American Literature of the 19th Century. American writers

1. "Anna Karenina" Leo Tolstoy

A novel about the tragic love of a married lady Anna Karenina and a brilliant officer Vronsky against the background of the happy family life of the nobles Konstantin Lyovin and Kitty Shtcherbatskaya. A large-scale picture of the customs and life of the noble environment of St. Petersburg and Moscow in the second half of the 19th century, combining the philosophical reflections of the author's alter ego Lyovin with the most advanced psychological sketches in Russian literature, as well as scenes from the life of peasants.

2. "Madame Bovary" Gustave Flaubert

The main character of the novel is Emma Bovary, the wife of a doctor who lives beyond her means and starts extramarital affairs in the hope of getting rid of the emptiness and routine of provincial life. Although the plot of the novel is quite simple and even trivial, the true value of the novel lies in the details and forms of plot presentation. Flaubert as a writer was known for his desire to bring every work to the ideal, always trying to find the right words.

3. "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy

An epic novel by Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, describing Russian society in the era of wars against Napoleon in 1805-1812.

4. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain

Huckleberry Finn, who escaped from his cruel father, together with the fugitive negro Jim, are rafting on the Mississippi River. After a while, they are joined by the crooks Duke and the King, who eventually sell Jim into slavery. Huck and Tom Sawyer, who has joined him, organize the release of the prisoner. Nevertheless, Huck frees Jim from captivity in earnest, and Tom does it simply out of interest - he knows that Jim's mistress has already given him freedom.

5. Stories by A. P. Chekhov

For 25 years of creativity, Chekhov created about 900 different works (short humorous stories, serious stories, plays), many of which have become classics of world literature. Particular attention was drawn to "The Steppe", "Boring Story", "Duel", "Ward No. 6", "The Story of an Unknown Man", "Men" (1897), "Man in a Case" (1898), "In a Ravine" , "Kids", "Hunting Drama"; from the plays: "Ivanov", "The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya", "Three Sisters", "The Cherry Orchard".

6. "Middlemarch" by George Eliot

Middlemarch is the name of the provincial town in and around which the novel is set. Many characters inhabit its pages, and their fates are intertwined by the will of the author: these are the prude and pedant Caseaubon and Dorothea Brooke, the talented doctor and scientist Lydgate and the petty bourgeoisie Rosamond Vincey, the prude and hypocrite banker Bulstrod, pastor Ferbratter, the talented but poor Will, Ladislav and many a lot others. Unsuccessful marriages and happy marital unions, dubious enrichment and fuss over inheritance, political ambitions and ambitious intrigues. Middlemarch is a town where many human vices and virtues are manifested.

7. "Moby Dick" Herman Melville

Moby Dick by Herman Melville is considered the greatest American novel of the 19th century. In the center of this unique piece, written contrary to the laws of the genre, is the pursuit of the White Whale. A captivating plot, epic sea paintings, descriptions of vivid human characters in harmonious combination with the most universal philosophical generalizations make this book a true masterpiece of world literature.

8. "Great Expectations" Charles Dickens

“Great Expectations” - one of the last works of Dickens, the pearl of his work - tells the story of the life of the young Philip Pyrrip, nicknamed Pip in childhood. Pip's dreams of a career, love and prosperity in the “world of gentlemen” are shattered in an instant, as soon as he learns the terrible secret of his unknown patron, pursued by the police. Money stained with blood and marked with the seal of crime, as Pip is convinced, cannot bring happiness. And what is it, is this happiness? And where will the hero of his dreams and high hopes lead?

9. "Crime and Punishment" Fyodor Dostoevsky

The plot revolves around the main character, Rodion Raskolnikov, in whose head a theory of crime matures. Raskolnikov himself is very poor, he cannot pay not only for his studies at the university, but also for his own living. His mother and sister are also poor; soon he learns that his sister (Dunya Raskolnikova) is ready to marry a man whom she does not love, for the sake of money, to help her family. This was the last straw, and Raskolnikov commits the premeditated murder of the old woman-pawnbroker and the forced murder of her sister, a witness. But Raskolnikov cannot use stolen goods, he hides it. From this time on, the terrible life of a criminal begins.

The daughter of a wealthy landowner and a great dreamer, Emma tries to diversify her leisure time by organizing someone else's personal life. Confident that she will never marry, she acts as a matchmaker for her friends and acquaintances, but life surprises her with surprise after surprise.

This is the era of colonization, the rule of puritanical ideals, patriarchal pious morals. Theological interests predominated in literature. The collection "Bay Psalm Book" () was published; poems and poems were written on various occasions, mostly of a patriotic nature (“The tenth muse, lately sprung up in America” by Anna Bradstreet, elegy to the death of N. Bacon, verses by W. Wood, J. Norton, Urian Ock, national songs “Lovewells. fight "," The song of Bradoec men ", etc.).

The prose literature of that time was mainly devoted to descriptions of travel and the history of the development of colonial life. The most prominent theological writers were Hooker, Cotton, Roger Williams, Bayles, J. Wise, Jonathan Edwards. At the end of the 18th century, agitation for the liberation of blacks began. The advocates of this movement in literature were J. Woolmans, author of "Some considerations on the Keeping of negroes" (), and Ant. Benezet, author of A caution to Great Britain and her colonies relative to enslaved negroes (). The transition to the next era was the work of B. Franklin - "The Way to Abundance" (eng. The Way to Wealth), "The speech of Father Abraham", etc .; he founded Poor Richard's Almanac (eng. Poor richards almanack).

Era of revolution

The second period of North American literature, from up to 1790, embraces the era of the revolution and is distinguished by the development of journalism and political literature. Major policy writers: Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, J. Mathison, Alexander Hamilton, J. Stray, Thomas Paine. Historians: Thomas Gechchinson, supporter of the British, Jeremiah Belknap, Dove. Ramsay and William Henry Dryton, Revolutionaries; then J. Marshall, Rob. Prode, Abiel Golmes. Theologians and Moralists: Samuel Hopkins, William White, J. Murray.

19th century

The third period covers all North American literature of the 19th century. The preparatory era was the first quarter of a century when the prosaic style was developed. " Sketch-book Washington Irving () laid the foundation for a semi-philosophical, semi-publicistic literature, sometimes humorous, then instructive-moralistic essays. Here, the national traits of the Americans are especially vividly reflected - their practicality, utilitarian morality and naive, cheerful humor, which is very different from the sarcastic, gloomy humor of the British.

Edgar Allan Poe (-) and Walt Whitman (-) stand completely apart from the others.

Edgar Allan Poe is a deep mystic, a poet of refined nervous moods, who loved everything mysterious and enigmatic, and at the same time a great virtuoso of verse. He is not at all an American by nature; he lacks American sobriety and efficiency. His work bears a sharply individual imprint.

Walt Whitman is the epitome of American democracy. His " Grass leaves"(Eng. Leaves of Grass) glorify freedom and strength, joy and fullness of life. His free verse revolutionized modern versification.

In the prose literature of America, novelists and essayists are in the foreground - then Washington Irving, Oliver Holmes, Ralph Emerson, James Lowell. The novelists portray the energetic, adventurous natures of both former settlers who lived amid danger and hard work, as well as modern, more cultured Yankees.

Emigrants played a large role in American literature of the twentieth century: it is difficult to underestimate the scandal that caused "Lolita"; A very noticeable niche is the American Jewish literature, often humorous: Singer, Bellow, Roth, Malamud, Allen; one of the most famous black writers was Baldwin; recently the Greek Evgenides and the Chinese Amy Tan have won fame. The five most significant Chinese-American women writers are: Edith Maude Eaton, Diana Chang, Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan and Gish Jen. Sino-American literature is represented by Louis Chu, author of the satirical novel Eat a Bowl of Tea (1961), and playwrights Frank Chin and David Henry Hwang. Saul Bellow was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. The work of Italian-American authors (Mario Puzo, John Fante, Don DeLillo) enjoys great success. Openness has increased not only in the national-religious area: the famous poet Elizabeth Bishop did not hide her love for women; other writers include Capote and Cunningham.

The Catcher in the Rye, a novel by J. Salinger, occupies a special place in the literature of the 1950s. This work, published in 1951, became (especially among young people) a cult. The plays of A. Miller and T. Williams stand out in American drama of the 1950s. In the 60s, the plays by E. Alby ("The Accident at the Zoo", "The Death of Bessie Smith", "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" related to the topic of science ("Live with lightning", "My brother, my enemy"). These books became widely known (especially in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 70s).

The diversity of American literature never allows one movement to completely supplant others; after the beatniks of the 50s and 60s (J. Kerouac, L. Ferlinghetti, G. Corso, A. Ginsberg), the most noticeable trend was - and continues to be - postmodernism (for example, Paul Oster, Thomas Pynchon). books by the postmodernist writer Don DeLillo (born 1936). One of the famous researchers of American literature of the 20th century is the translator and literary critic A.M. Zverev (1939-2003).

Science fiction and horror literature has developed widely in the United States, and fantasy has developed in the second half of the 20th century. The first wave of American SF, which included Edgar Rice Burroughs, Murray Leinster, Edmond Hamilton, was predominantly entertainment and spawned the space opera subgenre. By the middle of the 20th century, more complex science fiction began to prevail in the United States. World famous American science fiction writers include Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Andre Norton, Clifford Simak. In the United States, such a subgenre of science fiction as cyberpunk was born (Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling). By the 21st century, America remains one of the main centers of fiction, thanks to such authors as Dan Simmons, Lois Bujold, David Weber, Scott Westerfeld, and others.

Most of the popular 20th century horror writers are American. The classic of horror literature of the first half of the century was Howard Lovecraft, creator of The Myths of Cthulhu. In the second half of the century, Stephen King and Dean Koontz worked in the United States. American fantasy began in the 1930s with Robert Howard, author of Conan, and was later developed by such authors as Roger Zelazny, Paul William Anderson, Ursula Le Guin. One of the most popular fantasy writers in the 21st century is American George R.R. Martin, creator of Game of Thrones.

Literary genres

• American fiction
• American detective
• American short story
• American novel

Literature

• Allen W. Tradition and Dream. A critical review of English and American prose from the 1920s to the present day. Per. from English M., "Progress", 1970. - 424 p.
• American poetry in Russian translations. XIX-XX centuries. Compiled by S. B. Dzhimbinov. In English. language with parallel Russian. text. Moscow: Raduga. - 1983. - 672 p.
• American detective. Collection of novellas by US writers. Per. from English Compiled by V.L. Gopman. M. Yurid. lit. 1989 384s.
• American detective. M. Lad 1992 .-- 384 p.
• An anthology of beatnik poetry. Per. from English - M .: Ultra. Culture, 2004, 784 p.
• Anthology of Negro Poetry. Compiled by and lane. R. Magidov. M., 1936.
• Belov S. B. Slaughterhouse number "X". Literature of England and the USA about war and military ideology. - M .: Sov. writer, 1991 .-- 366 p.
• Belyaev A.A.Social American novel of the 1930s and bourgeois criticism. M., Higher School, 1969. - 96 p.
• Venediktova T. D. Poetic Art of the USA: Modernity and Tradition. - M.: Publishing house of Moscow State University, 1988 - 85p.
• Venediktova T. D. Gaining a Voice. American National Poetic Tradition. - M., 1994.
• Venediktova T. D. "American Conversation": the discourse of bargaining in the literary tradition of the United States. - M .: New literary review, 2003. -328 p. ISBN 5-86793-236-2
• Bernatskaya V.I. Four decades of American drama. 1950-1980 - M .: Rudomino, 1993 .-- 215 p.
• Bobrova M. N. Romanticism in American Literature of the 19th Century. M., Higher School, 1972.-286 p.
• Benediktova T. D. Gaining a Voice. American National Poetic Tradition. M., 1994.
• Brooks V.V. The Writer and American Life: In 2 volumes: Per. from English / Afterl. M. Mendelssohn. - M .: Progress, 1967-1971
• Van Spankeren, K. Essays on American Literature. Per. from English D. M. Course. - M.: Knowledge, 1988 - 64p.
• Vaschenko A.V. America in a dispute with America (Ethnic literature of the USA) - M .: Knowledge, 1988 - 64p.
• Gaismar M. American Contemporaries: Per. from English - M .: Progress, 1976 .-- 309 p.
• Gilenson, B.A.American Literature of the 1930s. - M.: Higher. shk., 1974.-
• Gilenson B.A. Socialist tradition in the literature of the United States.- M., 1975.
• Gilenson BA History of US Literature: Textbook for universities. M .: Academy, 2003 .-- 704 p. ISBN 5-7695-0956-2
• Duchenne I., Shereshevskaya N. American literature for children. // Foreign literature for children. M., 1974. S. 186-248.
• Zhuravlev IK Essays on the history of Marxist literary criticism in the United States (1900-1956). Saratov, 1963, 155 p.
• Zasursky Ya.N. History of American Literature: In 2 volumes. M, 1971.
• Zasursky Ya.N. American Literature of the XX century. - M., 1984.
• Zverev A.M. Modernism in the literature of the USA, M., 1979.-318 p.
• Zverev A. American novel of the 1920s and 1930s. M., 1982.
• Zenkevich M., Kashkin I. Poets of America. XX century. M., 1939.
• Zlobin GP Beyond the Dream: Pages of 20th Century American Literature. - M .: Art. lit., 1985.- 333 p.
• Love story: An American story of the XX century / Comp. and entered. Art. S. B. Belova. - M .: Moscow. worker, 1990, - 672 p.
• The origins and formation of American national literature of the 17th-18th centuries. / Ed. Ya.N. Zasursky. - Moscow: Nauka, 1985 .-- 385 p.
• Levidova I.M.Fiction of the USA in 1961-1964. Bibliography overview. M., 1965.-113 p.
• Libman V.A.American literature in Russian translations and criticism. Bibliography 1776-1975. M., "Science", 1977.-452 p.
• Lidskiy Yu. Ya. Essays on American Writers of the 20th Century. Kiev, Nauk. dumka, 1968.-267 p.
• Literature of the USA. Sat. articles. Ed. L. G. Andreeva. Moscow, Moscow State University, 1973, p. 269.
• Literary connections and traditions in the works of writers of Western Europe and America of the XIX-XX centuries: Interuniversity. Sat. - Gorky: [b. and.], 1990. - 96 p.
• Mendelssohn M.O. American satirical prose of the XX century. M., Nauka, 1972.-355 p.
• Mishina L.A. The genre of autobiography in the history of American literature. Cheboksary: ​​Publishing house of Chuvash, university, 1992 .-- 128 p.
• Morozova T.L. The Image of a Young American in US Literature (Beats, Salinger, Bellow, Updike) M., "High School" 1969.-95 p.
• Mulychik A. S. The dispute is about a person: About the literature of the United States of the second half of the XX century. - M .: Sov. writer, 1985.- 357 p.
• Nikolyukin A. N. - Literary ties between Russia and the United States: the formation of literature. contacts. - M .: Nauka, 1981 .-- 406 p., 4 p. silt
• Problems of the US literature of the XX century. M., "Science", 1970. - 527 p.
• US Writers About Literature. Sat. articles. Per. from English M., "Progress", 1974.-413 p.
• Writers of the USA: Brief creative biographies / Comp. and total. ed. Y. Zasursky, G. Zlobin, Y. Kovalev. M .: Raduga, 1990 .-- 624 p.
• Poetry of the USA: Collection. Translated from English. / Comp., Entry. article, comment. A. Zverev. M .: "Fiction". 1982.- 831 pp. (US Literature Library).
• Oleneva V. Modern American short story. Problems of the development of the genre. Kiev, Nauk. Dumka, 1973, 255 p.
• The main trends in the development of modern literature in the United States. M .: "Science", 1973.-398 p.
• From Whitman to Lowell: American Poets in the Translations of Vladimir Britanishsky. M .: Agraf, 2005-288 p.
• Time Difference: A Collection of Translations from Contemporary American Poetry / Comp. G.G. Ulanova. - Samara, 2010 .-- 138 p.
• Romm A.S. American drama of the first half of the XX century. L., 1978.
• Samokhvalov N.I. American Literature of the 19th Century: Essay on the Development of Critical Realism. - M .: Higher. school, 1964 .-- 562 p.
• I hear America singing. Poets of the USA. Compiled and translated by I. Kashkin M. Publishing house. Foreign literature. 1960 .-- 174s.
• Contemporary American poetry. Anthology. M.: Progress, 1975.- 504 p.
• Contemporary American Poetry in Russian Translations. Compiled by A. Dragomoshchenko, V. Mesyats. Ekaterinburg. Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 1996.306 pp.
• Contemporary American Poetry: Anthology / Comp. April Lindner. - M .: OGI, 2007 .-- 504 p.
• Modern literary criticism of the United States. Controversy About American Literature. M., Nauka, 1969.-352 p.
• Sokhryakov Yu. I. - Russian classics in the literary process of the USA of the XX century. - M .: Higher. shk., 1988 .-- 109, p.
• Staroverova E.V. American Literature. Saratov, "Lyceum", 2005.220 p.
• Startsev A.I. From Whitman from Hemingway. - 2nd ed., Add. - M .: Sov. writer, 1981 .-- 373 p.
• Stetsenko E. A. The fate of America in the modern novel of the United States. - M .: Heritage, 1994 .-- 237p.
• Tlostanova M.V. The problem of multiculturalism and US literature at the end of the 20th century. - M .: RShGLI RAS "Heritage", 2000-400s.
• Tolmachev V.M.From romanticism to romanticism. 1920s American Novel and the Problem of Romantic Culture. M., 1997.
• Tugusheva M.P. Modern American short story (Some features of development). M., Higher School, 1972.-78 p.
• Finkelstein S. Existentialism and the Problem of Alienation in American Literature. Per. E. Mednikova. M., Progress, 1967.-319 p.
• Aesthetics of American Romanticism / Comp., Entry. Art. and comments. A. N. Nikolyukina. - M .: Art, 1977 .-- 463 p.
• Nichol, "The American literature" ();
• Knortz, “Gesch. d. Nord-Amerik-Lit. " ();
• Stedman and Hutchinson, “The Library of Amer. liter. " (-);
• Mathews, “An introduction to Amer. liter. " ().
• Habegger A. Gender, fantasy and realism in American literature, N.Y. 1982.
• Alan Wald. Exiles from a Future Time: The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth Century Literary Left. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. xvii + 412 pages.
• Blanck, Jacob, comp. Bibliography of American literature. New Haven, 1955-1991. v.l-9. R016.81 B473
• Gohdes, Clarence L. F. Bibliographical guide to the study of the literature of the U.S.A. 4th ed., Rev. & enl. Durham, N.C., 1976. R016.81 G55912
• Adelman, Irving and Dworkin, Rita. The contemporary novel; a checklist of critical literature on the British and American novel since 1945. Metuchen, N.J., 1972. R017.8 Ad33
• Gerstenberger, Donna and Hendrick, George. The American novel; a checklist of twentieth-century criticism. Chicago, 1961-70. 2v. R016.81 G3251
• Ammons, Elizabeth. Conflicting Stories: American Women Writers at the Turn into the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford Press, 1991
• Covici, Pascal, Jr. Humor and Revelation in American Literature: The Puritan Connection. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997.
• Parini, Jay, ed. The Columbia History of American Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
• Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1984.
• New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage by Alpana Sharma Knippling (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996)
• Shan Qiang He: Chinese-American Literature. In Alpana Sharma Knippling (Hrsg.): New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage. Greenwood Publishing Group 1996, ISBN 978-0-313-28968-2, pp. 43–62
• High, P. An Outline of American Literature / P. High. - New York, 1995.

Articles

• Bolotova L. D. American mass journals of the late XIX - early XX century. and the movement of "mud rakes" // "Bulletin of Moscow State University". Journalism, 1970. No. 1. P.70-83.
• Zverev A.M. The American War Novel of Recent Years: A Review // Contemporary Fiction Abroad. 1970. No. 2. S. 103-111.
• Zverev A.M.Russian classics and the formation of realism in US literature // World significance of Russian literature of the nineteenth century. Moscow: Nauka, 1987.S. 368-392.
• Zverev A. M. The Broken Ensemble: Do We Know American Literature? // Foreign literature. 1992. No. 10. S. 243-250.
• Zverev AM Glued vase: American novel of the 90s: the bygone and "current" // Foreign literature. 1996. No. 10. S. 250-257.
• Zemlyanova L. Notes on modern poetry of the USA. // Star, 1971. No. 5. P.199-205.
• Morton M. Children's literature of the USA yesterday and today // Children's literature, 1973, No. 5. P.28-38.
• William Kittredge, Stephen M. Krauser The great American detective // ​​Foreign Literature, 1992, no. 11, 282-292
• Nesterov Anton. Odysseus and the Sirens: American Poetry in Russia in the Second Half of the 20th Century // Foreign Literature 2007, No. 10
• Osovskiy O. Ye., Osovskiy O. O. The unity of polyphony: problems of US literature on the pages of the yearbook of Ukrainian Americanists // Voprosy literatury. No. 6. 2009
• Popov I. American literature in parodies // Questions of literature. 1969. No. 6. P.231-241.
• Staroverova E.V. The Role of Holy Scripture in the Formation of the National Literary Tradition of the USA: Poetry and Prose of New England of the 17th Century // Spiritual Culture of Russia: History and Modernity / Third Regional Pimen Readings. - Saratov, 2007 .-- S. 104-110.
• Eishiskina N. In the face of anxiety and hopes. A teenager in modern American literature.// Children's literature. 1969. No. 5. P.35-38.

see also

Links

History of American Literature

America, as you know, was officially discovered by the Genoese Columbus in 1492. But by chance she received the name of the Florentine Amerigo.

The discovery of the New World was the greatest event in the global history of mankind. Not to mention the fact that it dispelled many misconceptions about our planet, which contributed to significant shifts in the economic life of Europe and caused a wave of emigration to a new continent, it also influenced a change in the spiritual climate in countries with a Christian religion (i.e. because at the end of the century, Christians, as always, expected "the end of the world", "the last judgment", etc.).

America has provided abundant food for the most enthusiastic dreams of European thinkers about a society without a state, without social vices common to the Old World. A country of new opportunities, a country where you can build a completely different life. A country where everything is new and clean, where a civilized person has not yet managed to spoil anything. But all the mistakes made in the Old World can be avoided there, - this is what European humanists thought in the 16th and 17th centuries. And all these thoughts, views and hopes, of course, found a response in literature, both European and American.

However, in reality, everything turned out quite differently. The history of settling the newly discovered lands by immigrants from Europe was bloody. And not all the writers of that time decided to show this truth of life (the Spaniards Las Casas and Gomara reflected this in their works).

In today's speech, the name "America" ​​is usually called only a part of that huge continent that was discovered at the end of the 16th century, namely the United States. This part of the American continent will be discussed.

The settlement of this territory by immigrants from Europe began in the 17th century. It continued in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 17th century, a state arose that was called New England and was subordinate to the English king and parliament. And only in the 70s of the XVIII century, 13 states gained strength to force England to recognize their independence. Thus, a new state appeared - the United States of America.

Fiction in the proper sense of the word and in the quality that allows it to enter the history of world literature begins in America only in the 19th century, when such writers as Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper appeared on the literary arena.

During the period of the first settlers, in the 17th century, when the development of new lands was just beginning, the foundation of the first settlements was not yet before literature. Only a few settlers kept diaries, notes, chronicles. Although the soul of their authors was still living in England, its political and religious problems. They are of no particular literary interest, but are more valuable as a living picture of the first settlers of America, a story about the difficult days of settling in new places, difficult trials, etc. Here are some famous diaries: Jen Winthrop, 1630-1649, A History of New England, William Bradford's History of the Plymouth Settlement (1630-1651), John Smith's General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Islands (1624) ...

From purely literary works, one should perhaps mention the poems of the poetess Anna Bradstreet (1612-1672), religiously edifying, very mediocre, but entertaining the hearts of the first settlers (dialogue poems "Quartets").

XVIII century

The 18th century in America is held under the banner of the struggle for independence. The central place is occupied by the ideas of the Enlightenment, which came from England and France. In New England, cities grew, universities were established, and newspapers began to appear. The first literary swallows also appeared: novels created under the influence of English educational literature and the "Gothic" novel, Henry Breckenridge (1748-1816) - "Modern Chivalry, or The Adventures of Captain John Farrato and Teague O ^ Rigen, His Servant", Brockden Brown ( 1771-1810) - "Wieland", "Ormond", "Arthur Mervyn"; poems by Timothy Dwight (1752-1818) - "The Conquests of Canaan", "Greenfield Hill".

The second half of the century was marked by the emergence of a large group of poets who reflected in their works the political passions of the era. They were conventionally divided into sympathizers with the federalists (the most famous group is the "university poets") and supporters of the revolution and a democratic government. One of the most significant poets, an associate of Payne and Jefferson, is Philip Freneau (1752 - 1832). In his poems, he vividly reflected the political events in the country, although later he became disillusioned with the new American reality. In his best poems he sang the praises of nature and meditated on eternal life. Already in the work of Freno, it is easy to catch the beginnings of romanticism, which was fully formed in the United States only in the 19th century.

However, the main asset of 18th century American literature was its educational journalism with the names of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Payne. These three people went down in the history of social thought in America, they left a noticeable mark on the history of world literature.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of the United States, is an undeniably talented and original personality. A scientist, philosopher, inventor, who possessed great and versatile knowledge, he should be mentioned in the history of literature as a brilliant stylist who possessed a clear, precise and imaginative language of a writer. His "Notes on Virginia", his "General Survey of the Rights of the British Empire" were appreciated by his contemporaries not only for the expression of thoughts in them, but also for literary merit. Mathematics, architecture, astronomy, natural sciences, linguistics (compiling dictionaries of Indian languages), history, music - all this was the subject of this man's hobbies and knowledge.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was one of the brilliant and versatile minds of the 18th century. Social thought in America was formed under the influence of this powerful mind, a brilliant self-taught.

For 25 years, Franklin published the famous calendar "Simpleton Richard's Almanac", which in America served as a kind of encyclopedia, a collection of scientific information and at the same time witty everyday instructions. He was printing a newspaper. He organized a public library, a hospital in Philadelphia, wrote philosophical works. He described his life in "Autobiography" (published posthumously in 1791). His "Teachings of Simpleton Richard" went around Europe. Many European universities have awarded him an honorary doctorate. Well, and finally, he is a politician who carried out important diplomatic missions in Europe.

Thomas Payne (1737-1809) was a talented, selfless revolutionary and educator. Published a pamphlet "Common Sense". On January 10, 1776, the pamphlet became the sensation of the day. He called on the Americans to fight for independence, for revolution. During the French bourgeois revolution, T. Payne fought on the side of the rebels. In addition, Payne penned the book "The Age of Reason" - an outstanding work of American educational thought of the 18th century. The book, part of which was written in a Parisian prison, contains in rather harsh terms a condemnation of Christianity.

The American enlightenment did not put forward authors of such a scale as the enlighteners of England, France, Germany distinguished. We will not find in the works of Franklin, Jefferson, Payne and others the brilliance and wit of Voltaire, the depth of Locke's thought, the eloquence and passion of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the poetic imagination of Milton. They were more practice than thinkers and. Of course, artists are least of all. They mastered the ideas of the European Enlightenment and tried, taking into account the possibilities, to apply them to their country. Thomas Paine was the boldest and most radical of them all.

American educators emphasized the issues of society, personality and state. Society is above the state. It can change its political system if the new generation finds it useful, they reasoned.

So, the American educational journalism of the 18th century theoretically substantiated the tasks of the bourgeois revolution. Thus, the American Enlightenment contributed to the development of liberation ideas and historical progress.

19th century

The priority area in US policy in the 19th century. was the expansion of territories (annexed: Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Upper California and other territories). One of the consequences of this is the military conflict with Mexico (1846-1848). As for the internal life of the country, the development of capitalism in the United States in the 19th century. it was uneven. The “slowdown”, the delay in its growth in the first half of the 19th century, paved the way for its particularly broad and intensive development, and a particularly violent explosion of economic and social contradictions in the second half of the century.

When studying the history of American culture and literature, one cannot fail to draw attention to the fact that such an uneven development of capitalism has left a characteristic imprint on the ideological life of the United States, in particular, caused the relative backwardness, "immaturity" of social thought and social consciousness of American society. The provincial isolation of the United States from European cultural centers also played a role. Social consciousness in the country was largely dominated by outdated illusions and prejudices.

Disappointment with the results of the post-revolutionary development of the country leads American writers to search for a romantic ideal opposed to an inhuman reality.

American romantics are the creators of the national literature of the United States. This, first of all, distinguishes them from their European counterparts. While in Europe at the beginning of the XIX century. national literatures have consolidated the qualities that have developed over almost a whole millennium and have become their specific national features, American literature, like the nation, was still being defined. And in the New World, not only at the beginning of the 19th century, but also later, several decades later. The book market was dominated mainly by the works of English writers and literature translated from other European languages. The American book struggled to make its way to the domestic reader. At that time, literary clubs already existed in New York, but English literature and an orientation towards European culture reigned in tastes: the American in the bourgeois environment was considered "vulgar".

The American romantics were entrusted with a rather serious task, in addition to the formation of national literature, they had to create the entire complex ethical and philosophical code of the young nation - to help it to form.

In addition, it should be noted that for its time, romanticism was the most effective method of artistic development of reality; without it, the process of aesthetic development of the nation would be incomplete.

The chronological framework of American romanticism is somewhat different from European romanticism. The romantic trend in US literature developed by the turn of the second and third decades and maintained a dominant position until the end of the Civil War (1861-1865).

Three stages can be traced in the development of romanticism. The first stage is early American romanticism (1820s-1830s). His immediate predecessor was pre-romanticism, which developed even within the framework of educational literature (the work of F. Frenot in poetry, C. Brockden Brown in the novel, etc.). The largest writers of early romanticism are W. Irving, D.F. Cooper, W.C. Bryant, D.P. Kennedy and others. With the appearance of their works, American literature for the first time receives international recognition. There is a process of interaction between American and European romanticism. An intensive search for national artistic traditions is being conducted, the main themes and problems are outlined (the war for independence, the development of the continent, the life of the Indians). The worldview of the leading writers of this period is colored in optimistic tones associated with the heroic times of the war for independence and the grandiose prospects that opened up for the young republic. There is a close continuity with the ideology of the American Enlightenment. It is significant that both Irving and Cooper are actively involved in the socio-political life of the country, seeking to directly influence the course of its development.

At the same time, critical tendencies were ripening in early romanticism, which were a reaction to the negative consequences of the strengthening of capitalism in all spheres of American society. They are looking for an alternative to the bourgeois way of life and find it in the romantically idealized life of the American West, the heroics of the War of Independence, the free sea element, the country's patriarchal past, etc.

The second stage is mature American romanticism (1840-1850s). This period includes the work of N. Hawthorne, E.A. Poe, G. Melville, G.W. Longfellow, W.G. Simms, the transcendental writers R.W. Emerson, G.D. Toro. The complex and contradictory reality of America of these years led to noticeable differences in the outlook and aesthetic position of the romantics of the 40-50s. Most of the writers of this period are deeply dissatisfied with the course of the country's development. The gap between reality and the romantic ideal deepens, turns into an abyss. It is no coincidence that among the romantics of the mature period there are so many misunderstood and unrecognized artists rejected by bourgeois America: Poe, Melville, Thoreau, and later the poet E. Dickinson.

Mature American romanticism is dominated by dramatic, even tragic tones, a sense of the imperfection of the world and man (Hawthorne), a mood of sorrow, longing (Po), a consciousness of the tragedy of human existence (Melville). A hero with a split psyche appears, bearing the stamp of doom in his soul. The balanced and optimistic world of Longfellow and the transcendentalists about universal harmony in these decades stands somewhat apart.

At this stage, American romanticism is moving from the artistic assimilation of national reality to the study of the universal problems of man and the world on national material, acquiring philosophical depth. In the artistic language of mature American romanticism, symbolism penetrates, rarely found among romantics of the previous generation. Poe, Melville, Hawthorne in their works created symbolic images of great depth and generalizing power. Supernatural forces begin to play a noticeable role in their creations, mystical motives intensify.

Transcendentalism is a literary and philosophical movement that emerged in the 1930s. The Transcendental Club was founded in September 1836 in Boston, Massachusetts. From the very beginning, it included: R.U. Emerson, J. Ripley, M. Fuller, T. Parker, E. Olcott, in 1840 they were joined by G.D. Toro. The name of the club is associated with the philosophy of "Transcendental idealism" by the German thinker I. Kant. Club from 1840 to 1844 published his own magazine "Dial". The teachings of American transcendentalism posed questions of a global nature to contemporaries - about the essence of man, about the relationship between man and nature, man and society, about the ways of moral self-improvement. As for the views on their country, the transcendentalists argued that America had a great destiny, but at the same time they sharply criticized the bourgeois development of the United States.

Transcendentalism laid the foundation for American philosophical thought and influenced the formation of national character and identity. And what is more remarkable, transcendentalism was used in the ideological struggle in the 20th century. (M. Gandhi, M.L. King). And the controversy around this trend has not ceased to this day.

The third stage is late American romanticism (60s). The period of crisis phenomena. Romanticism as a method is increasingly unable to reflect the new reality. Those writers of the previous stage who are still continuing their path in literature enter a period of severe creative crisis. The most striking example is the fate of Melville, who for many years went into voluntary spiritual self-isolation.

During this period, there was a sharp demarcation among the romantics caused by the Civil War. On the one hand, there is the literature of abolitionism, which, within the framework of romantic aesthetics, protests against slavery from aesthetic, general humanistic positions. On the other hand, the literature of the South, romanticizing and idealizing the "southern chivalry", rises to defend the historically doomed wrong deed and the reactionary way of life. Abolitionist motives occupy a prominent place in the work of writers whose work developed in the previous period - Longfellow, Emerson, Thoreau, etc., become the main ones in the work of G. Beecher-Stowe, D.G. Whiter, R. Hildreth and others.

Regional differences also took place in American Romanticism. The main literary regions are New England (northeastern states), middle states, and the South. Romanticism in New England (Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Bryant) is characterized primarily by the desire for a philosophical understanding of the American experience, for the analysis of the national past, for the study of complex ethical problems. The main themes in the work of romantics in the middle states (Irving, Cooper, Paulding, Melville) are the search for a national hero, interest in social issues, and a comparison of America's past and present. Southern writers (Kennedy, Simms) often sharply and justly criticize the vices of the capitalist development of America, but at the same time they cannot get rid of the stereotypes of glorifying the virtues of "southern democracy" and the advantages of the slave system.

At all stages of development, American romanticism is characterized by a close connection with the socio-political life of the country. This is what makes romantic literature specifically American in content and form. In addition, there are some other differences from European romanticism. American romantics express their dissatisfaction with the country's bourgeois development and do not accept the new values ​​of modern America. The Native American theme becomes cross-cutting in their work: American romantics show a sincere interest and deep respect for the Indian people.

The romantic trend in US literature is not immediately replaced by realism after the end of the Civil War. A complex fusion of romantic and realistic elements is the work of the greatest American poet Walt Whitman. Dickinson's work is imbued with a romantic outlook - already outside the chronological framework of romanticism. Romantic motives are organically included in the creative method of F. Bret Hart, M. Twain, A. Bierce, D. London and other writers of the United States of the late XIX - early XX century. Peculiar swallows of realism appeared in America already in the middle of the century. One of these - the most striking - is Rebecca Harding's story Life in Foundries (1861). In which, without any embellishment and with almost documentary detail, the living conditions of American workers in the eastern region of the United States are drawn.

The transition period was marked by the work of writers (WD Howells, G. James, and others), whose method was called "soft", "gentile realism", or, as Gowells himself defined it, "restrained" (reticent) realism. The essence of their views was the exclusivity and "lasting advantages" of American life over the life of the Old World; in their opinion, the problems that arose in the works of European realism and Russian (the most popular at that time) had no points of contact with American ones. This explains their attempt to limit critical realism in the United States. But later the injustice of these views became so obvious that they had to abandon them.

Boston School. One of the most important places in the literature of the United States after the Civil War is received by the current known as the "literature of conventions and decency," "the tradition of refinement," and so on. This area includes writers who lived mainly in Boston and associated with magazines published there, and with Harvard University. Therefore, the writers of this group are often referred to as "Bostonians." This included such writers as Lowell (Biglow Notes), Aldrich, Taylor, Norton, and others.

Widespread at the end of the XIX century. received the genre of the historical novel and story. Works such as "The Old Creole Times" by D. Cable (1879), "Colonel Carter of Cartersville" by Smith, "In Old Virginia" by Page. Some of them were not devoid of artistic merit, such as the "Old Creole Times", which vividly reproduced the life and customs of the American South at the beginning of the century. In this respect, Cable will act as one of the representatives of "regional literature".

On the whole, the development of the historical genre had rather negative significance for American literature of that time. The historical novel led away from the pressing problems of our time. In most books of this genre, the past was idealized, nationalist and racist aspirations were kindled, the historical truth, which is the main condition for a truly fictional historical novel, was almost completely absent.

Many creators of the historical novel only tried to entertain the reader. This is precisely the task that D.M. Crawford, author of many pseudo-historical novels. That is why realist writers fought against pseudo-historical novels, seeing them as one of the most important obstacles to the development of realistic literature.

Along with the historical and adventure-adventure novel, the genre of "business story" has become widespread. Works of this type usually talked about a poor, but energetic and enterprising young man who, with his work, perseverance and perseverance, achieved success in life. The preaching of bargaining in literature (C. White "Conquerors of the Forests", "Companion"; D. Lorrimer "Letters from a Merchant Who Created Himself to His Son") was reinforced by the teachings of pragmatists in American philosophy. W. James, D. Dewey and other American pragmatists provided a philosophical basis for business, contributed to the development of the cult of individualism and bargaining among the broad strata of the American population.

The development of American literature is largely associated with the American Dream. Some writers believed in it, propagandized it in their works (the same "business literature", later - representatives of apologetic, conformist literature). Others (most of the romantics and realists) sharply criticized this myth, showing it inside out (for example, Dreiser in American Tragedy).

American short story of the 19th century.

Quite a strong position in American literature of the 19th century. took the short story. American writer Bret Garth even said that the short story is "the national genre of American literature." But one cannot, of course, assume that interest in the novel was the exclusive privilege of Americans. The short story (story) developed quite successfully in Europe. However, the main form of European literary development in the 19th century. was a realistic social novel. It was different in America. Due to the historical circumstances of the country's social and cultural development, the critical-realistic novel did not find its proper embodiment in American literature. Why is that? The main reason for this, like many other anomalies in American culture, must be sought in the backwardness of public consciousness in the United States throughout the 19th century. The failure of American literature to create in the nineteenth century. a great social novel is explained, firstly, by its unpreparedness, lack of historical experience and unwillingness to perceive this experience in European literature and, secondly, by those significant objective difficulties that any social reality, "shrouded in a fog of immature economic relations" presents for the artist's understanding (Engels). A large critical-realistic novel appeared in the United States, but with a significant delay, only at the beginning of the 20th century.

American literature in each of its generations has nominated outstanding master storytellers like E. Poe, M. Twain, or D. London. The form of a short, entertaining narrative becomes typical of American literature.

One of the reasons for the prosperity of the novel is the swiftness of life in America at that time, as well as the "magazine style" of American literature. A noticeable role in American life, and therefore in literature, in the 19th century. is still playing the oral story. American oral history goes back primarily to the legends (which survived almost the entire 19th century) of the trappers.

"American humor" becomes the main component of the novel. The humorous novel of the 30s of everyday life is formed mainly on the basis of folklore. An essential element of American folklore was the oral work of Negroes, who brought with them the traditions of the African primitive epic (The Tales of Uncle Remus by Joel Harris).

A typical feature of American novelism is such a construction of the story, where there is necessarily a heightened plot, leading to a paradoxical, unexpected denouement. It should be noted that it was in this that I saw the advantages of a short story by E. Poe, as well as in its size, which makes it possible to read it at once. not to lose the integrity of the impression, which, in his opinion, is impossible in the case of the novel.

The novel also plays an outstanding role in the art of American romanticism (Poe, Hawthorne, Melville).

In the 60s and 70s, the development of the American short story is associated with the names of such writers as Bret Garth, Twain, Cable. Their main theme is public and private relations in the colonized lands. One of the most striking works of this period - "California Tales" by Bret Hart.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a new generation of writers appeared (Garland, Norris, Crane), who were characterized as representatives of American naturalism. Their naturalistic novella paints American life in sharp and harsh lines, feeling for its fundamental social contradictions and not being afraid to draw experience in European socio-political and fictional literature. But the social protest of American naturalists was never carried to the point of denying the capitalist system as a whole. And yet, the role of these writers in the movement of American literature towards social realism is far more significant than it can be limited within the framework of naturalism.

XX century

In the new, 20th century, the problems of American literature are determined by a fact of enormous importance: the richest, strongest capitalist country, leading the whole world, gives rise to the most gloomy and bitter literature of our time. Writers acquired a new quality: they became characterized by a sense of the tragedy and doom of this world. Dreiser's American Tragedy expressed the writers' drive for the great generalizations that characterized US literature at the time.

In the XX century. the short story no longer plays such an important role in American literature as it did in the 19th; it is being replaced by the realistic novel. But all novelists continue to devote considerable attention to it, and a number of prominent American prose writers devote themselves primarily or exclusively to the novella.

One of them is O. Henry (William Sidney Porter), who made an attempt to outline a different path for the American novel, as if "bypassing" the already clearly defined critical-realistic direction. O. Henry can also be called the founder of the American happy end (which was present in most of his stories), which subsequently will be very successfully used in American popular fiction. Despite the sometimes not very flattering reviews about his work, it is one of the important and turning points in the development of the American story of the XX century.

A peculiar influence on American novelists of the 20th century. provided by representatives of the Russian realistic story (Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky). The peculiarities of the construction of the plot of the story were determined by essential life laws and were fully included in the general artistic task of a realistic depiction of reality.

At the beginning of the XX century. new trends appeared that made an original contribution to the formation of critical realism. In the 900s, the "mud rake" movement emerged in the United States. The Mud Rashers are a large group of American writers, publicists, sociologists, and public figures of a liberal orientation. In their work there were two closely interconnected streams: journalistic (L. Steffens, I. Tarbell, R.S. Baker) and literary and artistic (E. Sinkler, R. Herrick, R. R. Kauffman). At certain stages of their creative path, such great writers as D. London and T. Dreiser came close to the muckrakers movement (as President T. Roosevelt called them in 1906).

The speeches of the "mud rakes" contributed to the strengthening of socio-critical tendencies in the literature of the United States, the development of a sociological variety of realism. Thanks to them, the journalistic aspect becomes an essential element of the modern American novel.

The 10s were marked by a realistic upsurge in American poetry, called the "poetic renaissance." This period is associated with the names of Karl Sandberg, Edgar Lee Master, Robert Frost, W. Lindsay, E. Robinson. These poets turned to the life of the American people. Relying on the democratic poetry of Whitman and the achievements of realist prose writers, they, breaking down outdated romantic canons, laid the foundations for a new realistic poetics, which included the renewal of the poetic dictionary, the prosaization of verse, and in-depth psychologism. This poetics met the requirements of the time, helped to reflect American reality in its diversity by poetic means.

The 900s and 10s of our century were marked by the long-awaited appearance of a great critical-realistic novel (F. Norris, D. London, Dreiser, E. Sinclair). It is believed that critical realism in recent US literature has developed in the process of interaction of three historically determined factors: these are the real elements of the protest of American romantics, the realism of Mark Twain, which grew up on a distinctively popular basis, and the experience of American writers of the realistic direction, who in one way or another perceived the tradition of the 19th century European classic novel.

American realism is the literature of public protest. Realist writers refused to accept reality as a natural result of development. Criticism of the emerging imperialist society and portrayal of its negative sides are becoming hallmarks of American critical realism. New themes appear, highlighted by the changed conditions of life (the ruin and impoverishment of farming; the capitalist city and the little man in it; the exposure of monopoly capital).

The new generation of writers is connected with the new region: it relies on the democratic spirit of the American West, on the element of oral folklore and addresses its works to the widest mass reader.

It is appropriate to say about the diversity of styles and genre innovation in American realism. The genres of psychological and social novellas, sociopsychological novels, epic novels, and philosophical novels are developing, the genre of social utopia is becoming widespread (Bellamy's A Look Back, 1888), and the genre of scientific novels is being created (S. Lewis's Arrowsmith). At the same time, realist writers often used new aesthetic principles, a special look “from the inside” at the life around them. Reality was portrayed as an object of psychological and philosophical understanding of human existence.

The typological trait of American realism was authenticity. Building on the traditions of late romantic and transitional literature, realist writers strove to portray only the truth, without embellishment or omissions. Another typological feature was the social orientation, the emphasized social character of the novels and stories. Another typological feature of 20th century American literature. - its inherent journalism. Writers in their works sharply and clearly distinguish between their likes and dislikes.

The formation of American national drama, which had not previously received significant development, belongs to the 1920s. This process took place under conditions of acute internal struggle. The desire for a realistic reflection of life was complicated among American playwrights by modernist influences. Eugene O ^ Neil occupies one of the first places in the history of American drama. He laid the foundations of the American national drama, created vivid acute psychological plays; and all his work had a great influence on the subsequent development of American drama.

An eloquent and original phenomenon in the literature of the 1920s was the work of a group of young writers who entered literature immediately after the end of the First World War and reflected in their art the difficult conditions of post-war development. All of them were united by disillusionment with bourgeois ideals. They were especially worried about the fate of the young man in post-war America. These are the so-called representatives of the "lost generation" - Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Dos Passos, Francis Scott Fitzgerald. Of course, the very term “lost generation” is very approximate, because the writers who are usually included in this group are very different in political, social and aesthetic views, in the peculiarities of their artistic practice. And nevertheless, to some extent, this term can be applied to them: the awareness of the tragedy of American life is especially strong and sometimes painful in the work of these very young people who have lost faith in the old bourgeois foundations. F.S. Fitzgerald gave its name to the era of the "lost generation": he called it the "jazz age". In this term, he wanted to express the feeling of instability, fleetingness of life, a feeling characteristic of many people who have lost faith and in a hurry to live and thereby escape, albeit illusory, from their loss.

From about the 1920s, modernist groups began to appear that are fighting against realism, promoting the cult of "pure art", and engaging in formalistic research. The American school of modernism is most vividly represented by the poetic practice and theoretical views of such meters of modernism as Ezra Pound and Thomas Stearns Eliot. Ezra Pound also became one of the founders of the modernist trend in literature, called Imagism. Imagism (from the image) separated literature from life, defended the principle of the existence of "pure art", proclaimed the primacy of form over content. This idealistic concept, in turn, underwent minor changes over time and laid the foundation for another type of modernism, known as Vorticism. Vorticism (from vortex) is close to imagism and futurism. This trend made it a duty for poets to figuratively perceive the phenomena of interest to them and to depict them through words, in which only their sound was taken into account. Vorticists tried to achieve visual perception of sound, tried to find such words-sounds that would express movement, dynamics, without connection with their meaning and meaning. Also, the emergence of new directions in modernist literature was facilitated by the Freudian theories, which were widespread at that time. They became the basis of the stream of consciousness novel and other various schools.

Although American writers who were in Europe did not create original modernist schools. They were actively involved in the activities of various modernist groups - French, British and multi-ethnic. Among the "exiles" (as they called themselves), the majority were writers of the younger generation, who had lost faith in bourgeois ideals, in capitalist civilization, but could not find real support in life. Their confusion was expressed in the modernist quest.

In 1929, the first John Reed club appeared in the United States, uniting proletarian writers and advocates of revolutionary art and literature, and in the 30s there were already 35 such clubs, and later the League of American Writers was created on their basis, which existed since 1935 to 1942 During its existence, four congresses were convened (1935, 1937, 1939, 1941), which marked the beginning of the unification of US writers around democratic social problems, contributed to the ideological growth of many of them; this association has played an outstanding role in the history of American literature.

"Pink Decade". We can say that in the 30s, the literature of a socialist orientation in the United States took shape as a direction. Its development was also facilitated by the stormy socialist movement in Russia. Its representatives (Michael Gold, Lincoln Steffens, Albert Maltz, and others) clearly show striving for the socialist ideal, strengthening ties with social and political life. Very often in their works there was a call for resistance, for the struggle against the oppressors. This feature has become one of the important features of American socialist literature.

In the same years, a kind of "explosion of documentaryism" took place; it was associated with the desire of writers to promptly, directly respond to current social and political events. Turning to journalism, primarily to the essay, writers (Anderson, Caldwell, Frank, Dos Passos) turn out to be the pioneers of new topics that later receive artistic interpretation.

At the end of the 1930s, the critical-realistic trend took off, after a noticeable decline at the beginning of the decade. New names appear: Thomas Wolfe, Richard Wright, Albert Maltz, D. Trumbo, E. Caldwell, D. Farrell, etc. USA. Here, first of all, it is necessary to name the names of such authors as Faulkner, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Dos Passos.

During World War II, American writers joined the struggle against Hitlerism: they condemn Hitler's aggression and support the struggle against the fascist aggressors. Publicistic articles and reports by war correspondents are published in large numbers. And later, the theme of World War II will be reflected in the books of many writers (Hemingway, Mailer, Saxton, etc.). Some writers, creating anti-fascist works, saw their task in unconditional support for the actions of the ruling circles of the United States, which sometimes could lead to a departure from the truth of life, from a realistic depiction of reality. John Steinbeck held a similar position in those years.

After World War II, there was some decline in the development of literature, but this does not apply to poetry and drama, where the work of the poets Robert Lowell and Alan Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, playwrights Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee gained worldwide fame.

In the post-war years, the anti-racist theme so characteristic of Negro literature deepens. This is evidenced by the poetry and prose of Langston Hughes, the novels of John Killenz ("Young Blood, and Then We Heard Thunder"), and the fiery journalism of James Baldwin, and the drama of Lorraine Hensberry. One of the brightest representatives of Negro creativity was Richard Wright ("Son of America").

Increasingly, literature is being created "to order" from the ruling circles of America. The novels by L. Nyson, L. Stalling and others, which portrayed in a heroic halo the actions of American troops during the First World War and other "blessings" of America, are thrown onto the book market in huge numbers. And during World War II, the ruling circles of the United States managed to subdue many writers. And for the first time on such a scale, US literature was placed at the service of government propaganda. And as many critics point out, this process had a disastrous effect on the development of US literature, which, in their opinion, was vividly confirmed in its post-war history.

The so-called mass fiction is becoming widespread in the United States, which sets itself the goal of transferring the reader to a pleasant and rainbow world. The book market was flooded with novels by Kathleen Norris, Temple Bailey, Fenny Hearst and other vendors of "literature for women" who produced lightweight, cut-and-dried novels with an inevitable happy end. In addition to books on the topic of love, popular literature was also represented by detectives. Pseudo-historical works have also become popular, combining entertainment with an apology for American statehood (Kenneth Roberts). However, the most famous work in this genre was the American bestseller - Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind (1937), which depicts the life of the southern aristocracy in the era of the war of the North and South and Reconstruction.

In the 60s and 70s in the United States, on the basis of the massive Negro and antiwar movement in the country, there was an obvious turn of many writers to significant, social issues, an increase in social critical sentiments in their work, a return to the traditions of realistic creativity.

The role of John Cheever as the leader of the US prose is becoming more and more significant. Another representative of the literature of the time, Saul Bellow, was awarded the Nobel Prize and won wide recognition in America and abroad.

Among modernist writers, the leading role belongs to the "black humorists" Barthelemy, Bart, Pynchon, in whose work irony often hides the absence of their own vision of the world and who tend to have a tragic feeling and misunderstanding of life rather than its rejection.

In recent decades, many writers have come to literature from universities. And so the main themes became: memories of childhood, youth and university years, and when these themes were exhausted, the writers faced difficulties. To a certain extent, this also applies to such wonderful writers as John Updike and Philip Roth. But not all of these writers remained in their perception of America at the level of university impressions. By the way, F. Roth and J. Updike in their latest works go far beyond these problems, although it is not so easy for them.

Among the middle generation of American writers, the most popular and significant are Kurt Vonnegut, Joyce Carol Oates, and John Gardner. The future belongs to these writers, although they have already said their special and original word in American literature. As for developing concepts, they express various varieties of contemporary bourgeois trends in American literary criticism.

But, of course, modern US literature, which has already been tested by time, will be studied, evaluated and comprehended, perhaps from different positions only after a certain amount of time has passed - which will most likely be more reliable from the point of view of the development of American literature as a whole.

Bibliography

S.D. Artamonov, History of Foreign Literature of the 17th-18th centuries, Moscow: 1988

History of Foreign Literature of the XIX century, ed. M.A. Solovieva, M .: 1991

History of Foreign Literature of the XIX century, Part I, ed. A.S. Dmitrieva, M .: 1979

M.N. Bobrova, Romanticism in American Literature of the 19th Century, Moscow: 1991

History of foreign literature of the XX century 1871-1917, ed. V.N. Bogoslovny, Z.T. Civil, M .: 1972

History of foreign literature of the XX century 1917-1945, ed. V.N. Bogoslovny, Z.T. Civil, M .: 1990

History of foreign literature of the XX century, ed. L.G. Andreeva, M .: 1980

B.A. Gilenson, American Literature of the 1930s, Moscow: 1974

A. Startsev, From Whitman to Hemingway, Moscow: 1972

Literary History of the United States of America, Volume III, ed. R. Spiller, W. Thorp, T.N. Johnson, G.S. Kenby, M .: 1979

In the beginning, I would like to make a small excursion into the history of the United States of the period of interest to us, because without knowledge of the main historical events, it is impossible to understand literary processes and analyze texts.

The United States of America is one of the youngest states. The exploration of the continent by Europeans began in the 16th century; before their appearance, the territory of the future world power was inhabited by Indian tribes. By the 18th century, the entire North American continent was colonized by Europeans. In 1774, 13 English colonies began military operations in the struggle for independence. The result of their victory on July 4, 1776 was the formation of a new sovereign state.

Throughout the 19th century, the territory of the United States increased due to the acquisition of Louisiana from the French, Florida from the Spaniards, and the conquest of other lands. The seizure of local states was accompanied either by the forced eviction of the Indian people on the reservation, or by the complete destruction of the population.

In 1861, disagreements arose between the southern and northern states related to economic and cultural issues, as a result of which the Confederation of the 11 southern states arose, announcing its secession. At the beginning of the civil war, the southerners won several victories, but in the end it ended with the victory of the northern states and the safety of the federation.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries were marked by a tremendous economic rise in the United States thanks to an influx of immigrants from other continents. April 4, 1917 America entered the First World War. Until that time, the state preferred to take a neutral position in relation to events in Europe. At this moment, the United States was engaged in the creation of zones of influence in the countries of the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean and Central America. After the war in 1929, a sharp jump in the country's economy was replaced by a terrible crisis. During the Great Depression, production dropped significantly and unemployment increased. On December 7, 1941, following the bombing of an American base at Pearl Harbor by Japanese fighters, the US Army entered World War II with Japan. After December 11, 1941 America entered into military conflict with Italy and Germany. All of their military operations, the Americans deployed mainly in the Pacific Territory. After the Tehran Conference on June 6, 1944, the US Army figured in the defeat of the German army on the Atlantic coast of France. The hostilities against Japan were successfully carried out in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. On August 6, 1945, the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and on August 9, the bomb was dropped on another Japanese city - Nagasaki. On September 2, 1945, the Capitulation Act was signed by the Emperor Hirohito of Japan.

Late 19th century U.S. literature

The end of the 19th century is called late American romanticism by literary scholars. During this period, a sharp division occurs in the literary space of the country, caused by the Civil War between the North and the South. On the one hand, there is the literature of abolitionism, which, within the framework of romantic aesthetics, protests against slavery from an ethical and general humanistic standpoint. On the other hand, the literature of the South, idealizing the traditions of the slave system, rises to defend the historically doomed and reactionary way of life.

The motives of opposition to anti-humanistic laws occupy an essential place in the work of such writers as Longfellow, Emerson, Thoreau, etc. and realistic elements is the work of the greatest American poet Walt Whitman. Dickinson's work is imbued with a romantic outlook - already outside the chronological framework of romanticism. Romantic motives are organically included in the creative method of F. Bret Hart, M. Twain, A. Beers, D. London and other US writers of the late XIX - early XX century.

It should be noted that American romanticism differs significantly from European romanticism. The assertion of national identity and independence, the search for a "national idea" runs through the entire art of American romanticism. The culture of the United States did not have the centuries-old experience that Europe had at that time - by the end of the 19th century, the new nation had not yet had time to “acquire” objects and realities for which romantic associations could gain a foothold (such as tulips in Holland and roses in Italy). But gradually in the books of Irving and Cooper, Longfellow and Melville, Hawthorne and Thoreau, phenomena and facts of American nature, history, and geography acquire a romantic flavor.

The theme of the Indians has become no less significant for American romanticism. From the very beginning, Indians in America are a factor with which a very complex psychological complex is associated - admiration and fear, hostility and guilt. The image of the "noble savage", the life of the Indians, its freedom, naturalness, closeness to nature could become a romantic alternative to capitalist civilization in the books of Irving and Cooper, Thoreau and Longfellow. In the works of these authors, we see evidence that the conflict between the two races was not fatally inevitable, but the cruelty and greed of the white settlers are to blame for it. The creativity of American romantics makes the life and culture of Indians an important component of the national literature of the United States, conveying its special imagery and flavor. The same applies to the perception of another ethnic minority - the black Americans of the southern states.

In American Romanticism, there were marked regional differences within a single creative method. The main literary regions are New England (northeastern states), middle states, South.

The atmosphere of the American South is conveyed by the works of J.P. Kennedy and W.G. Simms. It is worth noting that the authors were unable to completely get rid of the stereotypes of glorifying the virtues of "southern democracy" and the advantages of slave-owning orders. With all these features of limitations, "southern" romanticism paves the way for the formation of a complex, multidimensional, but undoubtedly fruitful "southern tradition" in the literature of the United States, which in the XX century. represented by the names of W. Faulkner, R. P. Warren, W. Styron, K. McCullers, C. E. Grau and others. Writers-southerners often sharply and justly criticize the vices of the capitalist development of America, dehumanizing the consequences of bourgeois progress, but do so with politically reactionary positions, arguing that "joyfully, not knowing worries, the slave lives on the plantation."

The middle states have been characterized by a great deal of ethnic and religious diversity and tolerance from the outset. Here American bourgeois democracy was founded and capitalist relations developed especially rapidly. The works of Irving, Cooper, Paulding, and later Melville are associated with the middle states. The main themes in the work of romantics in the middle states are the search for a national hero, interest in social issues, reflections on the path traveled by the country, comparison of the past and present of America.

Romanticism in New England (Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Bryant, etc.) is characterized primarily by the desire for a philosophical understanding of the American experience, for an analysis of the national past, its ideological and artistic heritage. Inherent in this literature is the study of complex ethical issues; an important place is occupied by the revision of the Puritan complex of religious and moral ideas of the Puritan colonists of the 17th-18th centuries, with which a deep successive connection remains. New England Romanticism has a strong tradition of moral-philosophical prose, rooted in America's puritanical colonial past. After the end of the Civil War, a realistic direction in literature began to develop in US literature. The new generation of writers is connected with the new region: it relies on the democratic spirit of the American West, on the element of folk oral folklore, and addresses its works to the widest, mass reader. From the point of view of the new aesthetics, romanticism has ceased to meet the requirements of the times. The romantic "impulses" were sharply criticized by M. Twain, F. Bret Hart and other young realist writers. Their contradictions with romantics are caused, first of all, by a different understanding of the truth of life and ways of expressing it in artistic creation. American realists of the second half of the 19th century. strive for maximum historical, social and everyday concreteness, they are not satisfied with the language of romantic allegories and symbols.

It must be said that this denial is of a purely dialectical character. In the literature of the United States of the XX century. there are romantic motives and they are associated, as a rule, with the search for lost high ideals and true spirituality, the unity of man and nature, with the moral utopia of extra-bourgeois human relations, with a protest against the transformation of the individual into a cog in the state machine. These motifs are clearly visible in the work of the greatest American artists of our century - E. Hemingway and W. Faulkner, T. Wilder and D. Steinbeck, F. S. Fitzgerald and D. D. Salinger. The writers of the United States of the last decades continue to refer to them as well.

american literature novel realistic

The last decade and a half of the 19th century were marked by the intensification of the country's intellectual life: a whole group of thinkers appeared who tried to solve both the eternal philosophical questions and the issues of social justice and humanity. Philosophers Josiah Royce, George Santayana, William James, Charles Sanders Pierce, John Dewey, Oliver Wendell Holmes as a legal scholar, economists and sociologists Thorstein Veblen, Herbert Crowley, Lester Frank Ward, Henry George and the greatest thinker of black America William Dubois - all of them lamented the superficial judgments and "vicious ideology" that occupied the "mental space of the United States."

The new school of American philosophers and psychologists strove to ensure that seemingly abstract discourses about materialism, idealism, determinism and free will were established in the minds of Americans as something directly related to them. In this way, they tried to prevent the washing out of the truly human foundations of life by a massive flow of mechanistic forces.

The publishing business in the country continued to develop intensively. Farmers, factory workers, small townspeople, every ethnic group, residents of every region now had their own newspaper or magazine.

Simultaneously with the expansion of the readership, its stratification took place. The discerning reader, who previously lived exclusively in Boston and other cities on the northeast coast and spread throughout the major centers of the United States, always received magazines that corresponded to his spiritual and aesthetic needs and political predilections. Now there are a lot of publications that serve the most diverse audience and are guided by its cultural level and tastes. The reading gap was so wide that America seemed to be in the midst of a cultural civil war. "Between University Ethics and Business Ethics, Between American Culture and the American People,<...>between academic pedantry and tabloid slang there is and cannot be anything in common, no "neutral zone", - wrote the well-known critic of the early XX century V.V. Brooks.

However, reading not only newspapers and magazines, but also fiction has finally become a nationwide habit.

Typography in America, beginning with the Reconstruction period, was also clearly focused on two layers, one might say, two classes of readers. The major booksellers — New York, Boston, and Philadelphia — supplied bookstores with products for the educated townspeople, while subscription publishers provided booksellers who carried “culture” to America's small towns and villages. A huge, mostly literate, but not too refined readership: artisans, farmers and members of their families - ordered in advance the publication of books on history, morality, medical care, patriotic or humorous essays, and only occasionally - works of art.

Under these conditions, writers, in order to achieve success, had to "get out" with all their might: arrange public lectures (later - public "readings"), for the sake of popularity, and not just earnings, print in cheap magazines, create stage versions of their works, so how the public who watched the "performance" willingly ordered the publication of the "novel they liked." A literary career demanded the talents of a businessman, and in the 1880s authors began to increasingly resort to the services of literary agents. However, the writers' incomes have grown significantly in comparison with the pre-war ones, which in many respects prompted them to seek the reader's favor. Ultimately, this - along with other circumstances - hindered the development of literature.

American literature at the turn of the century did not immediately come into line with the scale of economic and social shifts in the country. For a long time, the main literary achievements remained associated with romanticism, which continued to dominate poetry. Prose, on the other hand, which undertook to pave the way for realism, was marking time. First, she was in no hurry to get rid of the system of values ​​that had developed under the sign of Puritan ideology.

The vitality of the Puritan worldview was facilitated by the fact that it did not contradict the new Protestant ethics of business success, but, on the contrary, even strengthened it: "Become wealthy!" As a result, Spencer's popular social-Darwinian ideas (they inevitably penetrated the United States from Europe and captivated the writers of the younger generation - Garland, London, Dreiser) paradoxically coexisted with the requirement of literary chastity, in relation to which the new realities of life and even the originality of artistic skill turned out to be secondary.

In this regard, the creative fate of Kate Chopin (1851-1904), a talented prose writer, a strong master of the novelistic genre and "local color", who won reader recognition with two collections of stories from the life of Louisiana Creoles, "The Old Timers of Bayo" (1894) and "Night at Acadia" is very indicative. "(1897). The writer was literally destroyed by criticism and public ostracism after the publication of the novel Awakening (1899), a psychologically subtle and masterly performed exploration of the female soul.

The work was considered defiant and indecent: its heroine, a young married lady Edna Pontilier, commits adultery, is not in the least worried about this and, in addition, in the finale falls into the unforgivable sin of suicide, moreover, not even out of repentance, but simply obeying a momentary impulse. The public was outraged by the deep immorality of the heroine, who did not think about the consequences of her actions, and the author's obvious sympathy for her.

In reality, it was not the philistine (there is not a single explicit scene in the novel) that was incredible, but the artistic courage of K. Chopin. She innovatively - without the author's commentary and moralizing - portrayed not yet fully formed, but only the awakening personality of a young woman, wide open to meet all the sounds, colors and smells of the world around her. Shocked readers and critics simply did not notice either the beauty and perfection of the style, or the tragic, without melodramatic, power of the work. Their sentence was final; the defamed author of a novel ahead of his time, K. Chopin left literature forever, and five years later from life.

The development of realistic prose was hindered, secondly, by the spread of the “smiling” tradition, which was recognized as the “most American,” but in fact limiting and narrowing the writers' vision of such a versatile and often crisis modern life. This "smile" became more and more deliberate and gradually began to be perceived almost as a "grimace of a fool." The clearest example of this is the work of William Sidney Porter, who wrote under the pseudonym O. Henry (1862-1910).

A brilliant novelist and at the same time an unparalleled author in "dressing the wounds" of ordinary Americans, he was very popular only with the most unintelligible reader. The invariably happy ending of his stories eventually bored his contemporaries. O. Henry's letters and unfinished manuscripts testify that he did not quite willingly remain a "good storyteller", but dreamed of "simple honest prose."

Thirdly, the almost inevitable desire of writers for commercial success, of which many writers in the United States fell victim to, was also a kind of "constraint". For example, Francis Bret Garth(1836-1902), who came from Albany to San Francisco in the 1870s, for a time became America's most famous writer. One of the pioneers of "local color", in his "The Happiness of the Roaring Camp and Other Stories", he, in fact, acted as the creator of the popular image of the Wild West, inhabited by sentimental crooks, brave renegades and fallen women with hearts of gold.

At the age of thirty-five, Bret Garth went to the east of the country as a winner and signed a contract of 10 thousand dollars with the major magazine Atlantic Munsley, after which his literary career quickly ended. His works, in which the writer was clearly repeated, did not succeed, large debts and bitter disappointment, in the end, made Garth a voluntary exile. In 1878 he entered the consular service in England and left the United States, as it turned out, forever.

And, finally, the immaturity of the national realistic tradition, its provincial character, due to all the previous circumstances, was the most serious reason for the lag of American literature both from European literature and from the pace of socio-political development of its own country. Having brilliantly mastered the romantic principles of depicting reality, but faced with changed life realities, the literature of the United States again had to start practically from scratch, without copying the European experience, which did not correspond to the American specifics. Again, as before, an inspiring idea was required that could give an impetus to artistic development.

A kind of fresh breath was the design and more and more confident activity of schools of "local flavor", gradually freed from the inertia of graceful, "decent" writing, the zealots of which remained the highly educated Boston "Brahmins" - Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Having done a lot in its time for national culture, this triumvirate still tried to define the aesthetic norms of American literature, "as if there was no Civil War, and in America there are no regions other than New England," as a contemporary said about him.