In many ways, Barbara Kingsolver’s first novel, The Bean Trees, might be considered a conventional coming-of-age story, wherein a young woman follows the lead of her literary forebear Huckleberry Finn and journeys east to west on the road to independence…. Read More ›
Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady appeared first as installments in The Atlantic Monthly (1880–81), where readers recognized in its protagonist, Isabel Archer, a more mature version of the title character from his earlier novella, Daisy Miller (1879). Like… Read More ›
Sentimental fiction was pervasive in early Republican literature, not only among the published novels but also in the sketches, stories, and serializations of fiction that appeared in early American magazines. Among the most popular works imported from England throughout the… Read More ›
Biographical narratives typically have been constructed according to a standard format, a chronicle from cradle to grave. In contrast, autobiographical narratives have been less formulaic or more experimental, taking multiple forms. The earliest biographies were intended to glorify the lives… Read More ›
The Great Depression had a profound psychological effect on many Americans, shaking their faith in capitalist ideology. The notions that opportunity was equal and unlimited and that success was assured for energetic, hardworking, talented individuals no longer seemed valid. In… Read More ›
Nature and the environment are traditional themes in American literature and have a long history on the North American continent. Native American oral narratives invoke plant and animal life, weather patterns, and particular places, often viewing these elements of the… Read More ›
Women’s social movements in the United States can be divided into three “waves” (although these divisions are not strictly chronological or oppositional). First-wave feminism emerged from the involvement of women activists in the antislavery, temperance, and women’s-suffrage movements in the… Read More ›
In Grace Paley’s “Samuel,” which appears in the author’s second story collection, Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974), issues of racism and motherhood emerge as prominent themes. This story, which mostly takes place on a subway in Paley’s favored… Read More ›
Since its publication in her collection of short stories The World Over (1936), Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever” has been frequently anthologized. Masterfully constructed with multiple narrative voices and in a satirical tone, “Roman Fever” is the culmination of a lifetime… Read More ›
The Red Badge of Courage, the Novella long considered Stephen Crane’s Civil War masterpiece, is subtitled An Episode of the American Civil War. Although celebrated both for the realism of its style and for the authenticity of its battle scenes,… Read More ›
The Emperor Jones is the first international triumph of expressionism by an American playwright; with it, Eugene O’Neill single-handedly introduced experimental American theater to Europe and established his reputation as the United States’ pre-eminent playwright. The November 1, 1920, premiere… Read More ›
Jane Hamilton (born July 13, 1957) achieved early success with the publication of her first novel. In 1989, The Book of Ruth received the Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award, the Banta Award, and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for… Read More ›
The Berger family are on the verge of the middle class and as such are especially vulnerable. To deny the reality of the American dream is ostensibly to condemn themselves to permanent deprivation. The constant image is one of flight,… Read More ›
I know The Heidi Chronicles was a controversial play among many feminists. It was a play where some people thought I had sold out, because she had a baby at the end and I was saying that all women must… Read More ›
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is, perhaps, to this time, the most mature example of a myth of Contemporary life. The chief value of this drama is its attempt to reveal those ultimate meanings which are resident in modern… Read More ›
Although often considered experimental and sometimes obscure, the poetry of Philip Whalen (20 October 1923 – 26 June 2002) is marked by a directness of expression that matches his concern with directness of experience. The seemingly oblique or broken sentences… Read More ›
Since Diane Wakoski (born August 3, 1937) believes that “the poems in her published books give all the important information about her life,” her life and her art are inextricably related. She states that the poem “must organically come out… Read More ›
Jack Spicer (January 30, 1925 – August 17, 1965) wrote a poetry of imagistic and conceptual juxtaposition reminiscent, at times, of Dadaist randomness. He considered true poetry to be “dictated,” and thus removed from the conscious control of the poet…. Read More ›
Although Gilbert Sorrentino (April 27, 1929 – May 18, 2006) is not usually identified with the Beat poets, he was contemporaneous with them and published many as the editor of Kulchur magazine from 1961 to 1963. Significantly, Sorrentino’s first published… Read More ›
Among many evocative statements about his life and work, a particularly crucial one is Gary Snyder’s (born May 8, 1930) claim that As a poet, I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the late Paleolithic;… Read More ›
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