American Literature books summary
We are lucky to present you
Short Summaries of the Books
You Have to Read in the course of
the English Literature by Stulov
Thursday, April 3 2002
Contents
1. AN OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT FROM THE 17TH TO THE 20TH CENTURIES 2
2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 5
3. ALL THE KING’S MEN 13
4. CATCH-22 22
5. Catcher in the Rye 31
6. FAREWELL TO ARMS 35
7. Grapes of Wrath 41
8. Great Gatsby 46
9. Long Day's Journey Into the Night 49
10. Moby Dick 53
11. Scarlet Letter 63
12. Slaughterhouse Five 67
13. Sound and the Fury 73
14. Streetcar Named ”Desire” 87
AN OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT FROM THE 17TH TO THE 20TH CENTURIES
Like other national literatures, American literature was shaped by the
history of the country that produced it. For almost a century and a half,
America was merely a group of colonies scattered along the eastern seaboard
of the North American continent--colonies from which a few hardy souls
tentatively ventured westward. After a successful rebellion against the
motherland, America became the United States, a nation. By the end of the
19th century this nation extended southward to the Gulf of Mexico,
northward to the 49th parallel, and westward to the Pacific. By the end of
the 19th century, too, it had taken its place among the powers of the world-
-its fortunes so interrelated with those of other nations that inevitably
it became involved in two world wars and, following these conflicts, with
the problems of Europe and East Asia. Meanwhile, the rise of science and
industry, as well as changes in ways of thinking and feeling, wrought many
modifications in people's lives. All these factors in the development of
the United States molded the literature of the country.
The 17th century
American literature at first was naturally a colonial literature, by
authors who were Englishmen and who thought and wrote as such. John Smith,
a soldier of fortune, is credited with initiating American literature. His
chief books included A True Relation of . . . Virginia . . . (1608) and The
generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624).
Although these volumes often glorified their author, they were avowedly
written to explain colonizing opportunities to Englishmen. In time, each
colony was similarly described: Daniel Denton's Brief Description of New
York (1670), William Penn's Brief Account of the Province of Pennsylvania
(1682), and Thomas Ashe's Carolina (1682) were only a few of many works
praising America as a land of economic promise.Such writers acknowledged
British allegiance, but others stressed the differences of opinion that
spurred the colonists to leave their homeland. More important, they argued
questions of government involving the relationship between church and
state. The attitude that most authors attacked was jauntily set forth by
Nathaniel Ward of Massachusetts Bay in The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in
America (1647). Ward amusingly defended the status quo and railed at
colonists who sponsored newfangled notions. A variety of counterarguments
to such a conservative view were published. John Winthrop's Journal
(written 1630-49) told sympathetically of the attempt of Massachusetts Bay
Colony to form a theocracy--a state with God at its head and with its laws
based upon the Bible. Later defenders of the theocratic ideal were Increase
Mather and his son Cotton. William Bradford's History of Plymouth
Plantation (through 1646) showed how his pilgrim Separatists broke
completely with Anglicanism. Even more radical than Bradford was Roger
Williams, who, in a series of controversial pamphlets, advocated not only
the separation of church and state but also the vesting of power in the
people and the tolerance of different religious beliefs.The utilitarian
writings of the 17th century included biographies, treatises, accounts of
voyages, and sermons. There were few achievements in drama or fiction,
since there was a widespread prejudice against these forms. Bad but popular
poetry appeared in the Bay Psalm Book of 1640 and in Michael Wigglesworth's
summary in doggerel verse of Calvinistic belief, The Day of Doom (1662).
There was some poetry, at least, of a higher order. Anne Bradstreet of
Massachusetts wrote some lyrics published in The Tenth Muse (1650), which
movingly conveyed her feelings concerning religion and her family. Ranked
still higher by modern critics is a poet whose works were not discovered
and published until 1939: Edward Taylor, an English-born minister and
physician who lived in Boston and Westfield, Massachusetts. Less touched by
gloom than the typical Puritan, Taylor wrote lyrics that showed his delight
in Christian belief and experience.All 17th-century American writings were
in the manner of British writings of the same period. John Smith wrote in
the tradition of geographic literature, Bradford echoed the cadences of the
King James Bible, while the Mathers and Roger Williams wrote bejeweled
prose typical of the day. Anne Bradstreet's poetic style derived from a
long line of British poets, including Spenser and Sidney, while Taylor was
in the tradition of such Metaphysical poets as George Herbert and John
Donne. Both the content and form of the literature of this first century in
America were thus markedly English.
The 18th century
In America in the early years of the 18th century, some writers, such
as Cotton Mather, carried on the older traditions. His huge history and
biography of Puritan New England, Magnalia Christi Americana, in 1702, and
his vigorous Manuductio ad Ministerium, or introduction to the ministry, in
1726, were defenses of ancient Puritan convictions. Jonathan Edwards,
initiator of the Great Awakening, a religious revival that stirred the
eastern seacoast for many years, eloquently defended his burning belief in
Calvinistic doctrine--of the concept that man, born totally depraved, could
attain virtue and salvation only through God's grace--in his powerful
sermons and most notably in the philosophical treatise Freedom of Will
(1754). He supported his claims by relating them to a complex metaphysical
system and by reasoning brilliantly in clear and often beautiful prose.But
Mather and Edwards were defending a doomed cause. Liberal New England
ministers such as John Wise and Jonathan Mayhew moved toward a less rigid
religion. Samuel Sewall heralded other changes in his amusing Diary,
covering the years 1673-1729. Though sincerely religious, he showed in
daily records how commercial life in New England replaced rigid Puritanism
with more worldly attitudes. The Journal of Mme Sara Knight comically
detailed a journey that lady took to New York in 1704. She wrote vividly of
what she saw and commented upon it from the standpoint of an orthodox
believer, but a quality of levity in her witty writings showed that she was
much less fervent than the Pilgrim founders had been. In the South, William
Byrd of Virginia, an aristocratic plantation owner, contrasted sharply with
gloomier predecessors. His record of a surveying trip in 1728, The History
of the Dividing Line, and his account of a visit to his frontier properties
in 1733, A Journey to the Land of Eden, were his chief works. Years in
England, on the Continent, and among the gentry of the South had created
gaiety and grace of expression, and, although a devout Anglican, Byrd was
as playful as the Restoration wits whose works he clearly admired.The
wrench of the American Revolution emphasized differences that had been
growing between American and British political concepts. As the colonists
moved to the belief that rebellion was inevitable, fought the bitter war,
and worked to found the new nation's government, they were influenced by a
number of very effective political writers, such as Samuel Adams and John
Dickinson, both of whom favoured the colonists, and Loyalist Joseph
Galloway. But two figures loomed above these--Benjamin Franklin and Thomas
Paine.Franklin, born in 1706, had started to publish his writings in his
brother's newspaper, the New England Courant, as early as 1722. This
newspaper championed the cause of the "Leather Apron" man and the farmer
and appealed by using easily understood language and practical arguments.
The idea that common sense was a good guide was clear in both the popular
Poor Richard's almanac, which Franklin edited between 1732 and 1757 and
filled with prudent and witty aphorisms purportedly written by uneducated
but experienced Richard Saunders, and in the author's Autobiography,
written between 1771 and 1788, a record of his rise from humble
circumstances that offered worldly wise suggestions for future
success.Franklin's self-attained culture, deep and wide, gave substance and
skill to varied articles, pamphlets, and reports that he wrote concerning
the dispute with Great Britain, many of them extremely effective in stating
and shaping the colonists' cause.Thomas Paine went from his native England
to Philadelphia and became a magazine editor and then, about 14 months
later, the most effective propagandist for the colonial cause. His pamphlet
"Common Sense" (January 1776) did much to influence the colonists to
declare their independence. "The American Crisis" papers (December 1776-
December 1783) spurred Americans to fight on through the blackest years of
the war. Based upon Paine's simple deistic beliefs, they showed the
conflict as a stirring melodrama with the angelic colonists against the
forces of evil. Such white and black picturings were highly effective
propaganda. Another reason for Paine's success was his poetic fervour,
which found expression in impassioned words and phrases long to be
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