Top Ten American Literature

Much of American Literature is a consideration of our ability to head to the frontier, reinvent ourselves, make a shining city on a hill, be the last best hope for mankind, free ourselves of the shackles of the past, the tragic fate of birth in a particular place ... you get the picture.

The Scarlet Letter is a true masterpiece of American Literature and a must-read for every student of literature. Featured in our collection of 25 Great American Novels. Teachers and students may be interested in our Dark Romanticism - Study Guide and D. H. Lawrence's chapter on Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter from his book Studies in Classic American Literature.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is widely considered one of the greatest American novels ever written, published in the U.K. in 1884, and the U.S. in 1885. It follows upon Mark Twain's earlier novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).

John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' is one of the most enduring American stories of friendship. ... Modernism in American Literature 8:09

"The Catcher in the Rye" deeply influenced the biographical drama film, "The Rebel in the Rye", which is about the writer of "The Catcher in the Rye", J.D. Salinger. It is a visual about his life, before and after World War II, and gives more about the author's life than the readers of "The Catcher in the Rye" learned from the novel.

The Grapes of Wrath is frequently read in American high school and college literature classes due to its historical context and enduring legacy. A celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford, was released in 1940.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is most often celebrated for Hurston’s unique use of language, particularly her mastery of rural Southern black dialect. Throughout the novel, she utilizes an interesting narrative structure, splitting the presentation of the story between high literary narration and idiomatic discourse.

(from Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening transcript) Guy de Maupassant was a French realist author of approximately 300 short stories, 6 novels, and various other writings who lived in the mid- to late- 19th century (b. 1850, d. 1893).

Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome is a classic of American Literature, with compelling characters trapped in circumstances from which they seem unable to escape. The novel was published in 1911, set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, whose naming is a subtle overture to the book's mood.

Throughout Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury uses the literary device of symbolism; with the symbols ranging from aspects of the firemen’s uniforms, to the fire itself, and the Phoenix at the conclusion of the story.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane Follow the trials and tribulations of Henry Fleming, a recruit in the American Civil War in this impressionistic novel by American writer Stephen Crane.

A jungle is land covered with dense vegetation dominated by trees. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past recent centuries. Prior to the 1970s, tropical rainforests were generally referred to as jungles but this terminology has fallen out of usage. Jungles in Western literature can represent a less civilised or unruly space outside the control of civilisation, attributed to the jungle's association in colonial discourse with places colonised by Europeans.

A Separate Peace tells the story of a sixteen-year-old boy at boarding school in New Hampshire during World War II, and the mixed feelings of admiration and jealousy he harbors for his best friend and roommate.

The Sun Also Rises is a 1926 novel written by American author Ernest Hemingway, about a group of American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early and enduring modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication.

Plot Of As I Lay Dying. As I Lay Dying is a fiction drama published in 1930 by American poet, playwright, and novelist William Faulkner.

\ Glossary \ Literature \ Literary Works \ A Farewell to Arms A Farewell to Arms In A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway develops a love story between a man and a woman within the broader context of the death and destruction of World War I.

This quote from Ralph Ellison's review of Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal's book An American Dilemma (which explores the roots of prejudice and racism in the U.S.) anticipates the premise of Invisible Man: Racism is a devastating force, possessing the power to render black Americans virtually invisible.

Native Son (1940) is a novel written by the American author Richard Wright. It tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African American youth living in utter poverty in a poor area on Chicago's South Side in the 1930s.

My Antonia by Willa Cather. My Antonia (1918) is the third book in Cather's Prairie Trilogy, which began with O Pioneers! (1913), and was followed by The Song of the Lark (1915).

Beloved is a 1987 novel by the American writer Toni Morrison. Set after the American Civil War (1861–65), it is inspired by the story of an African-American slave, Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery in Kentucky late January 1856 by fleeing to Ohio, a free state.

The House on Mango Street is a 1984 coming-of-age novel by Mexican-American writer Sandra Cisneros. It deals with Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl, and her life growing up in Chicago with Chicanos and Puerto Ricans.

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, a free text and ebook for easy online reading, study, and reference. The most popular of Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales , The Last of the Mohicans takes place in 1757 during the French and Indian War and recounts the story of an unarmed massacre, the kidnapping of two sisters, and their rescue by Hawk-eye and his two Mohican friends Uncas and Chingachook.

Bless Me, Ultima is Anaya's best known work and was awarded the prestigious Premio Quinto Sol. In 2008, it was one of 12 classic American novels selected for The Big Read, a community-reading program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 2009, it was the selected novel of the United States Academic Decathlon.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) is the début novel by the American author Carson McCullers; she was 23 at the time of publication. It is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia.

The Poisonwood Bible was selected for Oprah's Book Club in 1999. Additionally that year, the book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. It won the 2000 Boeke Prize.

The Bluest Eye is a novel written by Toni Morrison in 1970. Morrison, a single mother of two sons, wrote the novel while she taught at Howard University. The novel is set in 1941 and centers around the life of an African-American girl named Pecola who grows up during the years following the Great Depression in Lorain, Ohio.

The Sound and the Fury is a novel written by the American author William Faulkner. It employs a number of narrative styles, including stream of consciousness. Published in 1929, The Sound and the Fury was Faulkner's fourth novel, and was not immediately successful.

Both Tom Sawyer and its sequel in Huckleberry Finn are landmark texts not only in the canon of Twain’s work, but also in that of American literature. Twain’s explicit sense of place is articulated in the rugged aesthetic of the American Midwest.

Catch-22 is a satirical novel by American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953; the novel was first published in 1961. Often cited as one of the most significant novels of the twentieth century, it uses a distinctive non-chronological third-person omniscient narration, describing events from the points of view of different characters.

breadth of American literature appears to be almost limitless. Each of the videos and units has been carefully balanced to pair canonical and noncanoni-cal voices. You may find it helpful, however, to trace the development of American literature according to the rise of different ethnic and minority liter-atures.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a 1969 autobiography about the early years of American writer and poet Maya Angelou. The first in a seven-volume series, it is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma.

A summary of Themes in Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of The Bean Trees and what it means. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans.

Billy Budd, Sailor is the final novel by American writer Herman Melville, first published posthumously in London in 1924 as edited by Raymond M. Weaver, a professor at Columbia University. Other versions were later published.

A A black man's tribute to his amazing white mother who raised 12 successful and well educated children through much hardship and personal sacrifice. When as a child he asked his mother what color God was her reply was , " the color of water.

Alice Walker wrote The Color Purple during a period of important literary production among the African-American community. The author perhaps most often included in a conversation of Walker's work is Toni Morrison, whose novels, like Walker's, deal intricately with issues of racism, gender, and self-identity among black populations in the United States.

Henry James short novels provide an overview of his entire career and serve as an excellent introduction to his singular art and imagination. This collection includes The Turn of the Screw, Daisy Miller, The Beast in the Jungle, An International Episode, The Aspern Papers and The Altar of the Dead.

Alas, Babylon is a 1959 novel by American writer Pat Frank (the pen name of Harry Hart Frank) It was one of the first apocalyptic novels of the nuclear age and has remained popular more than half century after it was first published, consistently ranking in Amazon.com's Top 20 Science Fiction Short Stories list (which groups together short story collections and novels) and has an entry in David Pringle's book Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels.

Beatrice explains the nine orders of angels, hierarchically arranged: Seraphim (the closest to God), Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. "Aire and Angels" by John Donne In amorous enthusiasm, Donne takes literally the notion that his beloved is an "angel".

Her international reputation was established when she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, primarily in recognition of her masterpiece novel, The Good Earth, and two biographies of her parents, The Exile and Fighting Angel, both published in 1936.

American Literature"Into the Wild" Monday, March 7, 2011. Question 47: Chapter 13 Compare and Contrast Chris and his sister, Carine.

McTeague: A Story of San Francisco (1899) is a dark story following the downward spiral of a couple, Trina and McTeague, from marriage, to their decline into poverty, and the aftermath of jealousy, greed, and violence.

The text begins: Pudd'nhead Wins His Name Tell the truth or trump--but get the trick. --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar The scene of this chronicle is the town of Dawson's Landing, on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, half a day's journey, per steamboat, below St. Louis.

These are just a handful of the more than 1,500 locations charted in a comprehensive and interactive map of American literature’s most iconic journeys, created by self-declared “freak for the American road trip” Richard Kreitner, in collaboration with developer Steven Melendez, and hosted online by Atlas Obscura.

The House of the Seven Gables. The House of the Seven Gables is a classic of American literature published in 1851 by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and is a relative of the founders of Puritan Salem, including John Hathorne, who was a judge in the infamous Salem Witch Trials.

With the Puerto Rican diaspora of the 1940s, Puerto Rican literature was greatly influenced by a phenomenon known as the Nuyorican Movement. Puerto Rican literature continued to flourish and many Puerto Ricans have distinguished themselves as authors, poets, novelists, playwrights, essayists and in all the fields of literature.

In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007), Alexie switches to the young adult genre in order to offer an autobiographical depiction of reservation life that is both bleak and hopeful, and both heartrending and uplifting.

The horses in All the Pretty Horses play a critical role, which is why specific horses are listed as characters in the front of these notes. The horses are more than a means of transportation for John Grady and Rawlins; they are friends.