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First published 2004 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gray, Richard J.

A history of American literature / Richard Gray. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-631-22134-4 (alk. paper) – ISBN 0-631-22135-2 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. American literature–History and criticism. 2. United States–Literatures–

History and criticism. I. Title.
PS88.G73 2003
810.9–dc21	2003004958

A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Set in 10.5/13pt Minion

by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

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Preface and Acknowledgements ix

1 The First Americans: American Literature Before and
During the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods	1
Imagining Eden	1
Native American Oral Traditions	4
Spanish and French Encounters with America	18
Anglo-American Encounters	25
Writing of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods	32
Puritan narratives	32
Challenges to the Puritan oligarchy	36
Some Colonial poetry	41
Enemies within and without	49
Trends towards the secular and resistance	55
Towards the Revolution	68
Alternative voices of Revolution	79
Writing Revolution: Poetry, drama, ﬁction	86
2 Inventing Americas: The Making of American
Literature, 1800–1865	100
Making a Nation	100
The Making of American Myths	105
Myths of an emerging nation	105
The making of Western myth	107
The making of Southern myth	118
Legends of the Old Southwest	124
The Making of American Selves	130
The Transcendentalists	130

Contents

Voices of African American identity	144
The Making of Many Americas	151
Native American writing	152
Oral culture of the Hispanic Southwest	158
African American polemic and poetry	160
Abolitionist and pro-slavery writing	164
Abolitionism and feminism	174
African American writing	182
The Making of an American Fiction and Poetry	194
The emergence of American narratives	194
Women writers and storytellers	214
Spirituals and folk songs	220
American poetic voices	224

3 Reconstructing the Past, Reimagining the Future: The
Development of American Literature, 1865–1900	245
Rebuilding a Nation	245
The Development of Literary Regionalisms	250
From Adam to outsider	250
Regionalism in the West and Midwest	258
African American and Native American voices	259
Regionalism in New England	261
Regionalism in the South	265
The Development of Literary Realism and Naturalism	282
Capturing the commonplace	282
Capturing the real thing	286
Towards naturalism	296
The Development of Women’s Writing	309
Writing by African American women	309
Writing and the condition of women	312
The Development of Many Americas	318
Things fall apart	318
Voices of resistance	321
Voices of reform	323
The immigrant encounter	327
4 Making it New: The Emergence of Modern American
Literature, 1900–1945	336
Changing National Identities	336
Between Victorianism and Modernism	348
The problem of race	348
Building bridges: Women writers	355
Critiques of American provincial life	364

Contents

Poetry and the search for form	373
The Inventions of Modernism	388
Imagism, Vorticism and Objectivism	388
Making it new in poetry	397
Making it new in prose	429
Making it new in drama	453
Traditionalism, Politics and Prophecy	463
The uses of traditionalism	463
Populism and radicalism	478
Prophetic voices	495
Community and Identity	499
Immigrant writing	499
Native American voices	505
The literature of the New Negro movement and beyond	509
Mass Culture and the Writer	537
Western, detective and hardboiled ﬁction	537
Humorous writing	544
Fiction and popular culture	546

5 Negotiating the American Century: American
Literature since 1945	553
Towards a Transnational Nation	553
Formalists and Confessionals	564
From the mythological eye to the lonely ‘I’ in poetry	564
From formalism to freedom in poetry	573
The uses of formalism	581
Confessional poetry	587
New formalists, new confessionals	596
Public and Private Histories	600
Documentary and dream in prose	600
Contested identities in prose	608
Crossing borders: Some women prose writers	619
Beats, Prophets and Aesthetes	629
Rediscovering the American voice: The Black Mountain writers	629
Restoring the American vision: The San Francisco renaissance	637
Recreating American rhythms: The beat generation	641
Reinventing the American self: The New York poets	645
Resisting orthodoxy: Dissent and experiment in ﬁction	654
The Art and Politics of Race	663
Deﬁning a new black aesthetic	663
Deﬁning a new black identity in prose	674
Deﬁning a new black identity in drama	686
Telling impossible stories: Recent African American ﬁction	691

Contents

vii

Realism and its Discontents	701
Confronting the real, stretching the realistic in drama	701
New Journalists and dirty realists	723
Language and Genre	728
Watching nothing: Postmodernity in prose	728
The actuality of words: Postmodern poetry	742
Signs and scenes of crime, science ﬁction and fantasy	749
Creating New Americas	762
Dreaming history: European immigrant writing	762
Remapping a nation: Chicano/a and Latino/a writing	771
Improvising America: Asian American writing	786
New and ancient songs: The return of the Native American	802
Further Reading	818
Index	845

viii

Contents

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