American Literature

American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States
and its preceding colonies. During its early history, America was a series of British colonies
on the eastern coast of the present-day United States. Therefore, its literary tradition begins as
linked to the broader tradition of English literature. However, unique American characteristics
and the breadth of its production usually now cause it to be considered a separate path and
tradition.

The first item printed in Pennsylvania was in German and was the largest book printed in any
of the colonies before the American Revolution. Printing was established in the American
colonies before it was allowed in most of England. Captain John Smith could be considered
the first American author with his works: A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents
of Noate as Hath Happened in Virginia... (1608) and The Generall Historie of Virginia, New
England, and the Summer Isles (1624).

As the colonies moved towards their break with England, perhaps one of the most important
discussions of American culture and identity came from the French immigrant J. Hector St.
John de Crèvecœur, whose Letters from an American Farmer addresses the question what is
an American by moving between praise for the opportunities and peace offered in the new
society and recognition that the solid life of the farmer must rest uneasily between the
oppressive aspects of the urban life (with its luxuries built on slavery) and the lawless aspects
of the frontier, where the lack of social structures leads to the loss of civilized living.

This same period saw the birth of African American literature, through the poetry of Phillis
Wheatley and, shortly after the Revolution, the slave narrative of Olaudah Equiano, The
Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. This era also saw the birth of Native
American literature, through the two published works of Samson Occom: A Sermon Preached
at the Execution of Moses Paul and a popular hymnbook, Collection of Hymns and Spiritual
Songs, "the first Indian best-seller".

The revolutionary period also contained political writings, including those by colonists. Two
key figures were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac
and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works with their wit and influence
toward the formation of a budding American identity. Paine's pamphlet Common Sense and
The American Crisis writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the political tone of
the period. In the post-war period, Thomas Jefferson's United States Declaration of
Independence, his influence on the United States Constitution, his autobiography, the Notes on
the State of Virginia, and his many letters solidify his spot as one of the most talented early
American writers.

It was in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that the nation’s first novels were published.
These fictions were too lengthy to be printed as manuscript or public reading. The first
American novel is William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy published in 1791. It
depicts a tragic love story between siblings who fell in love without knowing they were
related. This epistolary novel belongs to the Sentimental novel tradition.

AMERICAN POETS

Phillis Wheatley (1753 – December 5, 1784) was the first African American poet and first
African-American woman to publish her writing. Born in Gambia, Senegal, she was sold into
slavery at the age of 7 or 8 and transported to North America. She was purchased by the
Wheatley family of Boston, who taught her to read and write, and encouraged her poetry when
they saw her talent.

The publication of Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)
brought her fame, both in England, and the Thirteen Colonies; figures such as George
Washington praised her work. During Wheatley's visit to England with her master's son
African-American poet Jupiter Hammon praised her work in his own poem. Wheatley was
emancipated after the death of her master John Wheatley. She married soon after but she and
her husband lost two children as infants. After he was imprisoned for debt in 1784, Wheatley
fell into poverty and died of illness, quickly followed by the death of her surviving infant son.

William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 – June 12, 1878) was an American romantic
poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. Although "Thanatopsis",
his most famous poem, has been said to date from 1811, it is much more probable that Bryant
began its composition in 1813, or even later. What is known about its publication is that his
father took some pages of verse from his son's desk and submitted them, along with his own
work, to the North American Review in 1817. Upon receiving it, the editor read the poem to
his assistant, who immediately exclaimed, "That was never written on this side of the water!"
Someone at the North American joined two of the son's discrete fragments, gave the result the
Greek-derived title Thanatopsis ("meditation on death"), mistakenly attributed it to the father,
and published it and soon Bryant was publishing poems with some regularity, including "To a
Waterfowl" in 1821.

As a writer, Bryant was an early advocate of American literary nationalism, and his own
poetry focusing on nature as a metaphor for truth established a central pattern in the
American literary tradition.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer,
and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a
champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society,
and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500
public lectures across the United States.

Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries,
formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature.
Following this ground-breaking work, he gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in
1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. considered to be America's "Intellectual Declaration
of Independence".

Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first, then revised them for print. His
first two collections of essays – Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series, published
respectively in 1841 and 1844 – represent the core of his thinking, and include such
well-known essays as Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, Circles, The Poet and Experience.
Together with Nature, these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s
Emerson's most fertile period.

Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but
developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize
almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's
"nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic; "Philosophically considered, the universe is
composed of Nature and the Soul."

While his writing style can be seen as somewhat impenetrable, and was thought so even in his
own time, Emerson's essays remain among the linchpins of American thinking, and Emerson's
work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers and poets that have followed him. When
asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was "the infinitude of the private man."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet
and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and
Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy
and was one of the five Fireside Poets.

Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, then part of Massachusetts, and studied at Bowdoin
College. After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later, at
Harvard College. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and
Ballads and Other Poems (1841). Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his
writing. His first wife, Mary Potter, died in 1835 after a miscarriage. His second wife,
Frances Appleton, died in 1861 after sustaining burns from her dress catching fire. After her
death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on his translation. He
died in 1882.

Longfellow predominantly wrote lyric poems which are known for their musicality and which
often presented stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet
of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating
European styles and writing specifically for the masses. Many of his works helped shape the
American character and its legacy, particularly with the poem "Paul Revere's Ride". He was
such an admired figure in the United States during his life that his 70th birthday in 1877 took
on the air of a national holiday, with parades, speeches, and the reading of his poetry.
At Longfellow's funeral, his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson called him "a sweet and beautiful
soul". In reality, Longfellow's life was much more difficult than was assumed. He suffered
from neuralgia, which caused him constant pain, and he also had poor eyesight. He had
become one of the first American celebrities and was also popular in Europe. It was reported
that 10,000 copies of The Courtship of Miles Standish sold in London in a single day. In
1884, Longfellow became the first non-British writer for whom a commemorative sculpted
bust was placed in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey in London; he remains the only
American poet represented with a bust.

Longfellow's popularity rapidly declined, beginning shortly after his death and into the
twentieth century as academics began to appreciate poets like Walt Whitman, Edwin
Arlington Robinson, and Robert Frost.

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet,
philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and
leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple
living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual
resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his
lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he
anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of
modern day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close natural observation,
personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while
displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and "Yankee" love of practical detail.

He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while
praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau's
philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of such
notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thoreau is sometimes cited as an individualist anarchist. Though Civil Disobedience seems to

call for improving rather than abolishing government – "I ask for, not at once no government,
but at once a better government" – the direction of this improvement points toward anarchism:
"'That government is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will
be the kind of government which they will have”

Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe, January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American
author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement.
Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American
practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He
is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first
well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a
financially difficult life and career.
He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; he was orphaned young when his
mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and
Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the
University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. After enlisting in the
Army and later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allans.
His publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and
Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian".

Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals
and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him
to move among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In
Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845 Poe
published his poem, "The Raven", to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years
after its publication. He began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn (later renamed
The Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe
died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to
alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other
agents.

Genres: Poe's best known fiction works are Gothic, a genre he followed to appease the public
taste. His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the
effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and
mourning. Many of his works are generally considered part of the dark romanticism genre, a
literary reaction to transcendentalism, which Poe strongly disliked. He referred to followers of
the movement as "Frogpondians" after the pond on Boston Common. and ridiculed their
writings as "metaphor-run mad," lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "mysticism
for mysticism's sake." Poe once wrote in a letter to Thomas Holley Chivers that he did not
dislike Transcendentalists, "only the pretenders and sophists among them."

Literary theory: Poe's writing reflects his literary theories, which he presented in his
criticism and also in essays such as "The Poetic Principle". He disliked didacticism and
allegory, though he believed that meaning in literature should be an undercurrent just beneath
the surface. Works with obvious meanings, he wrote, cease to be art. In "The Philosophy of
Composition", an essay in which Poe describes his method in writing "The Raven", he claims
to have strictly followed this method.

Tales: "The Black Cat", "The Cask of Amontillado", "A Descent into the Maelström", "The
Fall of the House of Usher", "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Pit and the Pendulum",
"The Purloined Letter", "The Tell-Tale Heart"

Poetry: "Al Aaraaf", "Annabel Lee", "A Dream Within a Dream", "Eldorado", "The Haunted
Palace", "To Helen", "Lenore", "Tamerlane", "The Raven", "Ulalume"
James Russell Lowell (February 22, 1819 – August 12, 1891) was an American Romantic
poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New
England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of
British poets. These poets usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making
them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside.

Lowell graduated from Harvard College in 1838, despite his reputation as a troublemaker, and
went on to earn a law degree from Harvard Law School. He published his first collection of
poetry in 1841 and married Maria White in 1844. The couple soon became involved in the
movement to abolish slavery, with Lowell using poetry to express his anti-slavery views and
taking a job in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the editor of an abolitionist newspaper. After
moving back to Cambridge, Lowell was one of the founders of a journal called The Pioneer,
which lasted only three issues. He gained notoriety in 1848 with the publication of A Fable for
Critics, a book-length poem satirizing contemporary critics and poets. The same year, he
published The Biglow Papers, which increased his fame. He would publish several other
poetry collections and essay collections throughout his literary career.

Maria White died in 1853, and Lowell accepted a professorship of languages at Harvard in
1854. He traveled to Europe before officially assuming his role in 1856; he continued to teach
there for twenty years. He married his second wife, Frances Dunlap, shortly thereafter in
1857. That year Lowell also became editor of The Atlantic Monthly. It was not until 20 years
later that Lowell received his first political appointment: the ambassadorship to Spain and,
later, to England. He spent his last years in Cambridge, in the same estate where he was born,
where he also died in 1891.

Lowell believed that the poet played an important role as a prophet and critic of society. He
used poetry for reform, particularly in abolitionism. However, Lowell's commitment to the
anti-slavery cause wavered over the years, as did his opinion on African-Americans. Lowell
attempted to emulate the true Yankee accent in the dialogue of his characters, particularly in
The Biglow Papers. This depiction of the dialect, as well as Lowell's many satires, were an
inspiration to writers like Mark Twain and H. L. Mencken.

Walter "Walt" Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist
and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and
realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets
in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial
in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene
for its overt sexuality.

Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and – in
addition to publishing his poetry – was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War.
Early in his career, he also produced a novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work,
Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt
at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and
revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to
Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral
became a public spectacle.

Whitman's sexuality is often discussed alongside his poetry. Though biographers continue to
debate his sexuality, he is usually described as either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings
and attractions. However, there is disagreement among biographers as to whether Whitman
had actual sexual experiences with men. Whitman was concerned with politics throughout his
life. He opposed the extension of slavery generally. His poetry presented an egalitarian view
of the races, and at one point he called for the abolition of slavery, but later he saw the
abolitionist movement as a threat to democracy.

Leaves of Grass: Whitman claimed that after years of competing for "the usual rewards", he
determined to become a poet. He first experimented with a variety of popular literary genres
which appealed to the cultural tastes of the period. As early as 1850, he began writing what
would become Leaves of Grass, a collection of poetry which he would continue editing and
revising until his death. Whitman intended to write a distinctly American epic and used free
verse with a cadence based on the Bible. At the end of June 1855, Whitman surprised his
brothers with the already-printed first edition of Leaves of Grass.

Whitman paid for the publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass himself and had it
printed at a local print shop during their breaks from commercial jobs. A total of 795 copies
were printed. No name is given as author; instead, facing the title page was an engraved
portrait done by Samuel Hollyer, but 500 lines in the body of the text he calls himself "Walt
Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no
sentimentalist, no stander above men or women or apart from them, no more modest than
immodest". The inaugural volume of poetry was preceded by a prose preface of 827 lines.
The succeeding untitled twelve poems totaled 2315 lines—1336 lines belonging to the first
untitled poem, later called "Song of Myself". The book received its strongest praise from
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote a flattering five page letter to Whitman and spoke highly
of the book to friends. The first edition of Leaves of Grass was widely distributed and stirred
up significant interest, in part due to Emerson's approval, but was occasionally criticized for
the seemingly "obscene" nature of the poetry. Several well-known writers admired the work
enough to visit Whitman, including Bronson Alcott and Henry David Thoreau.
Walt Whitman has been claimed as America's first "poet of democracy", a title meant to
reflect his ability to write in a singularly American character. A British friend of Walt
Whitman, Mary Smith Whitall Costelloe, wrote: "You cannot really understand America
without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to
date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him."
Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."

Whitman's vagabond lifestyle was adopted by the Beat movement and its leaders such as
Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in the 1950s and 1960s as well as anti-war poets like
Adrienne Rich and Gary Snyder.

Works: Franklin Evans (1842), Leaves of Grass (1855), Drum-Taps (1865), Memoranda
During the War, Specimen Days, Democratic Vistas (1871)
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet.
Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived
a mostly introverted and reclusive life. Thought of as an eccentric by the locals, she became
known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life,
even leave her room. Most of her friendships were therefore carried out by correspondence.

Although Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen
hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her
lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules
of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short
lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization
and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring
topics in letters to her friends.

Although most of her acquaintances were probably aware of Dickinson's writing, it was not
until after her death in 1886—when Lavinia, Emily's younger sister, discovered her cache of
poems—that the breadth of Dickinson's work became apparent. Her first collection of poetry
was published in 1890 by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel
Loomis Todd, both of whom heavily edited the content. A complete and mostly unaltered
collection of her poetry became available for the first time in 1955 when The Poems of Emily
Dickinson was published by scholar Thomas H. Johnson. Despite unfavorable reviews and
skepticism of her literary prowess during the late 19th and early 20th century, critics now
consider Dickinson to be a major American poet.

The extensive use of dashes and unconventional capitalization in Dickinson's manuscripts,

and the idiosyncratic vocabulary and imagery, combine to create a body of work that is "far
more various in its styles and forms than is commonly supposed". Dickinson avoids
pentameter, opting more generally for trimeter, tetrameter and, less often, dimeter. Sometimes
her use of these meters is regular, but oftentimes it is irregular. The regular form that she most
often employs is the ballad stanza, a traditional form that is divided into quatrains, using
tetrameter for the first and third lines and trimeter for the second and fourth, while rhyming
the second and fourth lines (ABCB). Though Dickinson often uses perfect rhymes for lines
two and four, she also makes frequent use of slant rhyme. In some of her poems, she varies
the meter from the traditional ballad stanza by using trimeter for lines one, two and four,
while only using tetrameter for line three.
Major themes: Dickinson left no formal statement of her aesthetic intentions and, because of
the variety of her themes, her work does not fit conveniently into any one genre. She has been
regarded, alongside Emerson (whose poems Dickinson admired), as a Transcendentalist.
However, Farr disagrees with this analysis saying that Dickinson's "relentlessly measuring
mind ... deflates the airy elevation of the Transcendental". Apart from the major themes
discussed below, Dickinson's poetry frequently uses humor, puns, irony and satire.

Flowers and gardens: Farr notes that Dickinson's "poems and letters almost wholly concern
flowers" and that allusions to gardens often refer to an "imaginative realm ... wherein flowers
[are] often emblems for actions and emotions".

The Master poems: Dickinson left a large number of poems addressed to "Signor", "Sir" and
"Master", who is characterized as Dickinson's "lover for all eternity". These confessional
poems are often "searing in their self-inquiry" and "harrowing to the reader" and typically take
their metaphors from texts and paintings of Dickinson's day.

Morbidity: Dickinson's poems reflect her "early and lifelong fascination" with illness, dying
and death. Perhaps surprisingly for a New England spinster, her poems allude to death by
many methods: "crucifixion, drowning, hanging, suffocation, freezing, premature burial,
shooting, stabbing and guillotinage

Gospel poems: Throughout her life, Dickinson wrote poems reflecting a preoccupation with
the teachings of Jesus Christ and, indeed, many are addressed to him.

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. He is highly
regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial
speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early
twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. One of
the most popular and critically respected American poets of his generation, Frost was
honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.

In 1894 he sold his first poem, "My Butterfly. An Elegy" for $15 - equivalent in spending
power to at least $300 today. Proud of his accomplishment, he proposed marriage to Elinor
Miriam White, but she demurred, wanting to finish college before they married. Frost then
went on an excursion to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and asked Elinor again upon his
return. Having graduated, she agreed, and they were married.

Frost attended Harvard University from 1897–1899, but he left voluntarily due to illness.
Shortly before dying, Robert's grandfather purchased a farm for Robert and Elinor in Derry,
New Hampshire; and Robert worked the farm for nine years, while writing early in the
mornings and producing many of the poems that would later become famous. Ultimately his
farming proved unsuccessful and he returned to the field of education as an English teacher

In 1912 Frost sailed with his family to Great Britain, settling first in Beaconsfield, a small
town outside London. His first book of poetry, A Boy's Will, was published the next year. In
England he made some important acquaintances, including Edward Thomas, T.E. Hulme, and
Ezra Pound. Although Pound would become the first American to write a (favorable) review
of Frost's work, Frost later resented Pound's attempts to manipulate his American prosody.
Frost met or befriended many contemporary poets in England, especially after his first two
poetry volumes were published in London in 1913 (A Boy's Will) and 1914 (North of
Boston).

As World War I began, Frost returned to America in 1915 and bought a farm in Franconia,
New Hampshire, where he launched a career of writing, teaching and lecturing. This family
homestead served as the Frosts' summer home until 1938. It is maintained today as The Frost
Place, a museum and poetry conference site. During the years 1916–20, 1923–24, and 1927–
1938, Frost taught English at Amherst College in Massachusetts, notably encouraging his
students to account for the myriad sounds and intonations of the spoken English language in
their writing.

In 1924, he won the first of four Pulitzer Prizes for the book New Hampshire: A Poem with
Notes and Grace Notes. He would win additional Pulitzers for Collected Poems in 1931, A
Further Range in 1937, and A Witness Tree in 1943.

In 1921 Frost accepted a fellowship teaching post at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
where he resided until 1927; while there he was awarded a lifetime appointment at the
University as a Fellow in Letters. In 1940 he bought a 5-acre (2.0 ha) plot in South Miami,
Florida, naming it Pencil Pines; he spent his winters there for the rest of his life.

Harvard's 1965 alumni directory indicates Frost received an honorary degree there. Although
he never graduated from college, Frost received over 40 honorary degrees, including ones
from Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge universities; and was the only person to receive two
honorary degrees from Dartmouth College. During his lifetime, the Robert Frost Middle
School in Fairfax, Virginia, the Robert L. Frost School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the
main library of Amherst College were named after him.

Frost was 86 when he performed a reading of his well-known poem "The Gift Outright" at the
inauguration of President John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1961. He died in Boston two years
later, on January 29, 1963, of complications from prostate surgery. He was buried at the Old
Bennington Cemetery in Bennington, Vermont. His epitaph quotes a line from one of his
poems: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world."

Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American novelist, short story
writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the
Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism. He is
recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation.

The eighth surviving child of Methodist Protestant parents, Crane began writing at the age of
four and had published several articles by the age of 16. Having little interest in university
studies, he left school in 1891 and began work as a reporter and writer. Crane's first novel was
the 1893 Bowery tale Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, which critics generally consider the first
work of American literary Naturalism. He won international acclaim for his 1895 Civil War
novel The Red Badge of Courage, which he wrote without any battle experience.

In 1896, Crane endured a highly publicized scandal after acting as witness for a suspected
prostitute. Late that year he accepted an offer to cover the Spanish-American War as a war
correspondent. As he waited in Jacksonville, Florida for passage to Cuba, he met Cora Taylor,
the madam of a brothel, with whom he would have a lasting relationship. While en route to
Cuba, Crane's ship sank off the coast of Florida, leaving him adrift for several days in a
dinghy. His ordeal was later described in "The Open Boat". During the final years of his life,
he covered conflicts in Greece and lived in England with Cora, where he befriended writers
such as Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells. Plagued by financial difficulties and ill health, Crane
died of tuberculosis in a Black Forest sanatorium at the age of 28.

At the time of his death, Crane had become an important figure in American literature. He
was nearly forgotten, however, until two decades later when critics revived interest in his life
and work. Stylistically, Crane's writing is characterized by vivid intensity, distinctive dialects,
and irony. Common themes involve fear, spiritual crises and social isolation. Although
recognized primarily for The Red Badge of Courage, which has become an American classic,
Crane is also known for short stories such as "The Open Boat", "The Blue Hotel", "The Bride
Comes to Yellow Sky", and The Monster. His writing made a deep impression on 20th
century writers, most prominent among them Ernest Hemingway, and is thought to have
inspired the Modernists and the Imagists.

Poetry: Crane's poems, which he preferred to call "lines", are typically not given as much
scholarly attention as his fiction; no anthology contained Crane's verse until 1926. Although it
is not certain when Crane began to write poetry seriously, he once stated that his overall
poetic aim was "to give my ideas of life as a whole, so far as I know it". The poetic style used
in both of his books of poetry, The Black Riders and Other Lines and War is Kind, was
unconventional for the time in that it was written in free verse without rhyme, meter, or even
titles for individual works. They are typically short in length and although several poems,
such as "Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind", use stanzas and refrains, most do not.

H.D. (born Hilda Doolittle) (September 10, 1886 – September 27, 1961) was an American
poet, novelist and memoirist known for her association with the early 20th century
avant-garde Imagist group of poets such as Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington. The Imagist
model was based on the idioms, rhythms and clarity of common speech, and freedom to
choose subject matter as the writer saw fit. H.D.'s later writing developed on this aesthetic to
incorporate a more female-centric version of modernism.

H.D. was born in Pennsylvania in 1886, and moved to London in 1911 where her publications
earned her a central role within the then emerging Imagism movement. A charismatic figure,
she was championed by the modernist poet Ezra Pound, who was instrumental in building and
furthering her career. From 1916–17, she acted as the literary editor of the Egoist journal,
while her poetry appeared in the English Review and the Transatlantic Review. During the
First World War, H.D. suffered the death of her brother and the breakup of her marriage to the
poet Richard Aldington, and these events weighed heavily on her later poetry. She had a deep
interest in Ancient Greek literature, and her poetry often borrowed from Greek mythology and
classical poets. Her work is noted for its incorporation of natural scenes and objects, which are
often used to emote a particular feeling or mood.

She befriended Sigmund Freud during the 1930s, and became his patient in order to
understand and express her bisexuality. H.D. married once, and undertook a number of
heterosexual and lesbian relationships. She was unapologetic about her sexuality, and thus
became an icon for both the gay rights and feminist movements when her poems, plays,
letters and essays were rediscovered during the 1970s and 1980s. This period saw a wave of
feminist literature on the gendering of Modernism and psychoanalytical misogyny, by a
generation of writers who saw her as an early icon of the feminist movement.
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an American
expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry. He
became known for his role in developing Imagism, which, in reaction to the Victorian and
Georgian poets, favored tight language, unadorned imagery, and a strong correspondence
between the verbal and musical qualities of the verse and the mood it expressed. His best
known works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his unfinished
120-section epic, The Cantos, which consumed his middle and late career, and was published
between 1917 and 1969.

Working in London in the early 20th century as foreign editor of several American literary
magazines, Pound helped to discover and shape the work of contemporaries such as T. S.
Eliot, James Joyce, Robert Frost, and Ernest Hemingway. Pound was responsible for the
publication in 1915 of Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", and for the serialization
from 1918 of Joyce's Ulysses. Hemingway wrote in 1925: "He defends [his friends] when
they are attacked, he gets them into magazines and out of jail. He loans them money. ... He
writes articles about them. He introduces them to wealthy women. He gets publishers to take
their books. He sits up all night with them when they claim to be dying ... he advances them
hospital expenses and dissuades them from suicide."

Outraged by the loss of life during the First World War, he lost faith in England, blaming
usury, financial institutions, and capitalism for the war. He moved to Italy in 1924 where
throughout the 1930s and 1940s, to his friends' dismay, he embraced Benito Mussolini's
fascism, expressed support for Adolf Hitler, and wrote for publications owned by the British
fascist Oswald Mosley. Beginning in 1935, after a long campaign of requests by Pound, he
was allowed to make regular addresses on Italian state radio in support of Fascist policy and a
variety of subjects of his choosing. During the Second World War the Italian government paid
him to make hundreds of radio broadcasts criticizing the United States, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, and in particular Jews, broadcasts that were monitored by the U.S. government. As
a result, he was indicted by a U.S.grand jury on treason charges in mid-1943, along with eight
others. At the end of the war, on 3 May 1945, he was arrested by Italian partisans and turned
over to American forces. He spent months in detention in a U.S. military camp in Pisa,
including 25 days in a six-by-six-foot outdoor steel cage that he said triggered a mental
breakdown: "when the raft broke and the waters went over me." Deemed unfit to stand trial, a
decision disputed for decades after his death, he was incarcerated in St. Elizabeths psychiatric
hospital in Washington, D.C., for over 12 years.

While in custody in Italy he had begun work on sections of The Cantos that became known as
The Pisan Cantos (1948), for which he was awarded the Bollingen Prize in 1949 by the
Library of Congress. The honor triggered enormous controversy, mostly because of his
antisemitism, his status as an indicted, but not convicted, traitor, and in part because it raised
literary questions about whether a supposedly "mad" poet who held such contentious views
could produce work of any value. He was released from St. Elizabeths in 1958, thanks to a
protracted campaign by his fellow writers, and returned to live in Italy until his death. His
political views ensure that his work remains controversial; in 1933 Time magazine called him
"a cat that walks by himself, tenaciously un house broken and very unsafe for children."
Hemingway nevertheless wrote, "The best of Pound's writing—and it is in the Cantos—will
last as long as there is any literature."
Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) was a playwright, literary
critic, and an important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an
American, he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at age 25) and was naturalised as a
British subject in 1927 at age 39.
The poem that made his name, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock—started in 1910 and
published in Chicago in 1915—is seen as a masterpiece of the modernist movement, and was
followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including Gerontion
(1920), The Waste Land (1922),The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), and Four
Quartets (1945). He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral
(1935). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, and educated at Harvard, Eliot studied philosophy at the
Sorbonne for a year, then in 1914 won a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, becoming a
British citizen in 1927 when he was 39.

Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American writer, poet and art
collector who spent most of her life in France. While living in Paris, Gertrude began writing
for publication. Her earliest writings were mainly retellings of her college experiences. Her
first critically acclaimed publication was Three Lives. In 1911, Mildred Aldrich introduced
Gertrude to Mabel Dodge Luhan and they began a short-lived but fruitful friendship during
which a wealthy Mabel Dodge promoted Gertrude's legend in the United States.

Mabel was enthusiastic about Gertrude's sprawling publication The Makings of Americans
and, at a time when Gertrude had much difficulty selling her writing to publishers, privately
published 300 copies of Portrait of Mabel Dodge at Villa Curonia.

Books: Q.E.D. (Not published until after her death) Gertrude completed Q.E.D. (Quod Erat
Demonstrandum) on October 24, 1903.

Fernhurst (written 1904) In 1904 Stein began this fictional account of a scandalous three
person romantic affair involving a dean (M. Carey Thomas) and a faculty member (Mary
Gwinn) from Bryn Mawr College and a Harvard graduate (Alfred Hodder). Mellow asserts
that Fernhurst "is a decidedly minor and awkward piece of writing.".Mellow observes that, in
1904, 30-year-old Gertrude "had evidently determined that the 'small hard reality' of her life
would be writing".

Three Lives (written 1905–06) Among the paintings was a portrait of Madame Cézanne
which provided Gertrude with inspiration as she began to write, and which she credited with
her evolving writing style .She began her novel Three Lives during the spring of 1905, and
finished it the following year.

The Making of Americans (written 1902–11) Gertrude Stein stated the date for her writing
of The Making of Americans was 1906-1908. Stein compared her work to James Joyce's
Ulysses and to Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Her critics were less enthusiastic
about it. The manuscript remained mostly hidden from public view until 1924 when, at the
urging of Ernest Hemingway, Ford Madox Ford agreed to publish excerpts in the transatlantic
review.
Word Portraits (written 1908–1913)Gertrude's descriptive essays apparently began with her
essay of Alice B. Toklas, "a little prose vignette, a kind of happy inspiration that had detached
itself from the torrential prose of The Making of Americans". Matisse and Picasso were
subjects of early essays, later collected and published in Geography and Plays (published
1922) and Portraits and Prayers (published 1934).

Tender Buttons (written 1912): Tender Buttons is the best known of Gertrude Stein's
"hermetic" works. It is a small book separated into three sections - Food, Objects and Rooms
each containing prose under subtitles. Stein's poems in Tender Buttons are very stylised and
hermetic, as she preferred for sound rather than sense.]

During the 1920s, her salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus, with walls covered by avant-garde
paintings, attracted many of the great writers of the time, including Ernest Hemingway, Ezra
Pound, Thornton Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson. While she has been credited with
inventing the term "Lost Generation" for some of these expatriate American writers. She was
Ernest Hemingway's mentor, and upon the birth of his son he asked her to be the godmother
of his child.

With the outbreak of World War II, Stein and Toklas relocated to a country home that they had
rented for many years previously in Bilignin, Ain, in the Rhône-Alpes region. Gertrude and
Alice, who were both Jewish, escaped persecution probably because of their friendship to
Bernard Faÿwho was a collaborator with the Vichy regime and had connections to the
Gestapo, or possibly because Gertrude was an American and a famous author. Gertrude's
book "Wars I Have Seen" written before the German surrender and before the liberation of
German concentration camps, likened the German army to Keystone cops. When Faÿ was
sentenced to hard labor for life after the war, Gertrude and Alice campaigned for his release.
Several years later, Toklas would contribute money to Faÿ's escape from prison.

Lesbian relationships: Stein is the author of one of the earliest coming out stories, Q.E.D.
(published in 1950 as Things as They Are), written in 1903 and suppressed by the author. The
story, written during travels after leaving college, is based on a three-person romantic affair
she joined while studying at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. The affair was complicated, as Stein
was less experienced with the social dynamics of romantic friendship as well as her own
sexuality and any moral dilemmas regarding it. Stein maintained at the time that she detested
"passion in its many disguised forms". The relationships of Stein's acquaintances Mabel
Haynes and Grace Lounsbury ended as Haynes started one with Mary Bookstaver (also
known as May Bookstaver). Stein became enamored of Bookstaver but was unsuccessful in
advancing their relationship. Bookstaver, Haynes, and Lounsbury all later married men.

More positive affirmations of Stein's sexuality began with her relationship with Alice B.
Toklas. Ernest Hemingway describes how Alice was Gertrude's "wife" in that Stein rarely
addressed his (Hemingway's) wife, and he treated Alice the same, leaving the two "wives" to
chat. Alice was 4'11" tall, and Gertrude was 5'1".

The more affirming essay "Miss Furr and Miss Skeene" is one of the first homosexual
revelation stories to be published. The work, like Q.E.D., is informed by Stein's growing
involvement with a homosexual community, though it is based on lesbian partners Maud Hunt
Squire and Ethel Mars. The work contains the word "gay" over one hundred times, perhaps
the first published use of the word "gay" in reference to same-sex relationships and those who
have them, and, thus, uninformed readers missed the lesbian content. A similar essay of
homosexual men begins more obviously with the line "Sometimes men are kissing" but is
less well known.

In Tender Buttons Stein comments on lesbian sexuality and the work abounds with "highly
condensed layers of public and private meanings" created by wordplay including puns on the
words "box", "cow", and in titles such as "tender buttons".

Stein's writing can be placed in three categories: "hermetic" works that have gone largely
unread, best illustrated by The Making of Americans: The Hersland Family; popularized
writing such as The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas; and speech writing and more
accessible autobiographical writing of later years, of which Brewsie and Willie is a good
example. Her works include novels, plays, stories, libretti and poems written in a highly
idiosyncratic, playful, repetitive, and humorous style. Typical quotes are: "Rose is a rose is a
rose is a rose"; "Out of kindness comes redness and out of rudeness comes rapid same
question, out of an eye comes research, out of selection comes painful cattle"; about her
childhood home in Oakland, "There is no there there"; and "The change of color is likely and
a difference a very little difference is prepared. Sugar is not a vegetable."

These stream-of-consciousness experiments, rhythmical essays or "portraits", were designed

to evoke "the excitingness of pure being" and can be seen as literature's answer to Cubism,
plasticity, and collage. Many of the experimental works such as Tender Buttons have since
been interpreted by critics as a feminist reworking of patriarchal language.

Though Gertrude collected cubist paintings, especially those of Picasso, the largest visual
influence on her work is that of Cézanne. Particularly, he influenced her idea of equality,
distinguished from universality: "the whole field of the canvas is important". Rather than a
figure/ground relationship, "Stein in her work with words used the entire text as a field in
which every element mattered as much as any other." It is a subjective relationship that
includes multiple viewpoints.

Her use of repetition is ascribed to her search for descriptions of the "bottom nature" of her
characters, such as in The Making of Americans where the narrator is described through the
repetition of narrative phrases such as "As I was saying" and "There will be now a history of
her." Stein used many Anglo-Saxon words and avoided words with "too much association".
Social judgement is absent in her writing, so the reader is given the power to decide how to
think and feel about the writing. Anxiety, fear and anger are also absent, and her work is
harmonic and integrative.

In 1932, using an accessible style to appeal to a wider audience, she wrote The Autobiography
of Alice B. Toklas; the book would become her first best-seller. Despite the title, it was
actually Stein's autobiography. The style was quite similar to that of The Alice B. Toklas
Cookbook, which was written by Toklas.
William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet
closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general
practitioner of medicine with a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of
Medicine. Williams "worked harder at being a writer than he did at being a physician" but
excelled at both.

Williams' major collections are Spring and All (1923), Pictures from Brueghel and Other
Poems(1962), and Paterson (1963, repr. 1992). His most anthologized poem is "The Red
Wheelbarrow", an example of the Imagist movement's style and principles (see also "This Is
Just To Say"). However, Williams, like his peer and friend Ezra Pound, had already rejected
the Imagist movement by the time this poem was published as part of Spring and All in 1923.

Williams is strongly associated with the American Modernist movement in literature and saw
his poetic project as a distinctly American one; he sought to renew language through the fresh,
raw idiom that grew out of America's cultural and social heterogeneity, at the same time
freeing it from what he saw as the worn-out language of British and European culture.

Williams tried to invent an entirely fresh and uniquely American form of poetry whose subject
matter was centered on everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people. He
came up with the concept of the "variable foot" which Williams never clearly defined but the
concept vaguely referred to Williams' method of determining line breaks. One of Williams'
aims, in experimenting with his "variable foot," was to show the American (opposed to
European) rhythm that he claimed to be present in everyday American language.

Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), popularly known as E.
E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase
letters as e.e. cummings (in the style of some of his poems), was an American poet, painter,
essayist, author, and playwright. His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems,
two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and
paintings. He is remembered as a preeminent voice of 20th century poetry.

Despite Cummings' consanguinity with avant-garde styles, much of his work is quite
traditional. Many of his poems are sonnets, albeit often with a modern twist. Cummings'
poetry often deals with themes of love and nature, as well as the relationship of the individual
to the masses and to the world. His poems are also often rife with satire.

While his poetic forms and themes share an affinity with the romantic tradition, Cummings'
work universally shows a particular idiosyncrasy of syntax, or way of arranging individual
words into larger phrases and sentences. Many of his most striking poems do not involve any
typographical or punctuation innovations at all, but purely syntactic ones.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
From "i carry your heart with me (i carry it in" (1920)
As well as being influenced by notable modernists including Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound,
Cummings' early work drew upon the imagist experiments of Amy Lowell. Later, his visits to
Paris exposed him to Dada and surrealism, which in turn permeated his work. He began to rely
on symbolism and allegory where he once used similie and metaphor. In his later work, he
rarely used comparisons that required objects that were not previously mentioned in the poem,
choosing to use a symbol instead. Due to this, his later poetry is “frequently more lucid, more
moving, and more profound than his earlier.” Cummings also liked to incorporate imagery of
nature and death into much of his poetry.

John Crowe Ransom (April 30, 1888, Pulaski, Tennessee – July 3, 1974, Gambier, Ohio)
was an American poet, essayist, magazine editor, and professor. At Vanderbilt, Ransom was a
founding member of the Fugitives, a Southern literary group of 16 writers that functioned
primarily as a kind of poetry workshop and included Donald Davidson, Allen Tate, and Robert
Penn Warren. Under their influence, Ransom, whose first interest had been philosophy began
writing poetry. His first volume of poems, Poems about God (1919), was praised by Robert
Frost and Robert Graves. The Fugitive Group had a special interest in Modernist poetry and,
under Ransom's editorship, started a short-lived but highly influential magazine, called The
Fugitive, which published American Modernist poets, mainly from the South.
Ransom's literary reputation is based chiefly on two collections of poetry, Chills and Fever
(1924) and Two Gentlemen in Bonds (1927). Believing he had no new themes upon which to
write, his subsequent poetic activity consisted almost entirely of revising ("tinkering", he
called it) his earlier poems. Hence Ransom's reputation as a poet is based on the fewer than
160 poems he wrote and published between 1916 and 1927.

Ransom primarily wrote short poems examining the ironic and unsentimental nature of life
(with domestic life in the American South being a major theme). An example of his Southern
style is his poem "Janet Waking", which "mixes modernist with old-fashioned country
rhetoric." Ransom was noted as a strict formalist, using both regular rhyme and meter in
almost all of his poems. He also occasionally employed archaic diction.

Criticism
Ransom was a leading figure of the school of literary criticism known as the New Criticism,
which gained its name from his 1941 volume of essays The New Criticism. The New Critical
theory, which dominated American literary thought throughout the middle 20th century,
emphasized close reading, and criticism based on the texts themselves rather than on non
textual bias or non-textual history.

In his seminal 1937 essay, "Criticism, Inc." Ransom laid out his
ideal form of literary criticism stating that, "criticism must become more scientific, or precise
and systematic." To this end, he argued that personal responses to literature, historical
scholarship, linguistic scholarship, and what he termed "moral studies" should not influence
literary criticism. He also argued that literary critics should regard a poem as an aesthetic
object.

Many of the ideas that Ransom explained in this essay would become very important in the
development of The New Criticism. "Criticism, Inc." and a number of Ransom's other
theoretical essays set forth some of guiding principles that the New Critics would build upon.
Still, Ransom's former students, specifically Allen Tate, Cleanth Brooks, and Robert Penn
Warren, had a greater hand in developing many of the key concepts (like "close reading") that
later came to define the New Criticism.

Ransom remained an active essayist until his death even though, by the 1970's, the popularity
and influence of the New Critics had seriously diminished.

John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 – February 9, 1979) was an American poet,
essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of
Congress from 1943 to 1944. In 1928, Tate published his first book of poetry, Mr. Pope and
Others Poems which contained his most famous poem, "Ode to the Confederate Dead" (not to
be confused with "Ode to the Confederate Dead at Magnolia Cemetery" written by American
Civil War poet and South Carolina native, Henry Timrod). That same year, Tate also
published a biography Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier.

In 1929, Tate published a second biography Jefferson Davis: His Rise and Fall. By the 1930s,
Tate had returned to Tennessee, where he worked on social commentary influenced by his
agrarian philosophy. He contributed an essay, "Remarks on the Southern Religion" to I'll Take
My Stand, a book of essays by the so-called Southern Agrarians that served as the movement's
manifesto. Later, Tate co-edited Who Owns America?, which was a follow up to I'll Take My
Stand and which contained Agrarian responses to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. During
this time, Tate also became the de facto associate editor of The American Review, which was
published and edited by Seward Collins.

By 1937, when he published his first Selected Poems, Tate had written all of the shorter
poems upon which his literary reputation came to rest. This collection--which brought
together work from two recent volumes, Poems: 1928-1931 (1932) and the privately printed
The Mediterranean and Other Poems (1936), as well as the early Mr. Pope--included "Mother
and Son," "Last Days of Alice," "The Wolves," "The Mediterranean," "Aeneas at
Washington," "Sonnets at Christmas," and the final version of "Ode to the Confederate Dead."

In 1938 Tate published his only novel, The Fathers, which drew upon knowledge of his
mother's ancestral home and family in Fairfax County, Virginia. Tate was a poet-in-residence
at Princeton University until 1942. He founded the Creative Writing program at Princeton, and
mentored Richard Blackmur, John Berryman, and others.

Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist,
and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter
member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal
The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for
the Novel for his novel All the King's Men (1946) and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958
and 1979. He is the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry.

Irwin Allen Ginsberg /ˈɡɪnzbərɡ/ (June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and
one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed
militarism, materialism and sexual repression. Ginsberg is best known for his epic poem
"Howl", in which he celebrated his fellow "angel-headed hipsters" and harshly denounced
what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States. This
poem is one of the classic poems of the Beat Generation. The poem, which was dedicated to
writer Carl Solomon, opens:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by

madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix...

In October 1955, Ginsberg and five other unknown poets gave a free reading at an
experimental art gallery in San Francisco. Ginsberg's "Howl" electrified the audience. In
1957, "Howl" attracted widespread publicity when it became the subject of an obscenity trial
in which a San Francisco prosecutor argued it contained "filthy, vulgar, obscene, and
disgusting language." The poem seemed especially outrageous in 1950s America because it
depicted both heterosexual and homosexual sex at a time when sodomy laws made
homosexual acts a crime in every U.S. state. "Howl" reflected Ginsberg's own homosexuality
and his relationships with a number of men, including Peter Orlovsky, his lifelong partner.

In "Howl" and in his other poetry, Ginsberg drew inspiration from the epic, free verse style of
the 19th century American poet Walt Whitman. Both wrote passionately about the promise
(and betrayal) of American democracy, the central importance of erotic experience, and the
spiritual quest for the truth of everyday existence.

Ginsberg was a practicing Buddhist who studied Eastern religious disciplines extensively. One
of his most influential teachers was the Tibetan Buddhist, the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa,
founder of the Naropa Institute, now Naropa University at Boulder, Colorado. At Trungpa's
urging, Ginsberg and poet Anne Waldman started a poetry school there in 1974 which they
called the "Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics". In spite of his attraction to Eastern
religions, the journalist Jane Kramer argues that Ginsberg, like Whitman, adhered to an
"American brand of mysticism".

He lived modestly, buying his clothing in second-hand stores and residing in downscale
apartments in New York’s East Village. Ginsberg's political activism was consistent with his
religious beliefs. He took part in decades of non-violent political protest against everything
from the Vietnam War to the War on Drugs. Ginsberg's book of poems The Fall of America
won the National Book Award for poetry in 1974. Other honors included the National Arts
Club gold medal and his induction into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and
Letters, both in 1979. Ginsberg was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 for his book
Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992.

Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001) was an American poet,
youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers (with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg,
and William S. Burroughs). He was beloved by the other "Beats".

Corso's first volume of poetry The Vestal Lady on Brattle was published in 1955 (with the
assistance of students at Harvard, where he had been auditing classes). Corso was the second
of the Beats to be published (after only Kerouac's The Town and the City), despite being the
youngest. His poems were first published in the Harvard Advocate. In 1958, Corso had an
expanded collection of poems published as number 8 in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series:
Gasoline &The Vestal Lady on Brattle. Of his many notable poems are: "Bomb" (a "concrete
poem" formatted in typed paper slips of verse, arranged in the shape of a mushroom cloud),
"Elegiac Feelings American" of the recently deceased Jack Kerouac, and "Marriage", a
humorous meditation on the institution, perhaps his signature poem. And later in life, "The
Whole Mess Almost".

In "Marriage" Corso tackles the possibilities of marriage. It was among his "title poems", with
"Power", "Army" and others that explore a concept. "Should I get married?" (1), the speaker
begins. Could marriage bring about the results that the speaker is looking for? Coming "home
to her" (54) and sitting "by the fireplace and she in the kitchen/aproned young and lovely
wanting my baby/ and so happy about me she burns the roast beef" (55-57). Idealizing
marriage and fatherhood initially, Corso's speaker embraces reality in the second half of the
poem admitting, "No, I doubt I'd be that kind of father" (84). Recognizing that the act of
marriage is in itself a form of imprisonment, "No, can’t imagine myself married to that
pleasant prison dream" (103), Corso's speaker acknowledges in the end that the possibility of
marriage is not promising for him.
Corso's sometimes surreal word mash ups— "forked clarinets", "Flash Gordon soap",
"werewolf bathtubs" —caught the attention of many.

It was "Bomb" and "Marriage" that caught the eye of a young Bob Dylan, still in Minnesota.
Ted Morgan described Corso's place in the beat literary world: "If Ginsberg, Kerouac and
Burroughs were the Three Musketeers of the movement, Corso was their D'Artagnan, a sort of
junior partner, accepted and appreciated, but with less than complete parity.” It has taken 50
years and the death of the other Beats, for Corso to be fully appreciated as a poet of equal
stature and significance.

Jean-Louis "Jack"Kerouac /ˈkɛruːæk/ or/ˈkɛrɵæk/; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969) was
an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William
S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for
his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic spirituality, jazz,
promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, and travel. His writings have inspired other writers,
including , Bob Dylan and Thomas Pynchon, Kerouac became an underground celebrity and,
with other beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic
toward some of its politically radical elements. In 1969, at age 47, Kerouac died from internal
bleeding due to long-standing abuse of alcohol. Since his death Kerouac's literary prestige has
grown and several previously unseen works have been published. All of his books are in print
today, among them: On the Road, Doctor Sax, The Dharma Bums, Mexico City Blues, The
Subterraneans, Desolation Angels, Visions of Cody and Big Sur.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (born March 24, 1919) is an American poet, painter, liberal activist,
and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. Author of poetry, translations,
fiction, theatre, art criticism, and film narration, he is best known for A Coney Island of the
Mind, a collection of poems that has been translated into nine languages, with sales of over 1
million copies.

The fourth number in the Pocket Poets Series was Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. Ferlinghetti was in
attendance at the now-famous Six Gallery reading where Ginsberg first performed Howl
publicly. The next day Ferlinghetti telegrammed Ginsberg: "I greet you at the beginning of a
great literary career," subsequently offering to publish his work”.

The book was seized in 1956 by the San Francisco police. Ferlinghetti and Shig Murao, the
bookstore manager who had sold the book to the police, were arrested on obscenity charges.
After charges against Murao were dropped, Ferlinghetti, defended by Jake Ehrlich and the
American Civil Liberties Union, stood trial in SF Municipal court. The publicity generated by
the trial drew national attention to San Francisco Renaissance and Beat movement writers.
Ferlinghetti had the support of prestigious literary and academic figures, and, at the end of a
long trial, Judge Clayton W. Horn found Howl not obscene and acquitted him in October
1957. The landmark First Amendment case established a key legal precedent for the
publication of other controversial literary work with redeeming social importance.

Although in style and theme Ferlinghetti’s own writing is very unlike that of the original NY
Beat circle, he had important associations with the Beat writers, who made City Lights
Bookstore their headquarters when they were in San Francisco. He has often claimed that he
was not a Beat, but a bohemian of an earlier generation. A married war veteran and a
bookstore proprietor, he didn’t share the high (or low) life of the beats on the road.

Over the years Ferlinghetti published work by many of the Beats, including Allen Ginsberg,
Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, Diane diPrima, Michael McClure,
Philip Lamantia, Bob Kaufman, and Gary Snyder. He was Ginsberg’s publisher for over
thirty years. When the Indian poets of the Hungryalists literary movement were arrested in
1964 at Kolkata, Ferlinghetti introduced the Hungryalist poets to Western readers through the
initial issues of City Lights Journal.

Adrienne Cecile Rich (born May 16, 1929) is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She
has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the
20th century."

Adrienne Rich was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the older of two sisters. Her father, the
renowned pathologist Arnold Rice Rich, was a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins
Medical School, and her mother, Helen Jones Rich, was a concert pianist until she married.
Her father was Jewish and her mother was a Southern Protestant; the girls were raised as
Christians. Adrienne Rich's early poetic influence stemmed from her father who encouraged
her to read but also to write her own poetry. Her interest in literature was sparked within her
father's library where she read the work of writers such as Ibsen, Arnold, Blake, Keats,
Rossetti, and Tennyson. Her father was ambitious for Adrienne and "planned to create a
prodigy." Adrienne Rich and her younger sister were home schooled by their mother until
Adrienne began public education in the fourth grade. The poems Sources and After Dark
document her relationship with her father, describing how she worked hard to fulfill her
parents' ambitions for her - moving into a world in which she was expected to excel.

In 1951, her last year at college, Rich's first collection of poetry, A Change of World, was
selected by the senior poet W.H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award; he went
on to write the introduction to the published volume.

In 1953, Rich married Alfred Haskell Conrad, an economics professor at Harvard University,
whom she had met as an undergraduate. In 1963, Rich published her third collection,
Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law, which was a much more personal work examining her
female identity, reflecting the increasing tensions she experienced as a wife and mother in the
1950s, marking a substantial change in Rich's style and subject matter. In her 1982 essay
"Split at the Root: An Essay on Jewish Identity", Rich states "The experience of motherhood
was eventually to radicalize me."

Moving her family to New York in 1966, Rich became involved with the New Left and
became heavily involved in anti-war, civil right, and feminist activism. Her husband took a
teaching position at City College of New York. In 1968, she signed the “Writers and Editors
War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
Her collections from this period include Necessities of Life (1966), Leaflets (1969), and The
Will to Change (1971), which reflect increasingly radical political content and interest in
poetic form.
In 1973 that Rich wrote Diving into the Wreck, a collection of exploratory and often angry
poems, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1974, which she shared with Allen
Ginsberg. Declining to accept it individually, Rich was joined by the two other feminist poets
nominated, Alice Walker and Audre Lorde, to accept it on behalf of all women.

In 1976, Rich began her lifelong partnership with Jamaican-born novelist and editor Michelle
Cliff. In her controversial work Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution,
published the same year, Rich acknowledged that, for her, lesbianism was both a political as
well as a personal issue, writing, "The suppressed lesbian I had been carrying in me since
adolescence began to stretch her limbs." The pamphlet Twenty-One Love Poems (1977),
which was incorporated into the following year's Dream of a Common Language (1978),
marked the first direct treatment of lesbian desire and sexuality in her writing, themes which
run throughout her work afterwards, especially in A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far
(1981) and some of her late poems in The Fact of a Doorframe (2001).

In her analytical work Adrienne Rich: the moment of change, Langdell suggests these works
represent a central rite of passage for the poet, as she (Rich) crossed a threshold into a newly
constellated life and a "new relationship with the universe". During this period, Rich also
wrote a number of key socio-political essays, including "Compulsory Heterosexuality and
Lesbian Existence", one of the first to address the theme of lesbian existence. In this essay,
she asks "how and why women's choice of women as passionate comrades, life partners,
co-workers, lovers, community, has been crushed, invalidated, forced into hiding". Some of
the essays were republished in On Lies, Secrets and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966–1978
(1979). In integrating such pieces into her work, Rich claimed her sexuality and took a role in
leadership for sexual equality.

The two women took over editorship of the lesbian journal Sinister Wisdom in 1981. Rich
published several in the next few years: Your Native Land, Your Life (1986), Blood, Bread,
and Poetry (1986), and Time’s Power: Poems 1985-1988 (1989).

Rich's work with the New Jewish Agenda led to the founding of Bridges: A Journal for Jewish
Feminists and Our Friends in 1990, a journal of which Rich served as the editor. Her next
published piece, An Atlas of the Difficult World (1991), won both the Los Angeles Times
Book Award in Poetry and the Lenore Marshall/Nation Award as well as the Poet's Prize in
1993 and Commonwealth Award in Literature in 1991.

Her next few volumes were a mix of poetry and essays: Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995-1998
(1999), The Art of the Possible: Essays and Conversations (2001), and Fox: Poems 1998-2000
(2001).

Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American
poet, considered to be one of the founders of the confessional poetry movement. He was
appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he
served from 1947 until 1948. He won the Pulitzer Prize in both 1947 and 1974, the National
Book Award in 1960, and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977.

Lowell's first book of poems, Land of Unlikeness (1944), did not receive much attention.
However, in 1946, Lowell received wide acclaim for his next book, Lord Weary's Castle,
which included five poems slightly revised from Land of Unlikeness, plus thirty new poems.
Among the better known poems in the volume are "Mr Edwards and the Spider" and "The
Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket." Lord Weary's Castle was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in
1947.

Lowell's early poems were formal, ornate, and concerned with violence and theology; a
typical example is the close of "The Quaker Graveyard" -- "You could cut the brackish winds
with a knife / Here in Nantucket and cast up the time / When the Lord God formed man from
the sea's slime / And breathed into his face the breath of life, / And the blue-lung'd combers
lumbered to the kill. / The Lord survives the rainbow of His will." He was Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1947−1948 (a position now known as the U.S. Poet
Laureate).

The Mills of the Kavanaughs (1951), a book that centered on its epic title poem, did not
receive the praise that his previous book did, but Lowell was able to revive his reputation
with Life Studies which was published in 1959 and won the National Book Award for poetry
in 1960. In his acceptance speech for the award, Lowell famously divided American poetry
into two camps: the "cooked" and the "raw." This commentary by Lowell was made in
reference to the popularity of Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation poets and was a signal
from Lowell that he was trying to incorporate some of their "raw" energy into his own
poetry.The poems in Life Studies were written in a mix of free and metered verse, with much
more informal language than he had used in his first two books. It marked both a big turning
point in Lowell's career, and a turning point for American poetry in general. Because many of
the poems documented details from Lowell's family life and personal problems, one critic,
M.L. Rosenthal, labeled these poems "confessional." For better or worse, this label stuck and
led to Lowell being grouped together with other influential confessional poets like Lowell's
former students W. D. Snodgrass, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton.

Lowell followed Life Studies with Imitations (1961), a volume of loose translations of poems
by classical and modern European poets, including Rilke, Montale, Baudelaire, Pasternak, and
Rimbaud, for which he received the 1962 Bollingen Poetry Translation Prize. His next book
For the Union Dead (1964) was widely praised, particularly for its title poem, which invokes
Allen Tate's "Ode to the Confederate Dead." For the Union Dead was Lowell's first book since
Life Studies to contain all original verse (since it did not include any translations). None of the
poems in For the Union Dead explicitly addressed the taboo subject of Lowell's mental illness
(like some of the poems in Life Studies did) and were, therefore, not notably "confessional."

In 1964, Lowell also tried his hand at playwrighting with three, one-act plays that were meant
to be performed together as a trilogy, titled The Old Glory. The first two parts, "Endecott the
Red Cross" and "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" were stage adaptations of short stories by
Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the third part, "Benito Cereno," was a stage adaptation of a novella
by Herman Melville.

In 1967, Lowell published his next book of poems, Near the Ocean. The best known poem in
this volume is "Waking Early Sunday Morning," which was written in eight-line tetrameter
stanzas (borrowed from Andrew Marvell's poem "Upon Appleton House") and showed
contemporary American politics overtly entering into Lowell's work.

Pity the planet, all joy gone

from this sweet volcanic cone;
peace to our children when they fall
in small war on the heels of small
war—until the end of time
to police the earth, a ghost
orbiting forever lost
in our monotonous sublime.
From "Waking Early Sunday Morning," Near the Ocean (1967)

During 1967 and 1968 he experimented with a verse journal, published as Notebook 1967-68
(and later republished in a revised edition, titled Notebook). Lowell referred to these fourteen
line poems as sonnets although they sometimes failed to incorporate regular meter and never
incorporated rhyme (both of which are defining features of the sonnet form); however, some
of Lowell's sonnets (particularly the ones in Notebook 1967-1968) were written in blank verse
with a definitive pentameter.

The first book in Lowell's Notebook-derived trilogy was History (1973) which primarily dealt
with world history from antiquity up to the mid-20th century (although the book does not
always follow a linear or logical path and contains many poems about Lowell's friends, peers,
and family). The second book, For Lizzie and Harriet (1973), describes the breakdown of his
second marriage and contains poems that are supposed to be in the voice of his daughter,
Harriet, and his second wife, Elizabeth. Finally, the last work in Lowell's sonnet sequence,
The Dolphin (1973), which won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize.

A minor controversy erupted when Lowell admitted to having incorporated (and altered)
private letters from his ex-wife, Elizabeth Hardwick into poems for The Dolphin. He was
particularly criticized for this by his friends, fellow-poets Adrienne Rich and Elizabeth
Bishop.

Lowell published his last volume of poetry, Day by Day, in 1977, the year of his death. It was
Lowell's only volume to contain nothing but free verse, and for fans of Lowell's work who
were disappointed by the uneven "sonnets" that Lowell had been re-writing and re-packaging
in volume after volume since 1967, Day by Day marked a return to form. In many of the
poems, Lowell reflects on his life, his past relationships, and his own mortality. The
best-known poem from this collection is the last one, titled "Epilogue," in which Lowell
reflects upon the "confessional" school of poetry with which his work was associated.

Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist and
short story writer. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and
Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer.
She married fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956 and they lived together first in the United States
and then England, having two children together: Frieda and Nicholas. Following a long
struggle with depression and a marital separation, Plath committed suicide in 1963.

Plath is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for her
two published collections: The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel. In 1982, she became the
first poet to win a Pulitzer Prize posthumously, for The Collected Poems. She also wrote The
Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death.

Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni (born June 7, 1943) is an American poet, writer,
commentator, activist, and educator. Her primary focus is on the individual and the power one
has to make a difference in oneself and in the lives of others. Giovanni’s poetry expresses
strong racial pride, respect for family, and her own experiences as a daughter, a civil rights
activist, and a mother. She is currently a distinguished professor of English at Virginia Tech.
The civil rights and black power movements inspired her early poetry that was collected in
Black Feeling, Black Talk (1967), Black Judgement (1968), and Re: Creation(1970). She has
since written more than two dozen books including volumes of poetry, illustrated children's
books, and three collections of essays.Giovanni's writing has been heavily inspired by African
American activists and artists. Her book, Love Poems (1997), was written in memory of
Tupac Shakur and she has stated that she would "rather be with the thugs than the people who
are complaining about them."

Those Who Ride the Night Winds (1983) acknowledged notable black figures. Giovanni
collected her essays in the 1988 volume Sacred Cows ... and Other Edibles. Some of her more
recent works include Acolytes, a collection of eighty new poems, and On My Journey Now.
Acolytes is her first published volume since her 2003 Collected Poems. It tones down the
militant, edgy conscience that Giovanni has become famous for and portrays her softer, more
nostalgic side. The work is a celebration of love and recollection directed at friends and loved
ones and recalls memories of nature, theater, and the glories of children. However, her fiery
persona still remains a constant undercurrent in Acolytes, as some of the most serious verse
link her own life struggles (being a black woman, a cancer survivor, and a professor at
Virginia Tech) to the wider frame of African-American history and the continual fight for
equality.

Giovanni's most recent work, Bicycles: Love Poems (2009) is a collection of poems that serve
as a companion to her 1997 Love Poems. They express notions of love in unexpected ways,
touching on the deaths of both her mother and her sister, as well as the massacre on the
Virginia Tech campus.
She was commissioned by National Public Radio's All Things Considered to create an
inaugural poem for President Barack Obama. Giovanni read poetry at the Lincoln Memorial
as a part of the bicentennial celebration of Lincoln's birth on February 12, 2009.
Maya Angelou born Marguerite Ann Johnson (1928) is an American author and poet. Her
long career has included six autobiographies, five books of essays, numerous books of poetry,
and a long list of credits in plays, movies, and television shows. She is one of the most
decorated writers of her generation, with dozens of awards and over thirty honorary doctoral
degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of autobiographies, which focus on her
childhood and early adult experiences. The first and most highly acclaimed, I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her first seventeen years, and brought her international
recognition.

Angelou's long list of occupations has included pimp, prostitute, night-club dancer and
performer, cast-member of the musical Porgy and Bess, author and member of the Harlem
Writers Guild, journalist in Egypt and Ghana during the days of decolonization, and actor,
writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. Since 1991,
she has taught at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where she holds
the first lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies. She was active in the Civil
Rights movement, and worked with both King and Malcolm X. Since the 1990s she has made
around eighty appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her
eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill
Clinton's inauguration, the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John
F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961.

With the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou was heralded as a new
kind of memoirist, one of the first African American women who was able to publicly discuss
her personal life. She is highly respected as a spokesperson for Black people and women, and
her works have been seen as representative and as a defense of Black culture. Some of her
more controversial works have been challenged or banned in U.S. schools and libraries, but
have been used in schools and universities internationally. Angelou's books have been
labelled as autobiographical fiction, but many critics have characterized them as
autobiographies. She has made a deliberate attempt to challenge the common structure of the
autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. Her books have centered on
themes such as racism, identity, family, and travel. Angelou is best known for her
autobiographies, but she is also an established poet, although her poems have received mixed
reviews.

Although Angelou considered herself a playwright and poet when her editor Robert Loomis
challenged her to write I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she is best known for her
autobiographies. According to Lupton, many of Angelou's readers identify her as a poet first
and an autobiographer second. Reviewer Elsie B. Washington has called her "the black
woman's poet laureate", and has called Angelou's poetry the anthems of African Americans.
Angelou has experienced similar success as a poet as an autobiographer. She began, early in
her writing career, of alternating the publication of an autobiography and a volume of poetry.
Her first volume of poetry Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie, published in
1971 shortly after I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings became a best-seller, was nominated for
a Pulitzer Prize.
Angelou's most famous poem was "On the Pulse of Morning", which she recited at the
inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993. Angelou delivered what Richard Long called
her "second 'public' poem", entitled "A Brave and Startling Truth", which commemorated the
50th anniversary of the United Nations in 1995. In 2009, Angelou wrote "We Had Him", a
poem about Michael Jackson, which was read by Queen Latifah at his funeral.

As Angelou's biographers have stated, Angelou had "fallen in love with poetry in Stamps,
Arkansas". After her rape at the age of eight, she memorized and studied great works of
literature, including poetry, and according to Caged Bird, her friend Mrs. Flowers encouraged
her to recite them, which helped bring her out of her muteness. Angelou's biographers have
also stated that Angelou's poems "reflect the richness and subtlety of Black speech and
sensibilities" and were meant to be read aloud.

Amiri Baraka (1934), formerly known as Le Roi Jones, is an American writer of poetry,
drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He is the author of numerous books of poetry and
has taught at a number of universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo
and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

PROSE WRITERS

James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was a prolific and
popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who
wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leather stocking Tales,
featuring frontiers man Natty Bumppo. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel
The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece.

He anonymously published his first book, Precaution (1820). He soon issued several others.
In 1823, he published The Pioneers; this was the first of the Leather stocking series, featuring
Natty Bumppo, the resourceful American woodsman at home with the Delaware Indians and
especially their chief Chingachgook. Cooper's most famous novel, Last of the Mohicans
(1826), became one of the most widely read American novels of the 19th century.

In 1826 Cooper moved his family to Europe, where he sought to gain more income from his
books as well as provide better education for his children. While overseas, he continued to
write. His books published in Paris include The Red Rover and The Water Witch—two of his
many sea stories. During his time in Paris, the Cooper family was seen as the center of the
small American ex-patriat community. During this time he developed a friendship with the
painter Samuel Morse and French General and American Revolutionary War hero, marquis de
Lafayette.

In 1832 he entered the lists as a political writer; in a series of letters to the National, a Parisian
journal, he defended the United States against a string of charges brought against them by the
Revue Britannique. For the rest of his life, he continued skirmishing in print, sometimes for
the national interest, sometimes for that of the individual, and not infrequently for both at
once.

This opportunity to make a political confession of faith reflected the political turn he already
had taken in his fiction, having attacked European anti-republicanism in The Bravo (1831).
Cooper continued this political course in The Heidenmauer (1832) and The Headsman: or the
Abbaye of Vigneron (1833). The Bravo depicted Venice as a place where a ruthless oligarchy
lurks behind the mask of the "serene republic". All were widely read on both sides of the
Atlantic, though The Bravo was a critical failure in the United States.
In 1833 Cooper returned to the United States and immediately published A Letter to My
Countrymen, in which he gave his own version of the controversy and sharply censured his
compatriots for their share in it. His Homeward Bound and Home as Found are notable for
containing a highly idealized self portrait.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; 1804 – 1864) was an American novelist
and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to
Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John
Hathorne, the only judge involved in the Salem Witch Trials who never repented of his
actions. Nathaniel later added a "w" to make his name "Hawthorne". Hawthorne
anonymously published his first work, a novel titled Fanshawe, in 1828. He published several
short stories in various periodicals which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The next
year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at a Custom House and joined Brook
Farm, a transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The Scarlet Letter
was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment
took Hawthorne and family to Europe before their return to The Wayside in 1860. Hawthorne
died on May 19, 1864, leaving behind his wife and their three children.

Much of Hawthorne's writing centers on New England, many works featuring moral allegories
with a Puritan inspiration. His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement
and, more specifically, dark romanticism. His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin
of humanity, and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity.
His published works include novels, short stories, and a biography of his friend Franklin
Pierce.

Hawthorne had a particularly close relationship with his publishers William Ticknor and
James Thomas Fields. In fact, it was Fields who convinced Hawthorne to turn The Scarlet
Letter into a novel rather than a short story.

Many of his works are inspired by Puritan New England, combining historical romance
loaded with symbolism and deep psychological themes, bordering on surrealism. His later
writings also reflect his negative view of the Transcendentalism movement.

Hawthorne was predominantly a short story writer in his early career. Upon publishing Twice
Told Tales, however, he noted, "I do not think much of them", and he expected little response
from the public. His four major romances were written between 1850 and 1860: The Scarlet
Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852) and
The Marble Faun (1860). Another novel-length romance, Fanshawe was published
anonymously in 1828. Hawthorne defined a romance as being radically different from a novel
by not being concerned with the possible or probable course of ordinary experience.
Hawthorne also wrote nonfiction.

Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe, January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American
author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement.
Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American
practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fictiongenre. He
is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first
well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a
financially difficult life and career.

Herman Melville (1819 –1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and
poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick. His first three books gained much
contemporary attention (the first, Typee, becoming a bestseller), and after a fast-blooming
literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and
never recovered during his lifetime. When he died in 1891, he was almost completely
forgotten. It was not until the "Melville Revival" in the early 20th century that his work won
recognition, especially Moby-Dick, which was hailed as one of the literary masterpieces of
both American and world literature. He was the first writer to have his works collected and
published by the Library of America.

Most of Melville's novels were published first in the United Kingdom and then in the U.S.
Sometimes the editions contain substantial differences; at other times different printings were
either bowdlerized or restored to their pre-bowdlerized state. (For specifics on different
publication dates, editions, printings, etc., please see entries for individual novels.)

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale has become Melville's most famous work and is often considered
one of the greatest literary works of all time. It was dedicated to Melville's friend Nathaniel
Hawthorne. It did not, however, make Melville rich. The book never sold its initial printing of
3,000 copies in his lifetime. Melville also wrote Billy Budd, White-Jacket, Israel Potter,
Redburn, Typee, Omoo, Pierre, The Confidence-Man and many short stories, including
"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" and "Benito Cereno," and works of various
genres.

Melville is less well known as a poet and did not publish poetry until later in life. After the
Civil War, he published Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War, which did not sell well. Again
tending to outrun the tastes of his readers, Melville's epic length verse-narrative Clarel, about
a student's pilgrimage to the Holy Land, was also quite obscure, even in his own time. Among
the longest single poems in American literature, Clarel, published in 1876, had an initial
printing of only 350 copies.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it
reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United
Kingdom. It energized anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread
anger in the South. She wrote more than 20 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and
collections of articles and letters. She was influential both for her writings and her public
stands on social issues of the day.

Uncle Tom's Cabin and Civil War

In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, prohibiting assistance to fugitives. At the
time, she had moved with her family into a home on the campus of Bowdoin College, where
her husband was now teaching. Shortly after, In June 1851, when she was 40, the first
installment of her Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in the National Era. She originally used
the subtitle "The Man That Was A Thing", but it was soon changed to "Life Among the
Lowly". Installments were published weekly. Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in book form
on March 20, 1852 In less than a year, the book sold an unprecedented three hundred
thousand copies.

The book's emotional portrayal of the impact of slavery captured the nation's attention. It
added to the debate about abolition and slavery, and aroused opposition in the South. Within
a year, 300 babies were named "Eva" in Boston alone and a play based on the book opened in
New York in November of that year. After the outbreak of the Civil War, Stowe traveled to
Washington, D.C. and there met President Abraham Lincoln on November 25, 1862. Legend
has it that, upon meeting her, he greeted her by saying, "so you are the little woman who
wrote the book that started this great war." In reality, little is known about the meeting.

William Dean Howells( 1837 – 1920) was an American realist author and literary critic.
Nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters", he was particularly known for his tenure as
editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own writings, including the Christmas story
"Christmas Every Day" and the novel The Rise of Silas Lapham.

Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as
Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, Giovanni Verga, Benito Pérez Galdós, and, especially, Leo Tolstoy,
which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in
support of American writers Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, Mary E.
Wilkins Freeman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles W. Chesnutt, Abraham
Cahan, Madison Cawein, and Frank Norris. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest
influence. Howells view on realism is that it is, "nothing more and nothing less than the
truthful treatment of material."

Henry James, (1843 –1916) was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures
of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the
brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.

James alternated between America and Europe for the first 20 years of his life, after which he
settled in England, becoming a British subject in 1915, one year before his death. He is
primarily known for the series of novels in which he portrays the encounter of Americans with
Europe and Europeans. His method of writing from the point of view of a character within a
tale allows him to explore issues related to consciousness and perception, and his style in later
works has been compared to impressionist painting.

James contributed significantly to literary criticism, particularly in his insistence that writers
be allowed the greatest possible freedom in presenting their view of the world. James claimed
that a text must first and foremost be realistic and contain a representation of life that is
recognisable to its readers. His imaginative use of point of view, interior monologue and
possibly unreliable narrators in his own novels and tales brought a new depth and interest to
narrative fiction.

James is one of the major figures of trans-Atlantic literature. His works frequently juxtapose
characters from the Old World (Europe), embodying a feudal civilization that is beautiful,
often corrupt, and alluring, and from the New World (United States), where people are often
brash, open, and assertive and embody the virtues—freedom and a more highly evolved
moral character—of the new American society.

Critics have jokingly described three phases in the development of James's prose: "James the
First, James the Second, and The Old Pretender" and observers do often group his works of
fiction into three periods. In his apprentice years, culminating with the masterwork The
Portrait of a Lady, his style was simple and direct (by the standards of Victorian magazine
writing) and he experimented widely with forms and methods, generally narrating from a
conventionally omniscient point of view. Plots generally concern romance, except for the
three big novels of social commentary that conclude this period. In the second period, as
noted above, he abandoned the serialised novel and from 1890 to about 1897, he wrote short
stories and plays. Finally, in his third and last period he returned to the long, serialised novel.
The first period of James's fiction, usually considered to have culminated in The Portrait of a
Lady, concentrated on the contrast between Europe and America. The style of these novels is
generally straightforward and, though personally characteristic, well within the norms of 19th
century fiction. Roderick Hudson (1875) is a Künstlerroman that traces the development of
the title character, an extremely talented sculptor. Although Roderick Hudson featured mostly
American characters in a European setting, James made the Europe–America contrast even
more explicit in his next novel The American (1877). This book is a combination of social
comedy and melodrama concerning the adventures and misadventures of Christopher
Newman, an essentially good-hearted but rather gauche American businessman on his first
tour of Europe. Newman is looking for a world different from the simple, harsh realities of
19th century American business. He encounters both the beauty and the ugliness of Europe,
and learns not to take either for granted.

Washington Square (1880) is a deceptively simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict
between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, domineering father. The book is often
compared to Jane Austen's work for the clarity and grace of its prose and its intense focus on
family relationships.

In The Portrait of a Lady (1881) James concluded the first phase of his career with a novel
that remains his most popular piece of long fiction. The story is of a spirited young American
woman, Isabel Archer, who "affronts her destiny" and finds it overwhelming. She inherits a
large amount of money and subsequently becomes the victim of Machiavellian scheming by
two American expatriates. The narrative is set mainly in Europe, especially in England and
Italy. Generally regarded as the masterpiece of his early phase, The Portrait of a Lady is
described as a psychological novel, exploring the minds of his characters, and almost a work
of social science, exploring the differences between Europeans and Americans, the old and the
new worlds.
The Bostonians (1886) is a bittersweet tragicomedy that centres on Basil Ransom, an
unbending political conservative from Mississippi; Olive Chancellor, Ransom's cousin and a
zealous Boston feminist; and Verena Tarrant, a pretty protégée of Olive's in the feminist
movement. The storyline concerns the contest between Ransom and Olive for Verena's
allegiance and affection, though the novel also includes a wide panorama of political activists,
newspaper people, and quirky eccentrics.
Just as James was beginning his ultimately disastrous attempt to conquer the stage, he wrote
The Tragic Muse (1890). This novel offers a wide, cheerful panorama of English life and
follows the fortunes of two would-be artists: Nick Dormer, who vacillates between a political
career and his efforts to become a painter, and Miriam Rooth, an actress striving for artistic
and commercial success. A huge cast of supporting characters help and hinder their pursuits.

After the failure of his "dramatic experiment" James returned to his fiction and began to probe
his characters' consciousness. His style started to grow in complexity to reflect the greater
depth of his analysis. The Spoils of Poynton (1897) is a half-length novel that describes the
struggle between Mrs. Gereth, a widow of impeccable taste and iron will, and her son Owen
over a houseful of precious antique furniture. The story is largely told from the viewpoint of
Fleda Vetch, a young woman in love with Owen but sympathetic to Mrs Gereth's anguish
over losing the antiques she patiently collected.

James continued the more involved, psychological approach to his fiction with What Maisie
Knew (1897), the story of the sensitive daughter of divorced and irresponsible parents. The
novel has great contemporary relevance as an unflinching account of a wildly dysfunctional
family.

The third period of James's career reached its most significant achievement in three novels
published just after the turn of the century. It was the second-written of the books, The Wings
of the Dove (1902) that was the first published. This novel tells the story of Milly Theale, an
American heiress stricken with a serious disease, and her impact on the people around her.
Some of these people befriend Milly with honourable motives, while others are more self
interested.

The next published of the three novels, The Ambassadors (1903), is a dark comedy that
follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe in pursuit of his widowed
fiancée's supposedly wayward son. Strether is to bring the young man back to the family
business, but he encounters unexpected complications. The third-person narrative is told
exclusively from Strether's point of view. The Golden Bowl (1904) is a complex, intense
study of marriage and adultery that completes the "major phase" and, essentially, James's
career in the novel. The book explores the tangle of interrelationships between a father and
daughter and their respective spouses. The novel focuses deeply and almost exclusively on
the consciousness of the central characters, with sometimes obsessive detail and powerful
insight.

Just as the contrast between Europe and America was a predominant theme in James's early
novels, many of his first short tales also explored the clash between the Old World and the
New. In "A Passionate Pilgrim" (1871) the difference between America and Europe erupts
into open conflict, which leads to a sadly ironic ending.
James published many stories before what would prove to be his greatest success with the
readers of his time, "Daisy Miller" (1878). This story portrays the confused courtship of the
title character, a free-spirited American girl, by Winterbourne, a compatriot of hers with much
more sophistication. His pursuit of Daisy is hampered by her own flirtatiousness, which is
frowned upon by the other expatriates they meet in Switzerland and Italy. Her lack of
understanding of the social mores of the society she so desperately wishes to enter ultimately
leads to tragedy.

"The Aspern Papers" (1888) is one of James's best-known and most acclaimed longer tales.
The storyline is based on an anecdote that James heard about a Shelley devotee who tried to
obtain some valuable letters written by the poet. Set in a brilliantly described Venice, the story
demonstrates James's ability to generate almost unbearable suspense while never neglecting
the development of his characters. Another fine example of the middle phase of James's career
in short narrative is "The Pupil" (1891), the story of a precocious young boy growing up in a
mendacious and dishonorable family. He befriends his tutor, who is the only adult in his life
that he can trust. James presents their relationship with sympathy and insight, and the story
reaches what some have considered the status of classical tragedy.

"The Altar of the Dead", is a fable of literally life and death significance. The story explores
how the protagonist tries to keep the remembrance of his dead friends, to save them from
being forgotten entirely in the rush of everyday events. He meets a woman who shares his
ideals, only to find that the past places what seems to be an impassable barrier between them.

The final phase of James's short narratives shows the same characteristics as the final phase of
his novels: a more involved style, a deeper psychological approach, and a sharper focus on his
central characters. Probably his most popular short narrative among today's readers, "The Turn
of the Screw" (1898) is a ghost story that has lent itself well to operatic and film adaptation.
With its possibly ambiguous content and powerful narrative technique, the story challenges
the reader to determine if the protagonist, an unnamed governess, is correctly reporting events
or is instead an unreliable neurotic with an overheated imagination. To further muddy the
waters, her written account of the experience—a frame tale—is being read many years later at
a Christmas house party by someone who claims to have known her.

"The Beast in the Jungle" (1903) is almost universally considered to be one of James's finest
short narratives, and has often been compared with The Ambassadors in its meditation on
experience or the lack of it. The parable of John Marcher and his peculiar destiny speaks to
anyone who has speculated on the worth and meaning of human life. Among his last efforts in
short narrative, "The Jolly Corner" (1908) is usually held to be one of James's best ghost
stories. The tale describes the adventures of Spencer Brydon as he prowls the now-empty
New York house where he grew up. Brydon encounters a "sensation more complex than had
ever before found itself consistent with sanity".

Nonfiction
Beyond his fiction, James was one of the more important literary critics in the history of the
novel. In his classic essay The Art of Fiction (1884), he argued against rigid proscriptions on
the novelist's choice of subject and method of treatment. He maintained that the widest
possible freedom in content and approach would help ensure narrative fiction's continued
vitality. James wrote many valuable critical articles on other novelists; typical is his insightful
book-length study of his American predecessor Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American
author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a
term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the
20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. He
finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender is the Night
and his most famous, The Great Gatsby. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last
Tycoon, was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat
themes of youth and promise along with despair and age. Novels such as The Great Gatsby
and Tender is the Night were made into films, and in 1958 his life from 1937–1940 was
dramatized in Beloved Infidel.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 –1910), better known by his pen name MarkTwain, was
an American author and humorist. He is most noted for his novels, The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer (1876), and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called
"the Great American Novel."

Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry
Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. After toiling as a printer in various
cities, he became a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, before heading west to
join Orion. He was a failure at gold mining, so he next turned to journalism. While a reporter,
he wrote a humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", which
became very popular and brought nationwide attention. His travelogues were also
well-received. Twain had found his calling.
He achieved great success as a writer and public speaker. His wit and satire earned praise
from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European
royalty. He lacked financial acumen, and, though he made a great deal of money from his
writings and lectures, he squandered it on various ventures and was forced to declare
bankruptcy. Twain worked hard to ensure that all of his creditors were paid in full, even
though his bankruptcy had relieved him of the legal responsibility.
Twain was born during a visit by Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would "go out with
it" as well. He died the day following the comet's subsequent return. He was lauded as the
"greatest American humorist of his age," and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of
American literature."
Twain's first important work, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," was first
published in the New York Saturday Press on November 18, 1865. The only reason it was
published there was that his story arrived too late to be included in a book Artemus Ward was
compiling featuring sketches of the wild American West.
After this burst of popularity, the Sacramento Union commissioned Twain to write letters
about his travel experiences. The first journey he took for this job was to ride the steamer
Ajax in its maiden voyage to Hawaii, referred to at the time as the Sandwich Islands. These
humorous letters proved the genesis to his work with the San Francisco Alta California
newspaper, which designated him a traveling correspondent for a trip from San Francisco to
New York City via the Panama isthmus. On June 8, 1867, Twain set sail on the pleasure
cruiser Quaker City for five months. This trip resulted in The Innocents Abroad or The New
Pilgrims' Progress. In 1872, Twain published a second piece of travel literature, Roughing It,
as a semi-sequel to Innocents. Roughing It is a semi-autobiographical account of Twain's
journey to Nevada and his subsequent life in the American West. The book lampoons
American and Western society in the same way that Innocents critiqued the various countries
of Europe and the Middle East. Twain's next work kept Roughing It's focus on American
society but focused more on the events of the day. Entitled The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today,
it was not a travel piece, as his previous two books had been, and it was his first attempt at
writing a novel. The book is also notable because it is Twain's only collaboration; it was
written with his neighbor Charles Dudley Warner.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn

Twain's next major publication was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which drew on his youth
in Hannibal. Tom Sawyer was modeled on Twain as a child, with traces of two schoolmates,
John Briggs and Will Bowen. The book also introduced in a supporting role Huckleberry
Finn, based on Twain's boyhood friend Tom Blankenship.

The Prince and the Pauper, despite a storyline that is omnipresent in film and literature today,
was not as well received. Telling the story of two boys born on the same day who are
physically identical, the book acts as a social commentary as the prince and pauper switch
places.

Twain's next major published work, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, solidified him as a
noteworthy American writer. Some have called it the first Great American Novel, and the
book has become required reading in many schools throughout the United States.

Near the completion of Huckleberry Finn, Twain wrote Life on the Mississippi, which is said
to have heavily influenced the former book. The work recounts Twain's memories and new
experiences after a 22-year absence from the Mississippi. In it, he also states that "Mark
Twain" was the call made when the boat was in safe water – two fathoms (12 ft/3.7 m).

Twain next focused on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which featured him
making his first big pronouncement of disappointment with politics. Written with the same
"historical fiction" style of The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee showed the
absurdities of political and social norms by setting them in the court of King Arthur.

Twain's last work was his autobiography, which he dictated and thought would be most
entertaining if he went off on whims and tangents in non-chronological order. Some archivists
and compilers have rearranged the biography into more conventional forms, thereby
eliminating some of Twain's humor and the flow of the book.

Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968), was an American
author and one-time candidate for governor of California who wrote close to one hundred
books in

many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring
particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle (1906). It exposed conditions in
the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage
a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. Time
magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence."

The Jungle
In The Jungle (1906), Sinclair gave a scathing indictment of unregulated capitalism as
exemplified in the meatpacking industry. His descriptions of both the unsanitary conditions
and the inhumane conditions experienced by the workers shocked and galvanized readers.
Sinclair had intended it as an attack upon capitalist enterprise, but readers reacted viscerally.
Domestic and foreign purchases of American meat fell by half. Sinclair lamented: "I aimed at
the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." The novel was so influential that it
spurred government regulation of the industry, as well as the passage of the Meat Inspection
Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (1902 – 1968) was an American writer. He is widely known for the
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952) and the
novella Of Mice and Men (1937). He was an author of twenty-seven books, including sixteen
novels, six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories; Steinbeck received the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold, published in 1929, is based on the life and death of
privateer Henry Morgan. It centers on Morgan's assault and sacking of the city of Panama,
sometimes referred to as the 'Cup of Gold', and on the woman, fairer than the sun, who was
said to be found there.

After Cup of Gold, between 1931 and 1933 Steinbeck produced three shorter works. The
Pastures of Heaven, published in 1932, comprised twelve interconnected stories about a valley
near Monterey, that was discovered by a Spanish corporal while chasing runaway American
Indian slaves. In 1933 Steinbeck published The Red Pony, a 100-page, four-chapter story
weaving in memories of Steinbeck's childhood. To a God Unknown follows the life of a
homesteader and his family in California, depicting a character with a primal and pagan
worship of the land he works.

Steinbeck achieved his first critical success with Tortilla Flat (1935), a novel that won the
California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal. It portrays the adventures of a group of
classless and usually homeless young men in Monterey after World War I, just before U.S.
prohibition. They are portrayed in ironic comparison to mythic knights on a quest and reject
nearly all the standard mores of American society in enjoyment of a dissolute life centered
around wine, lust, camaraderie and petty theft. In presenting the 1962 Nobel Prize to
Steinbeck, the Swedish Academy cited "spicy and comic tales about a gang of paisanos,
asocial individuals who, in their wild revels, are almost caricatures of King Arthur's Knights
of the Round Table. It has

been said that in the United States this book came as a welcome antidote to the gloom of the
then prevailing depression."

Steinbeck began to write a series of "California novels" and Dust Bowl fiction, set among
common people during the Great Depression. These included In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and
Men and The Grapes of Wrath.

Of Mice and Men was a drama about the dreams of a pair of migrant agricultural laborers in
California. It was critically acclaimed and Steinbeck's 1962 Nobel Prize citation called it a
"little masterpiece". Its stage production was a hit, starring Broderick Crawford as the
mentally child-like but physically powerful itinerant farmhand Lennie, and Wallace Ford as
Lennie's companion George. However, Steinbeck refused to travel from his home in
California to attend any performance of the play during its New York run, telling director
George S. Kaufman that the play as it existed in his own mind was "perfect" and that
anything presented on stage would only be a disappointment. Steinbeck would write two
more stage plays (The Moon Is Down and Burning Bright).

Steinbeck followed this wave of success with The Grapes of Wrath (1939), based on
newspaper articles about migrant agricultural workers that he had written in San Francisco. It
is commonly considered his greatest work. Later that year it won the Pulitzer Prize for
Fiction and it was adapted as a film.

Grapes was controversial. Steinbeck's New Deal political views, negative portrayal of aspects
of capitalism, and sympathy for the plight of workers, led to a backlash against the author,
especially close to home. Claiming the book was both obscene and misrepresented conditions
in the county, the Kern County Board of Supervisors banned the book from the county's
publicly funded schools and libraries in August 1939. This ban lasted until January 1941.

Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men is a tragedy that was written in the form of a play in 1937. The story is
about two traveling ranch workers, George and Lennie, trying to work up enough money to
buy their own farm/ranch. As it is set in 1930's America, it provides an insight into The Great
Depression, encompassing themes of racism, loneliness, prejudice against the mentally ill,
and the struggle for personal independence. Along with Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and
The Pearl, Of Mice and Men is one of Steinbeck's best known works. It was made into a
movie three times.

The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath is set in the Great Depression and describes a family of sharecroppers,
the Joads, who were driven from their land due to the dust storms of the Dust Bowl. The title
is a reference to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Some critics found it too sympathetic to the
workers' plight and too critical of capitalism but it found quite a large audience in the working
class. It won both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction (novels) and was
adapted as a film starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford.

William Cuthbert Faulkner (born Falkner, 1897 –1962) was an American writer and Nobel
Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote
novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career. He is primarily
known and acclaimed for his novels and short stories, many of which are set in the fictional
Yoknapatawpha County, a setting Faulkner created based on Lafayette County, where he spent
most of his childhood.

Faulkner is considered one of the most important writers of the Southern literature of the
United States, along with Mark Twain, Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O'Connor, Truman
Capote, Eudora Welty, Thomas Wolfe, Harper Lee and Tennessee Williams. Though his work
was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was
relatively unknown until receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. Two of his works, A
Fable (1954) and his last novel The Reivers (1962) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked his 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury sixth on its list of
the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century; also on the list were 1930's As I
Lay Dying and Light in August (1932).

From the early 1920s to the outbreak of World War II, when Faulkner left for California, he
published 13 novels and numerous short stories. This body of work formed the basis of his
reputation and led to him being awarded the Nobel Prize at age 52. This prodigious output,
mainly driven by an obscure writer's need for money, includes his most celebrated novels such
as The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932), and
Absalom, Absalom! (1936). Faulkner was also a prolific writer of short stories.

His first short story collection, These 13 (1931), includes many of his most acclaimed (and
most frequently anthologized) stories, including "A Rose for Emily", "Red Leaves", "That
Evening Sun", and "Dry September". Faulkner set many of his short stories and novels in
Yoknapatawpha County—based on, and nearly geographically identical to, Lafayette County,
of which his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi is the county seat. Yoknapatawpha was
Faulkner's "postage stamp", and the bulk of work that it represents is widely considered by
critics to amount to one of the most monumental fictional creations in the history of literature.
Three novels, The Hamlet, The Town and The Mansion, known collectively as the Snopes
Trilogy, document the town of Jefferson and its environs, as an extended family headed by
Flem Snopes insinuates itself into the lives and psyches of the general populace.

Faulkner was known for his experimental style with meticulous attention to diction and
cadence. In contrast to the minimalist understatement of his contemporary Ernest Hemingway,
Faulkner made frequent use of "stream of consciousness" in his writing, and wrote often
highly emotional, subtle, cerebral, complex, and sometimes Gothic or grotesque stories of a
wide variety of characters including former slaves or descendants of slaves, poor white,
agrarian, or working-class Southerners, and Southern aristocrats.

Faulkner wrote two volumes of poetry which were published in small printings, The Marble
Faun (1924) and A Green Bough (1933), and a collection of crime-fiction short stories,
Knight's Gambit(1949).

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899 –1961) was an American author and journalist. His
economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life
of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of
his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections and two non-fiction works. Three
novels, four collections of short stories and three non-fiction works were published
posthumously. Many of these are considered classics of American literature.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school he reported for a few months
for The Kansas City Star, before leaving for the Italian front to enlist with the World War I
ambulance drivers. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime
experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms. In 1922, he married Hadley
Richardson, the first of his four wives. The couple moved to Paris, where he worked as a
foreign correspondent, and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the
1920s "Lost Generation" expatriate community. The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway's first
novel, was published in 1926.

After his 1927 divorce from Hadley Richardson, Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer. They
divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War where he had acted as a journalist, and
after which he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in
1940. They separated when he met Mary Welsh in London during World War II; during
which he was present at the Normandy Landings and liberation of Paris.

Shortly after the publication of The Old Man and the Sea in 1952, Hemingway went on safari
to Africa, where he was almost killed in a plane crash that left him in pain or ill-health for
much of the rest of his life. Hemingway had permanent residences in Key West, Florida, and
Cuba during the 1930s and 1940s, but in 1959 he moved from Cuba to Ketchum, Idaho,
where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.

A Farewell to Arms is a novel written by Ernest Hemingway set during the Italian campaign
of World War I. The book, published in 1929, is a first-person account of American Frederic
Henry, serving as a Lieutenant ("Tenente") in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The
title is taken from a poem by 16th-century English dramatist George Peele.

The novel is divided into five books. In the first book, Rinaldi introduces Henry to Catherine
Barkley; Henry attempts to seduce her, and their relationship begins. While on the Italian
front, Henry is wounded in the knee by a mortar shell and sent to a hospital in Milan. The
second book shows the growth of Henry and Catherine's relationship as they spend time
together in Milan over the summer. Henry falls in love with Catherine and, by the time he is
healed, Catherine is three months pregnant. In the third book, Henry returns to his unit, but
not long afterwards the Austrians break through the Italian lines in the Battle of Caporetto,
and the

Italians retreat. Henry kills an engineering sergeant for insubordination. After falling behind
and catching up again, Henry is taken to a place by the "battle police", where officers are
being interrogated and executed for the "treachery" that supposedly led to the Italian defeat.
However, after seeing and hearing that everyone interrogated is killed, Henry escapes by
jumping into a river. In the fourth book, Catherine and Henry reunite and flee to Switzerland
in a rowboat. In the final book, Henry and Catherine live a quiet life in the mountains until
she goes into labor. After a long and painful birth, their son is stillborn. Catherine begins to
hemorrhage and soon dies, leaving Henry to return to their hotel in the rain.

The Sun Also Rises is a 1926 novel written by American author Ernest Hemingway about a
group of American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín
in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early and enduring
modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication. A year later, the London
publishing house Jonathan Capepublished the novel with the title of Fiesta. Since then it has
been continuously in print.

The setting was unique and memorable, showing the seedy café life in Paris, and the
excitement of the Pamplona festival, with a middle section devoted to descriptions of a
fishing trip in the Pyrenees. Equally unique was Hemingway's spare writing style, combined
with his restrained use of description to convey characterizations and action, which became
known as the Iceberg Theory.

On the surface the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes—a man whose
war wound has made him impotent—and the promiscuous divorcée Lady Brett Ashley. Brett's
affair with Robert Cohn causes Jake to be upset and break off his friendship with Cohn; her
seduction of the 19-year-old matador Romero causes Jake to lose his good reputation among
the Spaniards in Pamplona. The novel is a roman à clef; the characters are based on real
people and the action is based on real events. In the novel, Hemingway presents his notion
that the "Lost Generation", considered to have been decadent, dissolute and irretrievably
damaged by World War I, was resilient and strong. Additionally, Hemingway investigates the
themes of love, death, renewal in nature, and the nature of masculinity.

Book One is set in the café society of Paris. In the opening scenes, Jake plays tennis with his
college friend Robert Cohn, picks up a prostitute (Georgette), and runs into Brett and Count
Mippipopolous in a nightclub. Later, Brett tells Jake she loves him, but they both know that
they have no chance at a stable relationship.

In Book Two, Jake is joined by Bill Gorton, recently arrived from New York, and Brett's
fiancé Mike Campbell, who arrives from Scotland. Jake and Bill travel south and meet Robert
Cohn at Bayonne for a fishing trip in the hills northeast of Pamplona. Instead of fishing, Cohn
stays in Pamplona to wait for the overdue Brett and Mike. Cohn had an affair with Brett a few
weeks earlier and still feels possessive of her despite her engagement to Mike. After Jake and
Bill enjoy five days of tranquility fishing the streams near Burguete, they rejoin the group in
Pamplona where they begin to drink heavily. Cohn's presence is increasingly resented by the

others, who taunt him with anti-semitic remarks. During the fiesta the characters drink, eat,
watch the running of the bulls, attend bullfights, and bicker with each other. Jake introduces
Brett to the 19-year-old matador Romero at the Hotel Montoya; she is smitten with him and
seduces him. The jealous tension among the men builds—Jake, Campbell, Cohn, and Romero
each love Brett. Cohn, who had been a champion boxer in college, has fistfights with Jake,
Mike, and Romero, whom he beats up. Despite his injuries, Romero continues to perform
brilliantly in the bullring.
Book Three shows the characters in the aftermath of the fiesta. Sober again, they leave
Pamplona; Bill returns to Paris, Mike stays in Bayonne, and Jake goes to San Sebastián in
northeastern Spain. As Jake is about to return to Paris, he receives a telegram from Brett
asking for help; she had gone to Madrid with Romero. He finds her there in a cheap hotel,
without money, and without Romero. She announces she has decided to go back to Mike. The
novel ends with Jake and Brett in a taxi speaking of the things that might have been.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the
story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a
republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned to blow
up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia. The title of the book is a reference to
John Donne's series of meditations and prayers on health, pain, and sickness (written while
Donne was convalescing from a nearly fatal illness) that were published as a book in 1624
under the title Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, specifically Meditation XVII:
"No man is an Island, intire of it selfe;
every man is a peece of the Continent,
a part of the maine; if a Clod
bee washed away by the Sea,
Europe is the lesse,
as well as if a Promontorie were,
as well as if a Mannor of thy friends
or of thine owne were;
any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."

This novel is told primarily through the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist, Robert
Jordan. The character was inspired by Hemingway's own experiences in the Spanish Civil War
as a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Robert Jordan is an American in
the International Brigades who travels to Spain to oppose the fascist forces of Francisco
Franco. As an experienced dynamiter, he was ordered by a communist Russian general to
travel behind enemy lines and destroy a bridge with the aid of a band of local antifascist
guerrillas, in order to prevent enemy troops from being able to respond to an upcoming
offensive. (The Soviet Union aided and advised the Republicans against the fascists in the
Spanish Civil War. Similarly, Hitler's Nazis and Mussolini's Italy provided Franco with
military aid.) In their camp,

Robert Jordan encounters María, a young Spanish woman whose life had been shattered by
the execution of her parents and her rape at the hands of the Falangists (part of the fascist
coalition) at the outbreak of the war.

His strong sense of duty clashes with both guerrilla leader Pablo's unwillingness to commit to
an operation that would endanger himself and his band, and his newfound lust for life which
arises out of his love for María. However, when another band of antifascist guerrillas led by El
Sordo are surrounded and killed, Pablo decides to betray Jordan by stealing the dynamite
caps, hoping to prevent the demolition. In the end Jordan improvises a way to detonate his
dynamite, and Pablo returns to assist in the operation after seeing Jordan's commitment to his
course of action. Though the bridge is successfully destroyed, it may be too late for the
purposes of delaying enemy troop movements rendering the mission pointless, and Jordan is
maimed when his horse is shot out from under him by a tank. Knowing that he would only
slow his comrades down, he bids goodbye to María and ensures that she escapes to safety
with the surviving members of the guerillas. He refuses an offer from another fighter to be
shot and lies in agony, hoping to kill an enemy officer and a few soldiers before being
captured and executed. The narration ends right before Jordan launches his ambush.
The novel graphically describes the brutality of civil war.

The Old Man and the Sea is a novel written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in
1951 in Cuba, and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by
Hemingway and published in his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it centers upon
Santiago, an aging fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.
The Old Man and the Sea was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and was cited by
the Nobel Committee as contributing to the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to
Hemingway in 1954.

The Old Man and the Sea is the story of a battle between an old, experienced Cuban
fisherman and a large marlin. The novel opens with the explanation that the fisherman, who is
named Santiago, has gone 84 days without catching a fish. Santiago is considered "salao", the
worst form of unlucky. In fact, he is so unlucky that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been
forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and been ordered to fish with more
successful fishermen. Still dedicated to the old man, however, the boy visits Santiago's shack
each night, hauling back his fishing gear, getting him food and discussing American baseball
and his favorite player Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that on the next day, he will
venture far out into the Gulf Stream, north of Cuba in the Straits of Florida to fish, confident
that his unlucky streak is near its end.

Thus on the eighty-fifth day, Santiago sets out alone, taking his skiff far onto the Gulf Stream.
He sets his lines and, by noon of the first day, a big fish that he is sure is a marlin takes his
bait. Unable to pull in the great marlin, Santiago instead finds the fish pulling his skiff. Two
days and two nights pass in this manner, during which the old man bears the tension of the
line with his body. Though he is wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago expresses a

compassionate appreciation for his adversary, often referring to him as a brother. He also
determines that because of the fish's great dignity, no one will be worthy of eating the marlin.

On the third day of the ordeal, the fish begins to circle the skiff, indicating his tiredness to the
old man. Santiago, now completely worn out and almost in delirium, uses all the strength he
has left in him to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon, ending the long
battle between the old man and the tenacious fish. Santiago straps the marlin to the side of his
skiff and heads home, thinking about the high price the fish will bring him at the market and
how many people he will feed.
While Santiago continues his journey back to the shore, sharks are attracted to the trail of
blood left by the marlin in the water. The first, a great mako shark, Santiago kills with his
harpoon, losing that weapon in the process. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife
to the end of an oar to help ward off the next line of sharks; in total, five sharks are slain and
many others are driven away. But the sharks kept coming, and by nightfall the sharks have
almost devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving a skeleton consisting mostly of its
backbone, its tail and its head. Finally reaching the shore before dawn on the next day,
Santiago struggles on the way to his shack, carrying the heavy mast on his shoulder. Once
home, he slumps onto his bed and falls into a deep sleep.

A group of fishermen gather the next day around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still
attached. One of the fishermen measures it to be 18 feet (5.5 m) from nose to tail. Tourists at
the nearby café mistakenly take it for a shark. Manolin, worried during the old man's
endeavor, cries upon finding him safe asleep. The boy brings him newspapers and coffee.
When the old man wakes, they promise to fish together once again. Upon his return to sleep,
Santiago dreams of his youth—of lions on an African beach. The old man feels very unwell
and also coughs up blood a few times towards the end of the story.

Norman Kingsley Mailer (1923–2007) was an American novelist, journalist, essayist,

playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate. His first novel was The Naked and the
Dead published in 1948. His best work was widely considered to be The Executioner's Song,
which was published in 1979, and for which he won one of his two Pulitzer Prizes. In addition
to the Pulitzer Prize, Mailer's book Armies of the Night was awarded the National Book
Award.

Along with the likes of Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is
considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism,
which superimposes the style and devices of literary fiction onto fact-based journalism. In
1955, Mailer and three others founded The Village Voice, an arts and politics oriented weekly
newspaper distributed in Greenwich Village.

Norman Mailer was born to a well-known Jewish family in Long Branch, New Jersey. His
father, Isaac Barnett Mailer, was a South African-born accountant, and his mother, Fanny
Schneider, ran a housekeeping and nursing agency. He entered Harvard University in 1939 at
Harvard, he became interested in writing and published his first story at the age of 18. After

graduating in 1943, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. In World War II, he served in the
Philippines with the 112th Cavalry. He was not involved in much combat and completed his
service as a cook, but the experience provided enough material for The Naked and the Dead.

Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, John McPhee, and Tom
Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called
New Journalism, which superimposes the style and devices of literary fiction onto fact-based
journalism. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once.
William Seward Burroughs II ˈbʌroʊz/; also known by his pen name William Lee; (1914 –
1997) was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure
of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be one of the
most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th century. His
influence is considered to have affected a range of popular culture as well as literature.
Burroughs wrote 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections
of essays. Five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences.

He was born to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri, grandson of the inventor and founder
of the Burroughs Corporation, William Seward Burroughs I, and nephew of public relations
manager Ivy Lee. Burroughs began writing essays and journals in early adolescence. He left
home in 1932 to attend Harvard University, studying English, and anthropology as a
postgraduate, and later attending medical school in Vienna. After being turned down by the
Office of Strategic Services and U.S. Navy in 1942 to serve in World War II, he dropped out
and became afflicted with the drug addiction that affected him for the rest of his life, while
working a variety of jobs. In 1943 while living in New York City, he befriended Allen
Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the mutually influential foundation of what became the
countercultural movement of the Beat Generation.

Much of Burroughs's work is semi-autobiographical, primarily drawn from his experiences as

a heroin addict, as he lived throughout Mexico City, London, Paris, Berlin, the South
American Amazon and Tangier in Morocco. Finding success with his confessional first
novel, Junkie (1953), Burroughs is perhaps best known for his third novel Naked Lunch
(1959), a work fraught with controversy that underwent a court case under the U.S. sodomy
laws. With Brion Gysin, he also popularized the literary cut-up technique in works such as
The Nova Trilogy (1961–64).

Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914 –1994) was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and
writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel
Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act
(1964), a collection of political, social and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986).
Published in 1952, Invisible Man explores the theme of man’s search for his identity and
place in society, as seen from the perspective of an unnamed black man in the New York City
of the 1930s. In contrast to his contemporaries such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin,
Ellison created characters that are dispassionate, educated, articulate and self-aware. Through
the protagonist,

Ellison explores the contrasts between the Northern and Southern varieties of racism and their
alienating effect. The narrator is "invisible" in a figurative sense, in that "people refuse to see"
him, and also experiences a kind of dissociation. The novel, with its treatment of taboo issues
such as incest and the controversial subject of communism, won the National Book Award in
1953.

John Hoyer Updike (1932 – 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art
critic, and literary critic. Updike's most famous work is his Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom series
(the novels Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and the novella
"Rabbit Remembered"), which chronicles Rabbit's life over the course of several decades,
from young adulthood to his death. Both Rabbit Is Rich (1981) and Rabbit At Rest (1990)
received the Pulitzer Prize. Updike is one of only three authors (the others were Booth
Tarkington and William Faulkner) to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once. He
published more than twenty novels and more than a dozen short story collections, as well as
poetry, art criticism, literary criticism and children's books.

Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class", Updike was
well recognized for his careful craftsmanship, his unique prose style, and his prolificness. He
wrote on average a book a year. Updike populated his fiction with characters who "frequently
experience personal turmoil and must respond to crises relating to religion, family obligations,
and marital infidelity." His fiction is distinguished by its attention to the concerns, passions,
and suffering of average Americans; its emphasis on Christian theology; and its preoccupation
with sexuality and sensual detail. His work has attracted a significant amount of critical
attention and praise, and he is widely considered to be one of the great American writers of his
time. Updike's highly distinctive prose style features a rich, unusual, sometimes arcane
vocabulary as conveyed through the eyes of "a wry, intelligent authorial voice" that
extravagantly describes the physical world, while remaining squarely in the realist tradition.
He famously described his own style as an attempt "to give the mundane its beautiful due."

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899–1977) was a multilingual Russian novelist, poet

and short story writer. Nabokov's first nine novels were in Russian. He then rose to
international prominence as a writer of English prose. Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is frequently
cited as among his most important novels and is his most widely known, exhibiting the love
of intricate word play and synesthetic detail that characterised all his works. The novel was
ranked at No. 4 in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels. Pale Fire (1962) was
ranked at No. 53 on the same list. His memoir, Speak, Memory, was listed No. 8 on the
Modern Library nonfiction list.

Nabokov translated many of his own early works into English, sometimes in cooperation with
his son Dmitri. His trilingual upbringing had a profound influence on his artistry. Nabokov
himself translated into Russian two books that he had originally written in English,
Conclusive Evidence and Lolita. The first "translation" was made because of Nabokov's
feeling of imperfection in the English version. Writing the book, he noted that he needed to
translate his own memories into English, and to spend a lot of time explaining things which
are well known in Russia; then he decided to re-write the book once again, in his first native
language, and after that he made the final version, Speak, Memory (Nabokov first wanted to
name it "Speak, Mnemosyne"). Nabokov was a proponent of individualism, and rejected
concepts and ideologies that curtailed individual freedom and expression, such as
totalitarianism in its various forms as well as Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis.

Nabokov published under the pseudonym "Vladimir Sirin" in the 1920s to 1940s,
occasionally to mask his identity from critics. He also makes cameo appearances in some of
his novels, such as the character "Vivian Darkbloom" (an anagram of "Vladimir Nabokov"),
who appears in both Lolita and Ada, or Ardor.

Nabokov is noted for his complex plots, clever word play, and use of alliteration. He gained
both fame and notoriety with his novel Lolita (1955), which tells of a grown man's devouring
passion for a twelve-year-old girl. This and his other novels, particularly Pale Fire (1962),
won him a place among the greatest novelists of the 20th century. His longest novel, which
met with a mixed response, is Ada (1969). He devoted more time to the composition of this
novel than any of his others. Nabokov's fiction is characterised by its linguistic playfulness.
For example, his short story "The Vane Sisters" is famous in part for its acrostic final
paragraph, in which the first letters of each word spell out a message from beyond the grave.

Nelle Harper E. Lee (born April 28, 1926) is an American author known for her 1960
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which deals with the issues of racism
that were observed by the author as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.
Despite being Lee's only published book, it led to Lee being awarded the Presidential Medal
of Freedom of the United States for her contribution to literature in 2007. Other significant
contributions of Lee include assisting her close friend, Truman Capote, in his research for the
book In Cold Blood.

Many details of To Kill a Mockingbird are apparently autobiographical. Like Lee, the tomboy
(Scout) is the daughter of a respected small-town Alabama attorney. The plot involves a legal
case, the workings of which would have been familiar to Lee, who studied law. Scout's friend
Dill was inspired by Lee's childhood friend and neighbor, Truman Capote, while Lee is the
model for a character in Capote's first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms.

Truman Streckfus Persons (1924–1984), known as Truman Capote ( /ˈtruːmən kəˈpoʊtiː/),

was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are
recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and the true
crime novel In Cold Blood (1966), which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At least 20 films
and television dramas have been produced from Capote novels, stories and screenplays.

Capote earned the most fame with In Cold Blood (1966), a journalistic work about the murder
of a Kansas farm family in their home, a book Capote spent four years writing, with much
help from Harper Lee, who wrote the famous To Kill a Mockingbird. A milestone in popular
culture, In Cold Blood was the peak of his literary career, though it was not his final book.

The "new book," In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
(1966), was inspired by a 300-word article that ran on page 39 of The New York Times on
November 16, 1959. In Cold Blood brought Capote much praise from the literary community,
but there were some who questioned certain events as reported in the book.

Jerome David "J. D." Salinger( /ˈsælɪndʒər/ SAL-in-jər 1919 –2010) was an American
author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature.
Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and
published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II.

Jean-Louis "Jack" Kerouac( /ˈkɛruːæk/ or /ˈkɛrɵæk/; 1922–1969) was an American novelist

and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen
Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method
of writing, covering topics such as Catholic spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs,
poverty, and travel. His writings have inspired other writers, including Ken Kesey, Bob Dylan,
Eddie Vedder, Richard Brautigan, Curtis Meanor, Thomas Pynchon, Lester Bangs, Tom
Robbins, Will Clarke, Ben Gibbard, Haruki Murakami, Jacquelyn Landgraf. Kerouac became
an underground celebrity and, with other beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although
he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements. In 1969, at age 47,
Kerouac died from internal bleeding due to long-standing abuse of alcohol. Since his death
Kerouac's literary prestige has grown and several previously unseen works have been
published. All of his books are in print today, among them: On the Road, Doctor Sax, The
Dharma Bums, Mexico City Blues, The Subterraneans,Desolation Angels, Visions of Cody
and Big Sur.

Joseph Heller (1923–1999) was an American satirical novelist, short story writer, and
playwright. His best known work is Catch-22, a novel about US servicemen during World War
II. The title of this work entered the English lexicon to refer to absurd, no-win choices,
particularly in situations in which the desired outcome of the choice is an impossibility, and
regardless of choice, the same negative outcome is a certainty. Heller is widely regarded as
one of the best post–World War II satirists. Although he is remembered primarily for
Catch-22, his other works center on the lives of various members of the middle class and
remain exemplars of modern satire.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ( 1922 –2007) was a 20th century American writer. His works such as
Cat's Cradle (1963), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) and Breakfast of Champions (1973) blend
satire, gallows humor and science fiction. As a citizen he was a lifelong supporter of the
American Civil Liberties Union and a critical liberal intellectual. As for ethics he was known
for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.

Vonnegut's first short story, "Report on the Barnhouse Effect" appeared in the February 11,
1950 edition of Collier's (it has since been reprinted in his short story collection, Welcome to
the Monkey House). His first novel was the dystopian novel Player Piano (1952), in which
human workers have been largely replaced by machines. He continued to write short stories
before his second novel, The Sirens of Titan, was published in 1959. Through the 1960s, the
form of his work changed, from the relatively orthodox structure of Cat's Cradle to the
acclaimed, semi-autobiographical Slaughterhouse-Five, given a more experimental structure
by using time travel as a plot device.

These structural experiments were continued in Breakfast of Champions (1973), which

includes many rough illustrations, lengthy non-sequiturs and an appearance by the author
himself, as a deus ex machina.
"This is a very bad book you're writing," I said to myself.
"I know," I said.
"You're afraid you'll kill yourself the way your mother did," I said.
"I know," I said.
Deadeye Dick, although mostly set in the mid-20th century, foreshadows the turbulent times
of contemporary America; it ends prophetically with the lines "You want to know something?
We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages — they haven't ended yet." The novel explores
themes of social isolation and alienation that are particularly relevant in the postmodern
world. Society is seen as openly hostile or indifferent at best, and popular culture as
superficial and excessively materialistic.
Breakfast of Champions became one of his best-selling novels. It includes, in addition to the
author himself, several of Vonnegut's recurring characters. One of them, science fiction author
Kilgore Trout, plays a major role and interacts with the author's character.In addition to
recurring characters, there are also recurring themes and ideas. One of them is ice-nine.

In much of his work, Vonnegut's own voice is apparent, often filtered through the character of
science fiction author Kilgore Trout (whose name is based on that of real-life science fiction
writer Theodore Sturgeon). It is characterized by wild leaps of imagination and a deep
cynicism, tempered by humanism. In the foreword to Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut
wrote that as a child, he saw men with locomotor ataxia, and it struck him that these men
walked like broken machines; it followed that healthy people were working machines,
suggesting that humans are helpless prisoners of determinism. Vonnegut also explored this
theme in Slaughterhouse-Five, in which protagonist Billy Pilgrim "has come unstuck in time"
and has so little control over his own life that he cannot even predict which part of it he will
be living through from minute to minute. Vonnegut's well-known phrase "So it goes", used
ironically in reference to death, also originated in Slaughterhouse-Five. "Its combination of
simplicity, irony, and rue is very much in the Vonnegut vein."

With the publication of his novel Timequake in 1997, Vonnegut announced his retirement
from writing fiction. He continued to write for the magazine In These Times, where he was a
senior editor, until his death in 2007, focusing on subjects ranging from contemporary U. S.
politics to simple observational pieces on topics such as a trip to the post office. In 2005,
many of his essays were collected in a new bestselling book titled A Man Without a Country,
which he insisted would be his last contribution to letters.

Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. (1937) is an American novelist. For his most praised novel,
Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a
contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Pynchon is a MacArthur Fellow noted for his
dense and complex novels, and both his fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast
array of subject matter, styles and themes, including (but not limited to) the fields of history,
science, and mathematics.

Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon served two years in the United States Navy and earned an
English degree from Cornell University. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s
and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known: V. (1963), The
Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Gravity's Rainbow (1973), and Mason & Dixon (1997). Pynchon is
also known for being very private; very few photographs of him have ever been published,
and rumors about his location and identity have been circulated since the 1960s.

Don DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an award-winning American author, playwright,
and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the
complexities of language, performance art, the Cold War, mathematics, the advent of the
digital age, and global terrorism. He currently lives near New York City in the suburb of
Bronxville.
With the publication of his eighth novel White Noise in 1985, DeLillo began a rapid
ascendancy to being a noted and respected novelist. White Noise was arguably a major
breakthrough both commercially and artistically for DeLillo, earning him a National Book
Award and a place among the academic canon of contemporary postmodern novelists. The
influence and impact of White Noise can be seen in the writing of such authors as David
Foster Wallace, Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers, Martin Amis, Zadie Smith
and Richard Powers.

Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford 1931) is an American novelist, editor, and
professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed
characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon and
Beloved. She also was commissioned to write the libretto for a new opera, Margaret Garner,
first performed in 2005. She won the Nobel Prize in 1993 and in 1987 the Pulitzer Prize for
Beloved.

Morrison began writing fiction as part of an informal group of poets and writers at Howard
who met to discuss their work. She went to one meeting with a short story about a black girl
who longed to have blue eyes. She later developed the story as her first novel, The Bluest Eye
(1970). She wrote it while raising two children and teaching at Howard.

In 1975 her novel Sula (1973) was nominated for the National Book Award. Her third novel,
Song of Solomon (1977), brought her national attention. In 1987 Morrison's novel Beloved
became a critical success. When the novel failed to win the National Book Award as well as
the National Book Critics Circle Award, a number of writers protested over the omission.

Shortly afterward, it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the American Book Award. That
same year, Morrison took a visiting professorship at Bard College. Beloved was adapted into
the 1998 film of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover.

Saul Bellow (1915 – 2005) was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary
contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the
National Medal of Arts. His best-known works include The Adventures of Augie March,
Henderson the Rain King, Herzog, Mr. Sammler's Planet, Seize the Day, Humboldt's Gift and
Ravelstein. Widely regarded as one of the 20th century's greatest authors, Bellow has had a
"huge literary influence."

Bellow said that of all his characters Eugene Henderson, of "Henderson the Rain King," was
the one most like himself. Bellow grew up as an insolent slum kid, a "thick-necked" rowdy,
and an immigrant from Quebec. As Christopher Hitchens describes it, Bellow's fiction and
principal characters reflect his own yearning for transcendence, a battle "to overcome not just
ghetto conditions but also ghetto psychoses." Bellow's protagonists, in one shape or another,
all wrestle with what Corde (Albert Corde, the dean in "The Dean's December") called "the
big-scale insanities of the 20th century." This transcendence of the "unutterably dismal" (a
phrase from Dangling Man) is achieved, if it can be achieved at all, through a "ferocious
assimilation of learning" (Hitchens) and an emphasis on nobility.

Philip Milton Roth (1933) is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella
Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned
him a National Book Award. In 1969 he became a major celebrity with the publication of the
controversial Portnoy's Complaint, the humorous and sexually explicit psychoanalytical
monologue of "a lust-ridden, mother-addicted young Jewish bachelor," filled with "intimate,
shameful detail, and coarse, abusive language."

Roth has since become one of the most honored authors of his generation. He received a
Pulitzer Prize for his 1997 novel, American Pastoral, which featured his best-known character,
Nathan Zuckerman, the subject of many other of Roth's novels. His 2001 novel The Human
Stain, another Zuckerman novel, was awarded the United Kingdom's WH Smith Literary
Award for the best book of the year. His fiction, set frequently in Newark, New Jersey, is
known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophically and formally blurring
the distinction between reality and fiction, for its "supple, ingenious style," and for its
provocative explorations of Jewish and American identity.

Roth's first book, Goodbye, Columbus, a novella and five short stories, won the National
Book Award in 1960, and afterwards he published two novels, Letting Go and When She
Was Good. However, it was not until the publication of his third novel, Portnoy's Complaint,
in 1969 that Roth enjoyed widespread commercial and critical success. During the 1970s
Roth experimented in various modes, from the political satire Our Gang to the Kafkaesque
The Breast. By the end of the decade Roth had created his alter ego Nathan Zuckerman. In a
series of highly self-referential novels and novellas that followed between 1979 and 1986,
Zuckerman appeared as either the main character or an interlocutor.

Sabbath's Theater (1995) has perhaps Roth's most lecherous protagonist, Mickey Sabbath, a
disgraced former puppeteer. In complete contrast, the first volume of Roth's second
Zuckerman trilogy, 1997's American Pastoral, focuses on the life of virtuous Newark athletics
star Swede Levov and the tragedy that befalls him when his teenage daughter transforms into
a domestic terrorist during the late 1960s. I Married a Communist (1998) focuses on the
McCarthy era. Allegedly inspired by the life of the writer Anatole Broyard, The Human Stain
examines identity politics in 1990s America. The Dying Animal (2001) is a short novel about
eros and death that revisits literary professor David Kepesh, protagonist of two 1970s works,
The Breast and The Professor of Desire. In The Plot Against America (2004), Roth imagines
an alternate American history in which Charles Lindbergh, aviator hero and isolationist, is
elected U.S. president in 1940, and the U.S. negotiates an understanding with Hitler's Nazi
Germany and embarks on its own program of anti-Semitism.

Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and
playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel
Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create,
with wit and humor, new types of characters." His works are known for their insightful] and
critical views of American society and capitalist values, as well as for their strong
characterizations of modern working women.
James Arthur Baldwin (1924 – 1987) was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet,
and social critic. Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" (1955), explore
palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies,
most notably in mid-20th century America, vis-à-vis their inevitable if unnamable tensions
with personal identity, assumptions, uncertainties, yearning, and questing. Some Baldwin
essays are book length, for instance The Fire Next Time (1963), No Name in the Street
(1972), and The Devil Finds Work (1976).

His novels and plays fictionalize fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex
social and psychological pressures thwarting the equitable integration of not only blacks yet
also of male homosexuals—depicting as well some internalized impediments to such
individuals' quest for acceptance—namely in his second novel, Giovanni's Room (1956),
written well before the equality of homosexuals was widely espoused in America. Baldwin's
best-known novel is his first, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953).

In 1953, Baldwin's first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, a semi-autobiographical

bildungsroman, was published. Baldwin's first collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son
appeared two years later. Baldwin continued to experiment with literary forms throughout his
career, publishing poetry and plays as well as the fiction and essays for which he was
known.Baldwin's second novel, Giovanni's Room, stirred controversy when it was first
published in 1956 due to its explicit homoerotic content. Baldwin was again resisting labels
with the publication of this work: despite the reading public's expectations that he would
publish works dealing with the African American experience, Giovanni's Room is exclusively
about white characters. Baldwin's next two novels, Another Country and Tell Me How Long
the Train's Been Gone, are sprawling, experimental works dealing with black and white
characters and with heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual characters. These novels struggle
to contain the turbulence of the 1960s: they are saturated with a sense of violent unrest and
outrage.

PLAYWRITES

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (1888 –1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in
Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama
techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian
playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. His plays were among
the first to include speeches in American vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of
society, where they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into
disillusionment and despair. O'Neill wrote only one well-known comedy (Ah, Wilderness!).
Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.

After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis,
he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going
to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night).

O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great
acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor
Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of
Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays
include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude
(Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy,
Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he
received the Nobel Prize for Literature. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play
The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the
Misbegotten failed, and did not gain recognition as being among his best works until decades
later.

He was also part of the modern movement to revive the classical heroic mask from ancient
Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown
and Lazarus Laughed.
Full-length plays

● Under the Elms, 1925

● Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
● The Great God Brown, 1926
● Strange Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
● Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
● The Emperor Jones, 1920
● The Hairy Ape, 1922
● All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
● Desire Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
● Dynamo, 1929
● Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
● Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
● Days Without End, 1933
● The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
● Long Day's Journey Into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956 - Pulitzer Prize
1957
● A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III (1911 –1983) was an American writer who worked
principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry,
essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs. His professional career lasted from the mid
1930s until his death in 1983, and saw the creation of many plays that are regarded as classics
of the American stage. Williams adapted much of his best known work for the cinema.

Williams received virtually all of the top theatrical awards for his works of drama, including
several New York Drama Critics' Circle awards, a Tony Award for best play for The Rose
Tattoo (1951) and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) and Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). In 1980 he was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by
President Jimmy Carter and is today acknowledged as one of the most accomplished
playwrights in the history of English speaking theater.

Theater scholar Charlotte Canning, of the University of Texas at Austin where Williams'
archives are located, has said, "There is no more influential 20th-century American playwright
than Tennessee Williams... He inspired future generations of writers as diverse as Suzan-Lori
Parks, Tony Kushner, David Mamet and John Waters, and his plays remain among the most
produced in the world."

Major plays
The Glass Menagerie (1944),
A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
The Rose Tattoo (1951)
Camino Real (1953)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)
Orpheus Descending (1957)
The Night of the Iguana (1961)

Novels
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1950), Moise and the World of Reason (1975)

Arthur Asher Miller (1915 – 2005) was an American playwright and essayist. He was a
prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons
(1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), and A View from the Bridge (one
act, 1955; revised two-act, 1956).
Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, a
period during which he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee,
received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Prince of Asturias Award, and was married to
Marilyn Monroe.

Edward Franklin Albee III (/ˈɔːlbiː/ AWL-bee; 1928) is an American playwright who is best
known for The Zoo Story (1958), The Sandbox (1959), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
(1962), and a rewrite of the book for the unsuccessful musical version of Truman Capote's
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1966). His works are considered well-crafted, often unsympathetic
examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflect a mastery and Americanization
of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in works by European playwrights such as
Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, and Eugène Ionesco. Younger American playwrights, such as
Paula Vogel, credit Albee's daring mix of theatricalism and biting dialogue with helping to
reinvent the post-war American theatre in the early 1960s. Albee continues to experiment in
new works, such as The Goat: or, Who Is Sylvia? (2002).