting those the rivers. who live in flimsy dreams. F. Scott Fitzgerald I bathed in the Euphrates when F. Scott Fitzgerald dawns were young. (1896-1940) I built my hut near the Congo Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald’s and it lulled me to sleep. life resembles a . During I looked upon the Nile and World War I, Fitzgerald enlisted in raised the pyramids above it. the U.S. Army and fell in love with Photo courtesy Culver Pictures, I heard the singing of the Inc a rich and beautiful girl, Zelda Mississippi when Abe Lincoln Sayre, who lived near Montgomery, 69 Alabama, where he was stationed. Paradise was heralded as the voice Zelda broke off their engagement of modern American youth. His because he was relatively poor. second novel, The Beautiful and After he was discharged at war’s the Damned (1922), continued his end, he went to seek his literary exploration of the self-destructive fortune in New York City in order extravagance of his times. to marry her. Fitzgerald’s special qualities His first novel, This Side of include a dazzling style perfectly Paradise (1920), became a best- suited to his theme of seductive seller, and at 24 they married. glamour. A famous section from Neither of them was able to with- The Great Gatsby masterfully sum- stand the stresses of success and marizes a long passage of time: fame, and they squandered their “There was music from my neigh- money. They moved to France to bor’s house through the summer economize in 1924 and returned nights. In his blue gardens men seven years later. Zelda became and girls came and went like mentally unstable and had to be moths among the whisperings and institutionalized; Fitzgerald him- the champagne and the stars.” self became an alcoholic and died young as a movie screenwriter. Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) itzgerald’s secure place in Few writers have lived as color- American literature rests fully as Ernest Hemingway, whose Fprimarily on his novel The career could have come out of Great Gatsby (1925), a brilliantly one of his adventurous novels. written, economically structured Like Fitzgerald, Dreiser, and many story about the American dream of other fine novelists of the 20th the self-made man. The protago- century, Hemingway came from nist, the mysterious Jay Gatsby, the U.S. Midwest. Born in Illinois, discovers the devastating cost of Hemingway spent childhood vaca- success in terms of personal ful- tions in on hunting and fillment and love. Other fine works fishing trips. He volunteered for an include Tender Is the Night (1934), ambulance unit in France during Ernest Hemingway about a young psychiatrist whose World War I, but was wounded and life is doomed by his marriage to hospitalized for six months. After an unstable woman, and some the war, as a war correspondent stories in the collections Flappers based in Paris, he met expatri- and Philosophers (1920), Tales ate American writers Sherwood of the (1922), and All Anderson, Ezra Pound, F. Scott the Sad Young Men (1926). More Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein. than any other writer, Fitzgerald Stein, in particular, influenced his captured the glittering, desperate spare style. Photo courtesy Pix Publishing, life of the 1920s; This Side of Inc After his novel The Sun Also

70 Rises (1926) brought him fame, of war, death, and the “lost gen- he covered the Spanish Civil War, eration” of cynical survivors. His World War II, and the fighting in characters are not dreamers but China in the 1940s. On a safari in tough bullfighters, soldiers, and Africa, he was badly injured when athletes. If intellectual, they are his small plane crashed; still, deeply scarred and disillusioned. he continued to enjoy hunting His hallmark is a clean style and sport fishing, activities that devoid of unnecessary words. inspired some of his best work. Often he uses understatement: (1952), a In (1929) the short poetic novel about a poor, old heroine dies in childbirth saying fisherman who heroically catches “I’m not a bit afraid. It’s just a dirty a huge fish devoured by sharks, trick.” He once compared his writ- won him the in ing to icebergs: “There is seven- 1953; the next year he received eighths of it under water for every the Nobel Prize. Discouraged by part that shows.” a troubled family background, Hemingway’s fine ear for dia- illness, and the belief that he logue and exact description shows was losing his gift for writing, in his excellent short stories, such Hemingway shot himself to death as “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and in 1961. “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” Critical opinion, in emingway is arguably the fact, generally holds his short sto- most popular American ries equal or superior to his novels. Hnovelist of this century. His best novels include The Sun His sympathies are basically apo- Also Rises, about the demoralized litical and humanistic, and in this life of expatriates after World War sense he is universal. His simple I; A Farewell to Arms, about the style makes his novels easy to tragic love affair of an American comprehend, and they are often soldier and an English nurse dur- set in exotic surroundings. A ing the war; For Whom the Bell believer in the “cult of experi- Tolls (1940), set during the Span- ence,” Hemingway often involved ish Civil War; and The Old Man William Faulkner his characters in dangerous situa- and the Sea. tions in order to reveal their inner natures; in his later works, the William Faulkner danger sometimes becomes an (1897-1962) occasion for masculine assertion. Born to an old southern fam- Like Fitzgerald, Hemingway ily, William Harrison Faulkner became a spokesperson for his was raised in Oxford, Mississippi, generation. But instead of paint- where he lived most of his life. ing its fatal glamour as did Faulkner created an entire imagi- Photo © UPI/The Bettmann Fitzgerald, who never fought in Archive native landscape, Yoknapatawpha World War I, Hemingway wrote County, mentioned in numerous 71 novels, along with several families novel reflects upon itself, while with interconnections extending it simultaneously unfolds a story back for generations. Yoknapa- of universal interest. Faulkner’s tawpha County, with its capital, themes are southern tradition, “Jefferson,” is closely modeled on family, community, the land, his- Oxford, Mississippi, and its sur- tory and the past, race, and the roundings. Faulkner recreates the passions of ambition and love. He history of the land and the various also created three novels focusing races — Indian, African-Ameri- on the rise of a degenerate fam- can, Euro-American, and various ily, the Snopes clan: The Hamlet mixtures — who have lived on (1940), The Town (1957), and The it. An innovative writer, Faulkner Mansion (1959). experimented brilliantly with narrative chronology, different NOVELS OF SOCIAL points of view and voices (includ- AWARENESS ing those of outcasts, children, ince the 1890s, an under- and illiterates), and a rich and current of social protest had demanding baroque style built of Scoursed through American extremely long sentences full of literature, welling up in the nat- complicated subordinate parts. uralism of Stephen Crane and The best of Faulkner’s novels Theodore Dreiser and in the clear include messages of the muckraking (1929) and (1930), novelists. Later socially engaged two modernist works experiment- authors included Sinclair Lewis, ing with viewpoint and voice to John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, probe southern families under the , and the dramatist stress of losing a family member; Clifford Odets. They were linked (1932), about com- to the 1930s in their concern for plex and violent relations between the welfare of the common citizen a white woman and a black man; and their focus on groups of people and Absalom, Absalom! (1936), — the professions, as in Sinclair perhaps his finest, about the rise Sinclair Lewis Lewis’s archetypal of a self-made plantation owner (a physician) or Babbitt (a local and his tragic fall through racial businessman); families, as in prejudice and a failure to love. Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath; Most of these novels use dif- or urban masses, as Dos Passos ferent characters to tell parts of accomplishes through his 11 major the story and demonstrate how characters in his U.S.A. trilogy. meaning resides in the manner of telling, as much as in the subject Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) at hand. The use of various view- Harry Sinclair Lewis was born points makes Faulkner more self- in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, and Photo courtesy Pix Publishing, referential, or “reflexive,” than Inc. graduated from . Hemingway or Fitzgerald; each He took time off from school to 72 work at a socialist community, John Dos Passos (1896-1970) Helicon Home Colony, financed by Like Sinclair Lewis, John Dos muckraking novelist Upton Sin- Passos began as a left-wing radical clair. Lewis’s Main Street (1920) but moved to the right as he aged. satirized monotonous, hypo- Dos Passos wrote realistically, in critical small-town life in Gopher line with the doctrine of socialist Prairie, Minnesota. His incisive realism. His best work achieves a presentation of American life and scientific and almost his criticism of American materi- documentary effect. Dos Passos alism, narrowness, and hypocrisy developed an experimental col- brought him national and inter- lage technique for his masterwork national recognition. In 1926, he U.S.A., consisting of The 42nd Par- was offered and declined a Pulizer allel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Prize for Arrowsmith (1925), a Big Money (1936). This sprawling novel tracing a doctor’s efforts to collection covers the social history maintain his medical ethics amid of the United States from 1900 to greed and corruption. In 1930, he 1930 and exposes the moral cor- became the first American to win ruption of materialistic American the Nobel Prize for Literature. society through the lives of its characters. ewis’s other major novels Dos Passos’s new techniques include Babbitt (1922). included “newsreel” sections LGeorge Babbitt is an ordi- taken from contemporary head- nary businessman living and lines, popular songs, and adver- working in Zenith, an ordinary tisements, as well as “biographies” American town. Babbitt is moral briefly setting forth the lives of and enterprising, and a believer important Americans of the in business as the new scientific period, such as inventor Thomas approach to modern life. Becoming Edison, labor organizer Eugene restless, he seeks fulfilment but is Debs, film star Rudolph Valentino, disillusioned by an affair with a financier J.P. Morgan, and soci- bohemian woman, returns to his John Steinbeck ologist Thorstein Veblen. Both the wife, and accepts his lot. The novel newsreels and biographies lend added a new word to the American Dos Passos’s novels a documen- language — “babbittry,” mean- tary value; a third technique, the ing narrow-minded, complacent, “camera eye,” consists of stream bourgeois ways. Elmer Gantry of consciousness prose poems that (1927) exposes revivalist religion offer a subjective response to the in the United States, while Cass events described in the books. Timberlane (1945) studies the stresses that develop within the John Steinbeck (1902-1968) marriage of an older judge and his Like Sinclair Lewis, John Stein- Photo courtesy Pinney & young wife. Beecher beck is held in higher critical esteem outside the United States 73 than in it today, largely because he beloved across the United States received the Nobel Prize for Litera- and overseas. and ture in 1963 and the international other blues singers presented fame it confers. In both cases, the frank, sensual, wry lyrics raw with Nobel Committee selected liberal emotion. Black spirituals became American writers noted for their widely appreciated as uniquely social criticism. beautiful religious music. Ethel Steinbeck, a Californian, set Waters, the black actress, tri- much of his writing in the Salinas umphed on the stage, and black Valley near . His best American dance and art flourished known work is the Pulitzer Prize- with music and drama. winning novel The Grapes of Wrath Among the rich variety of talent (1939), which follows the travails in Harlem, many visions coex- of a poor family that isted. Carl Van Vechten’s sympa- loses its farm during the Depres- thetic 1926 novel of Harlem gives sion and travels to California to some idea of the complex and seek work. Family members suffer bittersweet life of black America conditions of feudal oppression by in the face of economic and social rich landowners. Other works set inequality. in California include The poet Countee Cullen (1903- (1935), (1937), 1946), a native of Harlem who was (1945), and East of briefly married to W.E.B. Du Bois’s Eden (1952). daughter, wrote accomplished Steinbeck combines realism rhymed poetry, in accepted forms, with a primitivist romanticism which was much admired by that finds virtue in poor farmers whites. He believed that a poet who live close to the land. His should not allow race to dictate fiction demonstrates the vulner- the subject matter and style of ability of such people, who can be a poem. On the other end of the uprooted by droughts and are the spectrum were African-Americans first to suffer in periods of political who rejected the United States in unrest and economic depression. favor of Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement. Somewhere THE HARLEM in between lies the work of Jean RENAISSANCE Toomer. uring the exuberant 1920s, Harlem, the black com- Jean Toomer (1894-1967) Dmunity situated uptown in Like Cullen, African-American New York City, sparkled with pas- fiction writer and poet Jean Toom- sion and creativity. The sounds er envisioned an American iden- of its black American jazz swept tity that would transcend race. the United States by storm, and Perhaps for this reason, he bril- Photo © UPI/The Bettmann jazz musicians and composers Archive liantly employed poetic traditions like Duke Ellington became stars of rhyme and meter and did not 74 seek out new “black” forms for ninth grade education. His harsh his poetry. His major work, Cane childhood is depicted in one of (1923), is ambitious and inno- his best books, his autobiography, vative, however. Like Williams’s (1945). He later said Paterson, Cane incorporates that his sense of deprivation, due poems, prose vignettes, stories, to racism, was so great that only and autobiographical notes. In it, reading kept him alive. an African-American struggles The social criticism and realism to discover his selfhood within of Sherwood Anderson, Theodore and beyond the black communi- Dreiser, and Sinclair Lewis espe- ties in rural Georgia, Washington, cially inspired Wright. During the D.C., and Chicago, Illinois, and 1930s, he joined the Communist as a black teacher in the South. party; in the 1940s, he moved to In Cane, Toomer’s Georgia rural France, where he knew Gertrude black folk are naturally artistic: Stein and Jean-Paul Sartre and became an anti-Communist. His Their voices rise...the pine outspoken writing blazed a path trees are guitars, for subsequent African-American Strumming, pine-needles fall novelists. like sheets of rain... Their voices rise...the chorus of is work includes Uncle the cane Tom’s Children (1938), a Is caroling a vesper to the Hbook of short stories, and stars...(I, 21-24) the powerful and relentless novel (1940), in which Bigger Cane contrasts the fast pace of Thomas, an uneducated black African-American life in the city of youth, mistakenly kills his white Richard Wright Washington: employer’s daughter, gruesomely burns the body, and murders his Money burns the pocket, pocket black girlfriend — fearing she will hurts, betray him. Although some African- Bootleggers in silken shirts, Americans have criticized Wright Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs, for portraying a black character as Whizzing, whizzing down the a murderer, Wright’s novel was a street-car tracks. (II, 1-4) necessary and overdue expression of the racial inequality that has Richard Wright (1908-1960) been the subject of so much debate Richard Wright was born into in the United States. a poor Mississippi sharecropping family that his father deserted when the boy was five. Wright (1903-1960) was the first African-American Born in the small town of Eaton- Photo courtesy Howard novelist to reach a general audi- University ville, Florida, Zora Neale Hurston ence, even though he had barely a is known as one of the lights 75 of the Harlem Renaissance. She her autobiography, Dust Tracks on first came to New York City at a Road (1942). the age of 16 — having arrived as part of a traveling theatrical LITERARY CURRENTS: troupe. A strikingly gifted story- THE AND NEW teller who captivated her listen- CRITICISM ers, she attended , rom the Civil War into the where she studied with anthro- 20th century, the southern pologist Franz Boaz and came to FUnited States had remained grasp ethnicity from a scientific a political and economic backwater perspective. Boaz urged her to ridden with racism and supersti- collect folklore from her native tion, but, at the same time, blessed Florida environment, which she with rich folkways and a strong did. The distinguished folklorist sense of pride and tradition. It had Alan Lomax called her Mules and a somewhat unfair reputation for Men (1935) “the most engaging, being a cultural desert of provin- genuine, and skillfully written cialism and ignorance. book in the field of folklore.” Ironically, the most signifi- Hurston also spent time in cant 20th-century regional liter- Haiti, studying voodoo and col- ary movement was that of the lecting Caribbean folklore that Fugitives — led by poet-critic- was anthologized in Tell My Horse theoretician , (1938). Her natural command of poet , and novelist-poet- colloquial English puts her in the essayist . This great tradition of Mark Twain. Her southern literary school rejected writing sparkles with colorful lan- “northern” urban, commercial val- guage and comic — or tragic — ues, which they felt had taken over stories from the African-American America. The Fugitives called for a oral tradition. return to the land and to American Hurston was an impressive traditions that could be found in novelist. Her most important the South. The movement took its work, Their Eyes Were Watching name from a literary magazine, God (1937), is a moving, fresh The Fugitive, published from 1922 depiction of a beautiful mulatto to 1925 at woman’s maturation and renewed Zora Neale Hurston in Nashville, , and with happiness as she moves through which Ransom, Tate, and Warren three . The novel vividly were all associated. evokes the lives of African-Ameri- These three major Fugitive cans working the land in the rural writers were also associated with South. A harbinger of the women’s New Criticism, an approach to movement, Hurston inspired and understanding literature through influenced such contemporary close readings and attentiveness Photo © Carl Van Vechten, writers as and Toni courtesy Yale University to formal patterns (of imagery, Morrison through books such as metaphors, metrics, sounds, and 76 symbols) and their suggested popular. Plays about social prob- meanings. Ransom, leading theo- lems such as slavery also drew rist of the large audiences; sometimes these between the wars, published a plays were adaptations of novels book, The New Criticism (1941), like Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Not until on this method, which offered an the 20th century would serious alternative to previous extra-liter- plays attempt aesthetic innova- ary methods of criticism based on tion. Popular culture showed vital history and biography. New Criti- developments, however, especially cism became the dominant Ameri- in vaudeville (popular variety can critical approach in the 1940s theater involving skits, clown- and 1950s because it proved to be ing, music, and the like). Minstrel well-suited to modernist writers shows, based on African-American such as Eliot and could absorb music and folkways, performed by Freudian theory (especially its white characters using “blackface” structural categories such as id, makeup, also developed original ego, and superego) and approach- forms and expressions. es drawing on mythic patterns. Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN Eugene O’Neill is the great DRAMA figure of American theater. His merican drama imitated numerous plays combine enor- English and European mous technical originality with Atheater until well into freshness of vision and emotional the 20th century. Often, plays depth. O’Neill’s earliest dramas from England or translated from concern the working class and European languages dominated poor; later works explore subjec- theater seasons. An inadequate tive realms, such as obsessions copyright law that failed to protect and sex, and underscore his read- and promote American dramatists ing in Freud and his anguished worked against genuinely original attempt to come to terms with his drama. So did the “star system,” in dead mother, father, and brother. which actors and actresses, rather His play Desire Under the Elms than the actual plays, were given (1924) recreates the passions hid- most acclaim. Americans flocked Eugene O’Neill den within one family; The Great to see European actors who toured God Brown (1926) uncovers the theaters in the United States. In unconsciousness of a wealthy addition, imported drama, like businessman; and Strange Inter- imported wine, enjoyed higher sta- lude (1928), a winner of the Pulit- tus than indigenous productions. zer Prize, traces the tangled loves During the 19th century, melo- of one woman. These powerful dramas with exemplary demo- plays reveal different personalities cratic figures and clear contrasts Photo © The Bettmann Archive reverting to primitive emotions or between good and evil had been confusion under intense stress. 77 O’Neill continued to explore the Freudian Clifford Odets (1906-1963) pressures of love and dominance within fami- Clifford Odets, a master of social drama, lies in a trilogy of plays collectively entitled came from an Eastern European, Jewish immi- Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), based on the grant background. Raised in New York City, he classical Oedipus trilogy by Sophocles. His later became one of the original acting members of plays include the acknowledged masterpieces the Group Theater directed by Harold Clurman, The Iceman Cometh (1946), a stark work on Lee Strasberg, and Cheryl Crawford, which was the theme of death, and Long Day’s Journey committed to producing only native American Into Night (1956) — a powerful, extended dramas. autobiography in dramatic form focusing on his Odets’s best-known play was for Lefty own family and their physical and psychologi- (1935), an experimental one-act drama that cal deterioration, as witnessed in the course of fervently advocated labor unionism. His Awake one night. This work was part of a cycle of plays and Sing!, a nostalgic family drama, became O’Neill was working on at the time of his death. another popular success, followed by Golden O’Neill redefined the theater by abandon- Boy, the story of an Italian immigrant youth ing traditional divisions into acts and scenes who ruins his musical talent (he is a violin- (Strange Interlude has nine acts, and Mourning ist) when he is seduced by the lure of money Becomes Electra takes nine hours to perform); to become a boxer and injures his hands. Like using masks such as those found in Asian Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Drieser’s and ancient Greek theater; introducing Shake- An American Tragedy, the play warns against spearean monologues and Greek choruses; and excessive ambition and materialism. ■ producing special effects through lighting and sound. He is generally acknowledged to have been America’s foremost dramatist. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature — the first American playwright to be so honored.

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) is known for his plays Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), and for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927). Our Town conveys positive American values. It has all the elements of sentimentality and nostalgia — the archetypal traditional small country town, the kindly parents and mischie- vous children, the young lovers. Still, the inno- vative elements such as ghosts, voices from the audience, and daring time shifts keep the play engaging. It is, in effect, a play about life and death in which the dead are reborn, at least for the moment.

78 Vietnam conflict, the , environmental threats —the catalog of shocks to American chapter culture is long and varied. The change that most transformed American society, however, was the rise of the mass media and mass culture. First radio, then movies, and later an 7 all-powerful, ubiquitous television presence changed American life at its roots. From a american poetry, private, literate, elite culture based on the book 1945-1990: and reading, the United States became a media the anti-tradition culture attuned to the voice on the radio, the music of compact discs and cassettes, film, and the images on the television screen. American poetry was directly influenced raditional forms and ideas no longer by the mass media and electronic technology. seemed to provide meaning to many Films, videotapes, and tape recordings of poet- American poets in the second half of ry readings and interviews with poets became T available, and new inexpensive photographic the 20th century. Events after World War II produced for many writers a sense of his- methods of printing encouraged young poets to tory as discontinuous: Each act, emotion, and self-publish and young editors to begin literary moment was seen as unique. Style and form magazines — of which there were more than now seemed provisional, makeshift, reflexive 2,000 by 1990. of the process of and the writer’s At the same time, Americans became self-awareness. Familiar categories of expres- uncomfortably aware that technology, so use- sion were suspect; originality was becoming a ful as a tool, could be used to manipulate the new tradition. culture. To Americans seeking alternatives, The break from tradition gathered momentum poetry seemed more relevant than before: It during the 1957 trial of ’s offered people a way to express subjective life poem . When the San Francisco customs and articulate the impact of technology and office seized the book, its publisher, Lawrence mass society on the individual. Ferlinghetti’s City Lights, brought a lawsuit. A host of styles, some regional, some associ- During that notorious court case, famous critics ated with famous schools or poets, vied for defended Howl’s passionate social criticism on attention; post-World War II American poetry the basis of the poem’s redeeming literary merit. was decentralized, richly varied, and difficult Howl’s triumph over the censors helped propel to summarize. For the sake of discussion, the rebellious Beat poets — especially Ginsberg however, it can be arranged along a spectrum, and his friends Jack Kerouac and William Bur- producing three overlapping camps — the roughs — to fame. traditional on one end, the idiosyncratic in the It is not hard to find historical causes for this middle, and the experimental on the other end. dissociated sensibility in the United States. Traditional poets have maintained or revital- World War II itself, the rise of anonymity and ized poetic traditions. Idiosyncratic poets have consumerism in a mass urban society, the pro- used both traditional and innovative tech- test movements of the 1960s, the decade-long niques in creating unique voices. Experimental poets have courted new cultural styles. 79 TRADITIONALISM (1899-1979) ended a poem: “Sentinel of the raditional writers include acknowledged grave who counts us all!” Traditional poets also masters of established forms and dic- at times used a somewhat rhetorical diction of Ttion who wrote with a readily recogniz- obsolete or odd words, using many adjectives able craft, often using rhyme or a set metri- (for example, “sepulchral owl”) and inversions, cal pattern. Often they were from the U.S. in which the natural, order of eastern seaboard or the southern part of the English is altered unnaturally. Sometimes the country, and taught in colleges and universi- effect is noble, as in the line by Warren; other ties. and ; the times, the poetry seems stilted and out of touch older Fugitive poets John Crowe Ransom, Allen with real emotions, as in Tate’s line: “Fatuously Tate, and Robert Penn Warren; such accom- touched the hems of the hierophants.” plished younger poets as John Hollander and Occasionally, as in Hollander, Howard, and Richard Howard; and the early (1926-1995), self-conscious dic- are examples. In the years after World War II, tion combines with wit, puns, and literary allu- they became established and were frequently sions. Merrill, who was innovative in his urban anthologized. themes, unrhymed lines, personal subjects, The previous chapter discussed the refine- and light conversational tone, shares a witty ment, respect for nature, and profoundly habit with the traditionalists in “The Broken conservative values of the Fugitives. These Heart” (1966), writing about a marriage as if qualities grace much poetry oriented to tradi- it were a cocktail: tional modes. Traditionalist poets were gener- ally precise, realistic, and witty; many, like Always that same old story — Richard Wilbur (1921- ), were influenced by Father Time and Mother Earth, British brought to favor A marriage on the rocks. by T.S. Eliot. Wilbur’s most famous poem, “A World Without Objects Is a Sensible Emptiness” bvious fluency and verbal pyrotechnics (1950), takes its title from Thomas Traherne, by some poets, including Merrill and a 17th­-century English metaphysical poet. Its OJohn Ashbery, made them successful in vivid opening illustrates the clarity some poets traditional terms, although they redefined poet- found within rhyme and formal regularity: ry in radically innovative ways. Stylistic grace- fulness made some poets seem more traditional The tall camels of the spirit than they were, as in the case of Randall Jarrell Steer for their deserts, passing the last (1914-1965) and A.R. Ammons (1926-2001). groves loud Ammons created intense dialogues between With the sawmill shrill of the locust, to the humanity and nature; Jarrell stepped into the whole honey of the arid trapped consciousness of the dispossessed — Sun. They are slow, proud... women, children, doomed soldiers, as in “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” (1945): Traditional poets, unlike many experimen- talists who distrusted “too poetic” diction, From my mother’s sleep I fell into the welcomed resounding poetic lines. Robert Penn State, Warren (1905-1989) ended one poem with And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur the words: “To love so well the world that we froze. may believe, in the end, in God.” Allen Tate Six miles from earth, loosed from its 80 dream of life, demic writer: white, male, Protes- I woke to black flak and the tant by birth, well educated, and nightmare fighters. linked with the political and social When I died they washed me establishment. He was a descen- out of the turret with a hose. dant of the respected family that included the Although many traditional poets famous 19th-century poet James used rhyme, not all rhymed poetry Russell Lowell and a 20th-century was traditional in subject or tone. president of Harvard University. Poet (1917- Robert Lowell found an iden- 2000) wrote of the difficulties of tity outside his elite background, living — let alone writing — however. He left Harvard to attend in urban slums. Her “Kitchenette Kenyon College in Ohio, where he Building” (1945) asks how rejected his Puritan ancestry and converted to Catholicism. Jailed could a dream send up through for a year as a conscientious objec- onion fumes tor in World War II, he later public- Its white and violet, fight with ly protested the Vietnam conflict. fried potatoes Lowell’s early books, Land of And yesterday’s garbage Unlikeness (1944) and Lord Wea- ripening in the hall… ry’s Castle (1946), which won a Pulitzer Prize, revealed great con- Many poets, including Brooks, trol of traditional forms and styles, , Richard Wilbur, strong feeling, and an intensely Robert Lowell, and Robert Penn personal yet historical vision. The Warren, began writing tradition- and specificity of the early ally, using rhyme and meters, work is overpowering in poems but they abandoned these in the like “Children of Light” (1946), a 1960s under the pressure of public harsh condemnation of the Puri- events and a gradual trend toward tans who killed Indians and whose open forms. descendants burned surplus grain Robert Lowell instead of shipping it to hungry Robert Lowell (1917-1977) people. Lowell writes: “Our fathers The most influential poet of the wrung their bread from stocks and period, Robert Lowell, began tra- stones / And fenced their gardens ditionally but was influenced by with the Redman’s bones.” experimental currents. Because Lowell’s next book, The Mills of his life and work spanned the the Kavanaughs (1951), contains period between the older modern- moving dramatic monologues ist masters like T.S. Eliot and the in which members of his family recent antitraditional writers, his reveal their tenderness and fail- career places the later experimen- ings. As always, his style mixes the talism in a larger context. Photo © Nancy Crampton human with the majestic. Often Lowell fits the mold of the aca- he uses traditional rhyme, but his 81 colloquialism disguises it until it structure, too, collapsed; new seems like background melody. It improvisational forms arose. In was experimental poetry, however, (1959), he initiated that gave Lowell his breakthrough , a new mode into a creative individual idiom. in which he bared his most tor- On a reading tour in the mid- menting personal problems with 1950s, Lowell heard some of the great honesty and intensity. In new experimental poetry for the essence, he not only discovered first time. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl his individuality but celebrated it and ’s Myths and Texts, in its most difficult and private still unpublished, were being read manifestations. He transformed and chanted, sometimes to jazz himself into a contemporary, at accompaniment, in coffee houses home with the self, the fragmen- in North Beach, a section of San tary, and the form as process. Francisco. Lowell felt that next Lowell’s transformation, a to these, his own accomplished watershed for poetry after the poems were too stilted, rhetorical, war, opened the way for many and encased in convention; when younger writers. In For the Union reading them aloud, he made spon- Dead (1964), Notebook 1967-68 taneous revisions toward a more (1969), and later books, he contin- colloquial diction. “My own poems ued his autobiographical explora- seemed like prehistoric monsters tions and technical innovations, dragged down into a bog and death drawing upon his experience of by their ponderous armor,” he psychoanalysis. Lowell’s confes- wrote later. “I was reciting what I sional poetry has been particular- no longer felt.” ly influential. Works by John Ber- At this point Lowell, like many ryman, , and Sylvia poets after him, accepted the chal- Plath (the last two his students), lenge of learning from the rival to mention only a few, are impos- tradition in America — the school sible to imagine without Lowell. of William Carlos Williams. “It’s as if no poet except Williams had IDIOSYNCRATIC POETS really seen America or heard its oets who developed unique language,” Lowell wrote in 1962. styles drawing on tradition Henceforth, Lowell changed his Pbut extending it into new writing drastically, using the realms with a distinctively con- “quick changes of tone, atmo- temporary flavor, in addition to sphere, and speed” that Lowell Plath and Sexton, include John most appreciated in Williams. Berryman, , Lowell dropped many of his , , obscure allusions; his rhymes , Elizabeth Bishop, became integral to the experi- and Adrienne Rich. Photo © UPI / The Bettmann ence within the poem instead of Archive superimposed on it. The stanzaic 82 Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) It works, there is nothing wrong with it. Sylvia Plath lived an outwardly exemplary You have a hole, it’s a poultice. life, attending Smith College on scholarship, You have an eye, it’s an image. graduating first in her class, and winning My boy, it’s your last resort. a Fulbright grant to Cambridge University Will you marry it, marry it, marry it. in England. There she met her charismatic husband-to-be, poet Ted Hughes, with whom Plath dares to use a nursery rhyme lan- she had two children and settled in a country guage, a brutal directness. She has a knack house in England. for using bold images from popular culture. Of Beneath the fairy-tale success festered unre- a baby she writes, “Love set you going like a solved psychological problems evoked in her fat gold watch.” In “Daddy,” she imagines her highly readable novel The Bell Jar (1963). Some father as the of cinema: “There’s a of these problems were personal, while others stake in your fat black heart / And the villagers arose from her sense of repressive attitudes never liked you.” toward women in the 1950s. Among these were the beliefs — shared by many women them- Anne Sexton (1928-1974) selves — that women should not show anger Like Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton was a pas- or ambitiously pursue a career, and instead sionate woman who attempted to be wife, find fulfillment in tending their husbands and mother, and poet on the eve of the women’s children. Professionally successful women like movement in the United States. Like Plath, she Plath felt that they lived a contradiction. suffered from mental illness and ultimately Plath’s storybook life crumbled when she and committed suicide. Hughes separated and she cared for the young Sexton’s confessional poetry is more auto- children in a London apartment during a win- biographical than Plath’s and lacks the craft- ter of extreme cold. Ill, isolated, and in despair, edness Plath’s earlier poems exhibit. Sexton’s Plath worked against the clock to produce a poems appeal powerfully to the emotions, how- series of stunning poems before she commit- ever. They thrust taboo subjects into close suicide by gassing herself in her kitchen. focus. Often they daringly introduce female These poems were collected in the volume topics such as childbearing, the female body, or Ariel (1965), two years after her death. Rob- marriage seen from a woman’s point of view. ert Lowell, who wrote the introduction, noted In poems like “Her Kind” (1960), Sexton identi- her poetry’s rapid development from the time fies with a witch burned at the stake: she and Anne Sexton had attended his poetry classes in 1958. I have ridden in your cart, driver, Plath’s early poetry is well crafted and tradi- waved my nude arms at villages going by, tional, but her late poems exhibit a desperate learning the last bright routes, survivor bravura and proto-feminist cry of anguish. where your flames still bite my thigh In “The Applicant” (1966), Plath exposes the and my ribs crack where your wheels emptiness in the current role of wife (who is wind. reduced to an inanimate “it”): A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind. A living doll, everywhere you look. It can sew, it can cook. The titles of her works indicate their concern It can talk, talk, talk. with madness and death. They include To 83 Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960), with innocent passion. One poem Live or Die (1966), and the post- begins: “I knew a woman, lovely humous book The Awful Rowing in her bones, / When small birds Toward God (1975). sighed, she would sigh back at them.” Sometimes his poems (1914-1972) seem like nature’s shorthand or John Berryman’s life paralleled ancient riddles: “Who stunned the Robert Lowell’s in some respects. dirt into noise? / Ask the , he Born in Oklahoma, Berryman was knows.” educated in the Northeast — at prep school and at Columbia Uni- Richard Hugo (1923-1982) versity, and later was a fellow at Richard Hugo, a native of . Specializing , Washington, studied in traditional forms and meters, under Theodore Roethke. He grew he was inspired by early Ameri- up poor in dismal urban environ- can history and wrote self-critical, ments and excelled at communi- confessional poems in his Dream cating the hopes, fears, and frus- Songs (1969) that feature a gro- trations of working people against tesque autobiographical character the backdrop of the northwestern named Henry and reflections on United States. his own teaching routine, chronic Hugo wrote nostalgic, confes- alcoholism, and ambition. sional poems in bold iambics about Like his contemporary, Theo- shabby, forgotten small towns in dore Roethke, Berryman devel- his part of the United States; he oped a supple, playful, but pro- wrote of shame, failure, and rare found style enlivened by phrases moments of acceptance through from folklore, children’s rhymes, human relationships. He focused clichés, and slang. Berryman the reader’s attention on minute, writes, of Henry, “He stared at seemingly inconsequential details ruin. Ruin stared straight back.” in order to make more significant Elsewhere, he wittily writes, “Oho points. “What Thou Lovest Well, alas alas / When will indifference James Dickey Remains American” (1975) ends come, I moan and rave.” with a person carrying memories of his old hometown as if they Theodore Roethke were food: (1908-1963) The son of a greenhouse owner, in case you’re stranded in some Theodore Roethke evolved a spe- odd empty town cial language evoking the “green- and need hungry lovers for house world” of tiny insects and friends, and need feel unseen roots: “Worm, be with you are welcome in the street me. / This is my hard time.” His club they have formed. love poems in Words for the Wind Photo © Nancy Crampton (1958) celebrate beauty and desire 84 Philip Levine (1928- ) wild), sexuality, and physical Philip Levine, born in , exertion. Dickey’s novel Deliver- Michigan, deals directly with the ance (1970), set in a southern wil- economic sufferings of workers derness river canyon, explores the through keen observation, rage, struggle for survival and the dark and painful irony. Like Hugo, his side of male bonding. When filmed background is urban and poor. He with the poet himself playing a has been the voice for the lonely southern sheriff, the novel and individual caught up in industrial film increased his renown. While America. Much of his poetry is Selected Poems (l998) includes somber and reflects an anarchic later work, Dickey’s reputation tendency amid the realization rests largely on his early collection that systems of government will Poems 1957-1967 (1967). endure. In one poem, Levine likens him- Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) self to a fox who survives in a dan- and Adrienne Rich (1929- ) gerous world of hunters through Among women poets of the idio- his courage and cunning. In terms syncratic group, Elizabeth Bishop of his rhythmic pattern, he has and Adrienne Rich have garnered traveled a path from traditional the most respect in recent years. meters in his early works to a Bishop’s crystalline intelligence freer, more open line in his later and interest in remote landscapes poetry as he expresses his lonely and metaphors of travel appeal to protest against the evils of the readers for their exactitude and contemporary world. subtlety. Like her mentor Mari- anne Moore, Bishop wrote highly James Dickey (1923-1997) crafted poems in a descriptive James Dickey, a novelist and style that contains hidden philo- essayist as well as poet, was a sophical depths. The description native of Georgia. At Vanderbilt of the ice-cold North Atlantic in University he studied under Agrar- “At the Fishhouses” (1955) could Elizabeth Bishop ian poet and critic Donald David- apply to Bishop’s own poetry: “It is son, who encouraged Dickey’s sen- like what we imagine knowledge sitivity to his southern heritage. to be: / dark, salt, clear, moving, Like Randall Jarrell, Dickey flew utterly free.” in World War II and wrote of the With Moore, Bishop may be agony of war. placed in a “cool” female poetic As a novelist and poet, Dickey tradition harking back to Emily was often concerned with strenu- Dickinson, in comparison with ous effort, “outdoing, desperately the “hot” poems of Plath, Sexton, / Outdoing what is required.” He and Adrienne Rich. Though Rich yearned for revitalizing contact began by writing poems in tradi- Photo © UPI/The Bettmann with the world — a contact he Archive tional form and meter, her works, sought in nature (animals, the particularly those written after 85 she became an ardent feminist in the 1960s, liberal arts college in Asheville, North Carolina, embody strong emotions. where poets , , Rich’s special genius is the metaphor, as and taught in the early 1950s. in her extraordinary work “Diving Into the , , and Jonathan Wil- Wreck” (1973), evoking a woman’s search for liams studied there, and , Larry identity in terms of diving down to a wrecked Eigner, and published work ship. Rich’s poem “The Roofwalker” (1961), in the school’s magazines Origin and Black dedicated to poet Denise Levertov, imagines Mountain Review. The Black Mountain School poetry writing, for women, as a dangerous is linked with Charles Olson’s theory of “pro- craft. Like men building a roof, she feels jective verse,” which insisted on an open form “exposed, larger than life, / and due to break based on the spontaneity of the breath pause in my neck.” speech and the typewriter line in writing. Robert Creeley (1926-2005), who writes EXPERIMENTAL POETRY with a terse, minimalist style, was one of the he force behind Robert Lowell’s mature major . In “The Warning” achievement and much of contemporary (1955), Creeley imagines the violent, loving Tpoetry lies in the experimentation begun imagination: in the 1950s by a number of poets. They may be divided into five loose schools, identified For love — I would by in The New American Poetry, split open your head and put 1945-1960 (1960), the first anthology to present a candle in the work of poets who were previously neglect- behind the eyes. ed by the critical and academic communities. Inspired by jazz and abstract expressionist Love is dead in us painting, most of the experimental writers are f we forget a generation younger than Lowell. They have the virtues of an amulet tended to be bohemian, counterculture intel- and quick surprise lectuals who disassociated themselves from universities and outspokenly criticized “bour- The San Francisco School geois” American society. Their poetry is daring, The work of the San Francisco School owes original, and sometimes shocking. In its search much to Eastern philosophy and religion, as for new values, it claims affinity with the well as to Japanese and . This archaic world of myth, legend, and traditional is not surprising because the influence of the societies such as those of the American Indi- Orient has always been strong in the U.S. West. an. The forms are looser, more spontaneous, The land around San Francisco — the Sierra organic; they arise from the subject matter and Nevada Mountains and the jagged seacoast — the feeling of the poet as the poem is written, is lovely and majestic, and poets from that area and from the natural pauses of the spoken lan- tend to have a deep feeling for nature. Many of guage. As Allen Ginsberg noted in “Improvised their poems are set in the mountains or take Poetics,” “first thought best thought.” place on backpacking trips. The poetry looks to nature instead of literary tradition as a source The Black Mountain School of inspiration. The Black Mountain School centered around San Francisco poets include , , an experimental , Robert Duncan, Phil 86 Whalen, , Gary Snyder, novel was written in three hectic , , weeks on a single roll of paper in and Diane diPrima. Many of these what Kerouac called “spontaneous poets identify with working peo- bop prose.” The wild, improvisa- ple. Their poetry is often simple, tional style, hipster-mystic charac- accessible, and optimistic. ters, and rejection of authority and At its best, as seen in the work convention fired the imaginations of Gary Snyder (1930- ), San Fran- of young readers and helped usher cisco poetry evokes the delicate in the freewheeling countercul- balance of the individual and the ture of the 1960s. cosmos. In Snyder’s “Above Pate Most of the important Beats Valley” (1955), the poet describes migrated to San Francisco from working on a trail crew in the America’s East Coast, gaining mountains and finding obsidian their initial national recognition in arrowhead flakes from vanished California. The charismatic Allen Indian tribes: Ginsberg (1926-1997) became the group’s chief spokesperson. On a hill snowed all but The son of a poet father and an summer, eccentric mother committed to A land of fat summer deer, , Ginsberg attended They came to camp. On their , where he Own trails. I followed my own became fast friends with fellow Trail here. Picked up the cold- students Kerouac (1922-1969) and drill, William Burroughs (1914-1997), Pick, singlejack, and sack whose violent, nightmarish nov- Of dynamite. els about the of her- Ten thousand years. oin addiction include The (1959). These three were Beat Poets the nucleus of the Beat movement. The San Franciso School blends Other figures included publish- into the next grouping — the er Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919- Beat poets, who emerged in the Allen Ginsberg ), whose bookstore, City Lights, 1950s. The term beat variously established in San Francisco’s suggests musical downbeats, as in North Beach in l951, became a jazz; angelical beatitude or bless- gathering place. One of the best edness; and “beat up” — tired educated of the mid-20th century or hurt. The Beats () poets (he received a doctorate were inspired by jazz, Eastern from the Sorbonne), Ferlinghetti’s religion, and the wandering life. thoughtful, humorous, political These were all depicted in the poetry included A Coney Island famous novel by Jack Kerouac On of the Mind (1958); Endless Life , a sensation when it was (1981) is the title of his selected published in l957. An account of Photo © The Bettmann Archive poems. a 1947 cross-country car trip, the (1930-2001), a 87 petty criminal whose talent was angelheaded hipsters burning nurtured by the Beats, is remem- for the ancient heavenly bered for volumes of humorous connection to the starry poems, such as the often-anthol- dynamo in the machinery of ogized “Marriage.” A gifted poet, night... translator, and original critic, as seen in his insightful American The Poetry in the Twentieth Century Unlike the Beat and San Fran- (1971), Kenneth Rexroth (1905- ciso poets, the poets of the New 1982) played the role of elder York School were not interested statesman to the anti-tradition. in overtly moral questions, and, A labor organizer from Indiana, in general, they steered clear of he saw the Beats as a West Coast political issues. They had the best alternative to the East Coast liter- formal educations of any group. ary establishment. He encouraged The major figures of the New the Beats with his example and York School — , influence. Frank O’Hara, and Beat poetry is oral, repetitive, — met while they were under- and immensely effective in read- graduates at Harvard University. ings, largely because it developed They are quintessentially urban, out of poetry readings in under- cool, nonreligious, witty with a ground clubs. Some might correct- poignant, pastel sophistication. ly see it as a great-grandparent of Their poems are fast moving, full the rap music that became preva- of urban detail, incongruity, and lent in the . Beat poetry was an almost palpable sense of sus- the most anti-establishment form pended belief. of literature in the United States, New York City is the fine arts but beneath its shocking words center of America and the birth- lies a love of country. The poetry is place of abstract , a cry of pain and rage at what the a major inspiration of this poetry. poets see as the loss of America’s Most of the poets worked as art innocence and the tragic waste of John Ashbery reviewers or museum curators, its human and material resources. or collaborated with painters. Per- Poems like Allen Ginsberg’s haps because of their feeling for Howl (1956) revolutionized tradi- abstract art, which distrusts figu- tional poetry. rative shapes and obvious mean- ings, their work is often difficult to I saw the best minds of my comprehend, as in the later work generation destroyed by of John Ashbery (1927- ), perhaps madness, starving hysterical the most critically esteemed poet naked, of the late 20th century. dragging themselves through Ashbery’s fluid poems record

the negro streets at dawn Photo © Nancy Crampton thoughts and emotions as they looking for an angry fix, wash over the mind too swiftly 88 for direct articulation. His pro- ) become domesti- found, long poem, Self-Portrait in cated in America under the stress a Convex Mirror (1975), which of the Vietnam conflict. won three major prizes, glides During the 1960s, many Ameri- from thought to thought, often can writers — W.S. Merwin, Rob- reflecting back on itself: ert Bly, , Charles Wright, and , among A ship others — turned to French and Flying unknown colors has especially Spanish for entered the harbor. its pure emotion, its archetypal You are allowing extraneous images, and its models of anti- matters rational, existential unrest. To break up your day... Surrealists like Merwin tend to be epigrammatic, as in lines such Surrealism and as: “The gods are what has failed Existentialism to become of us / If you find you no In his anthology defining longer believe enlarge the temple.” the new schools, Donald Allen Bly’s political surrealism criti- includes a fifth group he cannot cized values that he felt played a define because it has no clear part in the in poems geographical underpinning. This like “The Teeth Mother Naked at vague group includes recent Last.” movements and experiments. Chief among these are surreal- It’s because we have new ism, which expresses the uncon- packaging for smoked oysters scious through vivid dreamlike that bomb holes appear in the imagery, and much poetry by rice paddies. women and ethnic minorities that has flourished in recent years. The more pervasive surrealist Though superficially distinct, sur- influence has been quieter and realists, feminists, and minorities more contemplative, like the poem appear to share a sense of alien- Amy Clampitt Charles Wright describes in “The ation from mainstream literature. New Poem” (1973):

lthough T.S. Eliot, Wallace It will not attend our sorrow, Stevens, and Ezra Pound It will not console our children. Ahad introduced symbolist It will not be able to help us. techniques into American poet- ry in the 1920s, surrealism, the Mark Strand’s surrealism, like major force in European poetry Merwin’s, is often bleak; it speaks and thought in Europe during and of an extreme deprivation. Now after World War II, did not take root that traditions, values, and beliefs in the United States. Not until the Photo © Nancy Crampton have failed him, the poet has noth- 1960s did surrealism (along with ing but his own cavelike soul: 89 cide, decried women’s low status. I have a key Another landmark book, Kate Mil- so I open the door and walk in. lett’s (1969), made It is dark and I walk in. a case that male writings revealed It is darker and I walk in. a pervasive , or contempt for women. WOMEN POETS AND In the l970s, a second wave of FEMINISM feminist criticism emerged follow- Literature in the United States, ing the founding of the National as in most other countries, was Organization for Women (NOW) long evaluated on standards that in l966. ’s A Lit- often overlooked women’s contri- erature of Their Own (1977) iden- butions. Yet there are many women tified a major tradition of British poets of distinction in American and American women authors. writing. Not all are feminists, nor and Susan Gubar’s do their subjects invariably voice The Madwoman in the Attic (l979) women’s concerns. Also, regional, traced misogyny in English clas- political, and racial differences sics, exploring its impact on have shaped their work. Among works by women, such as Char- distinguished women poets are lotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. In that Amy Clampitt, , Lou- novel, a wife is driven mad by ise Glück, , Caro- her husband’s ill treatment and lyn Kizer, , Denise is imprisoned in the attic; Gil- Levertov, , Gjertrud bert and Gubar compare women’s Schnackenberg, May Swenson, muffled voices in literature to this and . suppressed female figure. Before the 1960s, most women Feminist critics of the second Nikki Giovanni poets had adhered to an androgy- wave challenged the accepted nous ideal, believing that gen- canon of great works on the basis der made no difference in artis- that aesthetic standards were not tic excellence. This gender-blind timeless and universal but rather position was, in effect, an early arbitrary, culture bound, and patri- form of feminism that allowed archal. Feminism became in the women to argue for equal rights. a driving force for equal By the late l960s, American rights, not only in literature but in women — many active in the the larger culture as well. Gilbert civil rights struggle and protests and Gubar’s The Norton Anthol- against the Vietnam conflict, or ogy of Literature by Women (1985) influenced by the countercul- facilitated the study of women’s ture — had begun to recognize literature, and a women’s tradition their own marginalization. Betty came into focus. Friedan’s outspoken The Feminine Other influential woman poets

Mystique (1963), published in the Photo © Nancy Crampton before Sylvia Plath and Anne year Sylvia Plath committed sui- Sexton include Amy Lowell (1874- 90 1925), whose works have great issues included race and ethnicity, sensuous beauty. She edited influ- spiritual life, familial and gender ential Imagist anthologies and roles, and language. introduced modern and Chinese poetry in translation inority poetry shares the to the English-speaking literary variety and occasion- world. Her work celebrated love, Mally the anger of women’s longing, and the spiritual aspect Anumber of writing. It has flowered in works of human and natural beauty. H.D. by Latino and Americans (1886-1961), a friend of Ezra Pound academic such as , Alberto Rios, and William Carlos Williams who journals, and ; in Native had been psychoanalyzed by Sig- professional Americans such as Leslie Marmon mund Freud, wrote crystalline organizations, Silko, Simon Ortiz, and Louise poems inspired by nature and by and literary Erdrich; in African-American writ- the Greek classics and experimen- ers such as (LeRoi tal drama. Her mystical poetry magazines Jones), Michael S. Harper, Rita celebrates goddesses. The contri- focusing on Dove, , and Nikki butions of Lowell and H.D., and ethnic groups Giovanni; and in Asian-American those of other women poets of the were initiated. poets such as Cathy Song, Lawson early 20th century such as Edna Inada, and Janice Mirikitani. St. Vincent Millay, are only now Conferences being fully acknowledged. devoted to the Chicano/ study of specific Spanish-influenced poetry MULTIETHNIC POETS ethnic literatures encompasses works by many The second half of the 20th diverse groups. Among these are century witnessed a renaissance had begun, and , known since in multiethnic literature that has the canon of the 1950s as , who have continued into the 21st century. “classics” had lived for many generations in the In the 1960s, following the lead of been expanded southwestern U.S. states annexed , ethnic writers to include from Mexico in the Mexican- in the United States began to com- American War ending in 1848. mand public attention. The 1970s ethnic writers in Among Spanish Caribbean pop- saw the founding of anthologies and ulations, and programs in universities. course lists. Puerto Ricans maintain vital and In the 1980s, a number of aca- distinctive literary traditions. For demic journals, professional orga- example, the Cuban-American nizations, and literary magazines genius for comedy sets it apart focusing on ethnic groups were from the elegiac lyricism of Chica- initiated. Conferences devoted to no writers such as . the study of specific ethnic litera- New immigrants from Mexico, tures had begun, and the canon of Central and South America, and “classics” had been expanded to Spain constantly replenish and include ethnic writers in antholo- enlarge this literary realm. gies and course lists. Important Chicano, or Mexican-American, 91 poetry has a rich oral tradition Photo © Nancy Crampton but these words, written in 1981, in the corrido, or ballad, form. describe the multicultural situa- Seminal works stress traditional tion of Americans today: strengths of the Mexican com- munity and the discrimination it A candle is lit for the dead has sometimes met with among Two worlds ahead of us all whites. Sometimes the poets blend Spanish and English words In the 1980s, in a poetic fusion, as in the poetry achieved a new prominence, of and Gloria Anzaldúa. and works by Cervantes, Soto, Their poetry is much influenced and Alberto Rios were widely Gary Soto by oral tradition and is very power- anthologized. ful when read aloud. Some poets have written largely Native-American Poetry in Spanish, in a tradition going Native Americans have written back to the earliest epic written in fine poetry, most likely because the present-day United States — a tradition of shamanistic song Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá’s Historia plays a vital role in their cultural de la Nueva México, commemorat- heritage. Their work has excelled ing the 1598 battle between invad- in vivid, living evocations of the ing Spaniards and the Pueblo Indi- natural world, which become ans at Acoma, . almost mystical at times. Indian A central text in Chicano poetry, poets have also voiced a tragic I Am Joaquin by sense of irrevocable loss of their (1928-2005) evokes acculturation: rich heritage. the speaker is “Lost in a world of Simon Ortiz (1941- ), an Acoma confusion/Caught up in a whirl Pueblo, bases many of his hard- of gringo society/Confused by the hitting poems on history, explor- rules....” ing the contradictions of being Many Chicano writers have an indigenous American in the found sustenance in their ancient United States today. His poetry Mexican roots. Thinking of the challenges Anglo readers because grandeur of Mexico, Lorna Dee it often reminds them of the injus- Cervantes (1954- ) writes that “an tice and violence at one time done epic corrido” chants through her to Native Americans. His poems veins, while Luis Omar Salinas envision racial harmony based on (1937- ) feels himself to be “an a deepened understanding. Aztec angel.” In “Star Quilt,” Roberta Hill Much Chicano poetry is highly Whiteman (1947- ), a member of personal, dealing with feelings the Oneida tribe, imagines a mul- and family or members of the ticultural future like a “star quilt, community. Gary Soto (1952- ) sewn from dawn light,” while Les- writes out of the ancient tradition Photo © Nancy Crampton lie Marmon Silko (1948- ), who of honoring departed ancestors, is part , uses col- 92 loquial language and traditional Photo © David Ash / that has lived for a long time stories to fashion haunting, lyrical CORBIS OUTLINE underwater. And the angels poems. In “In Cold Storm Light” come lowering their slings and (1981), Silko achieves a haiku-like litters. resonance: African-American Poetry out of the thick ice sky Black Americans have produced running swiftly many poems of great beauty with a pounding considerable range of themes and swirling above the treetops tones. African-American literature The snow elk come, is the most developed ethnic writ- Moving, moving ing in America and is extremely white song diverse. Amiri Baraka (1934- ), storm wind in the branches. the best-known African-American poet of the 1960s and 1970s, has Louise Erdrich (1954- ), like also written plays and taken an Silko also a novelist, creates pow- active role in politics. The writ- erful dramatic monologues that ings of Maya Angelou (1928- ) work like compressed dramas. encompass various literary forms, They unsparingly depict families including poetry, drama, and her coping with alcoholism, unem- well-known memoir, I Know Why ployment, and poverty on the The Caged Bird Sings (1969). Chippewa reservation. Rita Dove (1952- ) was named In Erdrich’s “Family Reunion” of the United States (1984), a drunken, abusive uncle for 1993-1995. Dove, a writer of returns from years in the city. fiction and drama as well, won As he suffers from a heart dis- the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Thom- ease, the abused niece, who is as and Beulah (1986), in which the speaker, remembers how this she celebrates her grandparents uncle had killed a large turtle through a series of lyric poems. years before by stuffing it with a She has said that she wrote the firecracker. The end of the poem work to reveal the rich inner lives links Uncle Ray with the turtle he of poor people. has victimized: Michael S. Harper (1938- ) has similarly written poems revealing Somehow we find our way back, the complex lives of African Amer- Uncle Ray sings an old song to icans faced with discrimination the body that pulls him toward and violence. His dense, allusive home. The gray fins that his poems often deal with crowded, hands have become screw their Maya Angelou dramatic scenes of war or urban bones in the dashboard. His life. They make use of surgical face has the odd, calm patience images in an attempt to heal. of a child who has always let Photo © Nancy Crampton His “Clan Meeting: Births and bad wounds alone, or a creature Nations: A Blood Song” (1971), 93 which likens cooking to surgery and “consuming” only “What is (“splicing the meats with fluids”), already dead.” begins “we reconstruct lives in the intensive / care unit, pieced Asian-American Poetry together in a buffet.” The poem Like poetry by Chicano and Lati- ends by splicing together images no writers, Asian-American poetry of the hospital, racism in the early is exceedingly varied. Americans American film Birth of a Nation, of Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino the Ku Klux Klan, film editing, and descent may often have lived in -ray technology: the United States for eight genera- tions, while Americans of Korean, We reload our brains as the Thai, and Vietnamese heritage cameras, are likely to be fairly recent immi- the film overexposed grants. Each group has grown out in the x-ray light, of a distinctive linguistic, histori- locked with our double door cal, and cultural tradition. light meters: race and sex Developments in Asian-Amer- spooled and rung in a hobby; ican literature have included an we take our bundle and got emphasis on the Pacific Rim and home. women’s writing. Asian Ameri- cans generally have resisted the History, jazz, and popular cul- common stereotypes as the “exot- ture have inspired many African ic” or “good” minority. Aestheti- Americans, from Harper (a college cians have compared Asian and professor) to West Coast publisher Western literary traditions — for and poet (1938- ), example, comparing the concepts known for spearheading multicul- of Tao and Logos. tural writing through the Before Asian-American poets have Columbus Foundation and a series drawn on many sources, from Chi- of magazines such as Yardbird, nese opera to , and Quilt, and Konch. Asian literary traditions, particu- Many African-American poets, Rita Dove larly Zen, have inspired numerous such as Audre Lorde (1934-1992), non-Asian poets, as can be seen have found nourishment in Afro- in the 1991 anthology Beneath a centrism, which sees Africa as a Single Moon: Buddhism in Con- center of civilization since ancient temporary American Poetry. Asian- times. In sensuous poems such American poets span a spectrum, as “The Women of Dan Dance from the iconoclastic posture With Swords in Their Hands To taken by (1940- ), Mark the Time When They Were co-editor of Aiiieeeee! (an early Warriors” (1978), she speaks as a anthology of Asian-American lit- woman warrior of ancient Dahom- erature), to the generous use of Photo © Christopher Felver / ey, “warming whatever I touch” CORBIS tradition by writers such as Max-

94 ine Hong Kingston (1940- ). Jan- Perelman, and , ice Mirikitani (1942- ), a sansei author of Total Syntax (1985), a (third-generation Japanese Amer- collection of essays. These poets ican), evokes Japanese-American stretch language to reveal its history and has edited several potential for ambiguity, fragmen- anthologies, such as Third World tation, and self-assertion within Women (1973); Time To Greez! chaos. Ironic and postmodern, Incantations From the Third World they reject “meta-narratives” (1975); and Ayumi: A Japanese — , dogmas, conven- American Anthology (1980). tions — and doubt the existence The lyrical Picture Bride (1983) of transcendent reality. Michael of Chinese American Cathy Song Palmer writes: (1955- ) also dramatizes history through the lives of her fam- This is Paradise, a mildewed ily. Many Asian-American poets book explore cultural diversity. In Left too long in the house Song’s “The Vegetable Air” (1988), a shabby town with cows in the ’s “Chronic plaza, a Chinese restaurant, and Meanings” (1993) begins: a Coca-Cola sign hung askew becomes an emblem of rootless The single fact is matter. multicultural contemporary life Five words can say only. made bearable by art, in this case Black sky at night, reasonably. an opera on cassette: I am, the irrational residue...

then the familiar aria, Viewing art and literary criti- rising like the moon, cism as inherently ideological, lifts you out of yourself, they oppose modernism’s closed transporting you to another forms, hierarchies, ideas of epiph- country any and transcendence, catego- where, for a moment, you travel ries of genre and canonical texts light. or accepted literary works. Instead they propose open forms and mul- THE LANGUAGE SCHOOL, ticultural texts. They appropriate EXPERIMENTATION, AND images from popular culture and the media, and refashion them. At the end of the 20th century, Like , lan- directions in American poetry guage poems often resist inter- included the pretation and invite participation. loosely associated with Temblor Performance-oriented poetry magazine and Douglas Messerli, — sets of chance operations such editor of “Language” Poetries: An as those of composer ,

Anthology (1987). Among them: Photo © Nancy Crampton jazz improvisation, mixed media Bruce Andrews, , Bob work, and European surrealism 95 — have influenced many U.S. poets. Well- stances and images, along with musical lan- known figures include (1947- guages and traditional, closed forms. ■ ), author of the international hit United States (1984), which uses film, video, acoustics and music, choreography, and space-age technol- ogy. Sound poetry, emphasizing the voice and instruments, has been practiced by poets David Antin (who extemporizes his performances) and New Yorkers George Quasha (publisher of Station Hill Press), the late Armand Schw- erner, and Jackson Mac Low. Mac Low has also written visual or concrete poetry, which makes a visual statement using placement and . Ethnic performance poetry entered the mainstream with rap music, while across the United States over the last decade, poetry slams — open poetry reading contests that are held in alternative art galleries and literary bookstores — have become inexpensive, high- spirited, participatory entertainments. At the opposite end of the theoretical spec- trum are the self-styled New Formalists, who champion a return to form, rhyme, and meter. All groups are responding to the same problem — a perceived middle-brow complacency with the status quo, a careful and overly polished sound, often the product of poetry workshops, and an overemphasis on the personal lyric as opposed to the public gesture. The Formal School is associated with Story Line Press; , the poet who became chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts in 2003; Philip Dacey and David Jauss, poets and editors of Strong Measures: Contem- porary American Poetry in Traditional Forms (1986); Brad Leithauser; and Gjertrud Schnack- enberg. Robert Richman’s The Direction of Poetry: An Anthology of Rhymed and Metered Verse Written in the English Language Since 1975 is a 1988 anthology. Though these poets have been accused of retreating to 19th-cen- tury themes, they often draw on contemporary

96 THE REALIST LEGACY AND THE LATE 1940S chapter s in the first half of the 20th cen- tury, fiction in the second half reflected Athe character of each decade. The late 8 1940s saw the aftermath of World War II and the american prose, beginning of the Cold War. 1945-1990: World War II offered prime material: Nor- realism and man Mailer (The Naked and the Dead, 1948) experimentation and (, 1951) were two writers who used it best. Both of them employed realism verging on grim naturalism; both took pains not to glorify combat. The same arrative in the decades following World was true for Irwin Shaw’s The Young Lions War II resists generalization: It was (1948). , in Nextremely various and multifaceted. It (1951), also showed that human foibles were as was vitalized by international currents such as evident in wartime as in civilian life. European existentialism and Latin American Later, cast World War II in magical realism, while the electronic era satirical and absurdist terms (Catch-22, 1961), brought the global village. The spoken word on arguing that war is laced with insanity. Thom- television gave new life to oral tradition. Oral as Pynchon presented an involuted, brilliant genres, media, and popular culture increasingly case parodying and displacing different ver- influenced narrative. sions of reality (Gravity’s Rainbow, 1973). Kurt In the past, elite culture influenced popular Vonnegut, Jr., became one of the shining lights culture through its status and example; the of the counterculture during the early 1970s reverse seems true in the United States in the following publication of Slaughterhouse-Five: postwar years. Serious novelists like Thomas or, The Children’s Crusade (1969), his anti- Pynchon, , , Jr., about the firebombing of Dresden, Alice Walker, and E.L. Doctorow borrowed from Germany, by Allied forces during World War II and commented on comics, movies, fashions, (which Vonnegut witnessed on the ground as a songs, and oral history. prisoner of war). To say this is not to trivialize this literature: The 1940s saw the flourishing of a new Writers in the United States were asking seri- contingent of writers, including poet-novel- ous questions, many of them of a metaphysical ist-essayist Robert Penn Warren, dramatists nature. Writers became highly innovative and , Lillian Hellman, and Tennessee self-aware, or reflexive. Often they found tradi- Williams, and short story writers Katherine tional modes ineffective and sought vitality in Anne Porter and . All but Miller more widely popular material. To put it another were from the South. All explored the fate of way, American writers in the postwar decades the individual within the family or community developed a postmodern sensibility. Modernist and focused on the balance between personal restructurings of point of view no longer suf- growth and responsibility to the group. ficed for them; rather, the context of vision had to be made new.

97 Robert Penn Warren dreams. As one character notes (1905-1989) ironically, “a salesman has got Robert Penn Warren, one of to dream, boy. It comes with the the southern Fugitives, enjoyed territory.” a fruitful career running Death of a Salesman, a land- through most of the 20th cen- mark work, still is only one of a tury. He showed a lifelong con- number of dramas Miller wrote cern with democratic values as over several decades, including they appeared within historical All My Sons (1947) and The Cru- context. The most enduring of cible (1953). Both are political — his novels is All the King’s Men one contemporary and the other (1946), focusing on the darker set in colonial times. The first implications of the American deals with a manufacturer who dream as revealed in this thinly knowingly allows defective parts veiled account of the career of a to be shipped to airplane firms flamboyant and sinister southern during World War II, resulting in politician, Huey Long. the death of several American airmen. The Crucible depicts the Arthur Miller (1915-2005) Salem (Massachusetts) witch- ew York-born dramatist craft trials of the 17th century Arthur Miller reached in which Puritan settlers were Nhis personal pinnacle in wrongfully executed as supposed 1949 with Death of a Salesman, witches. Its message, though — a study of man’s search for merit that “witch hunts” directed at and worth in his life and the innocent people are anathema in realization that failure invariably a democracy — was relevant to looms. Set within the family of the era in which the play was the title character, Willy Loman, staged, the early 1950s, when an the play hinges on the uneven anti-Communist crusade led by relationships of father and sons, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and husband and wife. It is a mirror others ruined the lives of innocent Robert Penn Warren of the literary attitudes of the people. Partly in response to The 1940s, with its rich combination Crucible, Miller was called before of realism tinged with naturalism; the House (of Representatives) carefully drawn, rounded charac- Un-American Activities Commit- ters; and insistence on the value tee in 1956 and asked to provide of the individual, despite failure of persons who might and error. Death of a Salesman have Communist sympathies. is a moving paean to the com- Because of his refusal to do so, mon man — to whom, as Willy Miller was charged with contempt Loman’s widow eulogizes, “atten- of Congress, a charge that was tion must be paid.” Poignant overturned on appeal. and somber, it is also a story of Photo © Nancy Crampton A later Miller play, Incident at

98 Vichy (1964), dealt with the Holo- the quintessentially American caust — the destruction of much hard-boiled detective novel: The of European Jewry at the hands of Maltese Falcon (l930); The Thin the Nazis and their collaborators. Man (1934). In The Price (1968), two brothers Hellman, like Arthur Miller, had struggle to free themselves from refused to “name names” for the the burdens of the past. Other of House Un-American Activities Miller’s dramas include two one- Committee, and she and Ham- act plays, Fame (1970) and The mett were blacklisted (refused Reason Why (1970). His essays employment in the American are collected in Echoes Down the entertainment industry) for a Corridor (2000); his autobiogra- time. These events are recounted phy, Timebends: A Life, appeared in Hellman’s memoir, Scoundrel in 1987. Time (1976).

Lillian Hellman (1906-1984) (1911-1983) Like Robert Penn Warren, Lil- ennessee Williams, a native lian Hellman’s moral vision was of Mississippi, was one of shaped by the South. Her child- Tthe more complex indi- hood was largely spent in New viduals on the American literary Orleans. Her compelling plays scene of the mid-20th century. His explore power’s many guises work focused on disturbed emo- and abuses. In The Children’s tions within families — most of Hour (l934), a manipulative girl them southern. He was known for destroys the lives of two women incantatory repetitions, a poetic teachers by telling people they southern diction, weird gothic set- are lesbians. In The Little Foxes tings, and Freudian exploration of (1939), a rich old southern fam- human emotion. One of the first ily fights over an inheritance. American writers to live openly as Hellman’s anti-fascist Watch on a homosexual, Williams explained Tennessee Williams the Rhine (1941) grew out of her that the longings of his tormented trips to Europe in the l930s. Her characters expressed their loneli- memoirs include An Unfinished ness. His characters live and suf- Woman (l969) and Pentimento fer intensely. (1973). Williams wrote more than 20 For many years, Hellman had full-length dramas, many of them a close personal relationship autobiographical. He reached his with the remarkable scriptwriter peak relatively early in his career Dashiell Hammett, whose street- — in the 1940s — with The Glass wise detective character, Sam Menagerie (1944) and A Streetcar Spade, fascinated Depression-era Named Desire (1949). None of the Americans. Hammett invented Photo © Nancy Crampton works that followed over the next

99 two decades and more reached leagues Eudora Welty and the level of success and richness Flannery O’Connor. of those two pieces. Eudora Welty (1909-2001) Born in Mississippi to a well-to- (1890-1980) do family of transplanted north- Katherine Anne Porter’s long erners, Eudora Welty was guided life and career encompassed sev- by Robert Penn Warren and Kath- eral eras. Her first success, the erine Anne Porter. Porter, in fact, short story “Flowering Judas” wrote an introduction to Welty’s (1929), was set in Mexico dur- first collection of short stories, ing the revolution. The beauti- A Curtain of Green (1941). Welty fully crafted short stories that modeled her nuanced work on gained her renown subtly unveil Porter, but the younger woman personal lives. “The Jilting of was more interested in the comic Granny Weatherall” (1930), for and grotesque. Like fellow south- example, conveys large emotions erner Flannery O’Connor, Welty with precision. Often she reveals often took subnormal, eccentric, women’s inner experiences and or exceptional characters for their dependence on men. subjects. Porter’s nuances owe much to Despite violence in her work, the stories of the New Zealand- Welty’s wit was essentially born story writer Katherine Man- humane and affirmative, as, sfield. Porter’s story collections for example, in her frequently include Flowering Judas (1930), anthologized story “Why I Live at Noon Wine (1937), Pale Horse, the P.O.” (1941), in which a stub- Pale Rider (1939), The Leaning born and independent daughter Tower (1944), and Collected Sto- moves out of her house to live ries (1965). In the early 1960s, she in a tiny post office. Her collec- produced a long, allegorical novel tions of stories include The Wide with a timeless theme — the Net (1943), The Golden Apples Eudora Welty responsibility of humans for each (1949), The Bride of the Innisfall- other. Titled Ship of Fools (1962), en (1955), and Moon Lake (1980). it was set in the late 1930s aboard Welty also wrote novels such as a passenger liner carrying mem- Delta Wedding (1946), which is bers of the German upper class focused on a plantation family in and German refugees alike from modern times, and The Optimist’s the Nazi nation. Daughter (1972).

ot a prolific writer, Porter THE 1950S nonetheless influenced The 1950s saw the delayed Ngenerations of authors, impact of modernization and among them her southern col- Photo © Nancy Crampton technology in everyday life. Not

100 only did World War II defeat fas- ing too conformist (for example, cism, it brought the United States Riesman and Mills) or advising out of the Depression, and the people to become members of the 1950s provided most Americans “New Class” that technology and with time to enjoy long-awaited leisure time created (as seen in material prosperity. Business, Galbraith’s works). especially in the corporate world, The 1950s in literary terms seemed to offer the good life (usu- he 1950s actually was a decade of subtle ally in the suburbs), with its real Tin literary terms and pervasive unease. Novels by and symbolic marks of success — John O’Hara, , and house, car, television, and home actually was a explore the stress appliances. decade of subtle lurking in the shadows of seem- Yet loneliness at the top was a and pervasive ing satisfaction. Some of the best dominant theme for many writ- unease. Novels by work portrays men who fail in ers; the faceless corporate man John O’Hara, John the struggle to succeed, as in became a cultural stereotype in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Sales- Sloan Wilson’s best-selling novel Cheever, and John man and ’s novella The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Updike explore Seize the Day. African-American (1955). Generalized American the stress lurking (1930-1965) alienation came under the scru- in the shadows revealed racism as a continu- tiny of sociologist David Riesman ing undercurrent in her moving in The Lonely Crowd (1950). of seeming 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun, in Other popular, more or less sci- satisfaction. which a black family encounters entific studies followed, ranging a threatening “welcome commit- from Vance Packard’s The Hidden tee” when it tries to move into a Persuaders (1957) and The Status white neighborhood. Seekers (1959) to William Whyte’s Some writers went further The Organization Man (1956) and by focusing on characters who C. Wright Mills’s more intellec- dropped out of mainstream soci- tual formulations — White Col- ety, as did J.D. Salinger in The lar (1951) and The Power Elite Catcher in the Rye, Ralph Elli- (1956). Economist and acade- son in , and Jack mician John Kenneth Galbraith Kerouac in . And in contributed The Affluent Society the waning days of the decade, (1958). arrived with a series of short stories reflecting a cer- ost of these works sup- tain alienation from his Jewish ported the 1950s assump- heritage (Goodbye, Columbus). Mtion that all Americans His psychological ruminations shared a common lifestyle. The provided fodder for fiction, and studies spoke in general terms, later autobiography, into the new criticizing citizens for losing fron- millennium. tier individualism and becom- The fiction of American-Jewish

101 writers Bellow, Bernard Mal- ter From a Region of My Mind,” amud, and from the collection The Fire Next — among others prominent in Time (1963). In this work, he the 1950s and the years following argued movingly for an end to — are also worthy, compelling separation between the races. additions to the compendium of American literature. The output of aldwin’s first novel, the these three authors is most noted autobiographical Go Tell It for its humor, ethical concern, Bon the Mountain (1953), and portraits of Jewish communi- is probably his best known. It ties in the Old and New Worlds. is the story of a 14-year-old boy who seeks self-knowledge and John O’Hara (1905-1970) religious faith as he wrestles Trained as a journalist, John with issues of Christian conver- O’Hara was a prolific writer of sion in a storefront church. Other plays, stories, and novels. He was important Baldwin works include a master of careful, telling detail Another Country (1962) and and is best remembered for sever- Nobody Knows My Name (1961), al realistic novels, mostly written a collection of passionate personal in the 1950s, about outwardly suc- essays about racism, the role of cessful people whose inner faults the artist, and literature. and dissatisfaction leave them vulnerable. These titles include Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) Appointment in Samarra (1934), Ralph Ellison was a Midwest- (1955), and erner, born in Oklahoma, who From the Terrace (1959). studied at Tuskegee Institute in the . He James Baldwin (1924-1987) had one of the strangest careers James Baldwin and Ralph Elli- in American letters — consisting son mirror the African-American of one highly acclaimed book and experience of the 1950s. Their James Baldwin little more. characters suffer from a lack The novel is Invisible Man of identity, rather than from (1952), the story of a black man over-ambition. who lives a subterranean exis- Baldwin, the oldest of nine tence in a cellar brightly illuminat- children born to a Harlem, New ed by electricity stolen from a util- York, family, was the foster son ity company. The book recounts of a minister. As a youth, Bald- his grotesque, disenchanting win occasionally preached in the experiences. When he wins a church. This experience helped scholarship to an all-black college, shape the compelling, oral quality he is humiliated by whites; when of his prose, most clearly seen in he gets to the college, he witness- his excellent essays such as “Let- Photo © Nancy Crampton es the school’s president spurning

102 black American concerns. Life is ometimes violence arises corrupt outside college, too. For out of prejudice, as in “The example, even religion is no con- SDisplaced Person” (1955), solation: A preacher turns out to about an immigrant killed by be a criminal. The novel indicts ignorant country people who are society for failing to provide its threatened by his hard work and citizens — black and white — strange ways. Often, cruel events with viable ideals and institutions simply happen to the characters, for realizing them. It embodies as in “Good Country People” a powerful racial theme because (1955), the story of a girl seduced the “invisible man” is invisible by a man who steals her artificial not in himself but because others, leg. blinded by prejudice, cannot see The black humor of O’Connor him for who he is. links her with Juneteenth (1999), Ellison’s and Joseph Heller. Her works sprawling, unfinished novel, include short story collections A edited posthumously, reveals his Good Man Is Hard To Find (1955), continuing concern with race and and Everything That Rises Must identity. Converge (1965); the novel The Violent Bear It Away (1960); and Flannery O’Connor a volume of letters, The Habit of (1925-1964) Being (1979). The Complete Sto- Flannery O’Connor, a native of ries came out in 1971. Georgia, lived a life cut short by lupus, a blood disease. Still, she Saul Bellow (1915-2005) refused sentimentality, as is evi- Born in Canada and raised dent in her extremely humorous in Chicago, Saul Bellow was of yet bleak and uncompromising Russian-Jewish background. In stories. college, he studied anthropol- Unlike Katherine Anne Porter, ogy and sociology, which greatly Ralph Ellison Eudora Welty, and Zora Neale influenced his writing. He once Hurston, O’Connor most often expressed a profound debt to The- held her characters at arm’s odore Dreiser for his openness length, revealing their inadequa- to a wide range of experience cy and silliness. The uneducated and his emotional engagement southern characters who people with it. Highly respected, Bellow her novels often create violence received the Nobel Prize for Lit- through superstition or religion, erature in 1976. as we see in her novel Wise Blood Bellow’s early, somewhat grim (1952), about a religious fanatic existentialist novels include Dan- who establishes his own church. gling Man (1944), a Kafkaesque study of a man waiting to be draft- Photo © Nancy Crampton ed into the army, and The Victim

103 (1947), about relations between — a failure with women, jobs, Jews and Gentiles. In the 1950s, machines, and the commodities his vision became more comic: market, where he loses all his He used a series of energetic and money. Wilhelm is an example of adventurous first-person narra- the schlemiel of Jewish folklore tors in The Adventures of Augie — one to whom unlucky things (1953) — the study of inevitably happen. a Huck Finn-like urban entre- preneur who becomes a black marketeer in Europe — and in (1914-1986) Henderson the Rain King (1959), Bernard Malamud was born in a brilliant and exuberant serio- New York City to Russian-Jewish comic novel about a middle-aged immigrant parents. In his sec- millionaire whose unsatisfied ond novel, The Assistant (1957), ambitions drive him to Africa. Malamud found his characteris- Bellow’s later works include tic themes — man’s struggle to (1964), about the troubled survive against all odds, and the life of a neurotic English profes- ethical underpinnings of recent sor who specializes in the idea of Jewish immigrants. the romantic self; Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970); Humboldt’s Gift alamud’s first published (1975); and the autobiographical work was The Natural The Dean’s December (1982). M(1952), a combination of In the late 1980s, Bellow wrote realism and fantasy set in the two novellas in which elderly pro- mythic world of professional base- tagonists search for ultimate ver- ball. Other novels include A New ities, Something To Remember Me Life (1961), (1966), By (1991) and The Actual (1997). Pictures of Fidelman (1969), and His novel Ravelstein (2000) is The Tenants (1971). a veiled account of the life of Malamud also was a prolific Bellow’s friend Alan Bloom, the Bernard Malamud master of short fiction. Through best-selling author of The Closing his stories in collections such as of the American Mind (1987), a (1958), Idiots conservative attack on the acad- First (1963), and Rembrandt’s Hat emy for a perceived erosion of (1973), he conveyed — more than standards in American cultural any other American-born writer life. — a sense of the Jewish present Bellow’s Seize the Day (1956) and past, the real and the surreal, is a brilliant novella centered on fact and legend. a failed businessman, Tommy Malamud’s monumental work Wilhelm, who is so consumed — for which he was awarded the by feelings of inadequacy that Pulitzer Prize and National Book he becomes totally inadequate Photo © Nancy Crampton Award — is The Fixer. Set in Rus-

104 sia around the turn of the 20th seeking to create new lives for century, it is a thinly veiled look themselves. at an actual case of — the infamous 1913 trial of Men- del Beiliss, a dark, anti-Semitic (1889-1977) blotch on modern history. As in ike Singer, Vladimir many of his writings, Malamud Nabokov was an Eastern underscores the suffering of his LEuropean immigrant. Born hero, Yakob Bok, and the struggle into an affluent family in Czarist against all odds to endure. Russia, he came to the United States in 1940 and gained U.S. Isaac Bashevis Singer citizenship five years later. From (1904-1991) 1948 to 1959, he taught literature Nobel Prize-winning novel- at in upstate ist and short story master Isaac New York; in 1960 he moved per- Bashevis Singer — a native of manently to Switzerland. Poland who immigrated to the Nabokov is best known for his United States in 1935 — was the novels, which include the autobio- son of the prominent head of a graphical Pnin (1957), about an rabbinical court in Warsaw. Writ- ineffectual Russian emigré pro- ing in all his life, he dealt fessor, and (U.S. edition, in mythic and realistic terms with 1958), about an educated, mid- two specific groups of Jews — the dle-aged European who becomes denizens of the Old World shtetls infatuated with a 12-year-old (small villages) and the ocean- American girl. Nabokov’s tossed 20th-century emigrés of novel, Pale Fire (1962), another the pre-World War II and postwar successful venture, focuses on eras. a long poem by an imaginary Singer’s writings served as dead poet and the commentaries bookends for . On on it by a critic whose writings the one hand, he described — John Cheever overwhelm the poem and take on in novels such as The Manor unexpected lives of their own. (1967) and The Estate (1969), set Nabokov is an important writer in 19th-century Russia, and The for his stylistic subtlety, deft sat- Family Moskat (1950), focused on ire, and ingenious innovations in a Polish-Jewish family between form, which have inspired such the world wars — the world of novelists as . Nabo- European Jewry that no longer kov was aware of his role as a exists. Complementing these mediator between the Russian works were his writings set after and American literary worlds; he the war, such as Enemies, A Love wrote a book on Gogol and trans- Story (1972), whose protagonists lated Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. were survivors of the Holocaust Photo © Nancy Crampton His daring, somewhat expres-

105 sionist subjects helped introduce autobiographical. 20th-century European currents into the essentially realist Ameri- John Updike (1932- ) can fictional tradition. Nabokov’s John Updike, like Cheever, is tone, partly satirical and partly also regarded as a writer of man- nostalgic, also suggested a new ners with his suburban settings, serio-comic emotional register domestic themes, reflections of made use of by writers such as ennui and wistfulness, and, par- , who combines ticularly, his fictional locales on the opposing notes of wit and the eastern seaboard of the Unit- fear. ed States, in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. John Cheever (1912-1982) Updike is best known for his five John Cheever often has been Rabbit books, depictions of the called a “novelist of manners.” life of a man — Harry “Rabbit” He is also known for his elegant, Angstrom — through the ebbs suggestive short stories, which and flows of his existence across scrutinize the New York business four decades of American social world through its effects on the and political history. Rabbit, Run businessmen, their wives, chil- (1960) is a mirror of the 1950s, dren, and friends. with Angstrom an aimless, dis- A wry melancholy and never affected young husband. Rabbit quite quenched but seemingly (1971) — spotlighting the hopeless desire for passion or counterculture of the 1960s — metaphysical certainty lurks in finds Angstrom still without a the shadows of Cheever’s finely clear goal or purpose or viable drawn, Chekhovian tales, col- escape route from the banal. In lected in The Way Some People (1981), Harry has Live (1943), The House-breaker of become a prosperous business- Shady Hill (1958), Some People, man during the 1970s, as the Viet- Places, and Things That Will Not nam era wanes. The final novel, John Updike Appear in My Next Novel (1961), (1990), glimpses The Brigadier and the Widow Angstrom’s reconciliation with (1964), and The World of Apples life, before his death from a heart (1973). His titles reveal his char- attack, against the backdrop of acteristic nonchalance, playful- the 1980s. In Updike’s 1995 novel- ness, and irreverence, and hint at la Rabbit Remembered, his adult his subject matter. children recall Rabbit. Cheever also published sev- Among Updike’s other novels eral novels — The Wapshot are (1963), Couples Scandal (1964), Bullet Park (1968), A Month of Sundays (1969), and Falconer (1977) — (1975), Roger’s Version (1986), the last of which was largely Photo © Nancy Crampton and S. (l988). Updike creates an

106 alter ego — a writer whose fame their games. He is the only big ironically threatens to silence him person there. “I’m standing on — in another series of novels: the edge of some crazy cliff. What Bech: A Book (l970), Bech Is Back I have to do, I have to catch every- (1982), and Bech at Bay (1998). body if they start to go over the cliff.” The fall over the cliff is pdike possesses the most equated with the loss of childhood brilliant style of any writer innocence — a persistent theme Utoday, and his short sto- he of the era. ries offer scintillating examples Talienation and Other works by this reclusive, of its range and inventiveness. stress underlying spare writer include Nine Stories Collections include The Same (1953), Franny and Zooey (1961), Door (1959), The Music School the 1950s and Raise High the Roof Beam, (1966), Museums and Women found outward Carpenters (1963), a collection (1972), Too Far To Go (1979), expression in of stories from and Problems (1979). He has also the 1960s in the magazine. Since the appearance written several volumes of poetry of one story in 1965, Salinger — and essays. United States who lives in New Hampshire — in the civil rights has been absent from the Ameri- J.D. Salinger (1919- ) movement, can literary scene. A harbinger of things to come feminism, antiwar in the 1960s, J.D. Salinger has Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) portrayed attempts to drop out of protests, minority The son of an impoverished society. Born in New York City, activism, and French-Canadian family, Jack he achieved huge literary success the arrival of a Kerouac also questioned the with the publication of his novel counterculture values of middle-class life. He (1951), whose effects are met members of the Beat literary centered on a sensitive 16-year- underground as an undergradu- old, Holden Caulfield, who flees still being worked ate at Columbia University in New his elite boarding school for the through York City. His fiction was much outside world of adulthood, only to American society. influenced by the loosely autobio- become disillusioned by its mate- graphical work of southern novel- rialism and phoniness. ist . When asked what he would like to be, Caulfield answers “the erouac’s best-known catcher in the rye,” misquoting novel, On the Road a poem by . In his (1957), describes beat- vision, he is a modern version of niks wandering through America a white knight, the sole preserver seeking an idealistic dream of of innocence. He imagines a big communal life and beauty. The field of rye so tall that a group of Dharma Bums (1958) also focus- young children cannot see where es on peripatetic counterculture they are running as they play intellectuals and their infatuation

107 with Zen Buddhism. Kerouac also penned a the initial phase of the U.S. space program, book of poetry, Blues (1959), and The Right Stuff (1979), and a novel, The Bonfire volumes about his life with such beatniks as of the Vanities (1987), a panoramic portrayal of experimental novelist William Burroughs and American society in the 1980s. poet Allen Ginsberg. As the 1960s evolved, literature flowed with the turbulence of the era. An ironic, comic THE TURBULENT BUT CREATIVE vision also came into view, reflected in the 1960S fabulism of several writers. Examples include The alienation and stress underlying the ’s darkly comic One Flew Over the 1950s found outward expression in the 1960s Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), a novel about life in a in the United States in the civil rights move- mental hospital in which the wardens are more ment, feminism, antiwar protests, minority disturbed than the inmates, and the whimsical, activism, and the arrival of a counterculture fantastic Trout Fishing in America (1967) by whose effects are still being worked through Richard Brautigan (1935-1984). American society. Notable political and social The comical and fantastic yielded a new works of the era include the speeches of civil mode, half comic and half metaphysical, in rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Thomas Pynchon’s paranoid, brilliant V and early writings of feminist leader , John Barth’s Giles Goat- (), and ’s Boy, and the grotesque short stories of Donald The Armies of the Night (1968), about a 1967 Barthelme (1931-1989), whose first collection, antiwar march. Come Back, Dr. Caligari, was published in The 1960s were marked by a blurring of the 1964. line between fiction and fact, novels and report- This new mode came to be called age that has carried through the present day. — self-conscious or reflexive fiction that calls Novelist (1924-1984) — who attention to its own technique. Such “fiction had dazzled readers as an enfant terrible of the about fiction” emphasizes language and style, late 1940s and 1950s in such works as Breakfast and departs from the conventions of realism at Tiffany’s (1958) — stunned audiences with such as rounded characters, a believable plot In Cold Blood (1965), a riveting analysis of a enabling a character’s development, and appro- brutal mass murder in the American heartland priate settings. In metafiction, the writer’s that read like a work of detective fiction. style attracts the reader’s attention. The true At the same time, the New Journalism subject is not the characters, but rather the emerged — volumes of nonfiction that com- writer’s own consciousness. bined journalism with techniques of fiction, or Critics of the time commonly grouped Pyn- that frequently played with the facts, reshap- chon, Barth, and Barthelme as metafictionists, ing them to add to the drama and immediacy along with (1922-1998), whose of the story being reported. In The Electric long novel JR (l975), about a young boy who Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), (1931- ) builds up a phony business empire from junk celebrated the counterculture wanderlust of bonds, eerily forecasts excesses to novelist Ken Kesey (1935-2001); Radical Chic & come. His shorter, more accessible Carpenter’s Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (1970) ridiculed Gothic (1985) combines romance with menace. many aspects of left-wing activism. Wolfe later Gaddis is often linked with midwestern phi- wrote an exuberant and insightful history of losopher/novelist William Gass (1924- ), best

108 known for his early, thoughtful The masterful use of popular cul- novel Omensetter’s Luck (1966), ture — particularly science fiction and for stories collected in In the and detective fiction — is evident Heart of the Heart of the Country in his works. (1968). Pynchon’s work V (1963) is Robert Coover (1932- ) is another loosely structured around Benny metafiction writer. His collection Profane — a failure who engages of stories Pricksongs & Descants in pointless wanderings and vari- (1969) plays with plots familiar ous weird enterprises — and his from folktales and popular culture, o matter opposite, the educated Herbert while his novel The Public Burning Nwhere…we go, Stencil, who seeks a mysterious (1977) deconstructs the execution shall we find all female spy, V (alternatively Venus, of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who the World Tyrants Virgin, Void). The Crying of Lot 49 were convicted of espionage. (1966), a short work, deals with and Slaves?” a secret system associated with Thomas Pynchon (1937- ) Despite its range, the U.S. Postal Service. Gravity’s Thomas Pynchon, a mysterious, the violence, Rainbow (1973) takes place dur- publicity-shunning author, was comedy, and flair ing World War II in London, when born in New York and graduated rockets were falling on the city, from Cornell University in 1958, for innovation and concerns a farcical yet sym- where he may have come under in his work bolic search for Nazis and other the influence of Vladimir Nabokov. inexorably link disguised figures. Certainly, his innovative fantasies Pynchon with the In Pynchon’s comic novel use themes of translating clues, 1960s. Vineland (l990), set in northern games, and codes that could derive California, shadowy forces within from Nabokov. Pynchon’s flexible federal agencies endanger indi- tone can modulate paranoia into viduals. In the novel Mason & poetry. Dixon (1997), partly set in the wilderness of 1765, two English of Pynchon’s fiction is explorers survey the line that similarly structured. A vast would come to divide the North Aplot is unknown to at least and South in the United States. one of the main characters, whose Again, Pynchon sees power wield- task it then becomes to render ed unjustly. Dixon asks: “No mat- order out of chaos and decipher the ter where…we go, shall we find world. This project, exactly the job all the World Tyrants and Slaves?” of the traditional artist, devolves Despite its range, the violence, also upon the reader, who must fol- comedy, and flair for innovation in low along and watch for clues and his work inexorably link Pynchon meanings. This paranoid vision is with the 1960s. extended across continents and time itself, for Pynchon employs John Barth (1930- ) the metaphor of entropy, the grad- John Barth, a native of Mary- ual running down of the universe. land, is more interested in how 109 a story is told than in the story husband, a retired secret agent itself, but where Pynchon deludes turned novelist. Later novels — the reader by false trails and pos- The Tidewater Tales (1987), The sible clues out of detective novels, Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor Barth entices his audience into a (1991), and Once Upon a Time: carnival fun house full of distort- A Floating Opera (1994) reveal ing mirrors that exaggerate some Barth’s “passionate virtuosity” features while minimizing others. (his own phrase) in negotiating Realism is the enemy for Barth, the chaotic, oceanic world with the author of the bright rigging of language. (1968), 14 stories that constantly refer to the processes of writing Norman Mailer (1923- ) and reading. Barth’s intent is to Norman Mailer made himself alert the reader to the artificial the most visible novelist of the nature of reading and writing and l960s and l970s. Co-founder of the to prevent him or her from being anti-establishment New York City drawn into the story as if it were weekly The Village Voice, Mailer real. To explode the illusion of publicized himself along with his realism, Barth uses a panoply of political views. In his appetite for reflexive devices to remind his experience, vigorous style, and a audience that they are reading. dramatic public persona, Mailer Barth’s earlier works, like Saul follows in the tradition of Ernest Bellow’s, were questioning and Hemingway. To gain a vantage existential, and took up the 1950s point on the assassination of themes of escape and wandering. President John F. Kennedy, Viet- In The Floating Opera (1956), a nam War protests, black libera- man considers suicide. The End tion, and the women’s movement, of the Road (1958) concerns a he constructed hip, existentialist, complex love affair. Works of the macho male personae (in her book 1960s became more comical and Sexual Politics, identi- Norman Mailer less realistic. The Sot-Weed Factor fied Mailer as an archetypal male (1960) parodies an 18th-century chauvinist). The irrepressible picaresque style, while Giles Goat- Mailer went on to marry six times Boy (1966) is a parody of the world and run for mayor of New York. seen as a university. Mailer is the reverse of a writer (1972) retells tales like John Barth, for whom the from Greek mythology, and Letters subject is not as important as (1979) uses Barth himself as a the way it is handled. Unlike the character, as Norman Mailer does invisible Thomas Pynchon, Mailer in The Armies of the Night. In Sab- constantly courts and demands batical: A Romance (1982), Barth attention. uses the popular fiction of A novelist, essayist, sometime the spy; this is the story of a Photo © Nancy Crampton politician, literary activist, and woman college professor and her occasional actor, Mailer is always 110 on the scene. From such New Jour- readers’ responses. Zuckerman nalism exercises as Miami and seemingly takes over in a series the Siege of Chicago (1968), an of subsequent novels. The most analysis of the 1968 U.S. presi- successful is probably the first, dential conventions, and his com- (1979). It is told pelling study about the execution by Zuckerman as a young writer of a condemned murderer, The criticized by Jewish elders for fan- Executioner’s Song (1979), Mailer ning anti-Semitism. In Zuckerman has turned to writing such ambi- Bound (1985), a novel has made tious, if flawed, novels as Ancient Zuckerman rich but notorious. In Evenings (1983), set in the Egypt (1986), the fifth of antiquity, and Harlot’s Ghost Zuckerman novel, stories vie with (1991), revolving around the U.S. stories, as Nathan’s supposed life Central Intelligence Agency. is contrasted with other imag- inable lives. Roth’s memoir The Philip Roth (1933- ) Facts (1988) twists the screw fur- Like Norman Mailer, Philip Roth ther; in it, Zuckerman criticizes has provoked controversy by min- Roth’s own narrative style. ing his life for fiction. In Roth’s case, his treatments of sexual oth continues wavering on themes and ironic analysis of the border between fact Jewish life have drawn popular Rand fiction in Patrimony: A and critical attention, as well as True Story (1991), a memoir about criticism. the death of his father. His recent Roth’s first book, Goodbye, novels include Columbus (1959), satirized pro- (1997), in which a daughter’s vincial Jewish suburbanites. In his 1960s radicalism wounds a father, best-known novel, the outrageous, and (2000), best-selling Portnoy’s Complaint about a professor whose career is (1969), a New York City adminis- ruined by a racial misunderstand- Philip Roth trator regales his taciturn psycho- ing based on language. analyst with off-color stories of his Roth is a profound analyst of boyhood. Jewish strengths and weaknesses. Although The Great American His characterizations are nuanced; Novel (1973) delves into base- his protagonists are complex, indi- ball lore, most of Roth’s novels vidualized, and deeply human. remain resolutely, even defiantly, Roth’s series of autobiographical autobiographical. In My Life As a novels about a writer recalls John Man (1974), under the stress of Updike’s recent Bech series, and divorce, a man resorts to creat- it is master-stylist Updike with ing an alter-ego, Nathan Zucker- whom Roth — widely admired for man, whose stories constitute one his supple, ingenious style — is pole of the narrative, the other Photo © Nancy Crampton most often compared. pole being the different kinds of Despite its brilliance and wit, 111 some readers find Roth’s work self-absorbed. (1961). Like William Faulkner and Robert Penn Still, his vigorous accomplishment over almost Warren, he peoples his southern terrain with 50 years has earned him a place among the interlinked families close to their roots and most distinguished of American novelists. broods on the passing of time and the impera- tive to expiate ancient wrongs. His meditative, SOUTHERN WRITERS poetic style recalls the classical literary tradi- Southern writing of the l960s tended, like the tion of the old South. Partially paralyzed due to then still largely agrarian southern region, to cancer, Price has explored physical suffering in adhere to time-honored traditions. It remained The Promise of Rest (1995), about a father tend- rooted in realism and an ethical, if not religious, ing his son who is dying of AIDS. His highly vision during this decade of radical change. regarded novel Kate Vaiden (1986) reveals his Recurring southern themes include family, the ability to evoke a woman’s life. family home, history, the land, religion, guilt, (1916-1990), a resident of Loui- identity, death, and the search for redemptive siana, was raised as a member of the southern meaning in life. Like William Faulkner and aristocracy. His very readable novels — by Thomas Wolfe (Look Homeward, Angel, 1929), turns comic, lyrical, moralizing, and satirical who inspired the “southern renaissance” in — reveal his awareness of and literature, many southern writers of the 1960s his conversion to Catholicism. His best novel were scholars and elaborate stylists, rever- is his first, (l961). This story of ing the written word as a link with traditions a charming but aimless young New Orleans rooted in the classical world. stockbroker shows the influence of French Many have been influential teachers. existentialism transplanted to the booming -born Caroline Gordon (1895-1981), and often brash that burgeoned who married southern poet Allen Tate, was after World War II. a respected professor of writing. She set her novels in her native Kentucky. Truman Capote THE 1970S AND 1980S: was born in New Orleans and spent part of his CONSOLIDATION childhood in small towns in Louisiana and Ala- By the mid-1970s, an era of consolidation bama, the settings for many of his early works had begun. The Vietnam conflict was over, in the elegant, decadent, vein. followed soon afterward by U.S. recognition of African-American writing professor Ernest the People’s Republic of China and America’s Gaines (1933- ), also born in New Orleans, set bicentennial celebration. Soon the 1980s — the many of his moving, thoughtful works in the “Me Decade” in Tom Wolfe’s phrase — ensued, largely black rural bayou country of Louisiana. in which individuals tended to focus more on Perhaps his best known novel, The Autobiogra- personal concerns than on larger social issues. phy of Miss Jane Pittman (1971), reflects on the In literature, old currents remained, but the sweep of time from the end of the Civil War in force behind pure experimentation dwindled. 1865 up to 1960. Concerned with human issues New novelists like John Gardner, deeper than skin color, Gaines handles racial (The World According to Garp, 1978), Paul relations subtly. Theroux (The Mosquito Coast, 1981), William (1933- ), a long-time profes- Kennedy (, 1983), and Alice Walker sor at , was born in North (, 1982) surfaced with stylisti- Carolina, which furnishes the scenes for many cally brilliant novels to portray moving human of his works, such as A Long and Happy Life dramas. Concern with setting, character, 112 and themes associated with realism returned, a real New York gangster; and along with renewed interest in history, as in (1994), set in New York during the 1870s. works by E.L. Doctorow. City of God (2000) — the title referencing St. Augustine — turns to New York in the present. ealism, abandoned by experimental A Christian cleric’s consciousness interweaves writers in the 1960s, also crept back, the city’s generalized poverty, crime, and lone- Roften mingled with bold original ele- liness with stories of people whose lives touch ments — a daring structure like a novel within his. The book hints at Doctorow’s abiding belief a novel, as in John Gardner’s October Light, or that writing — a form of witnessing — is a black American dialect as in Alice Walker’s The mode of human survival. Color Purple. Minority literature began to flour- Doctorow’s techniques are eclectic. His sty- ish. Drama shifted from realism to more cin- listic exuberance and formal inventiveness ematic, kinetic techniques. At the same time, link him with metafiction writers like Thomas however, the Me Decade was reflected in such Pynchon and John Barth, but his novels remain brash new talents as Jay McInerney (Bright rooted in realism and history. His use of real Lights, Big City, 1984), (Less people and events links him with the New Jour- Than Zero, 1985), and (Slaves nalism of the l960s and with Norman Mailer, of New York, 1986). Truman Capote, and Tom Wolfe, while his use of fictional memoir, as in World’s Fair, looks E.L. Doctorow (1931- ) forward to writers like Maxine Hong Kingston The novels of E.L. Doctorow demonstrate the and the flowering of the memoir in the 1990s. transition from metafiction to a new and more human sensibility. His critically acclaimed (1925-2006) novel about the high human cost of the Cold rom the Tidewater area of Virginia, south- War, The Book of Daniel (1971), is based on erner William Styron wrote ambitious the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for Fnovels that set individuals in places and espionage, told in the voice of the bereaved son. times that test the limits of their humanity. His Robert Coover’s The Public Burning treats the early works include the acclaimed Lie Down in same topic, but Doctorow’s book conveys more Darkness (1951), which begins with the suicide warmth and emotion. of a beautiful southern woman — who leaps Doctorow’s (1975) is a rich, kaleido- from a New York skyscraper — and works back- scopic collage of the United States beginning ward in time to explore the dark forces within in 1906. As John Dos Passos had done several her family that drew her to her death. decades earlier in his trilogy U.S.A., Doctorow The Faulknerian treatment, including dark mingles fictional characters with real ones to southern gothic themes, flashbacks, and capture the era’s flavor and complexity. Doc- monologues, brought torow’s fictional history of the United States is Styron fame that turned to controversy when continued in (1979), set in the 1930s, he published his Pulitzer Prize-winning The about a ruthless capitalist who dominates and Confessions of Nat Turner (1967). This novel destroys idealistic people. re-creates the most violent slave uprising in Later Doctorow novels are the autobiographi- U.S. history, as seen through the eyes of its cal World’s Fair (1985), about an eight-year-old leader. The book came out at the height of the boy growing up in the Depression of the 1930s; “black power” movement, and, unsurprisingly, Billy Bathgate (l989), about , the depiction of Nat Turner drew sharp criti- 113 cism from many African-American motorcycle accident. He was a pro- observers, although some came to fessor of English specializing in Styron’s defense. the medieval period; his most pop- Styron’s fascination with indi- ular novel, Grendel (1971), retells vidual human acts set against the Old English epic Beowulf backdrops of larger racial injus- from the monster’s existentialist tice continues in Sophie’s Choice point of view. The short, vivid, and (1979), another tour de force about often comic novel is a subtle argu- the doom of a lovely woman — the ment against the existentialism topic that Edgar Allan Poe, the that fills its protagonist with self- presiding spirit of southern writ- destructive despair and cynicism. ers, found the most moving of all A prolific and popular novelist, possible subjects. In this novel, a Gardner used a realistic approach beautiful Polish woman who has but employed innovative tech- survived Auschwitz is defeated by niques — such as flashbacks, its remembered agonies, summed stories within stories, retellings up in the moment she was made to of myths, and contrasting stories choose which one of her children — to bring out the truth of a would live and which one would human situation. His strengths die. The book makes complex par- are characterization (particularly allels between the racism of the his sympathetic portraits of ordi- South and the Holocaust. nary people) and colorful style. More recently Styron, like many Major works include The Resur- other writers, turned to the mem- rection (1966), The Sunlight Dia- oir form. His short account of his logues (1972), Nickel Mountain near-suicidal depression, Dark- (1973), October Light (1976), and ness Visible: A Memoir of Madness Mickelsson’s Ghosts (1982). (1990), recalls the terrible under- Gardner’s fictional patterns tow that his own doomed charac- suggest the curative powers of ters must have felt. In the autobio- fellowship, duty, and family obliga- graphical in A Tidewater tions, and in this sense Gardner Morning (1993), the shimmering, Toni Morrison was a profoundly traditional and oppressively hot Virginia coast conservative author. He endeav- where he grew up mirrors and ored to demonstrate that certain extends the speaker’s shifting values and acts lead to fulfill- consciousness. ing lives. His book On Moral Fic- tion (1978) calls for novels that John Gardner (1933-1982) embody ethical values rather than John Gardner, from a farming dazzle with empty technical inno- background in New York State, vation. The book created a furor, was his era’s most important largely because Gardner bluntly spokesperson for ethical values criticized important living authors in literature until his death in a Photo © Nancy Crampton — especially writers of metafic-

114 tion — for failing to reflect ethical (1970), a strong- concerns. Gardner argued for a willed young black girl tells the warm, human, ultimately more story of Pecola Breedlove, who is realistic and socially engaged fic- driven mad by an abusive father. tion, such as that of Joyce Carol Pecola that her dark eyes Oates and Toni Morrison. have magically become blue and that they will make her lovable. Joyce Carol Oates (1938- ) Morrison has said that she was Joyce Carol Oates is the most creating her own sense of identity prolific serious novelist of recent as a writer through this novel: “I decades, having published novels, was Pecola, Claudia, everybody.” short stories, poetry, nonfiction, Morrison’s richly Sula (1973) describes the strong plays, critical studies, and essays. woven fiction friendship of two women. Mor- She uses what she has called “psy- has gained her rison paints African-American chological realism” on a panoram- international women as unique, fully individual ic range of subjects and forms. characters rather than as stereo- Oates has authored a Gothic acclaim. In types. Morrison’s trilogy consisting of Bellefleur compelling, large- (1977) has won several awards. (1980), A Bloodsmoor Romance spirited novels, It follows a black man, Milkman (1982), and Mysteries of Winter- she treats the Dead, and his complex relations thurn (l984); a nonfiction book, with his family and community. On Boxing (l987); and a study of complex identities In Tar Baby (1981) Morrison deals Marilyn Monroe (Blonde, 2000). of black people with black and white relations. Her plots are dark and often hinge in a universal Beloved (1987) is the wrenching on violence, which she finds to manner. story of a woman who murders her be deeply rooted in the American children rather than allow them psyche. to live as slaves. It employs the dreamlike techniques of magical Toni Morrison (1931- ) realism in depicting a mysterious African-American novelist Toni figure, Beloved, who returns to Morrison was born in Ohio to a live with the mother who has slit spiritually oriented family. She her throat. attended Howard University in Jazz (1992), set in 1920s Har- Washington, D.C., and has worked lem, is a story of love and murder; as a senior editor in a major Wash- in Paradise (1998), males of the ington publishing house and as a all-black Oklahoma town of Ruby distinguished professor at various kill neighbors from an all-women’s universities. settlement. Morrison reveals that Morrison’s richly woven fic- exclusion, whether by sex or race, tion has gained her international however appealing it may seem, acclaim. In compelling, large-spir- leads ultimately not to paradise ited novels, she treats the complex but to a hell of human devising. identities of black people in a uni- In her accessible nonfiction versal manner. In her early work book : White- 115 ness and the Literary Imagination (1992), Mor- Adrienne Rich. The Color Purple portrays men rison discerns a defining current of racial as basically unaware of the needs and reality consciousness in American literature. Mor- of women. rison has suggested that though her novels are Although many critics find Walker’s work consummate works of art, they contain political too didactic or ideological, a large general meanings: “I am not interested in indulging readership appreciates her bold explorations myself in some private exercise of my imagina- of African-American womanhood. Her novels tion...yes, the work must be political.” In 1993, shed light on festering issues such as the Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature. harsh legacy of sharecropping (The Third Life of Grange Copeland, 1970) and female circumci- Alice Walker (1944- ) sion (Possessing the Secret Joy, 1992). Alice Walker, an African-American and the child of a sharecropper family in rural Geor- THE RISE OF MULTIETHNIC FICTION gia, graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, ewish-American writers like Saul Bellow, where one of her teachers was the politically Bernard Malamud, Isaac Bashevis Singer, committed female poet Muriel Rukeyser. Other JArthur Miller, Philip Roth, and Norman influences on her work have been Flannery Mailer were the first since the 19th-century O’Connor and Zora Neale Hurston. abolitionists and African-American writers of A “womanist” writer, as Walker calls herself, slave narratives to address ethnic prejudice she has long been associated with feminism, and the plight of the outsider. They explored presenting black existence from the female new ways of projecting an awareness that was perspective. Like Toni Morrison, Jamaica Kin- both American and specific to a subculture. In caid, the late , and other this, they opened the door for the flowering of accomplished contemporary black novelists, multiethnic writing in the decades to come. Walker uses heightened, lyrical realism to The close of the 1980s and the beginnings center on the dreams and failures of acces- of the 1990s saw minority writing become a sible, credible people. Her work underscores major fixture on the American literary land- the quest for dignity in human life. A fine styl- scape. This is true in drama as well as in prose. ist, particularly in her epistolary dialect novel The late (1945-2005) wrote an The Color Purple, her work seeks to educate. In acclaimed cycle of plays about the 20th-century this she resembles the black American novel- black experience that stands alongside the ist Ishmael Reed, whose expose social work of novelists Alice Walker, John Edgar problems and racial issues. Wideman, and Toni Morrison. Scholars such as Walker’s The Color Purple is the story of the Lawrence Levine (The Opening of the American love between two poor black sisters that sur- Mind: Canons, Culture and History, 1996) and vives a separation over years, interwoven with (A Different Mirror: A History the story of how, during that same period, the of Multicultural America, 1993) provide invalu- shy, ugly, and uneducated sister discovers her able context for understanding multiethnic inner strength through the support of a female literature and its meanings. friend. The theme of the support women give also took their place on the each other recalls Maya Angelou’s autobiogra- scene. Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The phy, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which Woman Warrior (1976), carved out a place for celebrates the mother-daughter connection, her fellow Asian Americans. Among them is and the work of white feminists such as (1952- ), whose luminous novels 116 of Chinese life transposed to post- the struggles of Native Americans World War II America (The Joy in his slender, nearly flawless nov- Luck Club, 1989, and The Kitchen els Winter in the Blood (1974), The God’s Wife, 1991) captivated read- Death of Jim Loney (1979), Fools ers. (1957- ), Crow (1986), and The Indian Law- a California-born son of Chinese yer (1990). Louise Erdrich, part immigrants, made his mark in Chippewa, has written a powerful drama, with plays such as F.O.B. series of novels inaugurated by (1981) and M. Butterfly (1986). (1984) that cap- A relatively new group on the ture the tangled lives of dysfunc- literary horizon were the Latino- tional reservation families with American writers, including the a poignant blend of stoicism and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist humor. , the Cuban-born author of Play AMERICAN DRAMA Songs of Love (1989). Leading fter World War I, popular writers of Mexican-American and lucrative musicals had descent include Sandra Cisne- Aincreasingly dominated ros (Woman Hollering Creek and the Broadway theatrical scene. Other Stories, 1991); and Rudolfo Serious theater retreated to small- Anaya, author of the poetic novel er, less expensive theaters “off Bless Me, Ultima (1972). Broadway” or outside New York Native-American fiction flow- City. ered. Most often the authors This situation repeated itself evoked the loss of traditional life after World War II. American based in nature, the stressful drama had languished in the attempt to adapt to modern life, l950s, constrained by the Cold War and their struggles with pover- and McCarthyism. The energy of ty, unemployment, and alcohol- the l960s revived it. The off-off- ism. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway movement presented an (1968), innovative alternative to commer- by N. Scott Momaday (1934- ), cialized popular theater. and his poetic The Way to Rainy Many of the major dramatists Mountain (1969) evoke the beauty after 1960 produced their work and despair of Indian life. in small venues. Freed from the Of mixed Pueblo descent, Leslie need to make enough money to Marmon Silko wrote the critically pay for expensive playhouses, they esteemed novel (1977), were newly inspired by European which gained a large general audi- existentialism and the so-called ence. Like Momaday’s works, hers Theater of the Absurd associ- is a “chant novel” structured on ated with European playwrights Native-American healing rituals. , , Photo: Scott Gries / Getty Blackfoot poet and novelist Images and Eugene Ionesco, as well as (1940-2003) detailed by . The best dra- 117 matists became innovative and supple, speech-oriented poetry even surreal, rejecting realistic with an affinity to improvisational theater to attack superficial social jazz, turned to drama in the l960s. conventions. Always searching to find himself, Baraka has changed his name Edward Albee (1928- ) several times as he has sought The most influential dramatist to define his identity as a black of the early 1960s was Edward American. Baraka explored vari- Albee, who was adopted into a ous paths of life in his early years, well-off family that had owned flunking out of Howard University vaudeville theaters and counted and becoming dishonorably dis- actors among their friends. Help- charged from the U.S. Air Force ing produce European absurdist for alleged Communism. During theater, Albee actively brought these years, his true vocation of new European currents into U.S. writing emerged. drama. In The American Dream During the l960s, Baraka lived (1960), stick figures of Mommy, in New York City’s Greenwich Vil- Daddy, and Grandma recite plati- lage, where he knew many art- tudes that caricature a loveless, ists and writers including Frank conventional family. O’Hara and Allen Ginsberg. Loss of identity and consequent By 1965, Baraka had started struggles for power to fill the void the Black Arts Repertory Theater propel Albee’s plays, such as Who’s in Harlem, the black section of Afraid of ? (l962). New York City. He portrayed black In this controversial drama, made nationalist views of racism in dis- into a film starring Elizabeth Tay- turbing plays such as Dutchman lor and Richard Burton, an unhap- (1964), in which a white woman pily married couple’s shared fan- flirts with and eventually kills tasy — that they have a child, that a younger black man on a New their lives have meaning — is York City subway. The realistic violently exposed as an untruth. first half of the play sparkles with Albee has continued to pro- Amiri Baraka witty dialogue and subtle char- duce distinguished work over acterization. The shocking end- several decades, including Tiny ing risks melodrama to dramatize Alice (l964); A Delicate Balance racial misunderstanding and the (l966); Seascape (l975); Marriage victimization of the black male Play (1987); and Three Tall Women protagonist. (1991), which follows the main character, who resembles Albee’s (1943- ) overbearing adoptive mother, Actor/dramatist Sam Shepard through three stages of life. spent his childhood moving with his family from army base to army

Amiri Baraka (1934- ) Photo © Nancy Crampton base following his father, who had Poet Amiri Baraka, known for been a pilot in World War II. He 118 spent his teen years on a ranch Photo: Sara Krulwich / to suggest lawless freedom, the in the barren desert east of Los distraught writer steals numerous Angeles, California. In secondary toasters. Totally unrealistic yet school, Shepard found solace in oddly believable on an emotional the Beat poets; he learned jazz level, the scene works as comedy, drumming and later played in a absurd drama, and irony. rock band. Shepard produced his Shepard lets his characters Sam Shepard first plays, Cowboys and The Rock guide his writing, rather than Garden, in 1964. They prefigure beginning with a pre-planned his mature works in their west- plot, and his plays are fresh and ern motifs and theme of male lifelike. His surrealistic flair and competition. experimentalism link him with Of almost 50 works for stage and Edward Albee, but his plays are screen, Shepard’s most esteemed earthier and funnier, and his are three interrelated plays evok- characters are drawn more real- ing love and violence in the family: istically. They convey a bold West Curse of the Starving Class (1976), Coast consciousness and make Buried Child (1978), and True West comments on America in their use (1980), his best-known work. In of landscape motifs and specific True West, two middle-aged broth- settings and contexts. ers, an educated screenwriter and a drifting thief, compete to write (1947- ) a true-to-life western play for a Equally important is David rich, urban movie producer. Each Mamet, raised in Chicago, whose thinking he needs what the other writing was influenced by the has — success, freedom — the Stanislavsky method of acting two brothers change places in an that revealed to him the way “the atmosphere of increasing violence language we use...determines the fueled by alcohol. The play regis- way we behave, more than the ters Shepard’s concern with loss of other way around.” His emphasis freedom, authenticity, and autono- on language not as communica- my in American life. It dramatizes tion but as a weapon, evasion, the vanishing frontier (the drifter) and manipulation of reality give and the American imagination Mamet a contemporary, postmod- (the writer), seduced by money, ern sensibility. the media, and commercial forces, Mamet’s hard-hitting plays personified by the producer. David Mamet include American Buffalo (l975), In his writing process, Shepard a two-act play of increasingly tries to re-create a zone of free- violent language involving a dom by allowing his characters drug addict, a junk store, and an to act in unpredictable, spontane- attempted theft; and Speed-the- ous, sometimes illogical ways. The Plow (1987). The acclaimed and Photo © Robin Holland / most famous example comes from CORBIS OUTLINE frequently anthologized Glengarry True West. In a gesture meant Glen Ross (l982), about real estate 119 salesmen, was made into an out- in the Mafia. standing 1992 movie with an all- star cast. This play, like most of August Wilson (1945-2005) Mamet’s work, reveals his intense The distinguished African- engagement with some of Ameri- American dramatist August Wil- ca’s unresolved issues — here, as son, born Frederick August Kittel, if in an update of Arthur Miller’s was the son of a German immi- Death of a Salesman, one sees the grant who did not concern himself need for dignity and job security, with his family. Wilson endured especially for older workers; com- poverty and racism and adopted petition between older and young- the of his African-Amer- er generations in the workplace; ican mother as a teenager. Influ- intense focus on profits at the enced by the expense of the welfare of workers; of the late 1960s, Wilson co-found- and — enveloping all — the cor- ed Pittsburgh’s Black Horizons rosive atmosphere of competition Theater. carried to abusive lengths. Wilson’s plays explore African- Mamet’s Oleanna (l991) effec- American experience, orga- tively dissects sexual harass- nized by decades. Ma Rainey’s ment in a university setting. The Black Bottom (l984), set in 1927 Cryptogram (1994) imagines a Chicago, depicts the famous blues child’s horrific vision of family singer. His acclaimed play Fences life. Recent plays include The Old (1985), set in the 1950s, dra- Neighborhood (1991) and Boston matizes the conflict between a Marriage (1999). father and a son, touching on the all-American themes of (1940- ) and the American dream of suc- Another noted dramatist is David cess. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Rabe, a Vietnam veteran who was (1986) concerns boarding-house one of the first to explore that residents in 1911. The Piano war’s and violence in The Lesson (1987), set in the 1930s, Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel August Wilson crystallizes a family’s dynamic by (l971) and Sticks and Bones (l969). focusing on the heirloom piano. Subsequent plays include The Two Trains Running (1990) takes Orphan (l973), based on Aeschy- place in a coffeehouse in the lus’s Oresteia; In the Boom Boom 1960s, while Seven Guitars (1995) Room (1973), about the rape of a explores the 1940s. ■ dancer; and Hurlyburly (1984) and Those the River Keeps (l990), both about Hollywood disillusionment. Rabe’s recent works include The Crossing Guard (l994) and Corners Photo © Cori Wells Braun / (1998), about the concept of honor CORBIS OUTLINE

120 prising authors mount Web sites. American poetry at present is a vast territory of free chapter imagination, a pot on the boil, a dynamic work in progress. The ferment of American poetry since l990 9 makes the field decentralized and hard to define. Most anthologies showcase only one CONTEMPORARY dimension of poetry, for example, women’s AMERICAN writing — or groupings of ethnic writers, or POETRY poetry with a common inspiration — jazz poetry, , Buddhist-influenced poems, hip-hop. The few anthologists aspiring to represent .S. poetry since 1990 has been in the the whole of contemporary American poetry midst of a kaleidoscopic renaissance. In begin with copious disclaimers and dwell on Uthe latter half of the 20th century, there its disparate impulses: , the was, if not a consensus, at least a discern- expansion of the canon, ethnicities, immigra- ible shape to the poetic field, complete with tion (with special mention of new voices out of well-defended positions. Well-defined schools South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East), dominated the scene, and critical discussions the dawning of global literature, the elabo- tended to the binary: formalism versus free ration of women’s continuing contributions, verse, academic versus experimental. the rise of Internet technology, the influence Looking back, some have seen the post-World of specific teachers or writing programs or War II years as a heroic age in which American regional impulses, the ubiquitous media, and poetry broke free from constraints such as the role of the poet as the lone individual voice rhyme and meter and flung itself heart-first raised against the din of commercialism and into new dimensions alongside the abstract conformity. expressionists in American painting. Others Poets themselves struggle to make sense of — experimentalists, multiethnic and global the flood of poetry. It is possible to envision a authors, and feminist writers among them — continuum, with poetry of the speaking, sub- recall the era’s blindness to issues of race and jective self on one end, poetry of the world on gender. These writers experience diversity as a the other, and a large middle range in which present blessing and look forward to freedoms self and world merge. yet unimagined. Their contributions have made Poetry of the speaking self tends to focus on the poetry of the present a rich cornucopia with vivid expression and exploration of deep, often a genuinely popular base. buried, emotion. It is psychological and intense, Among the general public, interest in poetry and its settings are secondary. In the last half is at an all-time high. Poetry slams gener- of the 20th century, the most influential poet ate competitive camaraderie among beginning of this sort was Robert Lowell, whose descents writers, informal writing groups provide sup- into his own psyche and his disturbed family port and critiques, and reading clubs prolifer- background inspired confessional writing. ate. Writing programs flourish at all levels, Poetry of the world, on the other hand, tends brisk poetic exchanges zip over the Internet, to build up meaning from narrative drive, and universities, magazines, and enter- detail, and context. It sets careful scenes. 121 One of the most influential poets of the world a reality “out there” lying loose and seemingly was Elizabeth Bishop, generally considered simple, but lethal as a floor on which wheat the finest American woman poet of later 20th and chaff (like human lives, or Walt Whitman’s century. leaves of grass) are winnowed: Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop were life- long friends; both taught at Harvard University. …underneath the talk lies Like Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson in the The moving and not wanting to be moved, 19th century, Lowell and Bishop are presiding the loose generative spirits for later poets. And although Meaning, untidy and simple like a they shared a kindred vision, their approaches threshing floor. were polar opposites. Lowell’s knotty, subjec- tive, rhetorical poetry wrests meaning from The enigmatic, classically trained W.S. Mer- self-presentation and heightened language, win (1927- ) continues to produce volumes of while Bishop offers, instead, detailed land- haunting subjective poetry. Merwin’s poem scapes in a deceptively simple prosaic style. “The River of Bees” (1967) ends: Only on rereading does her precision and depth make itself felt. On the door it says what to do to survive Most poets hover somewhere between the But we were not born to survive two poles. Ultimately, great poetry — whether Only to live of the self or the world — overcomes such divisions; the self and the world becoming mir- The word “only” ironically underscores how rors of each other. Nevertheless, for purposes difficult it is to live fully as human beings, a of discussion, the two may be provisionally nobler pursuit than mere survival. Both Ash- distinguished. bery and Merwin, precursors of the current generation of poets of self, characteristically THE POETRY OF SELF write monologues detached from explicit con- oetry of self tends toward direct address texts or narratives. Merwin’s haunting exis- or monologue. At its most intense, it tential lyrics plumb psychological depths, while Pstates a condition of soul. The settings, Ashbery’s unexpected use of words from many though present, do not play definitive roles. registers of human endeavor — psychology, This poetry may be psychological or spiritual, farming, philosophy — looks forward to the aspiring to a timeless realm. It may also, how- Language School. ever, undercut spiritual certainty by referring Recent poets of self have pushed more deeply all meaning back to language. Within this large into a phenomenological awareness of con- grouping, therefore, one may find somewhat sciousness played out moment by moment. For romantic, expressive poetry, but also language- Ann Lauterbach (1942- ), the poem is an exten- based poems that question the very concepts sion of the mind in action; she has said that her of identity and meaning, seeing these as con- poetry is “an act of self-construction, the voice structs. its threshold.” Language poet Lyn Hejinian Balancing these concerns, John Ashbery has (1941- ) expresses the movement of conscious- said that he is interested in “the experience ness in her autobiographical prose poem My of experience,” or what filters through his Life (1987), which employs disjunction, surpris- consciousness, rather than what actually hap- ing leaps, and chance intersections: “I picture pened. His “Soonest Mended” (1970) depicts an idea at the moment I come to it, our col- 122 lision.” (1947- ) Graham’s work is suffused with uses silences and subtle, oblique cosmopolitan references, and she associative clusters; the title poem sees the history of the United of her volume Necromance (1991) States as a part of a larger interna- warns that “emphatic / precision / tional engagement over time. The is revealed as / hostility.” Another title poem in her Pulitzer Prize- experimental poet, Leslie Scala- winning collection The Dream of pino (1947- ), writes poems as an the Unified Field: Selected Poems, “examination of the mind in the 1974-1994 (1995) addresses this process of whatever it’s creating.” complex and changing history. Much experimental poetry of The poem brings together dispa- self is elliptical, nonlinear, non- rate elements in large-gestured narrative, and nonobjective; at its free association — the poet’s best, it is, however, not solipsis- walk through the white flecks of tic but rather circles around an a snowstorm to return a friend’s “absent center.” Poetry of self often black dance leotard, a flock of involves a public performance. In black starlings (birds that drive the case of women poets, the era- out native species), a single black sures, notions of silence, and dis- crow (a protagonist of Native- junctions are often associated with American oral tradition) evoked and other French as “one ink-streak on the early feminist theoreticians. Poet Susan evening snowlit scene.” Howe (1937- ), who has developed These sense impressions sum- a complex visual poetics to inter- mon up the poet’s childhood mem- weave the historical and personal, ories of Europe and her black- has noted the difficulty of tracing garbed dance teacher, and broad- back female lines in archives and en out into the history of the New genealogies and the erasure of World. Christopher Columbus’s women in cultural history. For her, contact with Native Americans on as a woman, “the and silenc- a white sandy beach is likened es are where you find yourself.” to the poet’s white snowstorm: Jorie Graham “He thought he saw Indians flee- Jorie Graham (1950- ) ing through the white before the One of the most accomplished ship,” and “In the white swirl, he poets of the subjective self is Jorie placed a large cross.” Graham. Born in New York, she All these elements are subor- grew up in Italy and studied at the dinated to the moving mind that Sorbonne in France, at New York contains them and that constantly University (specializing in film, questions itself. This mind, or which continues to influence her “unified field” (a set of theories work), and at the Iowa Writers’ in physics that attempt to relate Workshop, where she later taught. all forces in the universe), is Photo: Estate of Since then, she has been a profes- Thomas Victor likened to the snowstorm of the sor at Harvard University. beginning: 123 Nothing true or false in itself. that of the characters, as in Rita Just motion. Many strips of Dove’s Thomas and Beulah. In this motion. Filaments of falling volume, Dove intertwines biog- marked by the tiny certainties raphy and history to dramatize of flakes. her grandparents’ lives. Like many African Americans in the early Graham focuses on the mind as 20th century, they fled poverty and a portal of meaning and distor- racism in the rural South for work tion, both a part of the world and in the urban North. Dove endows a separate vantage point. As in a their humble lives with dignity. film’s montage, her voice threads Thomas’s first job, as a laborer on together disparate visions and the third shift, requires him to live experiences. Swarm (2000) deep- in a barracks and share a mattress ens Graham’s metaphysical bent, with two men he never meets. emotional depth, and urgency. His work is “a narrow grief,” but music lifts his spirits like a beau- THE POETRY OF VOICE tiful woman (forecasting Beulah, t its furthest extreme, whom he has not yet met). When poetry of self obliterates Thomas sings Athe self if it lacks a coun- terbalancing sensibility. The next he closes his eyes. stage may be a poetry of various He never knows when she’ll be voices or fictive selves, breaking coming but when she leaves, he the monolithic idea of self into always tips his hat. fragments and characters. The dramatic monologues of Robert Louise Glück (1943- ) Browning are 19th-century ante- One of the most impressive cedents. The fictive “I” feels solid poets of voice is Louise Glück. but does not involve the actual Born in New York City, Glück, author, whose self remains off- the U.S. poet laureate for 2003- stage. 2004, grew up with an abiding This strain of poetry often takes Louise Glück sense of guilt due to the death of subjects from myth and popular a sister born before her. At Sarah culture, typically seeing modern Lawrence College and Columbia relationships as redefinitions or University, she studied with poets versions of older patterns. Among Leonie Adams and , contemporary poets of voice or and she has attributed her psychic monologue are Brigit Pegeen survival to psychoanalysis and her Kelly, Alberto Rios, and the Cana- studies in poetry. Much of her dian poet . poetry deals with tragic loss. Usually, the poetry of voice is Each of Glück’s books attempts written in the first person, but the new techniques, making it dif- Photo: Associated Press / third person can make a similar Library of Congress ficult to summarize her work. Her impact if the viewpoint is clearly early volumes, such as The House 124 on Marshland (l975) and The Tri- THE POETRY OF PLACE umph of Achilles (1985), handle number of poets — autobiographical material at a psy- these are not groups, chic distance, while in later books Abut nationwide tenden- she is more direct. Meadowlands cies — find deep inspiration in (1996) employs comic wit and ref- specific landscapes. Instances erences to the to depict a are ’s lyrical evoca- failing marriage. tions of Northern California, Mark In Glück’s memorable The Jarman’s Southern California Wild Iris (1992), different kinds coastlines and memories of surf- of flowers utter short metaphysi- ing, Tess Gallagher’s poems set in cal monologues. The book’s title the Pacific Northwest, and Simon poem, an exploration of resur- Ortiz’s and Jimmy Baca’s rection, could be an epigraph for poems emanating from southwest- Glück’s work as a whole. The wild ern landscapes. Each subregion iris, a gorgeous deep has inspired poetry: C.D. (Carolyn) growing from a bulb that lies dor- Wright’s hardscrabble upper South mant all winter, says: “It is terrible is far from Yusef Komunyakaa’s to survive / as consciousness / humid Louisiana Gulf. buried in the dark earth.” Like Poetry of place is not based on Jorie Graham’s vision of the self landscape description; rather, the merged in the snowstorm, Glück’s land, and its history, is a genera- poem ends with a vision of world tive force implicated in the way its and self merged — this time in people, including the poet, live and the water of life, blue on blue: think. The land is felt as what D.H. Lawrence called a “spirit of place.” You who do not remember passage from the other world Charles Wright (1935- ) I tell you I could speak again: One of the most moving poets whatever returns from oblivion of place is Charles Wright. Raised returns to find a voice; in Tennessee, Wright is a cos- Charles Wright mopolitan southerner. He draws from the center of my life came on Italian and ancient Chinese a great fountain, deep blue poetry, and infuses his work with shadows on azure seawater. southern themes such as the bur- den of a tragic past, seen in his Like Graham, Glück merges the poetic series “Appalachian Book self into the world through a fluid of the Dead,” which is based on imagery of water. While Graham’s the ancient Egyptian Book of the frozen water — snow — resembles Dead. His works include Coun- sand, the earth ground up at the try Music: Selected Early Poems sea’s edge, Glück’s blue fresh water (l982); Chickamauga (1995); — signifying her heart — merges Photo © Nancy Crampton and Negative Blue: Selected Later with the salt sea of the world. Poems (2000). 125 Wright’s intense poetry offers moments of Work sounds: truck back-up-beep, wood spiritual insight rescued, or rather constructed, tin hammer, cicada, fire . from the ravages of time and circumstance. A _____ purposeful awkwardness — seen in his unex- History handles our past like spoiled fruit. pected turns of colloquial phrase and prefer- Mid-morning, late-century light ence for long, broken lines with odd numbers calicoed under the peach trees. of syllables — endows his poems with a bur- Fingers us here. Fingers us here and here. nished grace, like that of gnarled old farm tools ______polished with the wear of hands. This hand- The poem is a code with no message: made, earned, sometimes wry quality makes The point of the mask is not the mask but Wright’s poems feel contemporary and prevents the face underneath, them from seeming pretentious. Absolute, incommunicado, The disparity between transcendent vision unhoused and peregrine. and human frailty lies at the heart of Wright’s _____ vision. He is drawn to grand themes — stars, The gill net of history will pluck us soon constellations, history — on the one hand, and enough to tiny tactile elements — fingers, hairs — From the cold waters of self-contentment on the other. His title poem “Chickamauga” we drift in relies on the reader’s knowledge: Chickam- One by one into its suffocating light and auga, Georgia, on September 19 and 20, 1862, air. was the scene of a decisive battle in the _____ U.S. Civil War between the North and the Structure becomes an element of belief, South. The South failed to destroy the Union syntax (northern) army and opened a way for the And grammar a catechist, North’s scorched-earth invasion of the South Their words what the beads say, words via Atlanta, Georgia. thumbed to our discontent. “Chickamauga” can be read as a medita- tion on landscape, but it is also an elegiac The poem sees history as a construct, a “code lament and the poet’s ars poetica. It begins with no message.” Each individual exists in with a simple observation: “Dove-twirl in the itself, unknowable outside its own terms and tall grass.” This seeming idyll is the moment time, “not the mask but the face underneath.” just before a hunter shoots; the slain soldiers, Death is inevitable for us as for the fallen sol- never mentioned in the poem, have been for- diers, the Old South, and the caught fish. Nev- gotten, mowed down like doves or grass. The ertheless, poetry offers a partial consolation: “conked magnolia tree” undercuts the roman- Our articulated discontent may yield a measure tic “midnight and magnolia” stereotype of of immortality. the antebellum-plantation South. The poem merges present and past in a powerful epitaph THE POETRY OF FAMILY for lost worlds and ideals. n even more grounded strain of poetry locates the poetic subject in a matrix of Dove-twirl in the tall grass. Abelonging — to family, community, and End-of-summer glaze next door changing traditions. Often the traditions called On the gloves and split ends of the conked into play are ethnic or international. magnolia tree. A few poets, such as (1942- 126 ), expose their own unhealed Mao Tsetung, was later impris- wounds, resorting to the confes- oned in Indonesia. Born in Jakar- sional mode, but most contempo- ta, Indonesia, Lee lived the life rary poets write with an affection of a refugee, moving with his that, however rueful, is none- family to Hong Kong, Macao, and theless genuine. Stephen Dunn Japan before finding refuge in the (1939- ) is an example: In his United States, where his father poems, relationships are a means became a Protestant minister in of knowing. In some poets, respect Pennsylvania. Lee won acclaim for family and community carries for his books Rose (1986) and The with it a sense of affirmation, if City in Which I Love You (1990). not an explicitly devotional sensi- Lee is sensuous, filial — he bility. This is not a conservative movingly depicts his family and poetry; often it confronts change, his father’s decline — and out- loss, and struggle with the powers spoken in his commitment to the of ethnic or non-Western literary spiritual dimensions of poetry. His tradition. most influential poem, “Persim- Lucille Clifton (1936- ) finds sol- mons” (1986), from his book Rose, ace in the black community. Her evokes his Asian background colloquial language and strong through the persimmon, a fruit faith are a potent combination. little known in the United States. The moving elegies to his mother Fruits and flowers are tradition- of Agha Shahid Ali (1949-2001) al subjects of Chinese art and draw on a dazzling array of clas- poetry, but unusual in the West. sical Middle Eastern poetic forms, The poem contains a pointed yet intertwining his mother’s life with humorous critique of a provincial the suffering of his family’s native schoolteacher Lee encountered in Kashmir. the United States who presumes Malaysian-Chinese American to understand persimmons and Shirley Geoklin Lim (1944- ) pow- language. erfully contrasts her difficult fami- Lee’s poem “Irises” (1986), from Li-Young Lee ly in Malaysia with her new family the same volume, suggests that in California. Chicana poet Lorna we drift through a “dream of life” Dee Cervantes memorializes her but, like the iris, “waken dying harsh, impoverished family life in — violet becoming blue, growing California; Louise Erdrich brings / black, black.” The poem and its her unpredictable, tragicomic handling of color resonate with Native-American family members Glück’s wild iris. to vital life. The title poem of The City in Which I Love You announces Lee’s Li-Young Lee (1957- ) affirmative entrance into a larger Tragic history arches over Li- community of poetry. It ends:

Young Lee, whose Chinese-born Photo © Dorothy Alexander father, at one time a physician to my birthplace vanished, my 127 citizenship earned, in league strangers, and the work of artistic with stones of the earth, I creation, which for him involves a enter, without retreat or help way of seeing. from history, the days of no day, It is possible to enjoy Doty by fol- my earth of no earth, I re-enter lowing his evolving ideas of com- munity. In “A Little Rabbit Dead in the city in which I love you. the Grass” from Source (2001), a And I never believed that the dead rabbit provokes a philosophi- multitude of dreams and many cal meditation. This particular words were vain. rabbit, like a poem, is important in itself and as a text, an “art- THE POETRY OF THE fully crafted thing” on whose brow BEAUTIFUL “some trace / of thought seems et another strain of written.” The next poem in Source, intensely lyrical, image- “Fish R Us,” likens the human Ydriven poetry celebrates community to a bag of fish in a beauty despite, or in the midst of, pet store tank, “each fry / about modern life in all its suffering and the size of this line.” Like people, confusion. Many poets could be or ideas, the fish want freedom: included here — (1951- They “want to swim forward,” but ), Sandra McPherson (1943- ), for now they “pulse in their golden Henri Cole (1965- ) — as the ball.” The sense of a shared organ- strains of poetry are overlapping, ic connection with others is car- not mutually exclusive. ried throughout the volume. The Some of the finest contempo- third poem, “At the Gym,” envi- rary poets use imagery not as sions the imprint of sweaty heads decoration, but to explore new on exercise equipment as “some subjects and terrain. Harjo imag- halo / the living made together.” ines horses as a way of retriev- Doty finds in Walt Whitman a ing her Native-American heritage, personal and poetic guide. Doty while McPherson and Cole create has also written memorably of the images that seem to come alive. Mark Doty tragic AIDS epidemic. His works include My Alexandria (l993), Mark Doty (l953- ) Atlantis (l995), and his vivid mem- Since the late l980s, Mark oir Firebird (1999). Still Life With Doty has been publishing supple, Oysters and Lemon (2001) is a beautiful poetic meditations on recent collection. art and relationships — with lov- Doty’s poems are both reflexive ers, friends, and a host of com- (referencing themselves as art) munities. His vivid, exact, sen- and responsive to the outer world. sory imagery is often a mode of He sees the imperfect yet vital knowing, feeling, and reaching body, especially the skin, as the out. Through images, Doty makes Photo © Miriam Berkley margin — a kind of text — where us feel a kinship with animals, internal and external meet, as in 128 his short poem, also from Source, lated many books of the 13th-cen- about getting a tattoo, “To the tury mystic poet . Engraver of My Skin.” Spiritually attuned contempo- rary U.S. poets include Arthur I understand the pact is mortal, Sze (1950- ), who is said to have agree to bear this permanence. a Zen-like sensibility. His poems offer literal and seemingly simple I contract with limitation; I say observations that are also medita- no and no then yes to you, and tions, such as these lines from sign “Throwing Salt on a Path” (1987): “Shrimp smoking over a fire. Ah, / — here, on the dotted line — the light of a star never stops, but for whatever comes, I do: our travels.” Shoveling snow, he notes: time, “The salt now clears a path in the snow, expands the edges of the our outline, the filling-in of our universe.” details (it’s density that hurts, always, Jane Hirshfield (l953- ) Jane Hirshfield makes almost not the original scheme). I’m no explicit references to Buddhism here in her poems, yet they breathe for revision, discoloration; here the spirit of her many years of to fade Zen meditation and her transla- tions from the ancient court poet- and last, ineradicable, blue. ry of two Japanese women, Ono Write me! no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu. This ink lasts longer than I do. Hirshfield has edited an antholo- gy, Women in Praise of the Sacred: THE POETRY OF SPIRIT 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by spiritual focus permeates Women (l994). another strand of contem- Hirshfield’s poetry manifests Aporary American poetry. In Jane Hirshfield what she calls the “mind of indi- this work, the deepest relation- rection” in her book about writ- ship is that between the individual ing poetry, Nine Gates: Entering and a timeless essence beyond the Mind of Poetry (1997). This — though linked with — artistic orientation draws on a reverence beauty. Older poets who heralded for nature, an economy of lan- a spiritual consciousness include guage, and a Buddhist sense of Gary Snyder, who helped introduce impermanence. Her own “poetry Zen to American poetry, and poet- of indirection” works by nuance, translator , who brought association (often to seasons and an awareness of Latin American weathers, evocative of world views surrealism to U.S. poetry. In recent Photo © Jerry Bauer and moods), and natural imagery. times, Coleman Barks has trans- Hirshfield’s poem “Mule Heart,” 129 from her poetry collection The THE POETRY OF NATURE Lives of the Heart (1997), vividly he New World riveted the evokes a mule without ever men- attention of Americans dur- tioning it. Hirshfield drew on her Ting the revolutionary era of memory of a mule used to carry the late 1700s, when Philip Freneau loads up steep hills on the Greek made a point of celebrating flora island of Santorini to write this and fauna native to the Americas poem, which she has called a kind as a way of forging an American of recipe for getting through a dif- identity. Transcendentalism and ficult time. The poem conjures the agrarianism focused on America’s reader to take heart. This humble relation to nature in the 19th and mule has its own beauty (bridle early 20th centuries. bells) and strength. Today environmental concerns inform a powerful strain of eco- On the days when the rest logically oriented U.S. poetry. The have failed you, late A.R. Ammons was one recent let this much be yours — progenitor, and Native-American flies, dust, an unnameable poets, such as the late James odor, Welch and Leslie Marmon Silko, the two waiting baskets: never lost a reverence for nature. one for the lemons and passion, Contemporary poets rooted in a the other for all you have lost. natural vision include Pattiann Both empty, Rogers (1940- ) and Maxine it will come to your shoulder, Kumin (1925- ). Rogers brings breathe slowly against your natural history into focus, while bare arm. Kumin writes feelingly of her per- If you offer it hay, it will eat. sonal life on a farm and her raising Offered nothing, of horses. it will stand as long as you ask. The little bells of the bridle will Mary Oliver (1935- ) hang One of the most celebrated beside you quietly, Mary Oliver poets of nature is Mary Oliver. A in the heat and the tree’s thin stunning, accessible poet, Oliver shade. evokes plants and animals with Do not let its sparse mane visionary intensity. Oliver was deceive you, born in Ohio but has lived in New or the way the left ear swivels England for years, and her poems, into dream. like those of Robert Frost, draw on This too is a gift of the gods, its varied landscape and changing calm and complete. seasons. Oliver finds meaning in encounters with nature, continu- ing in the Transcendental tradi-

Photo © Nancy Crampton tion of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and her 130 work has a strong ethical dimension. Oliver’s works include American Primitive (1983), New reason burns a brighter fire, which the and Selected Poems (l992), White Pine (1994), bones Blue Pastures (1995), and the essays in The have always preferred. Leaf and the Cloud (2000). It is the story of endless good fortune. For Oliver, no natural fact is too humble It says to oblivion: not me! to afford insights, or what Emerson called “spiritual facts,” as in her poem “The Black It is the light at the center of every cell. Snake” (1979). Though the speaker, as a driver It is what sent the snake coiling and of an automobile, is implicated in the snake’s flowing forward demise, she stops and removes the snake’s happily all spring through the green leaves body from the road — an act of respect. She before recognizes the often vilified snake, with its he came to the road. negative associations with the biblical book of Genesis and death, as a “dead brother,” and she Oliver’s poems find countless ways to cel- appreciates his gleaming beauty. The snake ebrate the simple yet transcendent fact of being teaches her death, but also a new genesis and alive. In “Hummingbird Pauses at the Trumpet delight in life, and she drives on, thinking Vine” (1992), she reminds us that most of exis- about the “light at the center of every cell” that tence is “waiting or remembering,” since most entices all created life “forward / happily all of the world’s time we are “not here, / not born spring” — always unaware of where we will yet, or died.” An intensity reminiscent of the meet our end. This carpe diem is an invitation late poet burns through many of to a more rooted, celebratory awareness. Oliver’s poems, such as “Poppies” (1991-1992). This poem begins with a description of the When the black snake “orange flares; swaying / in the wind, their flashed onto the morning road, congregations are a levitation.” It ends with a and the truck could not swerve — taunt at death: “what can you do / about it — death, that is how it happens. deep, blue night?”

Now he lies looped and useless THE POETRY OF WIT as an old bicycle tire. n the spectrum from poetry of self to I stop the car poetry of the world, wit — including and carry him into the bushes. Ohumor, a sense of the incongruous, and flights of fancy — lies close to world. Wit He is as cool and gleaming depends on the intersection of two or more as a braided whip, he is as beautiful and frames of reference and on acute discrimina- quiet tion; this is a worldly poetry. as a dead brother. Poetry of wit locates the poetic occasion in I leave him under the leaves everyday life raised to a humorous, surrealistic, or allegorical pitch. Usually the language is and drive on, thinking colloquial so that the fantastic situations have about death: its suddenness, the heft of reality. Older masters of this vein its terrible weight, are Charles Simic and Mark Strand; among its certain coming. Yet under younger poets, its practitioners include Ste- 131 phen Dobyns and Mark Halliday. Photo © Nancy Crampton we are putting on our shoes or The everyday language, humor, making a sandwich, they are surprising action, and exaggera- looking down through the glass- tion of this poetry makes it unusu- bottom boats of heaven as they ally accessible, though the best of row themselves slowly through this work only gives up its secrets eternity. on repeated rereading. They watch the tops of our Billy Collins (1941- ) heads moving below on earth, The most influential of the and when we lie down in a poets of wit today is Billy Collins. Billy Collins field or on a couch, drugged Collins, who was the U.S. poet lau- perhaps by the hum of a warm reate for 2001-2003, is refreshing afternoon, they think we are and exhilarating, as was Frank looking back at them, O’Hara a generation earlier. Like O’Hara, Collins uses everyday lan- which makes them lift their guage to record the myriad details oars and fall silent and wait, of everyday life, freely mixing like parents, for us to close our quotidian events (eating, doing eyes. chores, writing) with cultural ref- erences. His humor and original- THE POETRY OF HISTORY ity have brought him a wide audi- oetry inspired by history is ence. Though some have faulted in some ways the most dif- Collins for being too accessible, Pficult and ambitious of all. his unpredictable flights of fancy In this vein, poets venture into the open out into mystery. world with a lower-case “i,” open Collins’s is a domesticated form to all that has shaped them. The of surrealism. His best poems, too faith of these poets is in experi- long to reproduce here, quickly ence. propel the imagination up a stair- An older poet working in this way of increasingly surrealistic vein is Michael S. Harper, who situations, at the end offering an interweaves African-American emotional landing, a mood one history with his family’s experi- can rest on, if temporarily, like a ences in a form of montage. Frank final modulation in music. The Robert Pinsky Bidart has similarly merged politi- short poem “The Dead,” from Sail- cal events such as the assassina- ing Alone Around the Room: New tion of U.S. President John F. Ken- and Selected Poems (2001), gives nedy with personal life. Ed Hirsch, some sense of Collins’s fanciful Gjertrud Schnackenberg, and Rita flight and gentle settling down, as Dove imbue some of their finest if a bird had come to rest. poems with similarly irreducible memories of their personal pasts, Photo © Christopher Felver / The dead are always looking CORBIS centering on touchstone moments. down on us, they say, while 132 Robert Pinsky (1940- ) unstrung. Among the most accomplished of the poets The joined arcs made the shape of birth of history is Robert Pinsky. U.S. poet laure- and craving ate from 1997 to 2000, Pinsky links colloquial And the welded-open shape kept mouthing speech to technical virtuosity. He is insistently O. local and personal, but his poems extend into historical and national contexts. Like the works Ossified cords held the corners together of Elizabeth Bishop, his conversational poetry In groined spirals pleated like a summer wields seeming artlessness with subtle art. dress. Pinsky’s influential book of criticism, The But where was the limber grin, the gash Situation of Poetry (l976), recommended a of pleasure? poetry with the virtues of prose, and he carried Infinitesimal mouths bore it away, out that mandate in his book-length poem An Explanation of America (l979) and in History of The beach scrubbed and etched and My Heart (l984), though later books, including pickled it clean. The Want Bone (l990), unleash a lyricism also But O I love you it sings, my little my seen in his impressive collected poems entitled country The Figured Wheel (1996). My food my parent my child I want you my The title poem from The Figured Wheel is own among Pinsky’s finest works, but it is difficult My flower my fin my life my lightness my to excerpt. The brief poem “The Want Bone,” O. suggested by the jaw of a shark seen on a friend’s mantel, displays Pinsky’s technical THE POETRY OF THE WORLD brilliance (internal rhymes like “limber grin,” n the furthest extreme of the poetic slant rhymes as in “together” and “pleasure,” spectrum lies poetry of the world, pre- and polysyllables pattering lightly against a Osided over by the spirit of Elizabeth drum-firm iambic line). The poem begins by Bishop. This is a downbeat, or outcast, poetry describing the shark as the “tongue of the that at first reading seems anti-poetical. It may waves” and ends with its singing — from the seem too prosaic, too caught up with mere realm of the dead — a paean of endless desire. incidentals, to count for anything lasting. The The ego or self may be critiqued here: It is a hesitant delivery is the opposite of oracular, pointless hunger, an O or zero, and its satisfac- and the subject at first seems lost or merely tion a hopeless illusion. descriptive. Nevertheless, the best of this poetry cuts through multiple perspectives, questions The tongue of the waves tolled in the the very notion of personal identity, and under- earth’s bell. stands suffering from an ethical perspective. Blue rippled and soaked in the fire of blue. Older poets writing in this manner are Rich- The dried mouthbones of a shark in the ard Hugo, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Phil Levine. hot swale Contemporary voices such as Ellen Bryant Gaped on nothing but sand on either side. Voigt and Yusef Komunyakaa have been influ- enced by their almost naturalistic vision, and The bone tasted of nothing and smelled of they are drawn to violence and its far-reaching nothing, shadow. A scalded toothless harp, uncrushed, 133 Yusef Komunyakaa (1947- ) go. Louisiana-raised Yusef Komun- I turn that way — I’m inside yakaa, born James Willie Brown, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Jr., served in Vietnam directly again, depending on the light after graduation from secondary to make a difference. school, winning a Bronze Star. I go down the 58,022 names, He was a reporter for the military half-expecting to find newspaper Southern Cross, and my own in letters like smoke. has written vivid poems set in the I touch the name Andrew war. Often, as in “Camouflaging Johnson; the Chimera” (1988), there is an I see the booby trap’s white element of suspense, danger, and flash. ambush. Komunyakaa has spoken Names shimmer on a woman’s of the need for poetry to afford blouse a “series of surprises.” Like the but when she walks away poet Michael S. Harper, he often the names stay on the wall. uses jazz methods, and he has Brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s written of the poetry’s need for wings cutting across my stare. free improvisation and openness The sky. A plane in the sky. to other voices, as in a musicians’ A white vet’s image floats “jam session.” He has co-edited closer to me, then his pale eyes The Jazz Poetry Anthology (1991, look through mine. I’m a 1996) and published a volume of window. essays entitled Blue Notes (2000), He’s lost his right arm while he first gained recognition inside the stone. In the black with Neon Vernacular (1993). mirror One of Komunyakaa’s endur- a woman’s trying to erase ing themes concerns identity. His names: poem “Facing It” (1988), set at No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair. the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., begins with a CYBER-POETRY Yusef Komunyakaa riff that merges his own face with t the extreme end of the memories and reflected faces: poetic spectrum, cyber- Apoetry is a new worldly My black face fades, poetry. For many young American hiding inside the black granite. adults, the book is secondary to I said I wouldn’t, the computer monitor, and reading dammit: No tears. a spoken human language comes I’m stone. I’m flesh. after exposure to binary codes. My clouded reflection eyes me Computer-based literature has like a bird of prey, the profile taken shape since the early 1990s; of night with the advent of the World Wide Photo: Jamer Keyser / Time Life slanted against morning. I turn Pictures / Getty Images Web, some experimental poetry this way — the stone lets me has shifted its focus to a paperless, 134 virtual, global realm. Recurring motifs in cyber-poetry include self-reflexive critiques of technologically driven work; computer icons, graphics, and hyper- text links festoon vast webs of relationships, while dimensional layers — animation, sonics, hyperlinked texts — proliferate in multiple directions, sometimes created by multiple and unknown authors. Outlets for this work come and go; they have included the CD-ROM poetry magazines The Little Magazine, Cyberpoetry, Java Poetry, New River, Parallel, and many others. Writing From the New Coast: Technique (1993), an influential gathering of poetic statements accompanied by a collection of poems edited by Juliana Spahr and Peter Gizzi, helped catalyze experimen- tal poetry in the electronic age. It celebrates irreducible multiplicity and the primacy of historical context, attacking the very notions of identity and universality as repressive bour- geois constructs. Jorie Graham and other experimental poets of self have arrived at similar viewpoints, coming from opposite directions. Ultimate or contingent, poems exist at the intersection of word and world. ■

135 , murder mysteries — alongside nonfiction science books by the anthropologist chapter Jared Diamond, popular sociology by The New Yorker magazine writer Malcolm Gladwell, and accounts of drug rehabilitation and crime. 10 In the last category was a reprint of Truman Contemporary Capote’s groundbreaking In Cold Blood, a 1965 American “nonfiction novel” that blurs the distinction Literature between high literature and journalism and had recently been made into a film. Books by non-American authors and books on international themes were also prominent on the list. Afghan-American Khaled Hosseini’s he United States is one of the most searing novel, The Kite Runner, tells of child- diverse nations in the world. Its dynamic hood friends in Kabul separated by the rule Tpopulation of about 300 million boasts of the Taliban, while Azar Nafisi’s memoir, more than 30 million foreign-born individuals Reading Lolita in Teheran, poignantly recalls who speak numerous languages and dialects. teaching great works of to Some one million new immigrants arrive each young women in Iran. A third novel, Arthur year, many from Asia and . Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha (made into a Literature in the United States today is like- movie), recounts a Japanese woman’s life dur- wise dazzlingly diverse, exciting, and evolving. ing World War II. New voices have arisen from many quarters, In addition, the best-seller list reveals the challenging old ideas and adapting literary popularity of religious themes. According to traditions to suit changing conditions of the Publishers Weekly, 2001 was the first year that national life. Social and economic advances Christian-themed books topped the sales lists have enabled previously underrepresented in both fiction and nonfiction. Among the hard- groups to express themselves more fully, while cover best-sellers of that exemplary Sunday in technological innovations have created a fast- 2006, we find ’s novel The DaVinci moving public forum. Reading clubs proliferate, Code and Anne Rice’s tale Christ the Lord: Out and book fairs, literary festivals, and “poetry of Egypt. slams” (events where youthful poets compete Beyond the Times’ best-seller list, chain in performing their poetry) attract enthusiastic bookstores offer separate sections for major audiences. Selection of a new work for a book religions including Christianity, Islam, Juda- club can launch an unknown writer into the ism, Buddhism, and sometimes Hinduism. limelight overnight. In the Women’s Literature section of book- On a typical Sunday the list of best-selling stores one finds works by a “Third Wave” of books in the New York Times Book Review feminists, a movement that usually refers to testifies to the extraordinary diversity of the young women in their 20s and 30s who have current American literary scene. In January, grown up in an era of widely accepted social 2006, for example, the list of paperback best- equality in the United States. Third Wave femi- sellers included “genre” fiction — steamy nists feel sufficiently empowered to emphasize romances by Nora Roberts, a new thriller by the individuality of choices women make. Often

136 associated in the popular mind culture through foreign perspec- with a return to tradition and tives. Multiethnic writing contin- child-rearing, lipstick, and “femi- ues to mine rich veins, and as nine” styles, these young women each ethnic literature matures, it have reclaimed the word “girl” creates its own traditions. Cre- — some decline to call them- ative nonfiction and memoir have selves feminist. What is often flourished. The short story genre called “chick lit” is a flourishing has gained luster, and the “short” offshoot. Bridget Jones’s Diary by short story has taken root. A new the British writer Helen Fielding generation of playwrights con- and Candace Bushnell’s Sex and ost- tinues the American tradition of the City featuring urban single Pmodern authors exploring current social issues on women with romance in mind question external stage. There is not space here in have spawned a popular genre structures, this brief survey to do justice to among young women. whether political, the glittering diversity of American Nonfiction writers also exam- literature today. Instead, one must ine the phenomenon of post-fem- philosophical, or consider general developments and inism. The Mommy Myth (2004) artistic. They tend representative figures. by Susan Douglas and Meredith to distrust the Michaels analyzes the role of the master-narratives POSTMODERNISM, media in the “mommy wars,” CULTURE AND IDENTITY while Jennifer Baumgardner of modernist ostmodernism suggests and Amy Richards’ lively Mani- thought, which fragmentation: collage, festA: Young Women, Feminism, they see as Phybridity, and the use of and the Future (2000) discusses politically various voices, scenes, and iden- women’s activism in the age of tities. Postmodern authors ques- the Internet. Caitlin Flanagan, a suspect. tion external structures, whether magazine writer who calls her- political, philosophical, or artistic. self an “anti-feminist,” explores They tend to distrust the master- conflicts between domestic life narratives of modernist thought, and professional life for women. which they see as politically sus- Her 2004 essay in The Atlantic, pect. Instead, they mine popular “How Serfdom Saved the Women’s culture genres, especially science Movement,” an account of how fiction, spy, and detective stories, professional women depend on becoming, in effect, archaeologists immigrant women of a lower class of pop culture. for their childcare, triggered an Don DeLillo’s , struc- enormous debate. tured in 40 sections like video It is clear that American lit- clips, highlights the dilemmas of erature at the turn of the 21st representation: “Were people this century has become democratic dumb before television?” one char- and heterogeneous. Regionalism acter wonders. David Foster Wal- has flowered, and international, lace’s gargantuan (1,000 pages, or “global,” writers refract U.S. 900 footnotes) mixes 137 up wheelchair-bound terrorists, drug addicts, a young blind person to study in the United and futuristic descriptions of a country like States is unforgettable. Irish American Frank the United States. In Galatea 2.2, Richard Pow- McCourt’s mesmerizing Angela’s Ashes (1996) ers interweaves sophisticated technology with recalls his childhood of poverty, family alcohol- private lives. ism, and intolerance in Ireland with a surpris- Influenced by Thomas Pynchon, postmodern ing warmth and humor. ’s Hand to authors fabricate complex plots that demand Mouth (1997) tells of poverty that blocked his imaginative leaps. Often they flatten historical writing and poisoned his soul. depth into one dimension; William Vollmann’s novels slide between vastly different times and The Short Story: New Directions places as easily as a computer mouse moves The story genre had to a degree lost its luster between texts. by the late l970s. Experimental metafiction stories had been penned by , : Memoir and Robert Coover, John Barth, and William Gass Autobiography and were no longer on the cutting edge. Large- any writers hunger for open, less circulation weekly magazines that had show- canonical genres as vehicles for their cased short fiction, such as the Saturday Eve- Mpostmodern visions. The rise of global, ning Post, had collapsed. multiethnic, and women’s literature — works It took an outsider from the Pacific North- in which writers reflect on experiences shaped west — a gritty realist in the tradition of by culture, color, and gender — has endowed Ernest Hemingway — to revitalize the genre. autobiography and memoir with special allure. (l938-l988) had studied under While the boundaries of the terms are debated, the late novelist John Gardner, absorbing Gard- a memoir is typically shorter or more limited ner’s passion for accessible artistry fused with in scope, while an autobiography makes some moral vision. Carver rose above alcoholism and attempt at a comprehensive overview of the harsh poverty to become the most influential writer’s life. story writer in the United States. In his collec- Postmodern fragmentation has rendered tions Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (l976), problematic for many writers the idea of a What We Talk About When We Talk About Love finished self that can be articulated success- (l981), Cathedral (l983), and Where I’m Calling fully in one sweep. Many turn to the memoir From (l988), Carver follows confused working in their struggles to ground an authentic self. people through dead-end jobs, alcoholic binges, What constitutes authenticity, and to what and rented rooms with an understated, mini- extent the writer is allowed to embroider upon malist style of writing that carries tremendous his or her memories of experience in works of impact. nonfiction, are hotly contested subjects of writ- Linked with Carver is novelist and story ers’ conferences. writer Ann Beattie (1947- ), whose middle-class Writers themselves have contributed pen- characters often lead aimless lives. Her stories etrating observations on such questions in reference political events and popular songs, books about writing, such as The Writing Life and offer distilled glimpses of life decade by (1989) by Annie Dillard. Noteworthy memoirs decade in the changing United States. Recent include The Stolen Light (1989) by Ved Mehta. collections are Park City (l998) and Perfect Born in India, Mehta was blinded at the age Recall (2001). of three. His account of flying alone as Inspired by Carver and Beattie, writers 138 crafted impressive neorealist to react. Authors deploy clever story collections in the mid-l980s, narrative or linguistic patterns; including Amy Hempel’s Reasons in some cases, the short short to Live (1985), David Leavitt’s resembles a prose poem. Family Dancing (l984), Richard Supporters claim that short Ford’s Rock Springs (l987), Bob- shorts’ “reduced ” bie Ann Mason’s Shiloh and Other mirror postmodern conditions in Stories (1982), and Lorrie Moore’s which borders seem closer togeth- Self-Help (l985). Other notewor- er. They find elegant simplicity in thy figures include the late Andre these brief fictions. Detractors see Dubus, author of Dancing After short shorts as a symptom of cul- Hours (l996), and the prolific John tural decay, a general loss of read- Updike, whose recent story col- ing ability, and a limited attention lections include The Afterlife and span. In any event, short shorts Other Stories (l994). have found a certain niche: They Today, as is discussed later in are easy to forward in an e-mail, this chapter, writers with ethnic and they lend themselves to elec- and global roots are informing the tronic distribution. They make story genre with non-Western and manageable in-class readings and tribal approaches, and storytell- models for writing assignments. ing has commanded critical and popular attention. The versatile, Drama primal tale is the basis of several Contemporary drama mingles hybridized forms: novels that are realism with fantasy in postmod- constructed of interlinking short ern works that fuse the personal stories or vignettes, and creative and the political. The exuberant nonfictions that interweave his- (l956- ) has won tory and personal history with acclaim for his prize-winning fiction. Angels in America plays, which viv- idly render the AIDS epidemic and The Short Short Story: the psychic cost of closeted homo- Sudden or Flash Fiction Raymond Carver sexuality in the 1980s and 1990s. The short short is a very brief Part One: Millennium Approaches story, often only one or two pages (1991) and its companion piece, long. It is sometimes called “flash Part Two: Perestroika (1992), fiction” or “sudden fiction” after together last seven hours. Combin- the l986 anthology Sudden Fic- ing comedy, melodrama, political tion, edited by Robert Shapard and commentary, and special effects, James Thomas. they interweave various plots and In short short stories, there is marginalized characters. little space to develop a charac- Women dramatists have ter. Rather, the element of plot attained particular success in Photo © Marion Ettlinger / is central: A crisis occurs, and a CORBIS OUTLINE recent years. Prominent among sketched-in character simply has them is Beth Henley (1952- ), 139 from Mississippi, known for her portraits of or code successfully express the nation. No southern women. Henley gained national rec- one city defines artistic movements, as New ognition for her Crimes of the Heart (l978), York City once did. Vital arts communities have which was made into a film in l986, a warm arisen in many cities, and electronic technology play about three eccentric sisters whose affec- has de-centered literary life. tion helps them survive disappointment and As economic shifts and social change rede- despair. Later plays, including The Miss Fire- fine America, a yearning for tradition has cracker Contest (1980), The Wake of Jamey set in. The most sustaining and distinctively Foster (l982), The Debutante Ball (l985), and American myths partake of the land, and writ- The Lucky Spot (l986), explore southern forms ers are turning to the Civil War South, the Wild of socializing — beauty contests, funerals, West of the rancher, the rooted life of the mid- coming-out parties, and dance halls. western farmer, the southwestern tribal home- Wendy Wasserstein (1950-2006), from New land, and other localized realms where the real York, wrote early comedies including When and the mythic mingle. Of course, more than Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth (l975), a parody one region has inspired many writers; they of beauty contests. She is best known for are included here in regions formative to their The Heidi Chronicles (l988), about a success- vision or characteristic of their mature work. ful woman professor who confesses to deep unhappiness and adopts a baby. Wasserstein The Northeast continued exploring women’s aspirations in The scenic Northeast, region of lengthy win- The Sisters Rosensweig (l991), An American ters, dense deciduous forests, and low rugged Daughter (1997), and Old Money (2000). mountain chains, was the first English-speak- Younger dramatists such as African Ameri- ing colonial area, and it retains the feel of can Suzan-Lori Parks (1964- ) build on the England. Boston, Massachusetts, is the cultural successes of earlier women. Parks, who grew powerhouse, boasting research institutions up on various army bases in the United States and scores of universities. Many New England and Germany, deals with political issues in writers depict characters that continue the experimental works whose timelessness and Puritan legacy, embodying the middle-class ritualism recall Irish-born writer Samuel Beck- Protestant work ethic and progressive commit- ett. Her best-known work, The America Play ment to social reform. In the rural areas, small, (1991), revolves around the assassination of independent farmers struggle to survive in the President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes world of global marketing. Booth. She returns to this theme in Topdog/ Novelist Joyce Carol Oates sets many of her Underdog (2001), which tells the story of two gothic works in upstate New York. Richard African-American brothers named Lincoln and Russo (1949- ), in his appealing Booth and their lifetime of sibling rivalry. (2001), evokes life in a dying mill town in Maine, the state where Stephen King (1947- ) REGIONALISM locates his popular horror novels. pervasive regionalist sensibility The bittersweet fictions of Massachusetts- has gained strength in American lit- based Sue Miller (1943- ), such as The Good Aerature in the past two decades. Mother (1986), examine counterculture life- Decentralization expresses the postmodern styles in Cambridge, a city known for cultural U.S. condition, a trend most evident in fiction and social diversity, intellectual vitality, and writing; no longer does any one viewpoint technological innovation. Another writer 140 from Massachusetts, Anita Diamant (1951- ), of a “next generation.” Donald Antrim (1959- ) earned popular acclaim with The Red Tent satirizes academic life in The Hundred Broth- (1997), a feminist historical novel based on the ers (1997), set in an enormous library from biblical story of Dinah. which one can see homeless people. Rick (1940- ), from poor, rural Moody (1961- ) is best known for his novel New Hampshire, has turned from experimental The Ice Storm (1994). The novels of Jeffrey writing to more realistic works, such as Afflic- Eugenides (1960- ) include (2002), tion (1989), his novel about working-class New which narrates the experience of a hermaphro- Hampshire characters. For Banks, acknowl- dite. Impressive stylists with off-center visions edging one’s roots is a fundamental part of bordering on the absurd, Antrim, Moody, and one’s identity. In Affliction, the narrator scorns Eugenides carry further the opposite traditions people who have “gone to Florida, , of John Updike and Thomas Pynchon. Often and California, bought a trailer or a condo, linked with these three younger novelists is the turned their skin to leather playing shuffle- exuberant postmodernist board all day and waited to die.” Banks’s recent (1962- ). Wallace, who was born in Ithaca, New works include Cloudsplitter (1998), a historical York, gained acclaim for his complex serio- novel about the 19th-century abolitionist John comic novel (1987) Brown. and the pop culture-saturated stories in Girl The striking stylist (1935- ) With Curious Hair (1989). crafts stories of struggling northern New Eng- landers in Heart Songs (1988). Her best novel, The Mid-Atlantic (1993), is set even further The fertile Mid-Atlantic states, dominated north, in Newfoundland, Canada. Proulx has by New York City with its great harbor, remain also spent years in the West, and one of her a gateway for waves of immigrants. Today the short stories inspired the 2006 movie “Broke- region’s varied economy encompasses finance, back Mountain.” commerce, and shipping, as well as advertising (1928- ) has written a and fashion. New York City is the home of the dense and entwined cycle of novels set in Alba- publishing industry, as well as prestigious art ny, in northern New York State, including his galleries and museums. acclaimed Ironweed. The title of his insider’s Don DeLillo (1936- ), from New York City, history of Albany gives some idea of his gritty, began as an advertising writer, and his nov- colloquial style and teeming cast of often unsa- els explore consumerism among their many vory characters: O Albany! Improbable City of themes. Americana (1971) concludes: “To con- Political Wizards, Fearless Ethnics, Spectacular sume in America is not to buy, it is to dream.” Aristocrats, Splendid Nobodies, and Underrated DeLillo’s protagonists seek identities based Scoundrels (1983). Kennedy has been hailed as on images. White Noise (1985) concerns Jack an elder statesman of a small Irish-American Gladney and his family, whose experience is literary movement that includes the late Mary mediated by various texts, especially advertise- McCarthy, Mary Gordon, Alice McDermott, and ments. One passage suggests DeLillo’s style: Frank McCourt. “…the emptiness, the sense of cosmic dark- Three writers who studied at Brown Uni- ness. Master-card, Visa, American Express.” versity in Rhode Island around the same time Fragments of advertisements that drift unat- and took classes with British writer Angela tached through the book emerge from Gladney’s Carter are often mentioned as the nucleus media-parroting subconscious, generating 141 the subliminal white noise of the viewpoint on the Holocaust. The title. DeLillo’s later novels include droll, conversational Collected Sto- politics and historical figures: ries (l994) of Grace Paley (1922- ) (1988) envisions the assas- capture the syncopated rhythms sination of President John F. Ken- of the city. nedy as an explosion of frustrated Younger writers associated with consumerism; Underworld (1997) life in the fast lane are Jay McIn- spins a web of interconnections erney (1955- ), whose Story of My between a baseball game and a Life (1988) is set in the drug-driv- nuclear bomb in Kazakhstan. en youth culture of the boom-time In multidimensional, polyglot 1980s, and satirist Tama Janowitz New York, fictions featuring a (1957- ). Their portraits of loneli- shadowy postmodern city abound. ness and addiction in the anony- An example is the labyrinthine mous hard-driving city recall the New York trilogy City of Glass works of John Cheever. (1985), Ghosts (1986), and The Nearby suburbs claim the Locked Room (1986) by Paul Auster imaginations of still other writers. (1947- ). In this work, inspired by Mary Gordon (1949- ) sets many of Samuel Beckett and the detective her female-centered works in her novel, an isolated writer at work on birthplace, Long Island, as does a detective story addresses Paul Alice McDermott (l953- ), whose Auster, who is writing about Cer- novel (1998) vantes. The trilogy suggests that dissects the failed promise of an “reality” is but a text constructed alcoholic. via fiction, thus erasing the tradi- Mid-Atlantic domestic realists tional border between reality and include Richard Bausch (1945- ), illusion. Auster’s trilogy, in effect, from Baltimore, author of In the self-deconstructs. Similarly, Kathy Night Season (1998) and the sto- Acker (1948-1997) juxtaposed pas- ries in Someone to Watch Over Me sages from works by Cervantes (l999). Bausch writes of fragment- and Charles Dickens with science ed families, as does fiction in postmodern Don DeLillo (1941- ), also from Baltimore, such as Empire of the Senseless whose eccentric characters nego- (1988), a quest through time and tiate disorganized, isolated lives. space for an individual voice. A master of detail and understated New York City hosts many wit, Tyler writes in spare, quiet groups of writers with shared language. Her best-known novels interests. Jewish women include include Dinner at the Homesick noted essayist Restaurant (1982) and The Acci- (1928- ), who hails from the dental Tourist (1985), which was Bronx, the setting of her novel made into a film in l988. The The Puttermesser Papers (l997). Amateur Marriage (2004) sets a Her haunting novel The Shawl Photo © Nancy Crampton divorce against a panorama of (1989) gives a young mother’s American life over 60 years. 142 African Americans have made (1962 - ) has written distinctive contributions. Feminist the novels Platitudes (1988), Home essayist and poet Audre Lorde’s Repairs (1993), and Right Here, autobiographical Zami: A New Right Now (1999), screenplays Spelling of My Name (l982) is an including “The Tuskegee Airmen” earthy account of a black woman’s (1995), and a l989 essay “The New experience in the United States. Black Aesthetic” discerning a new Bebe Moore Campbell (l950- ), multiethnic sensibility among the from , writes feisty younger generation. domestic novels including Your Writers from Washington, D.C., Blues Ain’t Like Mine (l992). Gloria four hours’ drive south from New Naylor (l950- ), from New York York City, include Ann Beattie City, explores different women’s (1947- ), whose short stories were lives in The Women of Brewster mentioned earlier. Her slice-of- Place (1982), the novel that made life novels include Picturing Will her name. (1989), Another You (l995), and Critically acclaimed John My Life, Starring Dara Falcon Edgar Wideman (l941- ) grew (1997). up in Homewood, a black sec- America’s capital city is home to tion of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. many political novelists. Ward Just His Faulknerian Homewood Tril- (1935- ) sets his novels in Wash- ogy — Hiding Place (1981), Dam- ington’s swirling military, politi- ballah (1981), and Sent for You cal, and intellectual circles. Chris- Yesterday (1983) — uses shift- topher Buckley (1952- ) spikes ing viewpoints and linguistic play his humorous political satire with to render black experience. His local details; his Little Green Men best-known short piece, “Broth- (1999) is a spoof about official ers and Keepers” (1984), concerns responses to aliens from outer his relationship with his impris- space. (1963- ), oned brother. In The Cattle Killing who grew up in the Washington (l996), Wideman returns to the suburbs but later moved to Califor- Anne Tyler subject of his famous early story nia, depicts youths on the dazzling “Fever” (l989). His novel Two Cit- brink of adulthood in The Myster- ies (l998) takes place in Pitts- ies of Pittsburgh (1988); his novel burgh and Philadelphia. inspired by a comic book, The David Bradley (1950- ), also Amazing Adventures of Kavalier from Pennsylvania, set his histori- and Clay (2000), mixes glamour cal novel The Chaneysville Incident and craft in the manner of F. Scott (l981) on the “underground rail- Fitzgerald. road,” a network of citizens who provided opportunity and assis- tance for southern black slaves to Photo: Diana Walker / find freedom in the North at the Getty Images time of the U.S. Civil War. 143 The South father died in the conflict. The South comprises dispa- Lee Smith (1944- ) brings the rate regions in the southeastern people of the Appalachian Moun- United States, from the cool Appa- tains into poignant focus, drawing lachian Mountain chain and the on the well of American broad Mississippi River valley to in her novel The Devil’s Dream the steamy cypress bayous of the (l992). Jayne Anne Phillips (1952- Gulf Coast. Cotton and the planta- ) writes stories of misfits — Black tion culture of slavery made the Tickets (1979) — and a novel, South the richest section in the Machine Dreams (1984), set in the country before the U.S. Civil War hardscrabble mountains of West (1860-1865). But after the war, Virginia. the region sank into poverty and The novels of Jill McCorkle isolation that lasted a century. (1958- ) capture her North Car- Today, the South is part of what olina background. Her mystery- is called the Sun Belt, the fastest enshrouded love story Carolina growing part of the United States. Moon (1996) explores a years-old The most traditional of the suicide in a coastal village where regions, the South is proud of relentless waves erode the founda- its distinctive heritage. Endur- tions from derelict beach houses. ing themes include family, land, The lush native South Carolina history, religion, and race. Much of Dorothy Allison (1949- ) fea- southern writing has a depth and tures in her tough autobiographi- humanity arising from the devas- cal novel Bastard Out of Carolina tating losses of the Civil War and (1992), seen through the eyes of a soul searching over the region’s dirt-poor, illegitimate 12-year-old legacy of slavery. tomboy nicknamed Bone. Missis- sippian (1935- ) he South, with its rich oral sets most of her colloquial Collect- tradition, has nourished ed Stories (2000) in small hamlets many women storytellers. along the Mississippi River and in T Bobbie Ann Mason In the upper South, Bobbie Ann New Orleans, Louisiana. Mason (1940- ) from Kentucky, Southern novelists mining male writes of the changes wrought experience include the acclaimed by mass culture. In her most Cormac McCarthy (l933- ), whose famous story, “Shiloh” (1982), a early novels such as (1979) couple must change their rela- are archetypically southern tales of tionship or separate as housing dark emotional depths, ignorance, subdivisions spread “across west- and poverty, set against the green ern Kentucky like an oil slick.” hills and valleys of eastern Tennes- Mason’s acclaimed short novel In see. In l974, McCarthy moved to El Paso, Texas, and began to plumb Country (1985) depicts the effects Photo: Jymi Bolden / of the Vietnam War by focusing CityBeat western landscapes and tradi- on an innocent young girl whose tions. : Or the Eve- 144 ning of Redness in the West (1985) ers hail from the South, includ- is an unsparing vision of The Kid, ing Ernest Gaines from Louisiana, a 14-year-old from Tennessee who Alice Walker from Georgia, and becomes a cold-hearted killer in Florida-born Zora Neale Hurston, Mexico in the 1840s. McCarthy’s whose 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were best-selling epic Border Trilogy — Watching God, is considered to All the Pretty Horses (1992), The be the first feminist novel by an Crossing (1994), and Cities of the African American. Hurston, who Plain (1998) — invests the desert died in the 1960s, underwent a between Texas and Mexico with critical revival in the 1990s. Ish- mythic grandeur. mael Reed, born in Tennessee, Other noted authors are North set Mumbo Jumbo (1972) in New Carolinian (1950- Orleans. Margaret Walker (1915- ), author of the Civil War novel 1998), from Alabama, authored (1997); Georgia- the novel (1966) and born (1945- ), author essays On Being Female, Black, of The Great Santini (1976) and and Free (1997). Beach Music (1995); and Mis- Story writer James Alan sissippi novelist McPherson (l943- ), from Geor- (1942- ), known for his violent gia, depicts working-class people plots and risk-taking style. in Elbow Room (1977); A Region A very different Mississippi-born Not Home: Reflections From Exile writer is (1944- ), (2000), whose title reflects his who began writing in a Faulkneri- move to Iowa, is a memoir. Chi- an vein but is best known for his cago-born ZZ Packer (1973- ), subtle novel set in New Jersey, McPherson’s student at the Iowa The Sportswriter (1986), and its Writers’ Workshop, was raised in sequel, Independence Day (l995). the South, studied in the mid- The latter is about Frank Bas- Atlantic, and now lives in Cali- combe, a dreamy, evasive drift- fornia. Her first work, a volume er who loses all the things that of stories titled Drinking Coffee give his life meaning – a son, Richard Ford Elsewhere (2003), has made her a his dream of writing fiction, his rising star. Prolific feminist writer marriage, lovers and friends, and (born Gloria Watkins in his job. Bascombe is sensitive and Kentucky in 1952) gained fame for intelligent — his choices, he says, cultural critiques including Black are made “to deflect the pain of Looks: Race and Representation terrible regret” — and his empti- (l992) and autobiographies begin- ness, along with the anonymous ning with Bone Black: Memories of malls and bald new housing devel- Girlhood (1996). opments that he endlessly cruises Experimental poet and schol- through, mutely testify to Ford’s ar of slave narratives (Freeing Photo © Don MacLellan / vision of a national malaise. CORBIS SYGMA the Soul, l999), Harryette Mullen Many African-American writ- (1953- ) writes multivocal poetry 145 collections such as Muse & Drudge (1995). Nov- (1949-), whose (1991) is a elist and story writer Percival Everett (1956- ), contemporary, feminist version of the King who was originally from Georgia, writes subtle, Lear story. The lost kingdom is a large family open-ended fiction; recent volumes are Frenzy farm held for four generations, and the forces (l997) and Glyph (1999). that undermine it are a concatenation of the Many African-American writers whose fami- personal and the political. Kent Haruf (1943- ) lies followed patterns of internal migration creates stronger characters in his sweeping were born outside the South but return to it novel of the prairie, Plainsong (1999). for inspiration. Famed science-fiction novelist (1952- ), from Ohio, Octavia Butler (l947- ), from California, draws began as a domestic novelist in A Home at the on the theme of bondage and the slave narra- End of the World (1990). (1998), tive tradition in Wild Seed (l980); her Parable made into a movie, brilliantly interweaves Vir- of the Sower (l993) treats addiction. Sherley ginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway with two women’s Anne Williams (l944- ), also from California, lives in different eras. Stuart Dybek (1942- ) writes of interracial friendship between south- has written sparkling story collections includ- ern women in slave times in her fact-based his- ing I Sailed With Magellan (2003), about his torical novel Dessa Rose (l986). New York-born childhood on the South Side of Chicago. Randall Kenan (l963- ) was raised in North Younger urban novelists include Jonathan Carolina, the setting of his novel A Visitation of Franzen (1959- ), who was born in Missouri Spirits (l989) and his stories Let the Dead Bury and raised in Illinois. Franzen’s best-selling Their Dead (l992). His Walking on Water: Black panoramic novel (2001) — American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First titled for a downturn in the stock market — Century (1999) is nonfiction. evokes midwestern family life over several generations. The novel chronicles the physical The Midwest and mental deterioration of a patriarch suffer- The vast plains of America’s midsection — ing from Parkinson’s disease; as in Smiley’s A much of it between the and Thousand Acres, the entire family is affected. the Mississippi River — scorch in summer Franzen pits individuals against large con- and freeze in scouring winter storms. The area spiracies in The Twenty-Seventh City (1988) was opened up with the completion of the Erie and Strong Motion (1992). Some critics link Canal in 1825, attracting Northern European Franzen with Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, settlers eager for land. Early 20th-century writ- and David Foster Wallace as a writer of con- ers with roots in the Midwest include Ernest spiracy novels. Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, The Midwest has produced a wide variety and Theodore Dreiser. of writing, much of it informed by interna- Midwestern fiction is grounded in real- tional influences. (1957- ), ism. The domestic novel has flourished in from Illinois, has lived in Thailand and The recent years, portraying webs of relationships Netherlands. His challenging postmodern nov- between kin, the local community, and the els interweave personal lives with technology. environment. Agribusiness and development Galatea 2.2 (1995) updates the mad scientist threaten family farms in some parts of the theme; the scientists in this case are computer region, and some novels sound the death knell programmers. of farming as a way of life. Domestic novelists include 146 frican-American novelist Charles the region’s economic , and the Anglo Johnson (1948- ), an ex-cartoonist tradition in the region emphasizes an indepen- Awho was born in Illinois and moved dent frontier spirit. to Seattle, Washington, draws on disparate Western literature often incorporates con- traditions such as Zen and the slave narra- flict. Traditional enemies in the 19th-century tive in novels such as Oxherding Tale (1982). West are the cowboy versus the Indian, the Johnson’s accomplished, picaresque novel farmer/settler versus the outlaw, the rancher (1990) blends the international versus the cattle rustler. Recent antagonists history of slavery with a sea tale echoing Moby- include the oilman versus the ecologist, the Dick. Dreamer (1998) re-imagines the assas- developer versus the archaeologist, and the sination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. citizen activist versus the representative of (1945- ), born in Illinois nuclear and military facilities, many of which and a veteran of the Vietnam War, writes about are housed in the sparsely populated West. Vietnamese refugees in Louisiana in their One writer has cast a long shadow over west- own voices in A Good Scent From a Strange ern writing, much as William Faulkner did in Mountain (1992). His stories in Tabloid Dreams the South. (1909-1993) records (1996) — inspired by zany news headlines — the passing of the western wilderness. In his were enlarged into the humorous novel Mr. masterpiece (1971), a historian Spaceman (2000), in which a space alien learns imagines his educated grandparents’ move to English from watching television and abducts a the “wild” West. His last book surveys his life in bus full of tourists in order to interview them the West as a writer: Where the Bluebird Sings on his spaceship. to the Lemonade Springs (1992). For a quarter Native-American authors from the region century, Stegner directed ’s include part-Chippewa Louise Erdrich, who writing program; his list of students reads like has set a series of novels in her native North a “who’s who” of western writing: Raymond Dakota. (1935- ) gives a comic, Carver, Ken Kesey, Thomas McGuane, Larry postmodern portrait of contemporary Native- McMurtry, N. Scott Momaday, Tillie Olsen, American life in Darkness at Saint Louis Bear- and . Stegner also influenced the heart (1978) and Griever: An American Mon- contemporary school of writers asso- key King in China (1987). Vizenor’s Chancers ciated with McGuane, Jim Harrison, and some (2000) deals with skeletons buried outside of works of Richard Ford, as well as Texas writers their homelands. like McMurtry. Popular Syrian-American novelist Mona Simpson (1957- ), who was born in Wisconsin, ovelist Thomas McGuane (1939- ) typi- is the author of Anywhere But Here (1986), a cally depicts one man going alone into look at mother-daughter relationships. Na wild area, where he engages in an escalating conflict. His works include The The Mountain West Sporting Club (1968) and The Bushwacked The western interior of the United States Piano (1971), in which the hero travels from is a largely wild area that stretches along the Michigan to Montana on a demented mission majestic Rocky Mountains running slantwise of courtship. McGuane’s enthusiasm for hunt- from Montana at the Canadian border to the ing and fishing has led critics to compare him hills of Texas on the U.S. border with Mexico. with Ernest Hemingway. Michigan-born Jim Ranching and mining have long provided Harrison (1937- ), like McGuane, spent 147 many years living on a ranch. Mexico and Texas; she focuses on In his first novel, Wolf: A False the large cultural border between Memoir (1971), a man seeks to Mexico and the United States as view a wolf in the wild in hopes a creative, contradictory zone in of changing his life. His later, which Mexican-American women more pessimistic fiction includes must reinvent themselves. Her Legends of the Fall (1979) and The best-selling The House on Mango Road Home (1998). Street (1984), a series of interlock- In Richard Ford’s Montana ing vignettes told from a young novel Wildlife (1990), the desolate girl’s viewpoint, blazed the trail landscape counterpoints a fam- for other Latina writers and intro- ily’s breakup. Story writer, eco- duced readers to the vital Chi- critic, and nature essayist Rick cago barrio. Cisneros extended Bass (1958- ), born in Texas and her vignettes of Chicana women’s educated as a petroleum geologist, lives in Woman Hollering Creek writes of elemental confrontations (1991). Pat Mora (1942- ) offers a between outdoorsmen and nature Chicana view in Nepantla: Essays in his story collection In the Loyal From the Land in the Middle Mountains (1995) and the novel (1993), which addresses issues of Where the Sea Used To Be (1998). cultural conservation. Texan Larry McMurtry (1936- ) Native Americans from the draws on his ranch childhood in region include the late James Horseman, Pass By (1961), made Welch, whose The Heartsong of into the movie Hud in 1963, an Charging Elk (2000) imagines a unsentimental portrait of the young Sioux who survives the Bat- rancher’s world. Leaving Cheyenne tle of Little Bighorn and makes a (1963) and its successor, The Last life in France. (l947- Picture Show (1966), which was ), from and of Chickasaw also made into a film, evoke the heritage, reflects on Native-Amer- fading of a way of life in Texas ican women and nature in nov- small towns. McMurtry’s best- els including Mean Spirit (1990), known work is Larry McMurtry about the oil rush on Indian lands (1985), an archetypal western in the 1920s, and Power (1998), in epic novel about a cattle drive which an Indian woman discovers in the 1870s that became a suc- her own inner natural resources. cessful television miniseries. His recent works include Comanche The Southwest Moon (1997). For centuries, the desert South- The West of multiethnic writ- west developed under Spanish ers is less heroic and often more rule, and much of the population forward looking. One of the best- continues to speak Spanish, while known Chicana writers is San- some Native-American tribes dra Cisneros (1954- ). Born in Photo © Richard Robinson reside on ancestral lands. Rainfall Chicago, Cisneros has lived in is unreliable, and agriculture has 148 always been precarious in the ecological vision. Major authors region. Today, massive irrigation include the distinguished N. Scott projects have boosted agricultural Momaday, who inaugurated the production, and air conditioning contemporary Native-American attracts more and more people to novel with House Made of Dawn; sprawling cities like Salt Lake City his recent works include The Man in Utah and Phoenix in Arizona. Made of Words (1997). Part-Lagu- In a region where the desert na novelist Leslie Marmon Silko, is so fragile, it is not sur- the author of Ceremony, has also prising that there are many envi- published Gardens in the Dunes ronmentally oriented writers. The (1999), evoking Indigo, an orphan activist Edward Abbey (1927-1989) cared for by a white woman at the celebrated the desert wilderness turn of the 20th century. of Utah in Desert Solitaire: A Sea- Numerous Mexican-American son in the Wilderness (1968). writers reside in the Southwest, Trained as a biologist, Barba- as they have for centuries. Distinc- Kingsolver (1955- ) offers a tive concerns include the Spanish woman’s viewpoint on the South- language, the Catholic tradition, west in her popular trilogy set in folkloric forms, and, in recent Arizona: The Bean Trees (1988), years, race and gender inequality, featuring Taylor Greer, a tomboy- generational conflict, and political ish young woman who takes in a activism. The culture is strongly child; Animal Dreams patriarchal, but new female Chi- (1990); and Pigs in Heaven (1993). cana voices have arisen. The Poisonwood Bible (1998) con- The poetic nonfiction book Bor- cerns a missionary family in Afri- derlands/La Frontera: The New ca. Kingsolver addresses political Mestiza (1987), by Gloria Anzaldúa themes unapologetically, admit- (1942- ), passionately imagines ting, “I want to change the world.” a hybrid feminine consciousness The Southwest is home to the of the borderlands made up of greatest number of Native-Amer- strands from Mexican, Native- ican writers, whose works reveal American, and Anglo cultures. rich mythical storytelling, a spiri- Also noteworthy is New Mexican tual treatment of nature, and deep writer (1948- ), respect for the spoken word. The author of the story collection The most important fictional theme Last of the Menu Girls (l986). Her is healing, understood as resto- Face of an Angel (1994), about a ration of harmony. Other topics waitress who has been working include poverty, unemployment, on a manual for waitresses for 30 alcoholism, and white crimes years, has been called an authenti- against Indians. cally Latino novel in English. Native-American writing is Photo: Associated Press / more philosophical than angry, Wide World Photos California Literature however, and it projects a strong California could be a country 149 all its own with its enormous States include The Hundred Secret multiethnic population and huge Senses (1995), about half-sisters, economy. The state is known for and The Bonesetter’s Daughter spawning social experiments, (2001), about a daughter’s care for youth movements (the Beats, hip- her mother. The refreshing, witty pies, techies), and new technolo- Gish Jen (1955- ), whose par- gies (the “-coms” of Silicon ents emigrated from Shanghai, Valley) that can have unexpected authored the lively novels Typical consequences. American (1991) and Mona in the Northern California, centered Promised Land (1996). on San Francisco, enjoys a lib- Japanese-American writers eral, even utopian literary tradi- include tion seen in Jack London and (1951- ), born and raised in Cali- John Steinbeck. It is home to fornia, whose nine-year stay in hundreds of writers, including inspired Through the Arc of Native American Gerald Vizenor, the Rain Forest (1990) and Brazil- Chicana Lorna Dee Cervantes, Maru (1992). Her Tropic of Orange African Americans Alice Walker (1997) evokes polyglot Los Ange- and Ishmael Reed, and interna- les. Japanese-American fiction tionally minded writers like Nor- writers build on the early work of man Rush (1933- ), whose novel , Hisaye Yamamoto, Mating (1991) draws on his years and Janice Mirikitani. in Africa. Southern California literature Northern California houses a has a very different tradition rich tradition of Asian-American associated with the newer city writing, whose characteristic of Los Angeles, built by boost- themes include family and gen- ers and land developers despite der roles, the conflict between the obvious problem of lack of generations, and the search for water resources. Los Angeles identity. Maxine Hong Kingston was from the start a commer- helped kindle the renaissance of cial enterprise; it is not surpris- Amy Tan Asian-American writing, at the ing that Hollywood and Disney- same time popularizing the fic- land are some of its best-known tionalized memoir genre. legacies to the world. As if to Another Asian-American writer counterbalance its shiny facade, from California is novelist Amy a dystopian strain of Southern Tan, whose best-selling The Joy California writing has flourished, Luck Club became a hit film in inaugurated by Nathanael West’s 1993. Its interlinked story-like Hollywood novel, The Day of the chapters delineate the different Locust (1939). fates of four mother-and-daughter Loneliness and alienation stalk pairs. Tan’s novels spanning his- Photo: Associated Press / the creations of Gina Berriault torical China and today’s United Graylock (1926–1999), whose characters

150 eke out stunted lives lived in rented rooms and raised in the barrio of East Los Angeles. in Women in Their Beds (1996). Her works portray that city as a magnet for a (1934- ) evokes the free-floating anxiety of vast and growing number of Spanish-speaking California in her brilliant essays Slouching immigrants, particularly Mexicans and Cen- Towards Bethlehem (1968). In 2003, Didion tral Americans fleeing poverty and warfare. In penned Where I Was From, a narrative account powerful stories such as “The Cariboo Café” of how her family moved west with the frontier (1984), she interweaves Anglos, refugees from and settled in California. Another Angelino, death squads, and illegal immigrants who Dennis Cooper (1953- ), writes cool novels come to the United States in search of work. about an underworld of numb, alienated men. Thomas Pynchon best captured the strange The Northwest combination of ease and unease that is Los In recent decades, the mountainous, densely Angeles in his novel about a vast conspiracy forested Northwest, centered around Seattle of outcasts, The Crying of Lot 49. Pynchon in the state of Washington, has emerged as inspired the prolific postmodernist William a cultural center known for liberal views and Vollmann (l959- ), who has gained popularity a passionate appreciation of nature. Its most with youthful, counterculture readers for his influential recent writer was Raymond Carver. long, surrealistic meta-narratives such as the David Guterson (1956- ), born in Seattle, multivolume Seven Dreams: A Book of North gained a wide readership when his novel Snow American Landscapes, inaugurated with The Falling on Cedars (1994) was made into a Ice-Shirt (1990), about Vikings, and fantasies movie. Set in Washington’s remote, misty San like You Bright and Risen Angels: A Cartoon Juan Islands after World War II, it concerns a (1987), about a war between virtual humans Japanese American accused of a murder. In and insects. Guterson’s moving novel East of the Mountains Another ambitious novelist living in South- (1999), a heart surgeon dying of cancer goes ern California is the flamboyant T. Cora- back to the land of his youth to commit suicide, ghessan Boyle (1948- ), known for his many but discovers reasons to live. The penetrat- exuberant novels including World’s End (1987) ing novel Housekeeping (1980) by Marilynne and The Road to Wellville (1993), about John Robinson (1944- ) sees this wild, difficult ter- Harvey Kellogg, American inventor of break- ritory through female eyes. In her luminous, fast cereal. long-awaited second novel, (2004), an Mexican-American writers in Los Angeles upright elderly preacher facing death writes a sometimes focus on low-grade racial tension. family history for his young son that looks back (1944- ), author of Hunger as far as the Civil War. of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez Although she has lived in many regions, (1982), argues against bilingual education and Annie Dillard (1945- ) has made the Northwest affirmative action in Days of Obligation: An her own in her crystalline works such as the Argument With My Mexican Father (l992). Luis brilliant poetic essay entitled “Holy ” Rodriguez’s (1954- ) memoir of macho Chi- (1994), prompted by the burning of a neighbor cano gang life in Los Angeles, Always Running child. Her description of the Pacific Northwest (1993), testifies to the city’s dark underside. evokes both a real and spiritual landscape: “I The Latin-American diaspora has influ- came here to study hard things — rock moun- enced Helena Maria Viramontes (1954- ), born tain and salt sea — and to temper my spirit

151 on their edges.” Akin to Henry shaped by the British literary David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo curriculum and colonial rule, but Emerson, Dillard seeks enlighten- in recent years their focus has ment in nature. Dillard’s striking shifted from London to New York essay collection is Pilgrim at Tin- and Toronto. Themes include the ker Creek (1974). Her one novel, beauty of the islands, the innate The Living (1992), celebrates early wisdom of their people, and pioneer families beset by dis- aspects of immigration and exile ease, drowning, poisonous fumes, — the breakup of family, culture gigantic falling trees, and burning shock, changed gender roles, and wood houses as they impercep- assimilation. tibly assimilate with indigenous Two forerunners merit mention. tribes, Chinese immigrants, and (1929- ), born in newcomers from the East. Brooklyn, is not technically a glob- (1966- ), a Spo- al writer, but she vividly recalls kane/Coeur d’Alene Indian, is the her experiences as the child of youngest Native-American novel- Barbadian immigrants in Brook- ist to achieve national fame. Alexie lyn in Brown Girl, Brownstones gives unsentimental and humor- (1959). Dominican novelist Jean ous accounts of Indian life with Rhys (1894-1979) penned Wide an eye for incongruous mixtures Sargasso Sea (1966), a haunting of tradition and pop culture. His and poetic refiguring of Charlotte story cycles include Reservation Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Rhys lived Blues (1995) and The Lone Rang- most of her life in Europe, but her er and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven book was championed by Ameri- (1993), which inspired the effec- can feminists for whom the “mad- tive film of reservation life Smoke woman in the attic” had become Signals (1998), for which Alexie an iconic figure of repressed wrote the screenplay. Smoke Sig- female selfhood. nals is one of the very few movies Rhys’s work opened the way for made by Native Americans rather the angrier voice of Jamaica Kin- than about them. Alexie’s recent Sherman Alexie caid (1949- ), from Antigua, whose story collection is The Toughest unsparing autobiographical works Indian in the World (2000), while include the novels Annie John his harrowing novel Indian Killer (1985), Lucy (1990), and The Auto- (1996) recalls Richard Wright’s biography of My Mother (1996). Native Son. Born in Haiti but educated in the United States, GLOBAL AUTHORS: VOICES (l969- ) came to attention with her FROM THE CARIBBEAN stories Krik? Krak! (1995), entitled AND LATIN AMERICA for a phrase used by storytellers riters from the English- from the Haitian oral tradition. Photo: Associated Press / speaking Caribbean Wide World Photos Danticat evokes her nation’s tragic Wislands have been past in her historical novel The 152 Farming of the Bones (1998). writes of Puerto Rico from a cos- Many Latin American writers mopolitan Jewish viewpoint. diverge from the views common The best-known writer with among Chicano writers with roots roots in the in Mexico, who have tended to is (1950- ). In How be romantic, nativist, and left the García Girls Lost Their Accents wing in their politics. In contrast, (1991), upper-class Dominican Cuban-American writing tends women struggle to adapt to New to be cosmopolitan, comic, and York City. ¡Yo! (1997) returns politically conservative. Gustavo to the García sisters, exploring Pérez Firmat’s memoir, Next Year identity through the stories of 16 in Cuba: A Chronicle of Coming of characters. Junot Diaz (1948- ) Age in America (1995), celebrates offers a much harsher vision in baseball as much as Havana. The the story collection Drown (1996), title is ironic: “Next year in Cuba” about young men in the slums of is a phrase of Cuban exiles cling- New Jersey and the Dominican ing to their vision of a triumphant Republic. return. The Pérez Family (1990), Major Latin American writers by Christine Bell (1951- ), warmly who first became prominent in portrays confused Cuban families the United States in the 1960s — at least half of them named — Argentina’s Jorge Luis Borg- Pérez — in exile in Miami. Recent es, Colombia’s Gabriel García works of novelist Oscar Hijuelos Márquez, ’s , (1951- ) include The Fourteen and Brazil’s Jorge Amado — intro- Sisters of Emilio Montez O’Brien duced U.S. authors to magical (1993), about Cuban Irish Ameri- realism, surrealism, a hemispher- cans, and Mr. Ives’ Christmas ic sensibility, and an appreciation (1995), the story of a man whose of indigenous cultures. Since that son has died. first wave of popularity, women Writers with Puerto Rican roots and writers of color have found include (1938- audiences, among them Chilean- ), whose Rituals of Survival: A Jamaica Kincaid born novelist (1942- Woman’s Portfolio (1985) pres- ). The niece of Chilean president ents the lives of six Puerto Rican , who was assas- women, and Rosario Ferré (1938- sinated in 1973, Isabel Allende ), author of The Youngest Doll memorialized her country’s bloody (1991). Among the younger writ- history in La casa de los espíritus ers is Judith Ortiz Cofer (1952- ), (l982), translated as The House author of Silent Dancing: A Partial of the Spirits (1985). Later nov- Remembrance of a Puerto Rican els (written and published first in Childhood (1990) and The Latin Spanish) include (1987) Deli (1993), which combines poet- and (1999), ry with stories. Poet and essayist Photo © Nancy Crampton set in the California gold rush Aurora Levins Morales (1954- ) of 1849. Allende’s evocative style 153 and woman-centered vision have (1967- ) focuses gained her a wide readership in on the younger generation’s con- the United States. flicts and assimilation in Inter- preter of Maladies: Stories of Ben- GLOBAL AUTHORS: VOICES gal, Boston, and Beyond (1999) FROM ASIA AND THE and her novel The Namesake MIDDLE EAST (2003). Lahiri draws on her expe- any writers from the rience: Her Bengali parents were Indian subcontinent have raised in India, and she was born Mmade their home in the in London but raised in the United United States in recent years. States. Bharati Mukherjee (1940- ) has Southeast Asian-American written an acclaimed story collec- authors, especially those from tion, The Middleman and Other Korea and the Philippines, have Stories (1988); her novel Jasmine found strong voices in the last (1989) tells the story of an ille- decade. Among recent Korean- gal immigrant woman. Mukherjee American writers, pre-eminent is was raised in Calcutta; her novel Chang-rae Lee (1965- ). Born in The Holder of the World (1993) Seoul, Korea, Lee’s remarkable imagines passionate adventures novel Native Speaker (1995) inter- in 17th-century India for charac- weaves public ideals, betrayal, and ters in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The private despair. His moving sec- Scarlet Letter. Leave It to Me (1997) ond novel, A Gesture Life (1999), follows the nomadic struggles of a explores the long shadow of a girl abandoned in India who seeks wartime atrocity — the Japanese her roots. Mukherjee’s haunting use of Korean “comfort women.” story “The Management of Grief” Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951- (1988), about the aftermath of a 1982), born in Korea, blends pho- terrorist bombing of a plane, has tographs, videos, and historical taken on new resonance since documents in her experimental September 11, 2001. Dictee (l982) to memorialize the Indian-born Bharati Mukherjee suffering of Koreans under Japa- (1951- ), of Syrian heritage, was nese occupying forces. Malaysian- raised in North Africa; she reflects American poet Shirley Geoklin on her experience in her mem- Lim, of ethnic Chinese descent, oir Fault Lines (1993). Poet and has written a challenging mem- story writer Chitra Banerjee Diva- oir, Among the White Moon Faces karuni (1956- ), born in India, (l996). Her autobiographical novel has written the sensuous, women- is Joss and Gold (2001), while centered novels The Mistress of her stories are collected in Two Spices (1997) and Sister of My Dreams (l997). Heart (1999), as well as story col- Philippine-born writers include lections including The Unknown Photo © Miriam Berkley (1911-1996), Errors of Our Lives (2001). author of the poetic novel Scent of 154 Apples (1979), and Jessica Hage- American literature has tra- dorn (l949- ), whose surrealistic versed an extended, winding path pop culture novels are from pre-colonial days to contem- (l990) and The Gangster of Love porary times. Society, history, (1996). In very different ways, technology all have had a telling they both are responding to the impact on it. Ultimately, though, poignant autobiographical novel of there is a constant — human- Filipino-American migrant labor- ity, with all its radiance and its er (1913–1956), malevolence, its tradition and its America Is in the Heart (1946). promise. ■ Noted Vietnamese-American filmmaker and social theorist Trinh Minh-Ha (1952- ) com- bines storytelling and theory in her feminist work Woman, Native, Other (1989). From China, (1956- ) has authored the novel Waiting (1999), a sad tale of an 18-year separation whose realistic style, typical of Chinese fiction, strikes American ears as fresh and original. The newest voices come from the Arab-American communi- ty. Lebanese-born Joseph Geha (1944-) has set his stories in Through and Through (1990) in Toledo, Ohio; Jordanian-American Diana Abu-Jaber (1959- ), born in New York, has written the novel Arabian Jazz (1993). Poet and playwright Elmaz Abi- Chang-rae Lee nader (1954- ), is author of a memoir, Children of the Roojme: A Family’s Journey From Lebanon (1991). In “Just Off Main Street” (2002), Abinader has written of her bicultural childhood in 1960s small-town Pennsylvania: “…my family scenes filled me with joy and belonging, but I knew none of it could be shared on the other Photo © Marion Ettlinger / side of that door.” CORBIS OUTLINE

155 156 glossary Abolitionism: An active movement to end slavery Conceit: An extended metaphor. The term is used in the U.S. North before the Civil War in the 1860s. to characterize aspects of Renaissance metaphysical poetry in England and colonial poetry, such as that of Allusion: An implied or indirect reference in a liter- Anne Bradstreet, in colonial America. ary text to another text. Cowboy poetry: Verse based on oral tradition, and : The artistic and literary rebellion against often rhymed or metered, that celebrates the tradi- established society of the 1950s and early 1960s, tions of the western U.S. cattle culture. Its subjects associated with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and include nature, history, folklore, family, friends, and others. “Beat” suggests holiness (“beatification”) work. Cowboy poetry has its antecedents in the bal- and suffering (“beaten down”). lad style of England and the Appalachian South.

Boston Brahmins: Influential and respected 19th- Domestic novel: A novel about home life and family century New England writers who maintained the that often emphasizes the personalities and attri- genteel tradition of upper-class values. butes of its characters over . Many domestic novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries employed Calvinism: A strict theological doctrine of the French a certain amount of sentimentality — usually a Protestant church reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) blend of pathos and humor. and the basis of Puritan society. Calvin held that all humans were born sinful and only God’s grace (not Enlightenment: An 18th-century movement that the church) could save a person from hell. focused on the ideals of good sense, benevolence, and a belief in liberty, justice, and equality as the Canon: An accepted or sanctioned body of literary natural rights of man. works considered to be permanently established and of high quality. Existentialism: A philosophical movement embrac- ing the view that the suffering individual must Captivity narrative: An account of capture by create meaning in an unknowable, chaotic, and Native-American tribes, such as those created by seemingly empty universe. writers Mary Rowlandson and John Williams in colonial times. Expressionism: A post-World War I artistic move- ment, of German origin, that distorted appearances Character writing: A popular 17th- and 18th-cen- to communicate inner emotional states. tury literary sketch of a character who represents a group or type. Fabulist: A creator or writer of (short nar- ratives with a moral, typically featuring animals as Chekhovian: Similar in style to the works of the characters) or of supernatural stories incorporating Russian author Anton Pavlovitch Chekhov. Chekhov elements of myth and legend. (1860-1904), one of the major short story writers and dramatists of modern times, is known for both Faulknerian: In a style reminiscent of William his humorous one-act plays and his full-length Faulkner (1897-1962), one of America’s major tragedies. 20th-century novelists, who chronicled the decline and decay of the aristocratic South. Unlike earlier Civil War: The war (1861-1865) between the north- regionalists who wrote about local color, Faulkner ern U.S. states, which remained in the Union, and created literary works that are complex in form and the southern states, which seceded and formed the often violent and tragic in content. Confederacy. The victory of the North ended slavery and preserved the Union.

157 glossary Faust: A literary character who sold his soul to the syllable followed by one long syllable, or of one devil in order to become all-knowing, or godlike; unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. protagonist of plays by English Renaissance drama- tist Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) and German Image: Concrete representation of an object, or Romantic writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749- something seen. 1832). Imagists: A group of mainly American poets, includ- Feminism: The view, articulated in the 19th cen- ing Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell, who used sharp tury, that women are inherently equal to men visual images and colloquial speech; active from and deserve equal rights and opportunities. More 1912 to 1914. recently, feminism is a social and political movement that took hold in the United States in the late 1960s Iowa Writers’ Workshop: A graduate program in and soon spread globally. at the in which talented, generally young writers work on manu- Fugitives: Poets who collaborated in The Fugitive, scripts and exchange ideas about writing with each a magazine published between 1922 and 1928 in other and with established poets and prose writers. Nashville, Tennessee. The collaborators, including such luminaries as John Crowe Ransom, Robert Irony: A meaning, often contradictory, concealed Penn Warren, and Allen Tate, rejected “northern” behind the apparent meaning of a word or phrase. urban, commercial values, which they felt had taken over America, and called for a return to the land Kafkaesque: Reminiscent of the style of Czech- and to American traditions that could be found in born novelist and short story writer the South. (1883-1924). Kafka’s works portray the oppressive- ness of modern life, and his characters frequently Genre: A category of literary forms (novel, lyric find themselves in threatening situations for which poem, epic, for example). there is no explanation and from which there is no escape. Global literature: Contemporary writing from the many cultures of the world. Selections include lit- Knickerbocker School: New York City-based writ- erature ascribed to various religious, ideological, ers of the early 1800s who imitated English and and ethnic groups within and across geographic European literary fashions. boundaries. Language poetry: Poetry that stretches language to Hartford Wits: A conservative late 18th-century lit- reveal its potential for ambiguity, fragmentation, and erary circle centered at Yale College in Connecticut self-assertion within chaos. Language poets favor (also known as the Connecticut Wits). open forms and multicultural texts; they appropriate images from popular culture and the media, and Hip-hop poetry: Poetry that is written on a page refashion them. but performed for an audience. Hip-hop poetry, with its roots in African-American rhetorical tradition, McCarthy era: The period of the Cold War (late stresses rhythm, improvisation, free association, 1940s and early 1950s) during which U.S. Senator rhymes, and the use of hybrid language. Joseph McCarthy pursued American citizens whom he and his followers suspected of being members Hudibras: A mock-heroic satire by English writer or former members of, or sympathizers with, the Samuel Butler (1612-1680). Hudibras was imitated Communist party. His efforts included the creation by early American revolutionary-era satirists. of “blacklists” in various professions — rosters of people who were excluded from working in those Iambic: A metrical foot consisting of one short fields. McCarthy ultimately was denounced by his

158 glossary Senate colleagues. social problems and viewed human beings as help- less victims of larger social and economic forces. Metafiction: Fiction that emphasizes the nature of fiction, the techniques and conventions used to write Neoclassicism: An 18th-century artistic movement, it, and the role of the author. associated with the Enlightenment, drawing on clas- sical models and emphasizing reason, harmony, and Metaphysical poetry: Intricate type of 17th-cen- restraint. tury English poetry employing wit and unexpected images. New England: The region of the United States comprising the present-day northeastern states of Middle Colonies: The present-day U.S. mid-Atlan- Maine, , New Hampshire, Massachusetts, tic states — New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Connecticut and noted for its early Pennsylvania, and Delaware — known originally industrialization and intellectual life. Traditionally, for commercial activities centered around New York New England is the home of the shrewd, indepen- City and Philadelphia. dent, thrifty “Yankee” trader.

Midwest: The central area of the United States, New Journalism: A style of writing made popular from the to the Rocky Mountains, includ- in the United States in the 1960s by Tom Wolfe, ing the Prairie and regions (also known Truman Capote, and Norman Mailer, who used the as the Middle West). techniques of story-telling and characterization of fiction writers in creating nonfiction works. Minimalism: A writing style, exemplified in the works of Raymond Carver, that is characterized by Objectivist: A mid-20th-century poetic movement, spareness and simplicity. associated with William Carlos Williams, stressing images and colloquial speech. Mock-epic: A parody using epic form (also known as mock-heroic). Old Norse: The ancient of the sagas, virtually identical to modern Icelandic. Modernism: An international cultural movement after World War I expressing disillusionment with Oral Tradition: Transmission by ; tradition and interest in new technologies and tradition passed down through generations; verbal visions. folk tradition.

Motif: A recurring element, such as an image, Plains Region: The middle region of the United theme, or type of incident. States that slopes eastward from the Rocky Mountains to the Prairie. : American journalists and novelists (1900-1912) whose spotlight on corruption in busi- Poet Laureate: An individual appointed as a con- ness and government led to social reform. sultant in poetry to the U.S. Library of Congress for a term of generally one year. During his or her Multicultural: The creative interchange of numer- term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national ous ethnic and racial subcultures. consciousness to a greater appreciation of poetry.

Myth: A legendary narrative, usually of gods and : A spoken-word poetry competition. heroes, or a theme that expresses the ideology of a culture. Postmodernism: A media-influenced aesthetic sen- sibility of the late 20th century characterized by Naturalism: A late 19th- and early 20th-century lit- open-endedness and collage. Postmodernism ques- erary approach of French origin that vividly depicted tions the foundations of cultural and artistic form

159 glossary through self-referential irony and the juxtaposition ers were intimidated into confessing or accusing of elements from popular culture and electronic others of witchcraft. technology. Self-help book: A book telling readers how to Prairie: The level, unforested farm region of the improve their lives through their own efforts. The . self-help book has been a popular American genre from the mid-19th century to the present. Primitivism: A belief that nature provides truer and more healthful models than does culture. An Separatists: A strict Puritan sect of the 16th and example is the myth of the “noble savage.” 17th centuries that preferred to separate from the Church of England rather than reform. Many of those Puritans: English religious and political reformers who first settled America were Separatists. who fled their native land in search of religious free- dom, and who settled and colonized New England in Slave narrative: The first black literary prose genre the 17th century. in the United States, featuring accounts of the lives of African Americans under slavery. Reformation: A northern European political and religious movement of the 15th through 17th centu- South: A region of the United States comprising ries that attempted to reform Catholicism; eventually the states of Alabama, , Florida, Georgia, gave rise to . Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Reflexive: Self-referential. A literary work is reflex- West Virginia, as well as eastern Texas. ive when it refers to itself. Surrealism: A European literary and artistic move- Regional writing: Writing that explores the cus- ment that uses illogical, dreamlike images and toms and landscape of a region of the United States. events to suggest the unconscious.

Revolutionary War: The War of Independence, Syllabic versification: Poetic meter based on the 1775-1783, fought by the American colonies against number of syllables in a line. Great Britain. Synthesis: A blending of two senses; used by Edgar Romance: Emotionally heightened, symbolic Allan Poe and others to suggest hidden correspon- American novels associated with the Romantic dences and create exotic effects. period. Tall tale: A humorous, exaggerated story common Romanticism: An early 19th-century movement that on the American frontier, often focusing on cases of elevated the individual, the passions, and the inner superhuman strength. life. Romanticism, a reaction against neoclassicism, stressed strong emotion, imagination, freedom from Theme: An abstract idea embodied in a literary classical correctness in art forms, and rebellion work. against social conventions. Tory: A wealthy pro-English faction in America at Saga: An ancient Scandinavian narrative of histori- the time of the Revolutionary War in the late 1700s. cal or mythical events. Transcendentalism: A broad, philosophical move- : Proceedings for alleged ment in New England during the Romantic era witchcraft held in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. (peaking between 1835 and 1845). It stressed the Nineteen persons were hanged and numerous oth- role of divinity in nature and the individual’s intu-

160 glossary ition, and exalted feeling over reason.

Trickster: A cunning character of tribal folk narra- tives (for example those of African Americans and Native Americans) who breaks cultural codes of behavior; often a culture hero.

Vision song: A poetic song that members of some Native-American tribes created when purifying themselves through solitary fasting and meditation.

161 162 index Abbey, Edward 148 American Tragedy, An (Theodore Dreiser) 47, 54-55, 57, 78 Abinader, Elmaz 155 America Play, The (Suzan-Lori Parks) 140 “Above Pate Valley” (Gary Snyder) 86 Ammons, A.R. 80, 130 “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight” (Vachel Lindsay) 57 Among the White Moon Faces (Shirley Geok-lin Lim) 154 Absalom, Absalom! (William Faulkner) 72 Anaya, Rudolfo 91, 116 Abu-Jaber, Diana 155 Ancient Evenings (Norman Mailer) 110 Accidental Tourist, The (Anne Tyler) 142 Anderson, Laurie 95 Acker, Kathy 142 Anderson, Sherwood 55, 71, 75 Actual, The (Saul Bellow) 103 Andrews, Bruce 95 Adams, Abigail 25 Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) 138 Adams, Henry 53 Angelou, Maya 91, 93, 116 Address to the Negroes of the State of New York, An Angels in America: Part One: Millennium Approaches (Tony (Jupiter Hammon) 13 Kushner) 139 Adventures of Augie March, The (Saul Bellow) 103 Angels in America: Part Two: Perestroika (Tony Kushner) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) 40, 48-49 139 Affliction (Russell Banks) 140 Angle of Repose (Wallace Stegner) 147 Affluent Society, The (John Kenneth Galbraith) 101 Animal Dreams (Barbara Kingsolver) 149 Afterlife and Other Stories, The (John Updike) 139 Annie John (Jamaica Kincaid) 152 Age of Innocence, The (Edith Wharton) 53 Another Country (James Baldwin) 102 Aiiieeeee! (Frank Chin, ed.) 94 Another You (Ann Beattie) 143 Albee, Edward 117, 119 Antin, David 95 Alcott, Bronson 27, 28 Antrim, Donald 141 Alcott, Louisa May 27 Anywhere But Here (Mona Simpson) 147 Alexander, Meena 154 Anzaldúa, Gloria 91, 149 Alexie, Sherman 152 “Appalachian Book of the Dead” (Charles Wright) 125 Ali, Agha Shahid 127 Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans, Allen, Donald 86, 89 An Allende, Isabel 153 (Lydia Child) 43 Allison, Dorothy 144 “Applicant, The” (Sylvia Plath) 83 All My Sons (Arthur Miller) 98 Appointment in Samarra (John O’Hara) 102 All the King’s Men (Robert Penn Warren) 98 Arabian Jazz (Diana Abu-Jaber) 155 All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy) 144 Ariel (Sylvia Plath) 83 All the Sad Young Men (F. Scott Fitzgerald) 70 Armantrout, Rae 122 Alurista 91 Armies of the Night, The (Norman Mailer) 107, 109 Alvarez, Julia 153 Arrowsmith (Sinclair Lewis) 72, 73 Always Running (Luis Rodriguez) 151 Arthur Mervyn (Charles Brockden Brown) 22 Amateur Marriage, The (Anne Tyler) 142 Ashbery, John 80, 88, 122 Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The (Michael Chabon) Ash-Wednesday (T.S. Eliot) 64 143 As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner) 72 Ambassadors, The (Henry James) 52 Assistant, The (Bernard Malamud) 104 America Is in the Heart (Carlos Bulosan) 154 Atlantis (Mark Doty) 128 American, The (Henry James) 52 “At Melville’s Tomb” (Hart Crane) 68 Americana (Don DeLillo) 141 “At the Fishhouses” (Elizabeth Bishop) 85 American Buffalo (David Mamet) 119 “At the Gym” (Mark Doty) 128 American Daughter, An (Wendy Wasserstein) 140 Atwood, Margaret 124 American Dream, The (Edward Albee) 117 Auster, Paul 138, 142 American Geography (Jedidiah Morse) 21 Autobiography (Benjamin Franklin) 16, 18 “American Liberty” (Philip Freneau) 20 Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (James Weldon Johnson) 59 American Pastoral (Philip Roth) 111 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, The (Ernest Gaines) American Poetry in the Twentieth Century (Kenneth Rexroth) 111 87 Autobiography of My Mother, The (Jamaica Kincaid) 152 American Primitive (Mary Oliver) 130 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, The (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

163 index

33 Bloodsmoor Romance, A (Joyce Carol Oates) 114 Awake and Sing! (Clifford Odets) 78 Bloom, Alan 104 Awakening, The (Kate Chopin) 50, 51 Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience, The Awful Rowing Toward God, The (Anne Sexton) 83 (Roger Williams) 10 Ayumi: A Japanese American Anthology (Janice Mirikitani, “Blue Hotel, The” (Stephen Crane) 54 ed.) 94 Blue Notes (Yusef Komunyakaa) 134 Blue Pastures (Mary Oliver) 130 Babbitt (Sinclair Lewis) 60, 72, 73 Bluest Eye, The (Toni Morrison) 114 Baca, Jimmy Santiago 125 Bly, Robert 89, 129 Baldwin, James 46, 102 Bone Black (bell hooks) 145 Baldwin, Joseph 49 Bonesetter’s Daughter, The (Amy Tan) 150 Bambara, Toni Cade 115 Bonfire of the Vanities, The (Tom Wolfe) 108 Banks, Russell 140 Book of Daniel, The (E.L. Doctorow) 112 Baraka, Amiri (LeRoi Jones) 91, 93, 117-118 Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (Gloria Barks, Coleman 129 Anzaldúa) 149 Barren Ground (Ellen Glasgow) 58 Bostonians, The (Henry James) 52 Barth, John 105, 108,109-110, 113, 138 Boston Marriage (David Mamet) 119 Barthelme, Donald 108, 138 Boyle, T. Coraghessan 151 Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, The (David Rabe) 119 Brackenridge, Hugh Henry 20 Bass, Rick 148 Bradford, William 6-7, 9 Bastard Out of Carolina (Dorothy Allison) 144 Bradley, David 143 Baumgardner, Jennifer 137 Bradstreet, Anne 7, 24 Bausch, Richard 142 “Brahma” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) 28 Beach Music (Pat Conroy) 145 Brautigan, Richard 108 Bean Trees, The (Barbara Kingsolver) 149 Brazil-Maru (Karen Tei Yamashita) 150 Bear, The (William Faulkner) 49 Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Truman Capote) 107 Beattie, Ann 138, 143 Brent, Linda (see Jacobs, Harriet) Beautiful and the Damned, The (F. Scott Fitzgerald) 70 “Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, The” (Stephen Crane) 54 Bech: A Book (John Updike) 106 Bride of the Innisfallen, The (Eudora Welty) 100 Bech at Bay (John Updike) 106 Bridge, The (Hart Crane) 68 Bech Is Back (John Updike) 106 Bridge of San Luis Rey, The (Thornton Wilder) 78 Bell, Christine 153 Bridget Jones’s Diary (Helen Fielding) 137 Bellefleur (Joyce Carol Oates) 114 Brief and True Report of the New-Found Land of Virginia, A Bell Jar, The (Sylvia Plath) 83 (Thomas Hariot) 4 Bellow, Saul 101, 103-104, 109, 116 Brigadier and the Golf Widow, The (John Cheever) 105 Beloved (Toni Morrison) 115 Bright Lights, Big City (Jay McInerney) 112 Beneath a Single Moon 94 “British Prison Ship, The” (Philip Freneau) 20 Berriault, Gina 150 “Broken Heart, The” (James Merrill) 80 Berryman, John 82, 84 Brooks, Gwendolyn 81, 133 Beverley, Robert 13 Broom of the System, The (David Foster Wallace) 141 Bidart, Frank 132 “Brothers and Keepers” () 143 Biglow Papers, First Series (James Russell Lowell) 33 Brown, Charles Brockden 15, 21, 22 Big Money, The (John Dos Passos) 73 Brown, Dan 136 Billy Bathgate (E.L. Doctorow) 113 Brown, James Willie, Jr. (see Komunyakaa, Yusef) Bishop, Elizabeth 68, 82, 85, 121, 122, 133 Brown Girl, Brownstones (Paule Marshall) 152 Black Boy (Richard Wright) 75 Brownson, Orestes 27 Blackburn, Paul 86 Bryant, William Cullen 21 “Black Cat, The” (Edgar Allan Poe) 42 Buckley, Christopher 143 Black Looks (bell hooks) 145 Bullet Park (John Cheever) 106 “Black Snake, The” (Mary Oliver) 131 Bulosan, Carlos 154 Black Tickets (Jayne Anne Phillips) 144 Buried Child (Sam Shepard) 118 Bless Me, Ultima (Rudolfo Anaya) 116 Burroughs, William 79, 87, 107 Blithedale Romance, The (Nathaniel Hawthorne) 27, 38 Bushnell, Candace 137 Blonde (Joyce Carol Oates) 114 Bushwacked Piano, The (Thomas McGuane) 147 Blood Meridien (Cormac McCarthy) 144 Butler, Octavia 146

164 index

Butler, Robert Olen 147 Cities of the Plain (Cormac McCarthy) 144 Byrd, William 12-13 City in Which I Love You, The (Li-Young Lee) 127 City of Glass (Paul Auster) 142 City of God (E.L. Doctorow) 113 “Civil Disobedience” (Henry David Thoreau) 11, 30 Cable, George Washington 50, 51 Clampitt, Amy 90 Caine Mutiny, The (Herman Wouk) 97 “Clan Meeting: Births and Nations: A Blood Song” Call of the Wild, The (Jack London) 54 (Michael S. Harper) 93 “Camouflaging the Chimera” (Yusef Komunyakaa) 133 Clemens, Samuel (see Twain, Mark) Campbell, Bebe Moore 142 Clifton, Lucille 127 Cane (Jean Toomer) 74-75 Closing of the American Mind, The (Alan Bloom) 104 Cannery Row (John Steinbeck) 74 Cloudsplitter (Russell Banks) 141 Cantos, The (Ezra Pound) 63 Cofer, Judith Ortiz 153 Capote, Truman 107, 111, 113, 136 Cold Mountain (Charles Frazier) 145 “Cariboo Café, The” (Helena Maria Viramontes) 151 Cole, Henri 128 Carolina Moon (Jill McCorkle) 144 Collected Stories (Ellen Gilchrist) 144 Carpenter’s Gothic (William Gaddis) 108 Collected Stories (Grace Paley) 142 Carver, Raymond 138, 147, 151 Collected Stories (Katherine Anne Porter) 100 Casas, Bartolomé de las 4 Collins, Billy 132 “Cask of Amontillado, The” (Edgar Allan Poe) 41 Color Purple, The (Alice Walker) 112, 115, 116 Cass Timberlane (Sinclair Lewis) 73 Comanche Moon (Larry McMurtry) 148 Catcher in the Rye, The (J.D. Salinger) 101, 106 Come Back, Dr. Caligari (Donald Barthleme) 108 Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) 97 Common Sense (Thomas Paine) 19 Cathedral (Raymond Carver) 138 Complete Stories, The (Flannery O’Connor) 103 Cather, Willa 58 “Concord Hymn” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) 27 Cattle Killing, The (John Edgar Wideman) 143 Coney Island of the Mind, A (Lawrence Ferlinghetti) 87 Centaur, The (John Updike) 106 Confessions of Nat Turner, The (William Styron) 113 Ceremony (Leslie Marmon Silko) 116, 149 “Congo, The” (Vachel Lindsay) 57 Cervantes, Lorna Dee 91, 92, 127, 150 Conjure Woman, The (Charles Waddell Chesnutt) 59 Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung 154 Conquest of Canaan, The (Timothy Dwight) 19 Chabon, Michael 143 Conroy, Pat 145 “Chambered Nautilus, The” (Oliver Wendell Holmes) 33 Contrast, The (Royall Tyler) 20 Chancers (Gerald Vizenor) 147 Cooper, Dennis 150 Chandler, Raymond 42 Cooper, James Fenimore 14, 15, 21, 23-24, 36, 38, 48 Chaneyville Incident, The (David Bradley) 143 Coover, Robert 108, 112, 138 Channing, William Ellery 27 Coquette, The (Hannah Foster) 25 Charlotte Temple (Susanna Rowson) 25 Corners (David Rabe) 119 Charming Billy (Alice McDermott) 142 Corrections, The () 146 Chavez, Denise 149 Corso, Gregory 87 Cheever, John 101, 105-106, 142 Cotton, Ann 24 Chesnutt, Charles Waddell 58, 59 Counterlife, The (Philip Roth) 111 “Chicago” (Carl Sandburg) 56 Country Music (Charles Wright) 125 Chickamauga (Charles Wright) 125 Country of the Pointed Firs (Sarah Orne Jewett) 50 “Chickamauga” (Charles Wright) 126 Couples (John Updike) 106 Child, Lydia 43, 45 “Courtship of Miles Standish, The” (Henry Wadsworth “Children of Light” (Robert Lowell) 81 Longfellow) 33 Children of the Roojme (Elmaz Abinader) 155 Cowboys (Sam Shepard) 118 Children’s Hour, The (Lillian Hellman) 99 Crane, Hart 29, 68 Chimera (John Barth) 109 Crane, Stephen 47, 53-54, 72 Chin, Frank 94 Creeley, Robert 86 Chopin, Kate 50 Crèvecoeur, Hector St. John de 18 Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (Anne Rice) 136 Crimes of the Heart (Beth Henley) 139 “Chronic Meanings” (Bob Perelman) 95 Crossing, The (Cormac McCarthy) 144 Cisneros, Sandra 116, 148 “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (Walt Whitman) 31

165 index Crossing Guard, The (David Rabe) 119 Didion, Joan 150 Crucible, The (Arthur Miller) 98 Different Mirror, A (Ronald Takaki) 116 Crying of Lot 49, The (Thomas Pynchon) 108, 109, 151 Dillard, Annie 138, 151 Cryptogram, The (David Mamet) 119 Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (Anne Tyler) 142 Cullen, Countee 69, 74 diPrima, Diane 86 Cummings, Edward Estlin (e.e. cummings) 68 Direction of Poetry (Robert Richman, ed.) 96 Cunningham, Michael 146 “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock” (Wallace Stevens) 66 Curse of the Starving Class (Sam Shepard) 118 “Displaced Person, The” (Katherine Anne Porter) 103 Curtain of Green, A (Eudora Welty) 100 Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee 154 Custom of the Country, The (Edith Wharton) 53 “Diving Into the Wreck” (Adrienne Rich) 85 Dobyns, Stephen 131 Dacey, Philip 96 Doctorow, E.L. 97, 112-113 “Daddy” (Sylvia Plath) 83 Dogeaters () 154 Daisy Miller (Henry James) 52 Doolittle, Hilda (H.D.) 63, 66, 90 Damballah (John Edgar Wideman) 143 Dorn, Ed 86 Dancing After Hours (Andre Dubus) 139 Dos Passos, John 60, 72, 73, 112 Dangling Man (Saul Bellow) 103 Doty, Mark 128-129 Danticat, Edwidge 152 Douglas, Susan 137 Darkness at Saint Louis Bearheart (Gerald Vizenor) 147 Douglass, Frederick 45, 46 Darkness Visible (William Styron) 113 Dove, Rita 90, 91, 93, 124, 132 Daughter of Fortune (Isabel Allende) 153 Dreamer (Charles Johnson) 146 Da Vinci Code, The (Dan Brown) 136 Dream of the Unified Field, The (Jorie Graham) 123 Day of Doom, The (Michael Wigglesworth) 8 Dream Songs (John Berryman) 84 Day of the Locust, The (Nathanael West) 150 Dreiser, Theodore 47, 48, 53, 54-55, 70, 72, 75, 78, 103, 146 Days of Obligation (Richard Rodriguez) 151 Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (ZZ Packer) 145 “Deacon’s Masterpiece, or, The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay, Drown (Junot Diaz) 153 The” (Oliver Wendell Holmes) 33 Du Bois, W.E.B. 58, 59, 74 “Dead, The” (Billy Collins) 132 Dubus, Andre 139 Dean’s December, The (Saul Bellow) 103 Dunbar, Paul Laurence 58 Death Comes for the Archbishop (Willa Cather) 58 Duncan, Robert 86 Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller) 98, 101, 119 Dunn, Stephen 126 Death of Jim Loney, The (James Welch) 116 Dust Tracks on a Road (Zora Neale Hurston) 76 “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, The” (Randall Jarrell) Dutchman (Amiri Baraka) 118 80 Dwight, Timothy 19 Debutante Ball, The (Beth Henley) 140 Dybek, Stuart 146 Declaration of Sentiments (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) 43 Delicate Balance, A (Edward Albee) 117 (John Steinbeck) 74 DeLillo, Don 137, 141, 146 East of the Mountains (David Guterson) 151 Deliverance (James Dickey) 85 Eberhart, Richard 80 Delta Wedding (Eudora Welty) 100 Echoes Down the Corridor (Arthur Miller) 99 “Democratic Vistas” (Walt Whitman) 31 Edgar Huntley (Charles Brockden Brown) 22 Desert Solitaire (Edward Abbey) 148 Edwards, Jonathan 11-12 Des Imagistes (Ezra Pound) 63 Eigner, Larry 86 Desire Under the Elms (Eugene O’Neill) 77 Elbow Room (James Alan McPherson) 145 Dessa Rose (Sherley Anne Williams) 146 Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The (Tom Wolfe) 108 Devil’s Dream, The (Lee Smith) 144 Eliot, T.S. 61, 63-64, 65, 67, 80, 81, 89 Dharma Bums, The (Jack Kerouac) 107 Ellis, Bret Easton 112 Diamant, Anita 140 Ellis, Trey 143 Diamond, Jared 136 Ellison, Ralph 46, 101, 102 Diary (Samuel Sewall) 9 Elmer Gantry (Sinclair Lewis) 73 Diaz, Junot 153 Elsie Venner (Oliver Wendell Holmes) 33 Dickey, James 82, 85 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 14, 18, 26, 27, 28-29, 30, 31, 32, 37, Dickinson, Emily 14, 29, 34-35, 36, 85, 122 39, Dictee (Theresa Hak Kyung Cha) 154 130, 131, 151 Dictionary (Noah Webster) 21 “Emperor of Ice-Cream, The” (Wallace Stevens) 66

166 index Empire Falls () 140 Fools Crow (James Welch) 116 Empire of the Senseless (Kathy Acker) 142 Ford, Richard 138, 145, 147 Endless Life (Lawrence Ferlinghetti) 87 (Robert Lowell) 82 End of the Road, The (John Barth) 109 42nd Parallel, The (John Dos Passos) 73 Enemies: A Love Story (Isaac Bashevis Singer) 105 For Whom the Bell Tolls (Ernest Hemingway) 71 Equiano, Olaudah 13, 45 Foster, Hannah 25 Erdrich, Louise 91, 92-93, 116, 127, 147 Four Quartets (T.S. Eliot) 64 Estate, The (Isaac Bashevis Singer) 104 Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O’Brien, The Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton) 53 (Oscar Hijuelos) 153 Eugenides, Jeffrey 141 Franklin, Benjamin 14, 15, 16-18, 22, 33 “Eutaw Springs” (Philip Freneau) 20 Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger) 107 Eva Luna (Isabel Allende) 153 Franzen, Jonathan 146 “Evangeline” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) 33 Frazier, Charles 145 “Evening Thought, An” (Jupiter Hammon) 13 Freeing the Soul (Harryette Mullen) 145 Everett, Percival 145 Freeman, Mary Wilkins 50 Everything That Rises Must Converge Freneau, Philip 20-21, 25, 33, 130 (Flannery O’Connor) 103 Frenzy (Percival Everett) 145 Executioner’s Song, The (Norman Mailer) 110 Friedan, Betty 90, 107 Explanation of America, An (Robert Pinsky) 133 From Here to Eternity (James Jones) 97 From the Terrace (John O’Hara) 102 Fable for Critics, A (James Russell Lowell) 33 Frost, Robert 29, 65, 66, 130 Face of an Angel (Denise Chavez) 149 Fuller, Margaret 27, 33, 34, 43 “Facing It” (Yusef Komunyakaa) 134 Facts, The (Philip Roth) 111 Gaddis, William 108 Falconer (John Cheever) 106 Gaines, Ernest 111, 145 “Fall of the House of Usher, The” (Edgar Allan Poe) 41 Galatea 2.2 (Richard Powers) 137, 146 Fame (Arthur Miller) 99 Galbraith, John Kenneth 101 Family Dancing (David Leavitt) 138 Gallagher, Tess 125 Family Moskat, The (Isaac Bashevis Singer) 105 Gangster of Love, The (Jessica Hagedorn) 154 “Family Reunion” (Louise Erdrich) 93 Gardens in the Dunes (Leslie Marmon Silko) 149 Farewell to Arms, A (Ernest Hemingway) 71 Gardner, John 112, 113-114, 138 Farming of Bones, The (Edwidge Danticat) 152 Garland, Hamlin 55 Faulkner, William 8, 49, 61, 62, 69, 71-72, 111, 112, 147 Garrison, William Lloyd 21, 46 Fault Lines (Meena Alexander) 154 Gass, William 108, 138 Federalist Papers, The 19 Geha, Joseph 155 Feminine Mystique, The (Betty Friedan) 90, 107 “George the Third’s Soliloquy” (Philip Freneau) 20 Fences (August Wilson) 120 “Gerontion” (T.S. Eliot) 64 Ferlinghetti, Lawrence 79, 86, 87 Gesture Life, A (Chang-rae Lee) 154 Ferré, Rosario 153 Ghosts (Paul Auster) 142 “Fever” (John Edgar Wideman) 143 Ghost Writer, The (Philip Roth) 110 “Few Don’ts of an Imagiste, A” (Ezra Pound) 63 Gilead () 151 Fielding, Helen 137 Gilbert, Sandra 90 Figured Wheel, The (Robert Pinsky) 133 Gilchrist, Ellen 144 Firebird (Mark Doty) 128 Giles Goat-Boy (John Barth) 108, 109 Fire Next Time, The (James Baldwin) 102 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins 51 Firmat, Gustavo Pérez 152 Ginsberg, Allen 79, 82, 86, 87, 88, 107, 118 “Fish R Us” (Mark Doty) 128 Gioia, Dana 96 Fitzgerald, F. Scott 54, 60, 61, 69, 70, 71, 72, 78, 143, 146 Giovanni, Nikki 91 Fixer, The (Bernard Malamud) 104 (David Foster Wallace) 141 Flanagan, Caitlin 137 Gizzi, Peter 134 Flappers and Philosophers (F. Scott Fitzgerald) 70 Gladwell, Malcolm 136 Floating Opera, The (John Barth) 109 Glasgow, Ellen 58 “Flowering Judas” (Katherine Anne Porter) 99 Glass Menagerie, The (Tennessee Williams) 99 Flowering Judas (Katherine Anne Porter) 100 Glengarry Glen Ross (David Mamet) 119 F.O.B. (David Henry Hwang) 116 Glück, Louise 90, 124-125, 127

167 index

Glyph (Percival Everett) 145 H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) 90 “Gold Bug, The” (Edgar Allan Poe) 41 Heartsong of Charging Elk, The (James Welch) 148 Golden, Arthur 136 Heart Songs (Annie Proulx) 141 Golden Apples, The (Eudora Welty) 100 Heidi Chronicles, The (Wendy Wasserstein) 140 Golden Bowl, The (Henry James) 52 Hejinian, Lyn 95, 122 Golden Boy (Clifford Odets) 78 Heller, Joseph 97, 103 Gonzales, Rodolfo 92 Hellman, Lillian 97, 99 Goodbye, Columbus (Philip Roth) 101, 110 Hemingway, Ernest 48, 60, 61, 69, 70-71, 72, 110, 138, 146, “Good Country People” (Flannery O’Connor) 103 147 Good Man Is Hard To Find, A (Flannery O’Connor) 103 Hempel, Amy 138 Good Mother, The (Sue Miller) 140 Henderson the Rain King (Saul Bellow) 103 Good Scent From a Strange Mountain, A Henley, Beth 139 (Robert Olen Butler) 147 “Her Kind” (Anne Sexton) 83 Gordon, Caroline 111 Herzog (Saul Bellow) 103 Gordon, Mary 141, 142 Hidden Persuaders, The (Vance Packard) 101 Go Tell It on the Mountain (James Baldwin) 102 Hiding Place (John Edgar Wideman) 143 Graham, Jorie 90, 123-124, 125, 135 Hijuelos, Oscar 116, 153 Grandissimes, The () 50 Hirsch, Ed 132 Grapes of Wrath, The (John Steinbeck) 61, 72, 74 Hirshfield, Jane 129-130 Gravity’s Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon) 97, 109 Historia de la Nueva México (Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá) 91 , The (Philip Roth) 110 History and Present State of Virginia, The (Robert Beverley) Great Gatsby, The (F. Scott Fitzgerald) 54, 57, 70, 78 13 Great God Brown, The (Eugene O’Neill) 77 History of My Heart (Robert Pinsky) 133 Great Santini, The (Pat Conroy) 145 History of New York (Washington Irving) 23 Grendel (John Gardner) 113 History of the Condition of Women in Various Ages and Griever (Gerald Vizenor) 147 Nations Grimké, Angelina 43 (Lydia Child) 43 Grimké, Sarah 43 History of the Dividing Line (William Byrd) 13 Grisham, John 136 History of the Indians (Bartolemé de las Casas) 4 Gubar, Susan 90 History of the Standard Oil Company (Ida M. Tarbell) 55 Guterson, David 151 History of Woman Suffrage (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) 43 Guy Domville (Henry James) 52 Hobomok (Lydia Child) 43 Hogan, Linda 148 Habit of Being, The (Flannery O’Connor) 103 Holder of the World, The (Bharati Mukherjee) 154 Hagedorn, Jessica 154 Hollander, John 80 Halliday, Mark 131 “Hollow Men, The” (T.S. Eliot) 64 Hamlet, The (William Faulkner) 72 Holmes, Oliver Wendell 32, 33 Hammett, Dashiell 42, 99 “Holy the Firm” (Annie Dillard) 151 Hammon, Jupiter 13 Home at the End of the World, A (Michael Cunningham) Hand to Mouth (Paul Auster) 138 146 Hannah, Barry 145 Home Repairs (Trey Ellis) 143 Hansberry, Lorraine 101 Hooks, Bell (bell hooks) 145 Hariot, Thomas 4 Hooper, Johnson 49 Harjo, Joy 128 Horseman, Pass By (Larry McMurtry) 148 Harlot’s Ghost (Norman Mailer) 110 Hosseini, Khaled 136 Harmonium (Wallace Stevens) 65 Hours, The (Michael Cummingham) 146 Harper, Michael S. 91, 93, 94, 132, 133 Housebreaker of Shady Hill, The (John Cheever) 105 Harris, George Washington 49 Housekeeping (Marilynne Robinson) 151 Harrison, Jim 147 House Made of Dawn (N. Scott Momaday) 116, 149 Harte, Bret 50, 51 House of Mirth, The (Edith Wharton) 53 Haruf, Kent 146 House of Seven Gables, The (Nathaniel Hawthorne) 37 Hass, Robert 125 House of the Spirits, The (Isabel Allende) 153 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 8, 14, 22, 27, 36, 37-38, 43, 50, 154 House on Mango Street, The (Sandra Cisneros) 148 Hazard of New Fortunes, A (William Dean Howells) 51 House on Marshland, The (Louise Glück) 124

168 index Howard, Richard 80 Irving, Washington 14, 21, 22-23, 24, 33 Howe, Susan 123 I Sailed With Magellan (Stuart Dybek) 146 Howells, William Dean 51, 55 Howl (Allen Ginsberg) 79, 82, 88 Jacobs, Harriet 45 “How Serfdom Saved the Women’s Movement” James, Henry 51-52, 53, 62 (Caitlin Flanagan) 137 Janowitz, Tama 112, 142 How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (Julia Alvarez) 153 Jarman, Mark 125 Hughes, Langston 69 Jarrell, Randall 80, 85 Hugo, Richard 82, 84, 133 Jasmine (Bharati Mukherjee) 153 Human Stain, The (Philip Roth) 111 Jauss, David 96 Humboldt’s Gift (Saul Bellow) 103 Jazz (Toni Morrison) 115 “Hummingbird Pauses at the Trumphet Vine” (Mary Oliver) Jazz Poetry Anthology, The (Yusef Komunyakaa, ed.) 134 131 Jeffers, Robinson 67-68 Hundred Brothers, The (Donald Antrim) 141 Jefferson, Thomas 18, 19, 20, 21 Hundred Secret Senses, The (Amy Tan) 150 Jen, Gish 150 Hunger of Memory (Richard Rodriguez) 151 Jenkins, Jerry B. 136 Hurlyburly (David Rabe) 119 Jewett, Sarah Orne 50 Hurston, Zora Neale 76, 103, 115, 145 “Jewish Cemetery at Newport, The” (Henry Wadsworth Hutchinson, Anne 24 Longfellow) 33 Hwang, David Henry 116 “Jilting of Granny Weatherall, The” (Katherine Anne Porter) 100 I Am Joaquin (Rodolfo Gonzales) 92 Jin, Ha 155 Iceman Cometh, The (Eugene O’Neill) 78 Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (August Wilson) 120 Ice-Shirt, The (William Vollmann) 151 “Johnny Appleseed” (Vachel Lindsay) 57 Ice Storm, The (Rick Moody) 141 Johnson, Charles 146 “Ichabod” (John Greenleaf Whittier) 34 Johnson, James Weldon 58, 59, 69 “Idea of Order at Key West, The” (Wallace Stevens) 66 Jones, James 97 Ideas of Order (Wallace Stevens) 65 Jones, LeRoi (see Baraka, Amiri) Idiots First (Bernard Malamud) 104 Joss and Gold (Shirley Geok-lin Lim) 154 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou) 93, 116 Journal (John Winthrop) 9 “Improvised Poetics” (Allen Ginsberg) 86 Journal (John Woolman) 11 Inada, Lawson 91 Journal (Sarah Kemble Knight) 9 “In a Station of the Metro” (Ezra Pound) 63 Joy Luck Club, The (Amy Tan) 116, 150 Incident at Vichy (Arthur Miller) 98 JR (William Gaddis) 108 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Harriet Jacobs) 45 Jubilee (Margaret Walker) 145 In Cold Blood (Truman Capote) 107, 136 “Jug of Rum, The” (Philip Freneau) 21 “In Cold Storm Light” (Leslie Marmon Silko) 92 Juneteenth (Ralph Ellison) 102 In Country (Bobbie Ann Mason) 144 Jungle, The (Upton Sinclair) 55 Independence Day (Richard Ford) 145 Just, Ward 143 Indian Killer (Sherman Alexie) 152 “Just Off Main Street” (Elmaz Abinader) 155 Indian Lawyer, The (James Welch) 116 Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace) 137 Kate Vaiden (Reynolds Price) 112 “in Just” (Edward Estlin Cummings) 68 Kelly, Brigit Pegeen 124 Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Kenan, Randall 146 Gustavas Vassa, the African, The (Olaudah Equiano) 13 Kennedy, William 112, 141 (Jhumpa Lahiri) 154 Kerouac, Jack 49, 79, 87, 101, 107 In the Boom Boom Room (David Rabe) 119 Kesey, Ken 108, 147 In the Heart of the Heart of the Country (William Gass) 108 Key Into the Languages of America, A (Roger Williams) 10 In the Loyal Mountains (Rick Bass) 147 Kincaid, Jamaica 115, 152 In the Night Season (Richard Bausch) 142 King, Martin Luther, Jr. 30, 107, 146 Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison) 101, 102 King, Stephen 42, 140 “Irises” (Li-Young Lee) 127 Kingsolver, Barbara 148 Iron Heel, The (Jack London) 55 Kingston, Maxine Hong 94, 113, 116, 150 Ironweed (William Kennedy) 112, 141 “Kitchenette Building” (Gwendolyn Brooks) 81 Irving, John 112 Kitchen God’s Wife, The (Amy Tan) 116

169 index

Kite Runner, The (Khaled Hosseini) 136 Literature of Their Own, A (Elaine Showalter) 90 Kizer, Carolyn 90 Little Foxes, The (Lillian Hellman) 99 Knight, Sarah Kemble 9, 24 Little Green Men (Christopher Buckley) 143 Koch, Kenneth 88 “Little Rabbit Dead in the Grass, A” (Mark Doty) 128 Komunyakaa, Yusef 125, 133-134 Live or Die (Anne Sexton) 83 Krik? Krak! (Edwidge Danticat) 152 Lives of the Heart, The (Jane Hirshfield) 129 Kumin, Maxine 90, 130 Living, The (Annie Dillard) 151 Kushner, Tony 139 Locked Room, The (Paul Auster) 142 Kyger, Joanne 86 Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov) 105 London, Jack 47, 48, 53, 54, 55, 149 La casa de los espíritus (Isabel Allende) 153 Lonely Crowd, The (David Riesman) 101 LaHaye, Tim 136 Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, The Lahiri, Jhumpa 154 (Sherman Alexie) 152 (Robert Lowell) 81 Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry) 148 “Language” Poetries: An Anthology (Douglas Messerli, ed.) Long and Happy Life, A (Reynolds Price) 112 95 Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Eugene O’Neill) 78 Last of the Menu Girls, The (Denise Chavez) 149 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 32-33 Last Picture Show, The (Larry McMurtry) 148 Longstreet, Augustus 49 Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, The (John Barth) Look Homeward, Angel (Thomas Wolfe) 111 109 Loon Lake (E.L. Doctorow) 113 Latin Deli, The (Judith Ortiz Cofer) 153 Lorde, Audre 90, 94, 142 Lauterbach, Ann 122 Lord Weary’s Castle (Robert Lowell) 81 Leaf and the Cloud, The (Mary Oliver) 130 Lost in the Funhouse (John Barth) 109 Leaning Tower, The (Katherine Anne Porter) 100 Lovecraft, H.P. 42 Leather-Stocking Tales (James Fenimore Cooper) 24, 38 Love Medicine (Louise Erdrich) 117 Leave It to Me (Bharati Mukherjee) 154 “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The” (T.S. Eliot) 64 Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman) 31, 67 Lowell, Amy 63, 90 Leaving Cheyenne (Larry McMurtry) 148 Lowell, James Russell 32, 33, 50 Leavitt, David 138 Lowell, Robert 80, 81-82, 83, 86, 121 Lee, Chang-rae 154 “Luck of Roaring Camp, The” (Bret Harte) 50 Lee, Li-Young 127-128 Lucky Spot, The (Beth Henley) 140 “Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The” (Washington Irving) 22 Lucy (Jamaica Kincaid) 152 Legends of the Fall (Jim Harrison) 147 “Luke Havergal” (Edwin Arlington Robinson) 57 Leithauser, Brad 96 (Bret Easton Ellis) 112 MacDonald, John D. 42 “Letter From a Region of My Mind” (James Baldwin) Macdonald, Ross 42 102 Machine Dreams (Jayne Anne Phillips) 144 Letters (John Barth) 109 Mac Low, Jackson 95 Letters From an American Farmer Madwoman in the Attic, The (Sandra Gilbert and (Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur) 18 Susan Gubar) 90 Let the Dead Bury Their Dead (Randall Kenan) 146 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (Stephen Crane) 47, 54 Levertov, Denise 85, 86, 90 Magic Barrel, The (Bernard Malamud) 104 Levine, Lawrence 116 Magnalia Christi Americana (Cotton Mather) 10 Levine, Philip 82, 84-85, 133 Mailer, Norman 97, 107, 109, 110, 113, 116 Lewis, Meriwether 21 Main Street (Sinclair Lewis) 73 Lewis, Sinclair 60, 69, 72, 73, 74, 75, 146 Main-Travelled Roads (Hamlin Garland) 55 Libra (Don DeLillo) 141 Malamud, Bernard 101, 104, 116 Lie Down in Darkness (William Styron) 113 Maltese Falcon, The (Hammett, Dashiell) 99 Life on the Mississippi (Mark Twain) 49 Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, The (Oscar Hijuelos) Life Studies (Robert Lowell) 82 116 “Ligeia” (Edgar Allan Poe) 41 Mamet, David 119 Light in August (William Faulkner) 72 “Management of Grief, The” (Bharati Mukherjee) 154 Lim, Shirley Geok-lin 127, 154 ManifestA (Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards) Lindsay, Vachel 56-57 137

170 index

Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, The (Sloan Wilson) 101 Mills of the Kavanaughs, The (Robert Lowell) 81 Man Made of Words, The (N. Scott Momaday) 149 Minh-Ha, Trinh 154 Manor, The (Isaac Bashevis Singer) 104 “Minister’s Black Veil, The” (Nathaniel Hawthorne) 38 Mansion, The (William Faulkner) 72 “Miniver Cheevy” (Edwin Arlington Robinson) 57 Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (August Wilson) 120 Mirikitani, Janice 91, 94, 150 Marble Faun, The (Nathaniel Hawthorne) 38 Miss Firecracker Contest, The (Beth Henley) 140 “Marriage” (Gregory Corso) 87 Mistress of Spices, The (Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni) Marriage Play (Edward Albee) 117 154 Marrow of Tradition, The (Charles Waddell Chesnutt) 59 Moby-Dick (Herman Melville) 8, 36, 37, 38-40, 146 Marshall, Paule 152 Modern Chivalry () 20 Martin Eden (Jack London) 47, 54, 57 Modern Instance, A (William Dean Howells) 51 Mason, Bobbie Ann 138, 144 Mohr, Nicholasa 153 Mason & Dixon (Thomas Pynchon) 109 Momaday, N. Scott 116, 147, 149 Masters, Edgar Lee 56, 57 Mommy Myth, The (Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels) Mather, Cotton 10 137 Mating () 150 Mona in the Promised Land (Gish Jen) 150 M. Butterfly (David Henry Hwang) 116 Month of Sundays, A (John Updike) 106 McCarthy, Cormac 144 Moody, Rick 141 McCarthy, Mary 141 Moon Lake (Eudora Welty) 100 McCorkle, Jill 144 Moore, Lorrie 138 McCourt, Frank 138, 141 Moore, Marianne 68, 85 McDermott, Alice 141, 142 Mora, Pat 148 McGuane, Thomas 147 Morales, Aurora Levins 153 McInerney, Jay 112, 142 Mori, Toshio 150 McKay, Claude 69 Morrison, Toni 46, 76, 114-115, 116 McMurtry, Larry 147, 148 Morse, Jedidiah 21 McPherson, James Alan 145 Mosquito Coast, The (Paul Theroux) 112 McPherson, Sandra 128 Mourning Becomes Electra (Eugene O’Neill) 78 Meadowlands (Louise Glück) 124 Moviegoer, The (Walker Percy) 112 Mean Spirit (Linda Hogan) 148 Mr. Ives’ Christmas (Oscar Hijuelos) 153 Medea (Robinson Jeffers) 68 Mr. Sammler’s Planet (Saul Bellow) 103 Mehta, Ved 138 Mr. Spaceman (Robert Olen Butler) 147 Melville, Herman 8, 14, 22, 23, 24, 27, 32, 36, 37, 38-40, Mukherjee, Bharati 153-154 49 “Mule Heart” (Jane Hirshfield) 129 Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) 136 Mules and Men (Zora Neale Hurston) 76 Mencken, H.L. 21 Mullen, Harryette 145 Merrill, James 80 Mumbo Jumbo (Ishmael Reed) 145 Merwin, W.S. 89, 122 Murray, Judith Sargent 25 Messerli, Douglas 95 Muse & Drudge (Harryette Mullen) 145 Metrical History of Christianity (Edward Taylor) 8 Museums and Women (John Updike) 106 Mexico City Blues (Jack Kerouac) 107 Music School, The (John Updike) 106 M’Fingal (John Trumbull) 20 My Alexandria (Mark Doty) 128 Miami and the Siege of Chicago (Norman Mailer) 110 My Antonia (Willa Cather) 58 Michaels, Meredith 137 “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Mickelsson’s Ghosts (John Gardner) 114 38 Middleman and Other Stories, The (Bharati Mukherjee) My Life (Lyn Hejinian) 122 153 My Life, Starring Dara Falcon (Ann Beattie) 143 Middle Passage (Charles Johnson) 146 (Philip Roth) 110 Middlesex () 141 “My Lost Youth” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) 33 “Midnight Consultation, A” (Philip Freneau) 20 Mysteries of Pittsburgh, The (Michael Chabon) 143 Millay, Edna St. Vincent 90 Mysteries of Winterthurn (Joyce Carol Oates) 114 Miller, Arthur 97, 98-99, 101, 116, 119 Myths and Texts (Gary Snyder) 82 Miller, Sue 140 Millett, Kate 90, 110 Nabokov, Vladimir 105, 108 Mills, C. Wright 101 Nafisi, Azar 136

171 index Naked and the Dead, The (Norman Mailer) 97 Old Neighborhood, The (David Mamet) 119 Naked Lunch, The (William Burroughs) 87 Olds, Sharon 126 Namesake, The (Jhumpa Lahiri) 154 Oleanna (David Mamet) 119 Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (Edgar Allan Poe) 36 Oliver, Mary 130-131 Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Sojourner Truth) 43 Olsen, Tillie 147 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Olson, Charles 86 Slave (Frederick Douglass) 46 Omensetter’s Luck (William Gass) 108 Native Son (Richard Wright) 75, 152 “On Being Brought From Africa to America” Native Speaker (Chang-rae Lee) 154 (Phillis Wheatley) 25 Natural, The (Bernard Malamud) 104 On Being Female, Black, and Free (Margaret Walker) Nature (Ralph Waldo Emerson) 28 145 Naylor, Gloria 143 On Boxing (Joyce Carol Oates) 114 Necromance (Rae Armantrout) 122 Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera (John Barth) 109 Negative Blues (Charles Wright) 125 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey) 108 “Negro Speaks of Rivers, The” (Langston Hughes) 69 O’Neill, Eugene 69, 77-78 “Neighbour Rosicky” (Willa Cather) 58 On Moral Fiction (John Gardner) 114 Neon Vernacular (Yusef Komunyakaa) 134 On the Road (Jack Kerouac) 49, 87, 101, 107 Nepantla: Essays From the Land in the Middle “Open Boat, The” (Stephen Crane) 54 (Sandra Cisneros) 148 Opening of the American Mind, The (Lawrence Levine) New American Poetry, 1945-1960 (Donald Allen, ed.) 86 116 New and Selected Poems (Mary Oliver) 130 O Pioneers! (Willa Cather) 58 “New Black Aesthetic, The” (Trey Ellis) 143 Oppenheimer, Joel 86 New Criticism, The (John Crowe Ransom) 77 Optimist’s Daughter, The (Eudora Welty) 100 New Life, A (Bernard Malamud) 104 Organization Man, The (William Whyte) 101 “New Poem, The” (Charles Wright) 89 Ormond (Charles Brockden Brown) 22 Next Year in Cuba (Gustavo Pérez Firmat) 152 Orphan, The (David Rabe) 119 Nickel Mountain (John Gardner) 114 Ortiz, Simon 91, 92, 125 Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (Jane Hirshfield) Orwell, George 55 129 Our Nig (Harriet Wilson) 45 Nine Stories (J.D. Salinger) 107 Our Town (Thornton Wilder) 78 1984 (George Orwell) 55 “Outcasts of Poker Flat, The” (Bret Harte) 50 1919 (John Dos Passos) 73 “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” (Walt Whitman) Nobody Knows My Name (James Baldwin) 102 31 Noon Wine (Katherine Anne Porter) 100 Outre-Mer (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) 33 Norris, Frank 53, 55 Oxherding Tale (Charles Johnson) 146 Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, The Ozick, Cynthia 142 (Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar) 90 Notebook, 1967-68 (Robert Lowell) 82 Packard, Vance 101 Packer, ZZ 145 O Albany! (William Kennedy) 141 Paine, Thomas 19 Oates, Joyce Carol 97, 114, 140 Pale Fire (Vladimir Nabokov) 105 “O Black and Unknown Bards” (James Weldon Johnson) Pale Horse, Pale Rider (Katherine Anne Porter) 100 59 Paley, Grace 142 O’Connor, Flannery 100, 102-103, 115 Palmer, Michael 95 October Light (John Gardner) 112, 114 Papers on Art and Literature (Margaret Fuller) 34 Octopus, The (Frank Norris) 55 Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler) 146 Odets, Clifford 72, 78 Paradise (Toni Morrison) 115 Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) 74 Park City (Ann Beattie) 138 “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” (W.E.B. Du Parker, Theodore 27 Bois) 59 Parks, Suzan-Lori 140 Of Plymouth Plantation (William Bradford) 6 Parts of a World (Wallace Stevens) 66 O’Hara, Frank 88, 118, 132 Paterson (William Carlos Williams) 67, 75 O’Hara, John 101-102 Patrimony: A True Story (Philip Roth) 111 “Old Ironsides” (Oliver Wendell Holmes) 33 Pearl of Orr’s Island, The (Harriet Beecher Stowe) 50 Old Man and the Sea, The (Ernest Hemingway) 71 Pentimento (Lillian Hellman) 99 Old Money (Wendy Wasserstein) 140 Percy, Walker 112 172 index Perelman, Bob 95 Rabbit Remembered (John Updike) 106 Pérez Family, The (Christine Bell) 153 Rabe, David 119 Perfect Recall (Ann Beattie) 138 Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (Tom Wolfe) “Persimmons” (Li-Young Lee) 127 108 “Peter Quince at the Clavier” (Wallace Stevens) 66 Ragtime (E.L. Doctorow) 112 Phillips, Jayne Anne 144 Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (J.D. Salinger) Piano Lesson, The (August Wilson) 120 107 Picture Bride (Cathy Song) 94 Raisin in the Sun, A (Lorraine Hansberry) 101 Pictures of Fidelman (Bernard Malamud) 104 Ralph Waldo Emerson (Oliver Wendell Holmes) 33 Picturing Will (Beattie, Ann) 143 Ransom, John Crowe 76, 77, 80 Pigs in Heaven (Barbara Kingsolver) 149 Ravelstein (Saul Bellow) 103 Pike, Zebulon 21 “Raven, The” (Edgar Allan Poe) 41 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Annie Dillard) 151 Reading Lolita in Teheran (Azar Nafisi) 136 “Pilot of Hatteras, The” (Philip Freneau) 21 Reasons To Live (Amy Hempel) 138 Pinsky, Robert 132-133 Reason Why, The (Arthur Miller) 99 Pioneers, The (James Fenimore Cooper) 23 Red Badge of Courage, The (Stephen Crane) 54 Plainsong (Kent Haruf) 146 Redeemed Captive, The (John Williams) 9 Plath, Sylvia 82-83, 85, 90 Red Tent, The (Anita Diamant) 140 Platitudes (Trey Ellis) 143 “Red Wheelbarrow, The” (William Carlos Williams) 66 Playing in the Dark (Toni Morrison) 115 Reed, Ishmael 94, 115, 145, 150 Pnin (Vladimir Nabokov) 105 Region Not Home, A (James Alan McPherson) 145 Poe, Edgar Allan 14, 22, 27, 32, 35, 36, 40-42, 113 Rembrandt’s Hat (Bernard Malamud) 104 Poems 1957-1967 (James Dickey) 85 Reservations Blues (Sherman Alexie) 152 “Poet, The” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) 26, 31 Resurrection, The (John Gardner) 114 Poisonwood Bible, The (Barbara Kingsolver) 149 Rexroth, Kenneth 86, 87 “Political Litany, A” (Philip Freneau) 20 Rhys, Jean 152 Poor Richard’s Almanack (Benjamin Franklin) 16 Rice, Anne 136 “Poppies” (Mary Oliver) 131 Rich, Adrienne 81, 82, 85-86, 116 Porter, Katherine Anne 97, 99-100, 103 “Richard Cory” (Edwin Arlington Robinson) 57 Portnoy’s Complaint (Philip Roth) 110 Richards, Amy 137 Portrait of a Lady, The (Henry James) 52 Richman, Robert 96 Possessing the Secret Joy (Alice Walker) 116 Riesman, David 101 Pound, Ezra 60, 63, 65, 66, 67, 71, 89, 90 Right Here, Right Now (Trey Ellis) 143 Power (Linda Hogan) 148 Right Stuff, The (Tom Wolfe) 108 Power Elite, The (C. Wright Mills) 101 Rios, Alberto 91, 92, 124 Powers, Richard 137, 146 “Rip Van Winkle” (Washington Irving) 22 “Premature Burial, The” (Edgar Allan Poe) 41 Rise of Silas Lapham, The (William Dean Howells) 51 Price, Reynolds 112 Rituals of Survival (Nicholasa Mohr) 153 Price, The (Arthur Miller) 98 “River of Bees, The” (W.S. Merwin) 122 Pricksongs & Descants (Robert Coover) 108 Road Home, The (Jim Harrison) 147 Princess Casamassima, The (Henry James) 52 Road to Wellville, The (T. Coraghessan Boyle) 151 Problems (John Updike) 106 Roan Stallion (Robinson Jeffers) 68 Promise of Rest, The (Reynolds Price) 112 Roberts, Nora 136 Proulx, Annie 141 Robinson, Edwin Arlington 29, 57 Public Burning, The (Robert Coover) 108, 112 Robinson, Marilynne 151 “Purloined Letter, The” (Edgar Allan Poe) 41 Rock Garden, The (Sam Shepard) 118 Puttermesser Papers, The (Cynthia Ozick) 142 Rock Springs (Richard Ford) 138 Pynchon, Thomas 97, 105, 108-109, 110, 113, 138, 141, Rodriguez, Luis 151 146, 150 Rodriguez, Richard 151 Roethke, Theodore 82, 84 Quasha, George 95 Rogers, Pattiann 130 Roger’s Version (John Updike) 106 Rabbit, Run (John Updike) 106 “Roofwalker, The” (Adrienne Rich) 85 Rabbit at Rest (John Updike) 106 Rose (Li-Young Lee) 127 Rabbit Is Rich (John Updike) 106 Roth, Philip 101, 110-111, 116 Rabbit Redux (John Updike) 106 Rowlandson, Mary 9-10 173 index

Rowson, Susanna 25 Sister of My Heart (Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni) 154 Rush, Norman 150 Sisters Rosensweig, The (Wendy Wasserstein) 140 Russo, Richard 140 Situation of Poetry, The (Robert Pinsky) 133 Sketch Book of Geoffrye Crayon (Washington Irving) S. (John Updike) 106 22, 33 Sabbatical: A Romance (John Barth) 109 Skin of Our Teeth, The (Thornton Wilder) 78 Sacred Wood, The (T.S. Eliot) 64 Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.) 97 Sailing Alone Around the Room (Billy Collins) 132 Slaves of New York (Tama Janowitz) 112 Salinas, Luis Omar 92 Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Joan Didion) 150 Salinger, J.D. 101, 106-107 Smiley, Jane 146 Same Door, The (John Updike) 106 Smith, Lee 144 Sandburg, Carl 56 Smoke Signals (Sherman Alexie) 152 Santos, Bienvenido 154 “Snow Bound” (John Greenleaf Whittier) 34 Scalapino, Leslie 122 Snow Falling on Cedars (David Guterson) 151 Scarlet Letter, The (Nathaniel Hawthorne) 8, 36, 37, 154 “Snows of Kilimanjaro, The” (Ernest Hemingway) 71 Scent of Apples (Bienvenido Santos) 154 Snyder, Gary 82, 86, 129 Schnackenberg, Gjertrud 90, 96, 132 “Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes” Schwerner, Armand 95 (John Woolman) 11 Scoundrel Time (Lillian Hellman) 99 Someone to Watch Over Me (Richard Bausch) 142 Seascape (Edward Albee) 117 Some People, Places, and Things That Will Not Appear in Sea-Wolf, The (Jack London) 48, 54 My Next Novel (John Cheever) 105 Seize the Day (Saul Bellow) 101, 104 Something To Remember Me By (Saul Bellow) 103 Selected Poems (James Dickey) 85 Song, Cathy 91, 94 Self-Help (Lorrie Moore) 138 “Song of Hiawatha, The” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (John Ashbery) 88 33 “Self-Reliance” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) 28 “Song of Myself” (Walt Whitman) 31 Sent for You Yesterday (John Edgar Wideman) 143 Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison) 115 “Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes” Son of the Wolf, The (Jack London) 54 (William Vollmann) 151 “Soonest Mended” (John Ashbery) 122 Seven Guitars (August Wilson) 120 Sophie’s Choice (William Styron) 113 Sewall, Samuel 9 Soto, Gary 91, 92 Sex and the City (Candace Bushnell) 137 Sot-Weed Factor, The (John Barth) 109 Sexton, Anne 82, 83, 85, 90 Souls of Black Folk, The (W.E.B. Du Bois) 59 Sexual Politics (Kate Millett) 90, 110 Sound and the Fury, The (William Faulkner) 62, 72 Shame of the Cities, The () 55 Source (Mark Doty) 128 Shapard, Robert 139 Spahr, Juliana 134 Shaw, Irwin 97 Speed-the-Plow (David Mamet) 119 Shawl, The (Cynthia Ozick) 142 Spelling Book (Noah Webster) 21 Shepard, Sam 118-119 Spicer, Jack 86 “Shiloh” (Bobbie Ann Mason) 144 Spoon River Anthology (Edgar Lee Masters) 56 Shiloh and Other Stories (Bobbie Ann Mason) 138 Sporting Club, The (Thomas McGuane) 147 Ship of Fools (Katherine Anne Porter) 100 Sportswriter, The (Richard Ford) 145 Shipping News, The (Annie Proulx) 141 Spy, The (James Fenimore Cooper) 15 “Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, The” Stanton, Elizabeth Cady 43 (Ernest Hemingway) 71 “Star Quilt” Roberta Hill Whiteman 92 Showalter, Elaine 90 Status Seekers, The (Vance Packard) 101 Silent Dancing (Judith Ortiz Cofer) 153 Steffens, Lincoln 55 Silko, Leslie Marmon 91, 92, 116, 130, 149 Stegner, Wallace 147 Simic, Charles 89, 131 Stein, Gertrude 60, 61, 62, 71, 75 Simpson, Mona 147 Steinbeck, John 61, 67, 72, 74, 149 Sinclair, Upton 53, 55, 73 Stevens, Wallace 29, 65-66, 89 Singer, Isaac Bashevis 101, 104-105, 116 Sticks and Bones (David Rabe) 119 “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (Jonathan Edwards) Still Life With Oysters and Lemon (Mark Doty) 128 12 Stolen Light, The (Ved Mehta) 138

174 index

Stone, Robert 147 130, 151 “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (Robert Frost) Thorpe, Thomas Bangs 49 65 Those the River Keeps (David Rabe) 119 Story of My Life (Jay McInerney) 142 Thousand Acres, A (Jane Smiley) 146 Stowe, Harriet Beecher 42, 44-45, 50 Three Soldiers (John Dos Passos) 60 Strand, Mark 89, 131 Three Tall Women (Edward Albee) 117 Strange Interlude (Eugene O’Neill) 77, 78 Through and Through (Joseph Geha) 155 Streetcar Named Desire, A (Tennessee Williams) 99 Through the Arc of the Rain Forest (Karen Tei Yamashita) Strong Measures (Philip Dacey and David Jauss, eds.) 150 96 “Throwing Salt on a Path” () 129 Strong Motion (Jonathan Franzen) 146 “Tide Rises, the Tide Falls, The” Styron, William 113 (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) 33 Sudden Fiction (Robert Shapard and James Thomas, eds.) Tidewater Morning, A (William Styron) 113 139 Tidewater Tales, The (John Barth) 109 Sula (Toni Morrison) 115 Timebends: A Life (Arthur Miller) 99 Summer (Edith Wharton) 53 Time To Greez! (Janice Mirikitani, ed.) 94 Sun Also Rises, The (Ernest Hemingway) 61, 71 Tiny Alice (Edward Albee) 117 “Sunday Morning” (Wallace Stevens) 66 To Bedlam and Part Way Back (Anne Sexton) 83 Sunlight Dialogues, The (John Gardner) 114 “To My Dear and Loving Husband” (Anne Bradstreet) 7 Suttree (Cormac McCarthy) 144 Too Far To Go (John Updike) 106 Swarm (Jorie Graham) 124 Toomer, Jean 74-75 Swenson, May 90 Topdog/Underdog (Suzan-Lori Parks) 140 Sze, Arthur 129 Tortilla Flat (John Steinbeck) 74 Tabloid Dreams (Robert Olen Butler) 147 “To S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works” Takaki, Ronald 116 (Phillis Wheatley) 25 Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (Edgar Allan Poe) Total Syntax (Barrett Watten) 95 42 “To the Engraver of My Skin” (Mark Doty) 128-129 Tales of the Jazz Age (F. Scott Fitzgerald) 70 Toughest Indian in the World, The (Sherman Alexie) Tamar (Robinson Jeffers) 68 152 Tan, Amy 116, 150 Tower Beyond Tragedy, The (Robinson Jeffers) 68 Tar Baby (Toni Morrison) 115 Town, The (William Faulkner) 72 Tarbell, Ida M. 55 Transatlantic Sketches (Henry James) 52 Tate, Allen 76, 80, 111 Triumph of Achilles, The (Louise Glück) 124 Taylor, Edward 7-8, 9 Tropic of Orange (Karen Tei Yamashita) 150 “Teeth Mother Naked at Last, The” (Robert Bly) 89 Trout Fishing in America (Richard Brautigan) 108 Tell My Horse (Zora Neale Hurston) 76 True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia, Tenants, The (Bernard Malamud) 104 A 13 Tender Buttons (Gertrude Stein) 62 True West (Sam Shepard) 118 Tender Is the Night (F. Scott Fitzgerald) 70 Trumbull, John 20 Ten North Frederick (John O’Hara) 102 Truth, Sojourner 43-44 Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, The “Tuskegee Airmen, The” (Trey Ellis) 143 (Anne Bradstreet) 7 Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens) 23, 27, 33, 48-49, 51, Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston) 76, 52, 76 145 Twenty-Seventh City, The (Jonathan Franzen) 146 Theroux, Paul 112 Two Cities (John Edgar Wideman) 143 Thin Man, The (Hammett, Dashiell) 99 Two Dreams (Shirley Geok-lin Lim) 154 Third Life of Grange Copeland, The (Alice Walker) 116 Two Trains Running (August Wilson) 120 Third World Women (Janice Mirikitani, ed.) 94 Tyler, Anne 142 “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” (Wallace Stevens) Tyler, Royall 20 66 Typee (Herman Melville) 36, 38, 40 This Side of Paradise (F. Scott Fitzgerald) 61, 70 Typical American (Gish Jen) 150 Thomas, James 139 Thomas and Beulah (Rita Dove) 93, 124 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe) 42, 44-45, Thoreau, Henry David 11, 14, 26, 27, 29-30, 32, 35, 50, 77

175 index Uncle Tom’s Children (Richard Wright) 75 Watkins, Gloria (see Hooks, Bell) Underworld (Don DeLillo) 141 Watten, Barrett 95 Unfinished Woman, An (Lillian Hellman) 99 Way Some People Live, The (John Cheever) 105 United States (Laurie Anderson) 95 Way to Rainy Mountain, The (N. Scott Momaday) 116 Unknown Errors of Our Lives, The “Way to Wealth, The” (Benjamin Franklin) 16 (Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni) 154 Webster, Noah 15, 21 Updike, John 101, 106, 111, 139, 141 Welch, James 116, 130, 148 Up From Slavery (Booker T. Washington) 58 Welch, Lew 86 U.S.A. (John Dos Passos) 72, 73, 112 Welty, Eudora 97, 100, 103 West, Nathanael 103, 150 V (Thomas Pynchon) 108 Whalen, Phil 86 Van Duyn, Mona 90 Wharton, Edith 52-53 Van Vechten, Carl 74 “What Thou Lovest Well, Remains American” Van Wagener, Isabella (see Truth, Sojourner) (Richard Hugo) 84 Vassa, Gustavus (see Equiano, Olaudah) What We Talk About When We Talk About Love “Vegetable Air, The” (Cathy Song) 94 (Raymond Carver) 138 Victim, The (Saul Bellow) 103 Wheatley, Phillis 25 Villagrá, Gaspar Pérez de 91 When Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth (Wendy Wasserstein) Vineland (Thomas Pynchon) 109 140 Violent Bear It Away, The (Flannery O’Connor) 103 “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” Viramontes, Helena Maria 151 (Walt Whitman) 31 Virginia (Ellen Glasgow) 58 Where I’m Calling From (Raymond Carver) 138 “Virtue of Tobacco, The” (Philip Freneau) 21 Where I Was From (Joan Didion) 150 Visitation of Spirits, A (Randall Kenan) 146 Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs Vizenor, Gerald 147, 149 (Wallace Stegner) 147 Voight, Ellen Bryant 133 Where the Sea Used To Be (Rick Bass) 148 Vollmann, William 138, 151 White Collar (C. Wright Mills) 101 Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. 97 “White Heron, The” (Sarah Orne Jewett) 50 “Voyages” (Hart Crane) 68 Whiteman, Roberta Hill 92 White Noise (Don DeLillo) 137, 141 White Pine (Mary Oliver) 130 Whitman, Walt 14, 29, 30-32, 33, 35, 36, 49, 67, 122, 128 Whittier, John Greenleaf 33-34, 50 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Edward Albee) 117 Waiting (Ha Jin) 155 “Why I Live at the P.O.” (Eudora Welty) 100 Waiting for Lefty (Clifford Odets) 78 Whyte, William 101 Wake of Jamey Foster, The (Beth Henley) 140 Wideman, John Edgar 116, 143 Walden, or, Life in the Woods (Henry David Thoreau) Wide Net, The (Eudora Welty) 100 29, 40 Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys) 152 Walker, Alice 97, 112, 115-116, 145, 150 Wieland (Charles Brockden Brown) 22 Walker, Margaret 145 Wife of His Youth, The (Charles Waddell Chesnutt) 59 Walking on Water (Randall Kenan) 146 Wigglesworth, Michael 8 Wallace, David Foster 137, 141, 146 Wilbur, Richard 80, 81 Want Bone, The (Robert Pinsky) 133 Wilder, Thornton 78 “Want Bone, The” (Robert Pinsky) 133 “Wild Honey Suckle, The” (Philip Freneau) 21 Wapshot Scandal, The (John Cheever) 105 Wild Iris, The (Louise Glück) 125 “Warning, The” (Robert Creeley) 86 Wildlife (Richard Ford) 147 Warren, Mercy Otis 25 Wild Seed (Octavia Butler) 146 Warren, Robert Penn 76, 80, 81, 97, 98, 99, 100, 112 Williams, John 9 Washington, Booker T. 58-59 Williams, Jonathan 86 Wasserstein, Wendy 140 Williams, Roger 10 Waste Land, The (T.S. Eliot) 61, 63, 64 Williams, Sherley Anne 146 Watch on the Rhine (Lillian Hellman) 99 Williams, Tennessee 97, 99 Waterworks, The (E.L. Doctorow) 113 Williams, William Carlos 62, 63, 66-67, 68, 82, 90

176

06-0823 index

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (Raymond Carver) “Young Housewife, The” (William Carlos Williams) 138 66-67 Wilson, August 116, 119-120 Young Lions, The (Irwin Shaw) 97 Wilson, Harriet 45 Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine (Bebe Moore Campbell) 142 Wilson, Sloan 101 Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson) 55 Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (Andre Lorde) 142 Wings of the Dove, The (Henry James) 52 Zuckerman Bound (Philip Roth) 111 Winter in the Blood (James Welch) 116 Winthrop, John 9, 10 Wise Blood (Flannery O’Connor) 103 Wolf: A False Memoir (Jim Harrison) 147 Wolfe, Thomas 111 Wolfe, Tom 108, 112, 113 Woman, Native, Other (Trinh Minh-Ha) 155 Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (Sandra Cisneros) 116, 148 Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Margaret Fuller) 34 Woman’s Bible, The (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) 43 Woman Warrior, The (Maxine Hong Kingston) 116 Women in Praise of the Sacred (Jane Hirshfield, ed.) 129 Women in Their Beds (Gina Berriault) 150 Women of Brewster Place, The () 143 “Women of Dan Dance With Swords in Their Hands To Mark the Time When They Were Warriors, The” (Audre Lorde) 94 Whitlow, Robert 136 Wick, Lori 136 Woolman, John 11 Words for the Wind (Theodore Roethke) 84 World According to Garp, The (John Irving) 112 World of Apples, The (John Cheever) 105 World’s End (T. Coraghessan Boyle) 151 World’s Fair (E.L. Doctorow) 113 “World Without Objects Is a Sensible Emptiness, A” (Richard Wilbur) 80 Wouk, Herman 97 Wright, C.D. 125 Wright, Charles 89, 125-126 Wright, James 131 Wright, Richard 46, 72, 75, 152 Writing From the New Coast: Technique (Juliana Spahr and Peter Gizzi, eds.) 134 Writing Life, The (Annie Dillard) 128

Yamamoto, Hisaye 150 Yamashita, Karen Tei 150 “Yellow Wallpaper, The” () 51 ¡Yo! (Julia Alvarez) 153

You Bright and Risen Angels: A Cartoon (William Vollmann) 151 Youngest Doll, The (Rosario Ferré) 153 “Young Goodman Brown” (Nathaniel Hawthorne) 38

177 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE / BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS http://usinfo.state.gov

REVISED EDITION