American literature

American literature

19th Century

In America romanticism was connected with nationalism. They were proud of the American intellectual tradition which created their republic.
Walt Whitman was a poet of democracy, freedom and sexual love and he made the American poetry independent of European poetry. He influenced the whole modern poetry with rhythmical free verse which was his innovation. His most famous collection is Leaves of Grass.
Edgar Allan Poe was a short story writer and the founder of science-fiction. His best poem is The Raven. He’s the author of The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Herman Melvile was the greatest symbolist. His novel Moby Dick is the symbolic story of Captain Ahab, a free man, who wants to kill the white whale Moby Dick that is a symbol of evil.

Mark Twain is one of the greatest US authors. He became famous as a humorist and story teller. His best books are based on his own experience along the Mississippi: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

20th Century

Authors first try to describe the ugliness of life, where money-making dominates. Realism and naturalism developed.
Theodor Dreiser’s masterpiece is An American Tragedy. His hero is negative, he becomes a murder.
Jack London described adventurous life: The Call of the Wild.

The most outstanding personalities in the 20th century drama are:
Eugene O’Neill, who is a Nobel Prize winner.
Tennesse Williams : Streetcar named Desire.
Edward Albee : Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf.

20th century poetry is famous for group of poets and artists who gathered around 1956 in San Francisco and are called Beat Group. They were disgusted by corrupt, commercial and conventional world around them and hoped they can make their world better by some excitement given by drugs, drink and they were also influenced by Zen Buddhism teaching. The best known poets of this period are Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.

Lost Generation – writers who were influenced by the World War I.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald is connected with the Jazz Age. He wrote many stories about wealthy people, for whom everything is so easy because of money. The Great Gatsby is his best novel.

William Faulkner is a Nobel Prize winner, who wrote about the problems of South.
John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize too. His famous work is Of Mice and Men.
Norman Mailer is one of the best writers about the World War II. The Naked and Dead is based on his own experience in Pacific.
John Updike is one of the most successful novelists and poets. He describes the American everyday life in a family.
Ernest Hemingway

He was one of the greatest American writers of the 20th Century and a member of the Lost Generation. He was born in 1899 in Oak Park. His family was very strict and religious. His father taught him to love of nature, his mother a love of music and art. He was fascinated by war. His most successful book, For Whom The Bell Tolls is about the Spanish Civil War. Another novel, A Farewell To Arms is about the fatality of war. He married 4 times and he survived two plane crashes. He suffered from depression and he began to drink heavily. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. In 1961 Hemingway killed himself with a shotgun as his father had done.

The Old Man and the Sea

The story is about a poor old fisherman, called Santiago. Santiago had one good friend, who was a small boy Manolin. They were fishing together for 40 days but they didn‘t catch anything so Manolin had to gone on another boat. Manolin went to help him with skiff, sometimes he invited Santiago to beer or he bought him sardines. During the time they were together they talked about baseball. Santiago believed that his luck will change. He wanted to catch one big fish, so he took his skiff out much further into the sea than usual. He noticed a creature, the giant Marlin around him, which was longer than Santiago skiff so he tied him to one side from skiff. Sharks ate the Marlin and left only skeleton of the fish. When Santiago came back to beach he went straight to his cottage and fell asleep. After it, Santiago and Manolin agreed to fish together. Lot of tourists observed around the giant Marlin and thought that it‘s a shark.