Although the roots of American literature reach to 16^th century, the real history of American literature begins in the time of the American fight for independence. Till the 19th century literature was only about conditions of settlement in the America (histories, biographies, songs, ballads etc.)

19th century

James Fenimore Cooper – describes American wilderness and wrote Indian novels of adventure. His masterpiece is “The Last of the Mohicans”. It is about a war between England and France in an Indian colony. Some tribes of Indians were with France and some with England. On of English fortresses, called William Henry, is surrounded by French army and Hurons (Indian tribe). Two daughters (Cora and Alice) of the leader of the William Henry wanted to get in. They live many adventures and finally they reach the fortress. However they were successful, the older one, Cora is murdered by a bad Huron. Another famous books are The pioneers, The Pathfinder, The Deerslayer.

Walt Whitman – a poet of democracy and freedom. He made the American poetry independent on European poetry. Born in New York, died in New Jersey. The first great American poet who introduced both a new form (free verse) and new content (themes from everyday life) into American poetry. His most famous collection is Leaves of Grass.

Edgar Allan Poe – a poet and short story writer, critical essayist, the founder of both science fiction and the detective story. He is said that he was a genius. His best poem is “The Raven” – on a stormy night a tired student who has lost his love asks if he will ever meet her again in some other world. His doubts are underlined by the raven’s repetition of “Never more”. Poe also wrote wonderful short stories such as the Black Cat, The golden Bug, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Annabel Lee, …

Herman Melville – the greatest symbolist, he sailed on seas for many years. His experience at sea were the basis for almost all his novels. The most famous novel is Moby-Dick, the symbolic story, Moby-Dick is a name of the white whale and it means evil.

Mark Twain – is one of the greatest US authors. He comes from the South and he worked as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi river. “Mark twain” is a river-man’s phrase meanings two-pathoms-deep. His real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He became famous as a humorist and storyteller. His best books are based on his own experience along the Mississippi. It is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and the Adventures of Huckleberry Fin. These books describe the adventures of boyhood. Huck is a portrait of a frontier boy. He runs away because he is afraid that Aunt Sally will adopt him and civilise him, he is free and reminded free till the end of the book. He also took some inspiration from English history and wrote the well-known satire A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. His others books are The Celebrated Jumping Frog, The Innocents Abroad, The Prince and the Pauper and Life on the Mississippi, The American Claimant, Tom Sawyer Abroad, The Mysterious Stranger.

Other writers – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Washington Irving

20th century

The quick development in America at the end of the 19th century in industry, trade and manufacturing goods gave rise to many problems. Authors first try to describe the ugliness of life. Realism and naturalism developed.

Theodore Dreiser – he became a reporter, editor and novelist. In his naturalist novels he showed the ugly sides of American life. His masterpiece is An American Tragedy. His Hero is negative, he becomes a murderer, but it is not the hero who is to blame but the society and the system.

Upton Sinclair – the best novel is The Jungle and it is about working conditions in the Chicago slaughterhouse and living conditions of immigrants, whose labour is cheap.

Jack London – became very popular due to describing adventurous life at the time of the gold rush. One of the most popular American authors outside the United States, his stories of adventure are based on his own experience in the Arctic, Alaska and The South Seas. He also visited Korea, Japan and Mexico. His great novel is called “The Call of the Wild”.

After the World War I a group of writers known as the “Lost Generation” entered literature. They were influenced by the war, their experience resulted in disillusionment.

Ernst Hemingway – was awarded the Nobel Prize for his famous book The Old Man and the Sea, which is about human strength for fighting both external natural things and bad sides of his character (this is a story about a man who can be destroyed but not defeated.). He worked as a reporter. He always liked to take an active part in the public events he reported. In World War I he went to Europe as a volunteer Red Cross ambulance driver, during the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War he was a war correspondent in Spain and London. Ho crossed the English Channel with American troops on D-Day and took part in the liberation of Paris. When on the Italian front in 1918, he was badly wounded in the leg and had to undergo twelve operations in a hospital in Milan. He was decorated for heroism and returned to the United States. He loved Spain. He himself was much interested in fishing, hunting, boxing and bullfighting and often wrote about the national Spanish sport corrida. His style of writing is excellent. His sentences are short, his words are simple, but they are often full of emotion. He is a master of the pause. We can feel how the story continues even during the silences, during the times his characters say nothing. He is able to express emotion with few words. Among his best novels belong A Farewell to Arms – it is about World War I. It is a love story of an American boy served in the Italian Ambulance Service and an English nurse. Another famous novel is For Whom the Bell Tolls and it is a psychological picture from Spanish Civil War. Other novels are Fiesta, Death in the Afternoon, A moveable Feast, Islands in the Stream. Hemingway is a master in short story writing. He died in 1961, he committed suicide (shot himself to death). He was buried at Ketchum.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald – is connected with the Jazz Age of the 20s. He wrote novels and short stories about the “Jazz Age”, its rich and extravagant people, their lives and their immoral behavior. He himself was very extravagant and he and his wife Zelda lived a wild life style. Their own story was an inspiration for his best-known work “Tender is the Night”. His famous work is “The Great Gatsby”. It is about a very rich man who earns all his money by smuggling. He is doing this because he wants to be on the same level as Daisy, his former lover who had always been rich. Both novels were made into successful films. He wrote for Hollywood.

William Faulkner – was awarded the Nobel Prize. He wrote a cycle of novels dealing with all possible problems of the South – Light in August, As I Lay Dying.

Sinclair Lewis – was the first US writer to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1930. He deals mainly with a small town in the Middle West and its middle-class citizens. (Main Street, Arrowsmith, Babbit)

John Steinbeck – won a Nobel Prize in literature. He tried to uncover the reasons of social injustice. His best novel is The Grapes of Wrath. It is a picture of a poor family, which is exploited by the fruit-growers in California. He was also playwriter. His famous play is called Of Mice and Men. Other his famous works are: The Wayward Bus, East of Eden, The Pastures of Heaven, Travels with Charley.

Jerome David Salinger – expressed the feelings of the post-war generation in novel The Catcher in the Rye, which is about a sincere and pure teenager who is disgusted by the frauds and insincerity of people around himself. Salinger wrote also nice short stories – Nine Stories.

William Styron – is influenced by Faulkner and writes novels about the South of US (Lie down in Darkness, The Confession of Nat Turner). His excellent novel called Sophie’s Choice. It deals with the problem of Nazis concentration camps and conditions of human life in peace influenced by a bitter war experience.

Joseph Heller – wrote Catch 22. It is an antiwar novel connecting absurd black humour. His other novels are Something Happened, Good as Gold, God Knows.

Other writers – Pearl Buck (the Good Earth, Sons), Saul Bellow (psychological novels Dangling Man, Seize the Day), Norman Mailer (The Naked and the Dead), John Updike (Rabbit), William Saroyan (The Human Comedy, My name is Aram, Not Dying), Ray Bradbury (sci-fi – Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451), Kurt Vonnegur jr. (Player Piano, Cat´s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions)

Beat Generation

20th century poetry is famous for a group of poets and artists who gathered around 1956 in San Francisco and are called “Beat Generation” or “Beat Group”. They practised free life, behaviour and new use of language. They were disgusted by corrupt, commercial and conventional world around them. They were influenced also by Zen Buddhism teaching. Among the best known poets of this era belong

Allen Gingsberg – visited our country several times, wrote Howl and Other Poems.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti – he is still living, he visited Prague, Pictures of the Gone World.

William Burroughs – Junkie, The Naked Lunch

Jack Kerouac – he wrote the Bible of Beat Generation On the Road. This novel is about friends wandering on their motorcycles back and forth across the continent and shows us their “beat” characters. Other works: Mexico City Blues, The Town and the City, Mag.

Drama in 20^th century

Eugene O’Neil – won a Nobel Prize. He shows and studies the bad sides of human characters and the difficult conditions people in this world have. Work: Desire under the Elms, The Emperor Jones, Mourning Becomes Electra.

Tennessee Williams – shows in his plays people’s crude, selfish, violent and cruel motives of their behaviour as well as their deep desire to love and be loved. Work: A Streetcar Named Desire, Orpheus Descending, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Edward Albee – is one of the leading experimental playwrights. He wants to entertain and amuse. His works are The Zoo Story, The Sandbox, Who´s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.