American Literature

Each country produces its own unique voice, and that voice is heard through its literature. From the literary beginnings of Colonial times, we watch as the Neoclassicism of Benjamin Franklin and Phillip Freneau becomes the 19th Century's Romanticism of Irving, Cooper, Longfellow, and Thoreau. We see the revolution of Realism through vignettes of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. Then our survey moves into our own turbulent century and the growth of Naturalism, Modernism, and Post-modernism with authors that run the gamut from Henry Adams to Richard Wright. This title includes close to 100 "mini-biographies" of the authors whose voices shaped American writing.