From a Modernist/Postmodernist perspective, this title addresses questions of literary and cultural nationalism. The authors reveal that since the seventeenth century, American writing has reflected the political and historical climate of its time and helped define Americas cultural and social parameters. Above all, they argue that American literature has always been essentially modern, illustrating this with a broad range of texts: from Poe and Melville to Fitzgerald and Proud, to Wallace and Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Thomas Pynchon.
Part 1 The literature of British America: the puritan legacy; awakening and enlightenment. Part 2 From colonial outpost to cultural province: revolution and (in)depedence; American naissance; yea-saying and nay-saying. Part 3 Native and cosmopolitan crosscurrents - from local colour to realism and naturalism: secession and loyalty; muckrakers and early moderns. Part 4 Modernism in the American grain: outland darts and homemade worlds; the second flowering; radical reassessments; strange realities, adequate fictions.