At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

 name some well-known American writers of the 19th and 20th centuries and their works; and
 analyze a few selected literary works representative of American Literature.

Who are some of the important American writers during the 19th and 20th centuries?
Why are they important?
What literary forms are prominent in American literature?

American Literature
American literature refers to all works of literature in English produced in the United States.

American literature is a rich body of literature. It refers to all works of literature in English published
in the United States, which has produced many great writers through the centuries.

The 19th Century

 William Cullen Bryant (1794 - 1878) became famous for “Thanatopsis” (1817). This poem
marked a new beginning for American poetry.
 Washington Irving (1783 - 1859) was known for “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow,” the first American short stories. They were part of his work The Sketch Book, the
first American work to become successful internationally.
 Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849) became famous for his macabre stories like “The Fall of the
House of Usher” (1839) and “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846). Also, he wrote “The Murders
in the Rue Morgue” (1841), the first detective story, and the poem “Raven” (1845), with which
he achieved instant fame.
 Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864) became known for his symbolical tales like “The Hollow
of the Three Hills” (1830) and “Young Goodman Brown” (1835). Also, he wrote the gothic
romance The Scarlet Letter (1850).
 Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) became well-known for Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855.
In this poetry collection, Whitman showed the experiences of the common man.
 Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) wrote odd poems. She mostly used the imperfect rhyme and
avoided regular rhythms. A collection of her poems, Poems by Emily Dickinson, came out in
1890.

The 20th Century

 Robert Frost (1874 - 1963) wrote poems with traditional stanzas and a blank verse, a verse
in iambic pentameter with no rhyme. His poems portray ordinary people in everyday
situations like “Mending Wall,” "The Road Not Taken," and “After Apple-Picking,” both of
which were published in 1914.

 E. E. cummings (1894 - 1962) was known for his unconventional punctuation and phrasing.
His poems were compiled in Complete Poems (1968).

 Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972) was a leader of the Imagists, who emphasized the use of direct
and sparse language and precise images in writing poetry. Two of his works
are Ripostes (1912) and Lustra (1916).

 Sherwood Anderson (1876 - 1941) wrote prose using everyday speech. His best works
appeared in Winesburg, Ohio (1919) and Death in the Woods (1933).

 Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961) was known for his succinct writing, which was widely
imitated. His writing was very straightforward and objective - not verbose and sentimental.
Two of his finest stories are “The Killers” (1927) and “The Short Happy Life of Francis
Macomber” (1936).

 Allen Ginsberg (1926 - 1997) was known for his work “Howl” (1956), a poem with incantatory
rhythms and raw emotion. He was one of the Beat poets, who aimed to bring poetry back to
the streets.
 Anne Sexton (1928 - 1974) became known for her confessional poetry, a kind of poetry that
deals with the private experiences of the speaker. Her work Live or Die (1966) won a Pulitzer
Prize.