American literature

Table of Contents

Introduction & Top Questions
The 17th century
The 18th century
- The new nation
- Notable works of the period
  - Poets and poetry
  - Drama and the novel
The 19th century
- Early 19th-century literature
- American Renaissance
  - New England Brahmins
  - The Transcendentalists
  - New England reformers and historians
  - Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman
- From the Civil War to 1914
  - Literary comedians
  - Fiction and local colorists
  - The naturalists
  - Henry James
  - Critics of the gilded age
  - Henry Adams
  - Poets of the era
The 20th century
- Writing from 1914 to 1945
  - Experiments in drama
  - The new poetry
  - Fiction
    - Critics of society
    - Hemingway, Faulkner, and Steinbeck
    - Lyric fictionists
  - Literary criticism
    - Socio-literary critics
    - Moral-aesthetic critics
- After World War II
  - The novel and short story
    - Realism and “metafiction”
    - Southern fiction
    - African American literature
    - New fictional modes
    - The influence of Raymond Carver
    - Multicultural writing
  - Poetry
    - Formal poets
    - Experimentation and Beat poetry
    - “Deep image” poets
    - New directions
    - Autobiographical approaches
  - Drama
    - Miller, Williams, and Albee
    - The Off-Broadway ascendancy
  - Literary and social criticism
    - Literary biography and the “new journalism”
    - Theory

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images, Videos & Interactives

John Smith: Map of Virginia

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Movements in American poetry

Poor Richard's almanac

How did Phillis Wheatley become a poet?

Washington Irving, 19th-century print

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Oliver Wendell Holmes

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Periods of American Literature

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12 Novels Considered the “Greatest Book Ever Written”

poem. A poet in a Heian period kimono writes Japanese poetry during the Kamo Kyokusui No En Ancient Festival at Jonan-gu shrine on April 29, 2013 in Kyoto, Japan. Festival of Kyokusui-no Utage orignated in 1,182, party Heian era (794-1192).

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Lusitania sinking, illustration from The War of the Nations (New York), December 31, 1919. World War I, WWI. This image is one of three on the page. (See source file for the other two.)

7 of the World’s Deadliest Shipwrecks

Entrants falling and tumbling over while chasing the cheese at the 2016 'Cheese Rolling' held at Cooper's Hill, in the Cotswolds, Brockworth England

7 of the World’s Most Dangerous Festivals

Battle of the Alamo from "Texas: An Epitome of Texas History from the Filibustering and Revolutionary Eras to the Independence of the Republic, 1897. Texas Revolution, Texas revolt, Texas independence, Texas history.

6 Wars of Independence

African Americans demonstrating for voting rights in front of the White House as police and others watch, March 12, 1965. One sign reads, "We demand the right to vote everywhere." Voting Rights Act, civil rights.

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Ahura Mazda - relief of the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda at the ancient ruins of Persepolis in Iran. Also known as Ormazd Zoroastrianism,

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Close up of books. Stack of books, pile of books, literature, reading. Homepage 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society

12 Novels Considered the “Greatest Book Ever Written”

American literature: Related Content

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Photos and Videos

John Smith: Map of Virginia

The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America

Poor Richard's almanac

Washington Irving, 19th-century print

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Henry David Thoreau: Walden Pond cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe, c. 1880

Walt Whitman, c. 1870

American humorists, 1868

How did Phillis Wheatley become a poet?

Discover science fiction writer Ray Bradbury's views on Edgar Allan Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher”

The video thumbnail image shows a black and white image of Robert Frost against a sepia-toned background.

An image of Joy Harjo, a Native American woman, imposed on a background of a notebook. A blue arrow points to Harjo with the label "poet laureate."

See All Videos, Images and Interactives →

Topics

African American literature poet laureate muckraker National Book Awards Pulitzer Prize Frost Medal Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize Brahmin Bollingen Prize poststructuralism English literature French literature African literature Arabic literature Italian literature German literature Spanish literature Japanese literature Latin American literature Chinese literature

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Quiz

4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul

Famous Poets and Poetic Form

Emily Dickinson, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right

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Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:

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Close up of books. Stack of books, pile of books, literature, reading. Homepage 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society

12 Novels Considered the “Greatest Book Ever Written”

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