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Paper 05; Module 02; E Text

(A) Personal Details

Role Name Affiliation

Principal Investigator Prof. Tutun University of Hyderabad

Mukherjee

Paper Coordinator Prof. Niladri University of Kalyani, West

Chatterjee Bengal.

Content Writer/Author Mr. Md PhD. Scholar, University of

(CW) Hyderabad
Hasanujjaman,

Content Reviewer (CR) Prof. Niladri University of Kalyani, West

Chatterjee Bengal.

Language Editor (LE) Prof. Sharmila University of Kalyani, West

Majumdar Bengal.

(B) Description of Module

Item Description of module

Subject Name English

Paper name American Literature

Module title History of American Literature (1800-

1900)

Module ID MODULE 02

History of American Literature (1800-1900)

The title of this module is the “The History of American Literature (1800-1900)”. It tries to

trace the history of the American literature which is said to have started during the 17th

century colonial times when the British were the rulers of the land. The British writers
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produced literature with the theme of exploration but the nature of their content was also to

glorify the British rule. However, the American native writers beginning with Washington

Irving produced literary works with the anti-colonial rhetoric. In the initial stages of the

American literature the writers emphasised on the writings dealing with national imagination

and it goes on to create a romantic sensation in the corpus of American literature. The module

also analyzes the development of realism and different currents of literary movements in the

19th century history of American literature.

The American literature basically is the corpus of literary works produced in the

English language in the United States. In general it depicts the socio-political-cultural and

economic dynamisms of the United States. To trace history, for almost more than a century,

America was merely colonial provinces scattered along the eastern seaboard of the North

American continent from where only a few brave souls dared to venture towards the west.

After a successful revolt against the British colonizers, America achieved independence. But

in the initial phases of American history, the different provinces of America had their

autonomy and were considered many nationalities until the emergence of the unified sense of

American nationalism which led to the formation of the United States as an independent and

sovereign nation state. Gradually, by the end of the 19th century the United States extended

her territory across the regions. By the same time the United States had also become one of

the major powers of the world and developed gigantically. In the course of time, as the lives

of people experienced radical changes by the inroads of science, industry, as well as the

changes, they also changed their ways of perceiving and the entire notion of the world. The

growth of history and the radical development of the United States shaped the literature of the

country.

The production of American literature began with advent of the American Revolution

which emphasized on differences that were soaring up between American and British
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political consciousness. The American colonized people opposed the British colonialism and

slavery. The prominent figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine wrote

intensively against the British colonization and this opposition gradually led to the new

national imagination in the American society. They used American day to day lives, changing

dynamisms, historical perceptions, and nostalgic propensity. They wrote in various prose

genres, invented new forms, and in many ways they earned through literature. As the new

genres appeared, the American literature got unprecedented readership and wide popularity in

and out of the United States.

Early 19th-century literature

After the American Revolution, and especially after the War of 1812, the growing demand of

national imagination of the American people created an ambience for the American writers to

produce a literature concerning nativity. As response to the growing demand of national

imagination, the four prominent authors such as Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant,

James Fenimore Cooper, and Edgar Allan Poe emerged in the period. They created the

literary development in the aftermath of the American Declaration of Independence and in

the ensuing formation of the nation. They produced literary works which brought dynamism

to the national life of American people.

Washington Irving (1789-1859)

Washington Irving was born in a moderate trader family of New York and he was appointed

as cultural and diplomatic ambassador to Europe. Though he had talent, he would not perhaps

become a full-fledged writer as he had financial crisis. But it was a series of unexpected

incidents which actually forced him to take up writing as a profession. With his friends` help,
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he could publish The Sketch Book (1819-1820) both in England and in America, and gained

copyrights and payment from both the countries.

The Sketch Book of Geoffrye Crayon, Irving’s pen name consists of his two best

remembered stories, “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” “Sketch” is

about Irving’s subtle, elegant, but more or less casual style, and pastel is about his ability as a

creator of rich, nuanced tones and emotional effects. In the Sketch Book, Irving transforms

the Catskill Mountains along the Hudson River into a fabulous, magical region. This

transforming of imagined history was widely accepted by the American readers as this related

the history to the imagination of a new nation (VanSpranckeren, 22).

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)

James Fenimore Cooper like Irving also came from a Quaker family. He was brought up in

his Otsego Lake in central New York State. He spent his boyhood in feudal and peaceful

environment but once he had witnessed the scene of an Indian massacre. When he was a boy,

Cooper saw frontiersmen and Indians at Otsego Lake and in later life, he saw bold white

settlers trespassed in his land. This personal experience enabled Cooper to write intensely

about the wilderness of American history and the lives of the frontiersmen and their different

cultures.

Natty Bumppo, Cooper’s renowned literary character based on his vision of the

frontiersman as a gentleman, a Jeffersonian “natural aristocrat.” In The Pioneers, Cooper

discovered Natty as the first famous frontiersman in American literature and the literary

prototype of numerous cowboy and backwoods heroes. Natty is the idealized and upright

individualist. Though he is poor and isolated, he is pure and an example of ethical values

(VanSpranckeren, 23).
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The connected themes of Cooper`s five novels altogether known as the Leather-

Stocking Tales exhibit the tribal life of Natty Bumppo. They are Cooper’s best achievements

and constitute a vast prose epic. They portray the North American continent as setting, Indian

tribes as characters, and great wars and westward migration as social background. The novels

bring life to frontier America from 1740 to 1804 (23).

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

Bryant came from Cummmington of Massachusetts and grew up in wonderful scenery of the

state. He was the first American poet to write a political satire "The Embargo". His blank

verse hymn “Thanatopsis," came out in the North American Review in 1817. It was a great

work which won him popularity in England. His poem is still considered a poetical

masterpiece of the time and it is said that Wordsworth also learnt it by heart and valued it

most. Under Wordsworth and other Romantic poets` influence, he wrote nature lyrics that

portrayed the New England scene. In later stages he became a journalist and fought the liberal

editor of The Evening Post. However, he was eclipsed by the genius of Washington Irving.

American Renaissance

F. O. Matthiessen in his 1941 book American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of

Emerson and Whitman used the phrase "American Renaissance". For him, the American

Renaissance was concerned about the dedication of all his five writers of his book to "the

possibilities of democracy." As an effect of the Renaissance the authors of the 1830s - the

classic New Englanders, the humorists, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and many others—

commenced their work with new spirit for the national consciousness. They were influenced

by the larger democratic forces and also by the romantic era which emphasized on producing

literature depicting native scenes and characters in order to create a new picture of America.
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The wave of Romanticism created a very positive and conducive space for most

American poets and creative essayists. It also created for them a new vision and exhilarated

artistic and intellectual environment which was responsible for the realization of the national

consciousness and creating a space for distinctive American voice. But more specifically,

romanticism conceptualized art as inspiration, spiritual and aesthetic dimension of nature, and

metaphors of organic development. The Romantic spirit seemed particularly conducive for

the American democratic values. It emphasized on individualism, the value of a common

person and it also looked to the inspired imagination for its aesthetic and ethical values.

Certainly the New England Transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David

Thoreau, and their associates were inspired to a new optimistic affirmation by the Romantic

movement (VanSpranckeren, 26).

The Transcendentalists

The appearance of Transcendentalist movement was a reaction against the 18th-century

rationalism and the 19the-century humanitarian thought. The fundamental belief in the unity

of the world and God was the ground for the movement. The soul of each individual was

thought to be equal with the world. The principle of self-reliance and individualism

developed through the belief in the recognition of the individual soul with God. The concept

of Transcendentalism was closely linked with Concord, a small New England village of

Boston. It offered a divine and cultural alternative to American materialism. It was a place of

high-minded conversation and simple living. The place attracted the literary figures such as

Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and other figures like Fuller, Alcott, and Channing

(VanSpranckeren, 26).

The Transcendentalists published a quarterly magazine, The Dial, which continued for

four years and was first edited by Margaret Fuller and later by Emerson. The magazine dealt
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with reformation and literature. A number of Transcendentalists were abolitionists, and some

were involved in experimental utopian communities such as nearby Brook Farm and

Fruitlands (27).

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the important literary figures in his era. He had a religious

sense of inclination. Though he was accused of subverting Christianity, for him being a true

religious means one has to even leave the so called church. He delivered an address in 1838

at the Harvard Divinity School which made him unwelcomed for next 30 years. In his address

he criticised the church for acting “as if God were dead” and for imposing religious dogma

while killing the true spirit of religion.

Many found Emerson’s philosophy as conflicting and it is true that he consciously

avoided creating an intellectual rational structure because it was opposed to his romantic

values of instinct and flexibility. Emerson, in his essay “Self-Reliance,” has remarked, “A

foolish consistency is the dwarf of little minds.” Yet he is remarkably consistent to create the

American individualism inspired by nature. Most of his major ideas — the need for a new

national vision, the use of personal experience, the notion of the cosmic Over-Soul, and the

doctrine of compensation — are suggested in his literary work, Nature (1836)

(VanSpranckeren, 28).

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord and lived there permanently. Throughout his life,

he minimized his necessities to the simplest level and managed to live through financial crisis

but yet preserved his self-independence. A dissenter, he always tried to live his life according

to his rigorous principles. This attempt was the subject of many of his writings.
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In his masterpiece Walden, or, Life in the Woods (1854), Thoreau, a lover of travel

books gives us an anti-travel account for the first time in American literature. But

paradoxically it gives us an insight of self-discovery which actually guides for living a

classical good life. Both poetry and philosophy, this long poetic essay challenges the reader

to examine his or her life and live it genuinely. Thoreau is the most relevant figure of the

Transcendentalists today for his ecological consciousness, independence, abolitionist values,

and political theory of civil disobedience and peaceful resistance. His ideas are still

appealing, and his insightful poetic style and habit of close observation are still modern (29).

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Walt Whitman was a amateur carpenter and popular man whose luminous and innovative

work reflected America`s democratic spirit. He wrote an imaginative book Leaves of Grass

inspired largely by Emerson’s writings celebrated all the creation. The poem’s innovative,

unrhymed, free verse style, sexual vocality, vibrant democratic sensibility, extreme Romantic

assertion that the poet always advocated, the universe, and the reader permanently altered the

course of American poetry (29-31).

Whitman’s greatness is also visible in many of his poems like, “Crossing Brooklyn

Ferry,” “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard

Bloom’d.” The other important work is his long essay “Democratic Vistas” (1871) which was

composed during the excessive materialism of industrialism’s “Gilded Age.” In this essay,

Whitman justly disapprove of America`s greed for power and wealth. He calls for a new kind

of literature to revive the American population with a spirit of humanity.

The Brahmin Poets

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In their time, the Boston Brahmins who were Harvard-educated class and known as Brahmins

held the most regarded and genuinely cultivated literary authority of the United States. Their

lives fitted a pleasant pattern of wealth and leisure directed by the strong New England work

ethic and regard for learning. They used to be ministers, professors at Harvard and also

ambassadors or got honorary degrees from Europe in later stages. They also used to express

their European –oriented opinions in the US through the Boston magazines, the North

American Review and the Atlantic Monthly (32).

The writings of the Brahmin poets amalgamated American and European traditions

and sought to create a continuity of shared Atlantic experience. These scholar-poets tried to

educate and lift up the general population by familiarizing a European aspect to American

literature. But ironically, they were conservative and their impositions of the European styles

stalled the growth of a distinctive American consciousness. The most important Boston

Brahmin poets were Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James

Russell Lowell (ibid).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Longfellow, a Harvard professor of modern languages, was the best-known American poet of

his time. He was responsible for the steamy, ahistorical, legendary sense of the past that fused

American and European traditions. He wrote three long narrative poems popularizing native

legends in European styles — “Evangeline” (1847), “The Song of Hiawatha” (1855), and

“The Courtship of Miles Standish” (1858). Longfellow also wrote textbooks on modern

languages and a travel book named Outre-Mer, retelling foreign legends by following

Washington Irving’s Sketch Book. He also wrote short lyrics like “The Jewish Cemetery at

Newport” (1854), “My Lost Youth” (1855), and “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls” (1880)

(33).
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James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

James Russell Lowell, who is also a Harvard professor of modern languages, can be called

Matthew Arnold of American literature. He began as a poet but slowly lost his poetic ability

and ended as a regarded critic and educator. As editor of the Atlantic and co-editor of the

North American Review, Lowell drew enormous influence. His A Fable for Critics (1848) is a

funny and suitable judgment of American writers. Under his wife’s influence, Lowell

became a liberal reformer, abolitionist, and supporter of women’s suffrage and anti-child

labour movement (ibid).

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

Oliver Wendell Holmes, a notable physician and Harvard professor, is the hardest of the three

eminent Brahmins to categorize as his work is marked by a refreshing versatility. It

encompasses collections of humorous essays (for example, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-

Table, 1858), novels (Elsie Venner, 1861), biographies (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1885), and

verse that could be vigorous (“The Deacon’s Masterpiece, or, The Wonderful One-Hoss

Shay”), philosophical (“The Chambered Nautilus”), or passionately devoted (“Old

Ironsides”) (ibid).

Two Reformers

In the years before the Civil War the New England shined with intellectual energy. Some

important figures, who are valued today than the collection of Brahmins, were encompassed

by poverty, gender or race issue in the own age. But the modern readers toady more and more

started to value the work of the abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier and feminist and social

reformer Margaret Fuller ibid).

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John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

John Greenleaf Whittier was the most active poet of the era. He was an ardent abolitionist for

decades before people came to know it. He is regarded for his anti-slavery poems such as

“Ichabod,” and his poetry also represents regional realism. His best work, “Snow Bound,”

lucidly recalls the poet’s departed family members and friends. This simple, religious,

intensely personal poem, coming after the long nightmare of the Civil War, is an elegy for the

dead and a healing hymn. It establishes the eternity of the spirit, the timeless power of love in

the memory, and the undiminished beauty of nature, despite violent outer political storms

(33-34).

Margaret Fuller (1810-1850)

Margaret Fuller, an exceptional essayist, was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

She was the first reputed professional woman journalist in America. She wrote influential

book reviews and reports on social issues such as the treatment of women prisoners and the

insane. In Papers on Literature and Art (1846) she published some of these essays. A year

earlier, she wrote her most significant book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century. It originally

had appeared in the Transcendentalist magazine, The Dial, which she edited from 1840 to

1842. Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century is the earliest and most American

exploration of women’s role in society (ibid).

The Romantic Period

The figures like Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe,

are the first great literary generation emerged in the romantic age of the United States. In the

case of the novelists, the Romantic vision aimed to express itself in the form Hawthorne
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called the “romance,” a heightened, emotional, and symbolic form of the novel. Romances

were not always about love stories, but also serious novels that used special techniques to

communicate complex and subtle meanings in literary works.

The form of Romanticism symbolizes dark and frightening imaginary and indicates

the level of difficulty to form an identity without a stable society. The predicament of most of

the Romantic heroes is death in the end: All the sailors except Ishmael die in Moby Dick, and

the sensitive but sinful minister Arthur Dimmesdale dies at the end of The Scarlet Letter. The

theme of tragic death dominantly occurs in American novels. Thus, romanticism portrays the

greater social tragedy of a society represented in an uncanny human imagination

(VanSpranckeren, 36-7).

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

Nathaniel Hawthorne, a fifth generation American of English descent, was born in Salem,

Massachusetts and he had association with East India trade. The setting of many of

Hawthorne’s stories is Puritan New England, and his greatest novel, The Scarlet Letter

(1850), is a classic portrayal of Puritan America.

His fame rests on his other novels and tales such as The House of the Seven Gables

(1851) where he again returns to the history of New England. The theme of the novel is about

an inherited curse and its resolution through love. Hawthorne’s last two novels had less

success. The Blithedale Romance (1852) interestingly depicts the socialist, utopian Brook

Farm community. In the book, Hawthorne criticizes arrogant, power-hungry social reformers

who are not truly democratic. The Marble Faun (1860), which is set in Rome, is based on the

Puritan themes of sin, isolation, expiation, and salvation. On similar themes Hawthorne also

wrote his best-known shorter stories like “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “Young Goodman

Brown,” and “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” (37).

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Herman Melville (1819-1891)

The other important American fiction writer associated with Hawthorne was Herman

Melville. After his little schooling, Melville went to sea; a whaling ship, as he put it, was his

“Yale College and his Harvard.” His first books were fictional but based on his factual

experiences as a sailor—Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847); same were the later works such as

Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850). Between 1846 and 1851, however, Melville got

new interest and goal in writings by reading philosophy and literary classics, as well as by

Hawthorne’s allegorical and symbolic writings. His new interest first reflected in Mardi

(1849), which was an irregular and rambling book that used allegorical model of Rabelais to

generate ideas of nations, politics, institutions, literature, and religion. The new techniques

were also used in Moby Dick; or, The Whale (1851), a richly symbolic work, complex but

brilliantly integrated novel. Melville also authored short stories, (Benito Cereno),

psychological novel (Pierre, 1852), and novelette (Billy Budd). (36-39)

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Edgar Allan Poe, a southerner, shares Melville`s metaphysical vision mixed with literary

components of realism, parody, and burlesque. He defined the genre of short story and

invented detective fiction. Many of his stories anticipate the genres of science fiction, horror,

and fantasy which are so popular today.

The themes of death-in-life, specially being buried alive or returning like a vampire

from the grave, occur in many of his works like “The Premature Burial,” “Ligeia,” “The Cask

of Amontillado,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” His best-known poem, for all time, is

“The Raven” (1845). In this uncanny poem, the haunted, wakeful narrator, who has been

reading and grieving the death of his “lost Lenore” at midnight, is visited by a raven that sits
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on his door and gloomily reiterates the poem’s celebrated refrain, “nevermore.” Poe also

composed popular stories like “The Gold Bug” and “The Purloined Letter” based on the

theme of ratiocination, or reasoning (VanSpranckeren, 40-41).

Women Writers of the Era

In American society women faced many inequalities in the 19th century. They were denied

the right to vote, right to education, were prohibited to speak in public and even to attend

public conventions, and unable to own property. To counter these inequalities and patriarchal

hegemony, the women writers gathered and a strong women’s network grew up. The women

started their revolutionary journey for social change through women’s newspapers, books,

letters, personal friendships, formal meetings. The intellectual women observed a parallel

humanization of women and the slaves. Through their acute observation and realization they

became outrageous. They out rightly demanded their fundamental rights. Through their

intellectual literary works they outburst their resentment and crave for an equal for society.

They also composed sentimental novels to express their quest for equality and liberty. The

sentimental novels, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, gained gigantic

popularity. They were successful to draw the emotional response from the audience and often

through enactment they appealed to the emotions and often dramatized controversial social

issues, especially those dealing with the family issues and roles of women. The leading

reforming women writers were Lydia Child, Angelina Grimké, Sarah Grimké, Elizabeth

Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth (42).

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

The novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly written by Harriet Beecher Stowe

was a masterpiece and became the most popular American book of the 19th century. It was
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first published serially in the National Era magazine (1851-1852) and it gained instant

success. It was printed by many publishers in England and was translated into 20 languages.

It was such a masterpiece that it received acclamations from popular figures like Georges

Sand in France, Heinrich Heine in Germany, and Ivan Turgenev in Russia. The novel had so

powerful anti-slavery rhetoric that it could initiate a dialogue in American within a short

period of time (44).

Harriet Jacobs (1818-1896)

Born a slave in North Carolina, Harriet Jacobs learnt to read and write from her mistress. She

had a terrified life experience as a slave. But she resisted and moved ahead. On meeting and

becoming friends with Amy Post, a Quaker feminist abolitionist, she got encouragement for

authoring her autobiography to narrate her plight as a woman. Incidents in the Life of a Slave

Girl, published under the pseudonym of “Linda Brent” in 1861, was edited by Lydia Child.

The autobiography outrageously condemned the sexual harassment of black slave women.

Jacobs’s book, like Douglass’s book, is part of the slave narrative genre encompassing the

narratives of Olaudah Equiano in colonial times (45).

Harriet Wilson (1807-1870)

Harriet Wilson was the first African-American writer who published a novel in the America

— Our Nig: or, Sketches from the life of a Free Black (1859) which is about the plight of the

black in the American society. The novel also realistically displays the marriage between a

white woman and a black man, and also depicts the difficult life of a black servant in a

wealthy Christian household (ibid).

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)

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Frederick Douglass, born a slave on a Maryland plantation is considered most legendary

black American anti-slavery leader and orator of the era. In 1845, he published his Narrative

of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave which is considered the best and most

popular slave narrative in the American history. Often dictated by illiterate blacks to white

abolitionists and used as propaganda, these slave narratives were well-known in the years just

before the Civil War. Douglass’s narrative is clear and highly literate, and it provides unique

insights into the psychology and anguish of slavery that the black people faced institutionally

(46).

The Phase of Realism

After the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) there was a social transformation of industry,

agriculture, slavery in American history. Before the war, idealists celebrated human rights,

especially the abolition of slavery but after the war, Americans increasingly idealized

development and the self-made man. Business grew faster in the post-war situation. The new

developments of rail system, the transcontinental telegraph, industry access to materials,

markets, and communications took place. But when industrialization took place, alienation

also grew up. Exemplary American novels of the period — Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl

of the Streets, Jack London’s Martin Eden, and later Theodore Dreiser’s An American

Tragedy — depict the damage of economic forces and alienation on the weak or vulnerable

individuals. Survivors, like Twain’s Huck Finn, Humphrey Vanderveyden in London’s The

Sea-Wolf, and Dreiser’s opportunistic Sister Carrie, endure through inner strength involving

kindness, flexibility, and, above all, individuality. These novels thus bring the sense of

realism (47).

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

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Samuel Clemens, who was is better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, grew up in the

Mississippi River of Missouri. He is the towering figure in American literature. For Twain

and other American writers of the late 19th century, realism was not merely a literary

technique. But it was a way of speaking universal truth and igniting new directions of life.

This technique was profoundly liberating and changed the social dimensions.

The novel Huckleberry Finn has realistic approach to life and the example could be

the character, Huck Finn, a poor boy who decides to listen to his conscience and helps a

Negro slave to be free, even though Huck thinks this means that he will be put to hell for

disobeying the law. This realistic picture has immensely inspired countless literary

interpretations. It is clearly a story of death, rebirth, and initiation. Twain also writes Life on

the Mississippi where he depicts the changing relationship between reality and illusion which

is the characteristic theme of his novel (48-49).

William Dean Howells

Another figure of realism was William Dean Howells who was born in 1837 in Ohio. He was

novelist and critic of the late 19th century American literature. He was also a champion of

realism which he has demonstrated in his writings. He began his literary career by joining the

Atlantic Monthly as a contributor and editor. He became close friend of Mark Twain and

Henry James and friendships also boost his literary venture. His writings such as A Modern

Instance, The Rise of Silas Lapham, A Hazard of New Fortunes, show his sense of social

realism. He shows the American ordinary life in contrast to the lavish and corrupt life of the

Gilded Age. The motives of his ordinary characters are basically love, humanity,

egalitarianism, idealism, and dream. Later in his life Howells wrote political works, for

example, a biography of Abraham Lincoln (51).

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Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

Since his childhood he had little chance to have formal education but he educated himself by

reading books from his father`s library. During the Civil war in America, he joined the Union

Army and in that time he was severely wounded but he continued and gained major rank in

the Army. His career began to be literary when after the Bierce joined a newspaper job in San

Francisco. After that he went to London and wrote three small books such as, Nuggets and

Dust (1872), The Fiend's Delight (1873), and Cobwebs and Dust (1874). His acute criticism

and humour made him known as “Bitter Bierce”. He also wrote short stories dealing with

supernatural themes which earned his popularity in the 19th century American political and

literary spaces. (Bode, 120).

Henry James (1843-1916)

Cosmopolitanism is a part of realism which Henry James represents in his novels. James once

wrote that art, especially literary art, “makes life, makes interest, makes importance.”James’s

fiction and criticisms are the most highly conscious, sophisticated, and difficult of its time.

He is known for his global theme — that is, the complex relationships between naive

Americans and cosmopolitan Europeans (VanSpranckeren, 51-53).

In his first phase James wrote Transatlantic Sketches (travel pieces, 1875), The

American (1877), Daisy Miller (1879), and a masterpiece, The Portrait of a Lady (1881). The

second phase of his writings deals with the subject matters -- feminism and social reform in

The Bostonians (1886) and political stratagem in The Princess Casamassima (1885).In his

third, or “major,” phase James returned to international subjects, but treated them with

increasing sophistication and psychological penetration. The complex and almost mythical

The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903), and The Golden Bowl (1904) date

from this major period (51-52).

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Naturalism in Literature

Naturalism is essentially a literary representation of determinism. It is associated with

miserable and realistic depictions of lower-class life. The determinism negates religion as a

motivating force in the world and instead perceives the universe as a machine. Eighteenth-

century Enlightenment thinkers had also imagined the world as a machine, but as a perfect

one, invented by God and tending toward progress and human betterment. Naturalists

imagined society, instead, as a blind machine, godless and out of control.

The naturalist writers such as Stephen Crane, Jack London, Frank Norris, Theodore

Dreiser, and Upton Sinclair used realism to relate the individual to society. Often they

uncovered social problems and were influenced by Darwinian thought and the related

philosophical credence of determinism, which looks at individuals as the helpless wager of

economic and social forces out of their control. Like Romanticism, naturalism first appeared

in Europe. It daringly opened up the unpleasant pictures of society regarding divorce, sex,

adultery, poverty, and crime and it actually flourished as Americans became urbanized and

aware of the importance of large economic and social forces (53).

Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

Born in New Jersey, Stephen Crane was associated with the Revolutionary War soldiers,

clergymen, sheriffs, judges, and farmers of earlier century. He is primarily a journalist but

also wrote fiction, essays, poetry, and play. Crane saw life at its rawest, in slums and on

battlefields. His Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) is one of the best naturalistic American

novels. His short stories — especially, “The Open Boat,” “The Blue Hotel,” and “The Bride

Comes to Yellow Sky” — demonstrated naturalistic literary form. His evocative Civil War

novel, The Red Badge of Courage, was published in 1895, but he could not see the
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achievement due to his death at the age of 29. He was virtually forgotten during the early

20th century, but has regained his popularity through Thomas Beer`s biography in 1923.

Since then he is considered a realist, and a symbolist (53-54).

Poets of the Era

Though the later 19th century and early years of the 20th century were a poor period

for American poetry but two distinctive poets wrote songs that survived and enjoyed

popularity. One was Southern-born Sidney Lanier, a talented musician who utilized the

rhythms of music and the thematic developments of symphonies in such fine songs as “Corn”

(1875), “The Symphony” (1875), and “The Marshes of Glynn” (1878). Upset, like many of

his contemporaries, by changes in American life, he demonstrated his doubts, fears, and

suggestions into his richest poems.

The other poet was a New Englander namely Emily Dickinson. She was born in

Massachusetts` Amherst. Her father was an eminent lawyer and a politician. She never

married and led a quite sensitive and lonely life by loving the nature and its creations.

Influenced by the writers like Elizabeth Browning and Bronte sisters, she began her literary

career by writings poems in 1860s. Though she wrote so many poems, her poems were not

allowed to be published until her death in 1890. It is only after her death that the first book of

her poems was published and then the other collections followed. Such poems as “The

Snake,” “I Like to See It Lap the Miles,” “The Chariot,” “Farther in Summer than the Birds,”

and “There’s a Certain Slant of Light” represented her unusual talent at its best. Her poems

were terse and expressions of imagistic quality. She demonstrated the modern and innovative

characteristics in her poems. She was a nonconformist like Thoreau and wrote her poems

with changing the meanings of words and phrases and also she used paradoxes. Her poems

made her one of greatest poet in American literary history.

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Therefore, to conclude the module seeks present a lucid 19th century history of

American literature. Literature is a corpus of literary writings which began during American

Revolution period. In initial stages of 19th century of American literary production the writers

dealt with the themes of national imagination in the writings. After the American Declaration

of Independence, as the socio-political and cultural factors of American life were rapidly

changing, the phases of literary thematic productions were also changing. Literature has gone

through the phases of American Renaissance to the movement of transcendentalism of the

romantic period. It has also been part of the American realism. In different phases of literary

movements, literary writings have demonstrated different themes and contributed to the

growth of the movements. Through literary writings the women writers claimed their rights

and also sought to reform the society. Thus, the 19th century history of American literature

depicts the rapid growth of Americana society and socio-economic-political and cultural

conditions.

Works Cited
Bode, Carl. Highlights of American Literature. Washington: Bureau of Educational and
Cultural Affairs- United States Information Agency. 1995.
Elliot, Emory., and others, eds. The Columbia Literary History of the United States. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1988.
Hart, James David. The Oxford companion to American literature. 6th ed. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1995.
Hubbell. Jay B. American Life in literature. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers.
1951.
Parini, Jay, ed. The Columbia History of American Poetry. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1993.
VanSpranckeren, Kathryn. Outline of American Literature. US: US Department of State.
1994.