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American Literature
American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the British colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also includes literature produced in languages other than English. The American Revolutionary Period (1775–1783) is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. An early novel is William Hill Brown's '' The Power of Sympathy'', published in 1791. The writer and critic John Neal in the early-to-mid-19th century helped to advance America toward a unique literature and culture, by criticizing his predecessors, such as Washington Irving, for imitating their British counterparts and by influencing writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, who took American poetry and short fiction in new directions. Ralph Waldo Emerson pioneered the influential Transcendentalism movement; Henry David T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." Twain's novels include ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876) and its sequel, ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." He also wrote ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'' (1889) and ''Pudd'nhead Wilson'' (1894) and cowrote ''The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today'' (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner. The novelist Ernest Hemingway claimed that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called ''Huckleberry Finn''." Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for both ''Tom Sawyer'' and ''Huckleberry Finn''. He served an apprenticeship with a printer early in his career, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Power Of Sympathy
''The Power of Sympathy: or, The Triumph of Nature'' is a 1789 American sentimental novel written in epistolary form by William Hill Brown and is widely considered to be the first American novel. ''The Power of Sympathy'' was Brown's first novel. The characters' struggles illustrate the dangers of seduction and the pitfalls of giving in to one's passions, while advocating the moral education of women and the use of rational thinking as ways to prevent the consequences of such actions. Characters *Thomas Harrington *Myra Harrington, sister to Thomas *Harriot Fawcet, illegitimate sister to Thomas and Myra *Jack Worthy *Mrs. Eliza Holmes, common friend of the Harringtons and Harriot *Mr. Harrington, Thomas and Myra's father *Maria, Mr. Harrington's mistress and Harriot's mother *Martin and Ophelia Plot summary The opening letters between Thomas Harrington and Jack Worthy reveal that Thomas has fallen for Harriot Fawcet, despite the reservations of his father. Harriot resists T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moby-Dick
''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 Epic (genre), epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler, whaling ship ''Pequod (Moby-Dick), Pequod'', for vengeance against Moby Dick (whale), Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance, ''Moby-Dick'' was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a Great American Novel was established only in the 20th century, after the 1919 centennial of its author's birth. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herman Melville
Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and ''Billy Budd, Billy Budd, Sailor'', a posthumously published novella. At the time of his death Melville was not well known to the public, but 1919, the centennial of his birth, was the starting point of a #Melville revival and Melville studies, Melville revival. ''Moby-Dick'' would eventually be considered one of the great American novels. Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a prosperous merchant whose death in 1832 left the family in dire financial straits. He took to sea in 1839 as a common sailor on the merchant ship ''St. Lawrence'' and then, in 1841, on the whaler ''Acushnet'', but he jumped ship in the Marquesas I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Scarlet Letter
''The Scarlet Letter: A Romance'' is a historical novel by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. Set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649, the novel tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter with a man to whom she is not married and then struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. As punishment, she must wear a scarlet letter 'A' (for "adultery"). Containing a number of religious and historic allusions, the book explores themes of legalism, sin and guilt. ''The Scarlet Letter'' was one of the first mass-produced books in the United States. It was popular when first published and is considered a classic work of American literature. Commonly listed among the Great American Novels, it has inspired numerous film, television, and stage adaptations. Critics have described ''The Scarlet Letter'' as a masterwork, and novelist D. H. Lawrence called it a "perfect work of the American imagination". Plot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne (né Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that town. Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College in 1821, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824, and graduated in 1825. He published his first work in 1828, the novel ''Fanshawe (novel), Fanshawe''; he later tried to suppress it, feeling that it was not equal to the standard of his later work. He published several short stories in periodicals, which he collected in 1837 as ''Twice-Told Tales''. The following year, he became engaged to Sophia Hawthorne, Sophia Peabody. He worked at the Boston Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a Transcendentalism, transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 14, 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He was the most important leader of the movement for African-American Civil rights movement (1865–1896), civil rights in the 19th century. After escaping from slavery in Maryland in 1838, Douglass became a national leader of the Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York (state), New York and gained fame for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to claims by supporters of slavery that enslaved people lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northern United States, Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been enslaved. It was in response to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (; June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American author and Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist. She came from the religious Beecher family and wrote the popular novel ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions experienced by Slavery in the United States, enslaved African Americans. The book reached an audience of millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Great Britain, energizing anti-slavery forces in the Northern United States, American North, while provoking widespread anger in the Antebellum South, South. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential both for her writings as well as for her public stances and debates on social issues of the day. Life and work Harriet Elisabeth Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811.McFarla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abolitionism In The United States
In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the United States, slavery in the country, was active from the Colonial history of the United States, colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery, Penal labor in the United States, except as punishment for a crime, through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified 1865). The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade. In Colonial America, a few German Quakers issued the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery, which marked the beginning of the American abolitionist movement. Before the American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War, Evangelicalism in the United States, evangelical colonists were the primary advocates for the opposition to Slavery in the colonial United States, slavery and the slave trade, doing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walden
''Walden'' (; first published as ''Walden; or, Life in the Woods'') is an 1854 book by American transcendentalism, transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and—to some degree—a manual for Self-sustainability, self-reliance. ''Walden'' details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts, Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau makes precise scientific observations of nature as well as metaphorical and poetic uses of natural Phenomenon, phenomena. He identifies many plants and animals by both their popular and scientific names, records in detail the color and clarity of different bodies of water, precisely dates and describe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience (Thoreau), Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument in favor of citizen disobedience against an unjust state. Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his nature writing, writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary language, literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical, spiritual, and literary movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the New England region of the United States. "Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson." A core belief is in the inherent goodness of people and nature, and while society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the Individualism, individual, people are at their best when truly "self-Reliance, self-reliant" and independent. Transcendentalists saw divine experience inherent in the everyday. They thought of physical and spiritual phenomena as part of dynamic processes rather than discrete entities. Transcendentalism is one of the first philosophical currents that emerged in the United States;Coviello, Peter. "Transcendentalism" ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature''. Oxford University Press, 2004. ''Oxford Reference Online''. Web. 23 Oct. 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
