American Literature

American Literature

Around 1820, rapid expansion and growth in the United States fuelled intuition, imagination and individualism in literature. The American Romantic era emphasized imagination, individuality, nature as a source of spirituality, the common man as a hero and looking to the past for wisdom.

The first American Romantic authors were:

1.    Ralph Waldo Emerson

2.    Henry David Thoreau

3.    Nathaniel Hawthorne

Washington Irving, famous for works like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, is regarded as the father of American literature.

American writers can generally be categorized into two major groups:

1.    The Dark Romantics

2.    The Transcendentalists

Prominent writers like:

1.    Edgar Allan Poe

2.    Herman Melville

3.    Walt Whitman

4.    Ezra Pound

5.    Mark Twain

6.    Robert Frost

7.    Eugene O’Neill

8.    Henry James

9.    Ernest Hemingway

10. William Faulkner

11. Toni Morrison

12. Harper Lee

13. Elaine Showalter

14. John Steinbeck

15. Sylvia Plath

16. Arthur Miller

17. Emily Dickinson

18. F. Scott Fitzgerald

19. Dylan Thomas

20. Harriet Beecher Stowe

21. Harold Bloom

However, American literature extends beyond these figures. Writers like Gertrude Stein, who coined the term Lost Generation; Tennessee Williams, a renowned American playwright; and Stanley Fish (famous American Critic) known for his work Is There a Text in This Class?, also hold significant influence. These 20 writers encompass the behemoth that is American Literature.

Extra Information:

The Lost Generation refers to a group of American writers who came of age during World War I. Disillusioned by the war, they rejected traditional values of patriotism, religion, family, and morality. In response, they often turned to escapist techniques such as alcoholism, partying, and indulgence in immorality. (They were disillusioned by the war, materialism and immorality that emerged in America after the war. They rejected the traditional values of patriotism, religion, family, morality and used escapist techniques such as alcoholism, excessive partying, and moral decadence.)

The Beat Generation was a group of writers who emerged in the 1950s. They rejected literary formalism and the American culture rooted in capitalism and materialism.

The central elements of Beat culture include the rejection of standard narrative values, a spiritual quest, the exploration of both American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.

Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch (1959), and Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) are among the best-known works of Beat literature.

Jack Kerouac coined the term "Beat Generation" in 1948 to describe the anti-conformist youth movement he observed in New York at the time.

(Compiled by Nowaz Sharif Sir, Edited By EEC)