American Literature

Edwin Arlington Robinson- father/m separate/ 2 brothers conk outd. doctor love of liveness married brother. Never Married. Wanted to be poet since age 11 and chose to live In p solely all overty. Wrote traditional numberss. Old-fashioned scarce treats with modern problems. doctrine Behind the peaceful and genteel communities of small- townsfolk the States lies a substrata of failure, loneliness, and terror. Conflict with brightness train and dark with the individual. major(ip) Works The Children of the Night, The Man Against the Sky, and The Man Who Died Twice. Quotes I eventually realized I was doomed, or elected, or sentenced to invigoration, to the piece of physical composition of rhymeMajor Works A Boys Will, North of Boston, West-Running Brook. Quotes l am non a t each(prenominal)er entirely an awakener. Education is the ability to tilten Poets ar eke baseball pitchers. In three haggle I throw give a modality sum up e genuinely social function A nu mbers begins In delight and ends in wisdom The mankind Is full of go let oning people And where an epitaph to be my account Id birth a curt one ready for my own. mend breakwater, Home Burial, The Road non Taken, Birches, Fire and ice, S concealmentping by Woods, Desert Places, Design, No function G grey-hai de actuateure erect Stay, Out Out, Departmental. T. S. Eliot The Hollow Men, The Love tenor of J. Alfred Frock.William Carols Williams- pediatrician. Images, suggest earlier than offer, fo infra concrete Images, strive for Pictures from Brushes, Paterson, The Farmers Daughter and Other Stories. Quotes If you discount bring nought to this place The better snip men do is always When they affect me, as of late If they give you lined paper, preserve the other way. It is gruelling to get the innovatives from poems Poets be damned entirely they argon non blind One thing I am convinced to a greater extent(prenominal) than and more is dead on target an d that is this Tract, The corking Figure, The reddened Wheel garden cart, This Is Just to Say, A com guide onionate body of Song.E. E. Cummings- 3 months in French prison, Harvard. Unorthodox punctuation, compressed spacing, literary cubism. ( spyhopper) Images reduce clicks, create new rhythms, put on up common speech. Philosophy oral, anarchy against conformity, authority, exploitation of life, romantic and sexual love. Major Works Tulips and Chimneys, XSL Poems, ViVa, No Thanks, 1 * 1, Agape Seventy-One Poems, The Enormous Room. Quotes The more or less wasted of all geezerhood is one w/o laughter. To be nobody scarcely yourself in a world which is doing A political is an erase upon which The poems to come atomic number 18 for you and me In Just, My Sweet Old Etcetera, I burble of Loaf smiling and big, If thither ar any heavens, Plato T disused, I thank you God, she being brand-new, prize got a soil, Old age sticks, Pity this busty monster unkind, L(a), si de by side(p) to of course God America l, look at this, who be you, footling l, Maggie and mills and molly and may, I carry your heart with me, I akin your body when it is with your. Longboats Hughes- Lawrence, Topeka.Black generator. Rhythms of Jazz and blues. Oral tradition of black culture. Philosophy invest take awayment with people, pride of heritage, promotion of racial Justice. Major Works The moon Keeper, Montage of a dream deferred, Not Without Laughter. Quotes A dream deferred is a dream denied. l cause discovered in life that in that respect atomic number 18 ways Humor is laughing at what you throw awaynt got when you ought to have it. the analogous a welcome summer rain l swear to the headmaster l forget non take provided for an answer. Well I uniform to eat sleep drink and be in love. Oh matinee idol of dust and rainbows 7 * 7 + Love = The Energy Speaks of Rivers, The Weary Blues, Song for a Dark Girl, Trumpet Player, Motto, Harlem, Dream Variations, I too sing America, theme for English B. F. Scott Fitzgerald- named later on cousin who wrote star bridge take shapeg direct banner. married charr was Zelda. Heavy drinker. Zelda became mentally ill. Clear lyrical prose. The Ameri burn Dream. Philosophy The bem utilize coevals, all gods dead, all wars, fought, all faiths hake. Major Works The Side of Paradise, The strong-favored and the Damned, The Great Gatsby, Tales of the Jazz come along, Tender is the Night, The Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of benzoin Button.Quotes In a real dark night The test of a outgrowth-rate Some clips it is harder First you take a drink any you think or else others have you think for you Family quarrels argon bitter things Im a romantic It is in the thirties Never confuse a hit defeat with a final defeat. The world as a territorial dominion The faces of most American women Show me a hero and I will write you a ragged. There are no snatch acts in American Lives. Babylon Revisited allegory, gothic romance. Philosophy southern memory, populace, myth.Major Works Sartorial, As I lay dying, light in august, Abyssal, the unvanquished, go worst Moses, intruder in the dust, the sound and the fury. Quotes Given the choice The young man or woman writing today Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do If I were reincarnated A mule will labor 10 years Loving all of it even fleck he had to loathe any(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal)what of it I believe that man will non alone endure. He will prevail. A Rose for Emily Ernest Hemingway mother dressed him as a girl until he was 6. Suffered from malaria, skin cancer, anemia, depression, diabetes, high blood pressure.Etc. Survived 2 plane crashes in 2 days. Athletic prose, iceberg theory writing fashion. Major Works The Sun excessively rises, in our conviction, men w/o women, a farewell to arms, decease in the afternoon, the snows of Kilimanjaro, for whom the bell tolls, the old man and the sea. Quotes Always do sober But man is non do for defeat. Courage is g work under pressure. E actually mans life ends the like way.. Madame all stories if intended far enough end in devastation Never think that war no matter how necessary The world breaks anyone and later on legion(predicate) a(prenominal) are stronger at the broken places. The Hemingway Hero suffered traumatic go and lives.. Code Hero Big Two-Hearted River John Steinbeck Journa careenic, lyrical, biblical rhythms. Philosophy press against poverty/ social in skilfulice, combo of naturalism, romanticism, and naturalism. Major Works Tortilla Flat, The long valley, the red pony, of mice and men, the grapes of wrath, the pearl, the log from the sea of Cortez, cannery row, east of Eden, the winter of our discontent, travels with charley. Valued privacy. Wrote screenplay for Lifeboat.American books?American belles-lettres is any written engage of art that is created in the United States. American writings is like all publications, it has literary experiences and contextual hi news report of America. It depicts how America has changed is dormant changing today. American literary productions has changed over sentence just like most laws of literary whole kit. The uniqueness of American literature is that America from its beginning had a special philosophy of life and freedom. The special philosophy of life and freedom that made American literature so unique was reflected in its writings.Americans believed and had faith that God was and is the given of all our rights and freedom. We as Americans had faith in ourselves that we could succeed in anything that we try doing. The literature that we Americans wrote made life worth living because it was displayed for the world to read and recognise that life was what we made it. Also by Americans having the ability to spring support from diversity made life worth living and George Washington was a perfect co mpositors case of this. literary canon is basically a suggested list of readings that belongs to a solid ground or a certain distri nonwithstandingor point in clipping.Literary canon contains literary whole full treatment that is mainly by authors who are judge as an authority in their field and their writings constituting a honor qualified body of literature in any given language. The works that are collected that is included in a literary canon is approve largely by cultural and academic institutions and is observed as literature of that language. Literary works popularity is not ground scarcely on the quality, hardly on the relevance of what matters to the context historically, socially, and artistically.Literary canon relate very well to what is going on in society because of what is most distinguished at that date work is being written. The context of the society, whether it is historical, social, or artistic, that is basically the topic. Ethnic writers express t he special challenges of pragmatism, naturalism, and regionalism inwardly the American literary experiences. naturalism labels a purport in English, European, and American literature that gathered tie from the 1930s to the end of the century.realism attempted to record life as it was lived quite than life as it ought to be lived or had been lived in times past. William doyen Howells stated that naturalism is nothing more and nothing less than the artless handling of material. Present-day literary theorists are probably more assured of what may be cal conduct the crisis of re showation-the difference betwixt act asation and the thing represented-than were these realists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.Naturalism is dumb by some as an extension or intensification of naive realism. It introduces characters from the fringes and depths of society whose fates are determined by degenerate heredity, a sordid environment, and/or a safe(p) conduct of bad p robability. Regionalism writing, other expression of the realist impulse, contributeed from the desire some(prenominal) to preserve a record of distinctive ways of life before industrialization discharge or homogenized them and to come to terms with the harsh realities that seemed to be regenerate these early and allegedly happier times.By the end of the twentieth century, every region of the country had a local colorist to immortalize its natural, social, and linguistic features. Ethnic writers define literature as literature that is written by people of a antithetic culture, language, organized piety, or race. It differs from the canon of traditional American literature because literary canon is a list of work from American rather of from a incompatible race or religion. The historical, socio-political, and cultural topics that might be covered by ethnic writers would be slavery and how the slaves were treated during that time.Slavery is a topic that can be covered under all three. Government issues are a topic that could be covered under socio-political. The debate against government issues such as health care and taxes could be something that ethnic writers could write about. It does not differ from the canon of traditional American literature because the writings have to be by authors who are accepted as an authority in their field and their writings of literature in any given language.American LiteratureA . Some of the best names that come into perspicacity when one lectures of modern English literature and fantasies are Editha, and Kate Chopin. Their works plentypoint tall in the golden pages of modern literature, influencing most people of this generation and many more to follow. They have painted and breathed life into each character of the fabrication, The Awakening, with great magical artistic skills. Such is the greatness and worth of the artists that they are believed to have given birth to a completely new form of writing that th e modern Literature is so proud of.Hence they are considered premodern. There are some more writers such as Tolkien who have contributed immensely towards this. I believe, Mr. Tolkien has succeeded more completely than any previous writer in this genre in exploitation the traditional properties of the Quest, the heroic journey, the numinous Object, the conflict betwixt Good and Evil man at the same time satisfying our sense of historical and social pragmatism (W. H. Auden, 1956). The greater the force-out, the more dangerous is the smear. The truth in the statement is well turn out in Tolkiens The Hobbit.The author makes his political report in this twentieth-century apologue that could be relished as an elating and exhilarating story. He, very well comments upon the abuse of political power and how the poor and down trodden fall prey to the airiness of sly rulers. In the midst of haziness between an imagi nation and reality this twentieth-century f commensurate portrays th e evil in Middle-Earth as totalitarian evil and that war is an immense ingredient of this malevolence. Many premodern authors have flourished on the fantasy genre. Age cannot wither their novels nor custom stale their infinite variety.The best, modern novels seem inexhaustible. They are a permanent source of inspiration for pityingity. Fantasy literature broadly speaking encompasses unreal, non man creatures, un mutual powers, created mythologies and imaginary settings. ice, who can in like manner be termed as a premodern poet remains faithful to the speak language of his time. His language, in the poem, is a mixture of playfulness and seriousness. He portrays regionalism with its generative stock of images, blot and anecdotes. This in turn provides an abundant source for metaphors and symbols.The colloquial tone and the dramatic situation in the poem strike the referees. The ascertain at the core of fastener Wall is striking. Two men summon on terms of hefty manners an d sociability to put up a barricade between them. The mole is erected out of convention, out of tradition. save the very ground works against them as well as makes their labor thorny. The two inhabits thrust stones, sustain on top of the circumvent heretofore as a result of hunters or elves, or the chill of spirits imperceptible hand, the boulders topple downward besides again.The in imposing fashion and lack of rhyme masquerade the ploy in Petit the Poet. Some of his most praised and entertaining works occupy Petit the Poet and Seth Compton, tremendous creations of Edgar lee, best reveal his blending of wit with humor. His face-to-face and conversational style makes the reader involved in his tone and mood. He takes the reader into arrogance th or so his easy and delightful pace. Furthermore it appears sort of pragmatic with some witty interpretations.The tone is very somber and the reader cannot help but a distinct hopelessness, of the plight of gentle beings not being able to choose what they remember, and in any case that the memories cherished today, will be a lot various than the memories cherished tomorrow. C. Mending Wall Robert Frost was indwelling(p) in San Francisco, U. S. A, in 1874. Disenchanted with the lofty overmasters of many American poets, Frost opted to write about country life with which he was most familiar. In the poem, Mending Wall shows sound posturing, a form of writing found on the tones of perfunctory speech.In his charm, North of Boston (1914), Frost began to experiment with poems of monologue and dialogue, which critics have called his dramatic poems. The present poem, Mending Wall too reflects his arouse in dramatic and natural speech. The stanzas of the poem Mending Wall are straight frontward too sound more akin to an extraordinary valetkind frame of mind than a fuming portrayal of the poets populate. A partition of the rhyme scheme sends the reader into a mesmerizing situation and the tidin gss is comparatively free from portentous and dark imagery. Robert Frosts poetry is well known for its intensely personal and touching theme.A great divvy up of Frosts verse is confessional and reveals his life experiences through metaphor or explicitly. Mending Wall asserts his abhorrence for a wall or a barrier between human beings. This Frost does through the exercise of powerful imagery articulated through language, structure, and tone. A wall divides the poets land from his neighbors. They get together to perambulation to the wall and mutually mend it, when it is spring time. Something there is that doesnt love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun,And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. (Lines 1-4) The speaker sees no ground for the wall to be unbrokenthere are no cows to be contained, just orchard apple tree and pine trees. He does not believe in walls for the sake of walls. The neighbor chooses to stick to his fath ers words Good fences make good neighbors. The poet remains skeptical and impishly forces the neighbor down to come across the out go out interpretation. However his neighbor will not be persuaded. The poet visualizes his neighbor as a leftover from a reasonably obsolete time. He is an make uping paradigm of an old orthodox.Nevertheless the neighbor merely goes back over the citeing. Frost retains five stressed syllables designed for each line unless he shows a discrepancy in the feet widely to maintain the usual dialogue in the rhyme. The dearth of radiance, gloom and unhappiness, have been brought into play. Perceptibly the wall is thought of as a vengeance for transparency, light and security. The turn somewhat of proceedings in the poem reiterates the dismay of hostilities and the futile misfortunes that could have been evaded if those drawn in would have scrutinized the dealings they were caught up with.Even though the reader of the poem gets the arbitrariness of the nei ghbor portrayed in the poem by Frost, he does not subsist outside of descriptions of men from the past or historical pictures. The poets neighbor is, in many senses, of a weak temperament sooner undeserving of examination because there is nothing that detaches him an ordinary human being. There is realization that hostilities are but a ploy to gain power and supremacy over the facial expressions of people. A sense of guilt revolves virtually the completed novel and expresses that wars are unfortunate and only a gamble where the leading resort to exploit the poor, down trodden masses.Mending Wall is a inactive recollection of life events and dreams that have spiraled out of control due to hostilities. The hopes and dreams that formerly seemed so right and so justifiable become shattered because of the wall that inflicts the very core of the poets soul. Frost remains faithful to the spoken language of his time. His language, in the poem, is a mixture of playfulness and seriousne ss. He portrays regionalism with its mystifying stock of images, situation and anecdotes. This in turn provides an abundant source for metaphors and symbols. The conversational tone and the dramatic situation in the poem strike the readers.The picture at the core of Mending Wall is striking. Two men convene on terms of good manners and sociability to put up a barricade between them. The wall is erected out of convention, out of tradition. Nevertheless the very ground works against them as well as makes their task thorny. The two neighbors thrust stones, back on top of the wall however as a result of hunters or elves, or the chill of tempers imperceptible hand, the boulders topple downward yet again. The work of hunters is another thing I have come after them and made invigorate Where they have left not one stone on a stone,But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,(lines 5-8) Even then, the neighbors carry on with their work of mending the wall. The poem, consequently, looks a s if it contemplates regular(prenominal)ly on themes like, human construction of blockades, breakup, and hostility. What sets in motion in un forward-looking candor ends in intricate symbolism. This wall-building work appears primeval, as it is portrayed in formal, conventional terms. It engrosses spells to work against the elves, and the neighbor comes into view as a Stone-Age savage at the same time as he lifts and carries a boulder. We have to use a spell to make them balanceStay where you are until our backs are turned We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game,(lines 18-21) Frosts treatment of objects of nature shows that he does not idealize or glorify them. His stance towards the stone wall is not in truth that of a realist, nor so much(prenominal) of a romantist. Frosts poems on natural objects are not dealt with as the starting point for the mystical meditation. similar other poems, Mending Wall carries a m spoken but the moral is indirectly presented any as a dramatic situation. Frosts poems are profoundly philosophical in spite of their homely diction.In Mending Wall, he uses symbolism to communicate a deep rooted principle. The symbolism in the poem comes out as an indirect method of communication. The poem has a surface gist but it also shows a deeper significance, which is understood only through a closer scrutiny of the poem. D. Edgar Lee Masters is acclaimed as one of the leading humorous poets of the world. He has produced some of the best works of his time. His readers have long appreciated him for his classical interpretation of human nature and several critical thematic concerns of society but yet in a most humorous, easy and light hearted representation.One of the simplest and easy flowing poems of Edgar Lee is Petit the Poet. The informal fashion and lack of rhyme masquerade the ploy in Petit the Poet. Some of his most praised and entertaining works involve Petit the Poet and Seth Compton, marvelous creations of Edgar Lee, best reveal his blending of wit with humor. His personal and conversational style makes the reader involved in his tone and mood. He takes the reader into confidence through his easy and delightful pace. Furthermore it appears quite realistic with some witty descriptions.The tone is very somber and the reader cannot help but a distinct hopelessness, of the plight of human beings not being able to choose what they remember, and also that the memories cherished today, will be much different than the memories cherished tomorrow. The poem is composed to 18 lines. The concluding verse shows an kindred allusion. Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, what little iambics, date Homer and Whitman roared in the pines? The concluding part of the poem brings us backwards in time, which allows the reader to view true accounts and suffering that people have to endure in a village.Thus Petit the poet, no doubt is thought to appall us yet again but with a twist. Thus the irony in, Petit the poet, comes through as we read it. The analytical issue of Seth Compton is beauti to the full visualised with a humorous disposition. The poet describes human air through the process of loving and forgetting. The poet tactfully and with an aroma of humor, describes the social and moral matters of the modern times from the perspective of a clean hearted human being. He craftily incorporates humor to the arena and at the same time, trying to bring into light the disgrace of corruption.For this kind of his writing, he has been also long criticized for his more moderate representation of the extents of social malady of the time. The Poet is distressed to see the state of the people after death. The circulating depository library that he constructed was son disposed off. When I died, the circulating library Which I built up for Spoon River, And managed for the good of inquiring minds, Was sold at auction on the public square The poem giv es a feeling that Seth Compton has been keeping a note of all the happenings after his death.During the period when the poem was written, although seemingly flowing in a positive direction, human relations were beginning to withstand new strains, trapped now in a cleverer and more civilized society. These relations were more official and formal than social and personal. This new form of the society was less institutionalized but at the same time was more difficult to resolve or combat. This new tactic, intoxicated with the velvety diplomacies of pity, care and tolerance, made things even worse. precise ironically and rightly, the Poet criticizes the facial expressions of morality in terms of critical social concerns.American Literature go down duos celebrated novel tom sawyer beetle (1876) has primarily been considered by literary critics to slightly less accomplished on a technical and thematic level than its purported sequel, The Adventures of huckabackleberry Finn, (1885).A lthough many reasons for this discrepancy in the level of critical reception of the two works may be dependably cited, one of the contributing factors to the critical reception of tom turkey sawyer beetle both on its initial publication in the nineteenth century and during its present status in critical estimation is the function of literary realism. In short, because tomcat sawyer represents to most literary critics a less sophisticated execution of matchs literary technique, it also functions a less developed example of couplings expression by way of literary realism.Important, also, is that fact that couple was and is viewed by critics as one of Americas foremost realist writers and bitstocks realism is regarded as having had a liberating curve on American literature as a whole It led him to make use of the vernacular and ultimately to develop popular speech, as an instrument for character portrayal and effective autobiography, to near perfection, (Long 102) which, in tu rn, led to the first authentically American idiom in fiction.However, as in Huckleberry Finn, the aspects of realism (or verisimilitude) which permeate Tom sawyer beetle, also function as scaffold for fabulousal ideas and iconographic expression which directly contradicts the purpose and function of literary realism itself. In essence, by regarding realism in Tom sawyer not a governing principle of Twains aesthetic, but earlier as a tool or a literary device which is used to mystify a deeper theme or aesthetic &8212 namely romanticism &8212 can be identified.In Twains case, the romantic or idealized strains of his theme in Tom Sawyer relate directly to the myth of American expansion and victorfulness which were as prevalent cultural fascinations in nineteenth century America as they are in twenty-first century America.Before Tom Sawyer itself can be examined in light of its use of realism as a literary device, it is grave to restate what the (critical) correspondence of lit erary contemporaneousness is unfeignedly all about and what literary modernism meant to the writers who comprised the movement in its earliest stages and what literary realism way of life to contemporary literary critics, and itemally those critics who have turned their energies to explicating Tom Sawyer.It should also be pointed out that Twain presents special problems even for the most studious and energetic of critics because his work is founded, first adn foremost upon humor, which is a very difficult literary premise to determine and define in critical terms. Despite the fact that criticism is notoriously helpless in the posture of writing that is really funny (Smith 1), specific aesthetic principles and influences can be rooted out and separated to some extent from the over-riding satirical vision in Twains work.Any attempted critical understanding would be greatly aided in first accepting Twain as a literary realist as this designation is the most carpetbag as to openin g a clear window into the purported purpose and themes of Twains writings. Literary realism comprised an artistic response to the changing social conditions beginning in the 19th century which saw a dominant allele rise of industry, science, and grounds in western culture. Realism attempted to develop a literary idiom which was able to convincingly portray the actual events and circumstances of life.The movement toward realism can be seen as an artistic mode of grappling hook with changing and frightening circumstances of western culture. In addition to quest out themes of social significance, writers such as Zola, Dos Passos, Eliot and Flaubert &8212 advanced a archives technique which jettisoned rhetorica stylized language of luxurious expression designed to demonstrate that the writer had mastered the tradition of civil lettersfor everyday speech, (Borus 22) so that highly-stylized narratives still evoked the realism of everyday speech and everyday life.Part of the technique of literary realism involved the use of vocabulary, sometimes encompassingly, to create the sense of verisimilitude which was essential to the realist aesthetic. The combination of real-world dialect and the studies technique of the realist writers resulted in a unique blend of linguistic styles which resulted in a generating a set of readers who considered themselves cultivated readers of dialect, (Barrish 37). because realist writers sought to evoke in extensive detail, the living settings of their works, many realist writers were committed to regionalism &8212 that is, they wrote about the world they experienced directly.Examples of this are Faulkner who wrote extensively about a assumed Confederate county which was based on counties which actually pull throughed. Realist writers desired to create fiction that felt and read as close to real life as possible in score to allow readers to see and experience aspects of life which would otherwise have remained unknowable to th em. With this bit of critical history in mind, one further aspect remains quite important relative to Twain and that is the fact that realism as a head principle of criticism (Smith 5) has been rigidly and exhaustively applied to Twains work with the resulting conclusion that shortcomings have led to its gradual giving up during the last quarter of a century on both sides of the Atlantic. (Smith 5). What are these shortcomings, specifically? The answer to that question is complex and lies in the seemingly super nature of Twains realism. The fact that Twains realism is distinct from naturalism or rigorously journalistic writing is his sophisticated employment of realism as a device, rather than as a guiding principle of theme or overall technical approach.In other words, because Mark Twains realism does not fall apart at externals (Smith 29) that same realism must by necessity engage emotional, psychological, and spiritual (or mythic) concepts and identities which are by defin ition elusive of any realistic line drawing. By delving deeper than externals Twain must, by necessity, abandon verisimilitude as a guiding aesthetic principle and instead accept it as a device, like a single color on a painters pallette.In order to elaborate this somewhat elusive point, it must be emphasized that Twains external realism is devastatingly powerful adn accurate, almost photo-realistically so. Twain is obviously quite capable of conveying the special atmosphere of each characteristic environment (Smith 29) and from this mastery of description of the external world, the reader is led to trust that Twains excursions into the inner world will be just as faithfully rendered and just as obviously based on reality. However, a clear, if subtle, distinction separates Twain from photorealistic artists. A secern aspect to Twains particular use of realism is that His purpose is not to say everything, nor even to present everything in an objective way (Smith 30) but render th e impression that what is described, whether it be a river, or a young boys stream-of-consciousness inner-monologue, is a faithful representation of the actual world.By rendering the impression of realism rather than a rote copy of nature, Twain allows himself to pursue his inquiries into reality with alter intensity, to support his observations with a wider or a narrower range of evidence (Smith 30) and, by doing so, achieves an acumen which is capable of misleading he reader into mistaking what is actually a mythic or romantic impression as a realistic observation.To demonstrate this concretely, a single mythic aspect of Tom Sawyer can be isolated and compared with Twains realistic prose-style to indicate the duality of his narrative idiom, where realism generally indicates, if at an oblique angel, a mythic undertone. For example, the esteem-hunt sub-plot of Tom Sawyer conveys the uniquely American myth of striking it rich through pure luck adn adventure.This is in fact a very durable American myth, the myth that anyone despite his or her stature in life can hit pay-dirt quickly, blindly, almost accidentally (Coulombe 16) and like Huck and Tom become rich entirely by good luck (Coulombe 16). Such a myth was used by Twain not only in Tom Sawyer and in his other of his fictional works, but also as an attribute of his own author-persona.Twain cultivated a deliberate distortion of his biography by attempting to further the notion that his accomplishments were everyday and intuitivea rustic genius rising naturally to the top (Coulombe 16). In this case, literary biography plays a contributing role to thematic explication because Twains true experience belied the myth he inserted into Tom Sawyer regarding riches adn the pursuit of adventure. In reality, Twain was a careerist who worked diligently, even desperately, to earn success and money (Coulombe 17).The aforementioned biographical detail is mentioned merely to illustrate that Twain,had he been truly int erested in being a literary realist and line drawing the authentic world he had experienced would have obviously push aside any mythical treasure hunt ending in blind, demented fortune as being over-the-top romantic, and perhaps even foolish. At this point, it is useful to examine the manner by which Twain attempts to insert verisimilitude into what is essentially a mythic fantasy.he does so retrospectively by describing what appears to be a very convincing description of the rection of the little town of St. Petersburg to the boys discovery of treasure THE reader may rest satisfied that Toms and Hucks windfall made a mighty stir in the poor little village of St. Petersburg. So vast a sum, all in actual cash, seemed next to incredible. It was talked about, gloated over, glorified, until the reason of many of the citizens tottered under the strain of the unhealthy excitement.Every haunted house in St. Petersburg and the neighboring villages was dissected, plank by plank, and its f oundations dug up and ransacked for underground treasureand not by boys, but menpretty grave, unromantic men, too, some of them. (Twain 285) This attempt to balance a romantic myth with a deliberately anti-romantic description of the aftermath of the discovery is thorough right down to Twains choice of diction.The word unromantic is specifically clever and powerful in forwarding a sense that Twains treasure hunt is grounded in reality and not in a boyish, culturally incited fantasy. Every detail seems to have been accounted for right down to the observation that The village paper published biographical sketches of the boys (Twain 285) which made them celebrities. Here it is enkindle to note that Twains romantic stir and his urge to restrain his story in verisimilitude are operating at fitting strength and simultaneously.If Twain is capable of obscuring what are essentially romantic myths to a lower place a veneer of realism as was demonstrated by the forward description of his expression of the rags to riches myth of America, what other myths might be discovered under the narrative surface of Tom Sawyer? Obviously, because Twain embraces the presence of madness in American as a part of his role as a realist writer, depictions of violence and of death in Twain deserve special attention in regard to the myths they may or may not express beneath the highly detailed and signally accurate level of narrative description employed by Twain.While it is true that &8212 for Twain The sight of a pistol blazing or natural language flashing, followed by the red blood gushing from a death wound, was actuality (Long 99) it is also conspicuously true that Twains depiction of violence in Tom Sawyer is not prevailing, and as in the realism of Howells, and that in Twain happiness, not sorrow, was the general rule (Long 99) despite the actuality of violence and death in human experience.One might rightly ask how is such a proposition that violence and death do not preclu de human happiness based in realism? Plainly, one does not require an observational adn descriptive acumen that is equal to Twains to readily perceive that violence and death in the real world oft do preclude human happiness. Clearly, Twains depiction of violence, like his depiction of material ambition and the attainment of wealth, partakes of a mythic rather then realistic expression.This mythic appraisal of violence and human mortality allows Twain to establish the entire framework of Tom Sawyer on the mythic scaffolding of death and rebirth. In fact, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is constructed on a loose framework whose major elements include games of death and games of resurrection (Aspiz) and these games are purely mythic rather than realistic both in conception and execution.Because it is mythic violence and mythic death that Tom interacts with in the novel, he and the other characters depicted in the novel seem to exist on the manic edge beyond which lurks the menace of de struction and the unusual (Aspiz) but the teetering over and falling over the edge which is repeatedly depicted by Twain in Tom Sawyer results in the illusion that all experience is ultimately reducible to entertainment (Aspiz).Imagination is stronger than the mere presence of death and its associated pains in Twains fictional world, which is propelled in part by startlingly realistic descriptions and observational details. The result is paradoxical Murder, grave-robbing, the withholding of life-saving evidence, impulses to suicide, pretended disasters, numerous close brushes with death, the violation of sanguinary oaths, wrenching fear and guilt, and unnumerable suppressions of the truth and miscarriages of justice are all transformed, through masterful instrumentality and narrative control, into entertainment.(Aspiz, 108) Of course it is the power and depth of Twains masterful orchestration and narrative control which drives the perception on the readers behalf that Twains my thic expressions of pain, death, and sorrow are as meticulously accurate as his objective descriptions of rivers, school-houses, and grave-yards. The paradox is born out of the divergence of the mythic and realist strains of Twains own consciousness and his narrative expression. The character of Tom Sawyer is, himself, an expression of this paradox and duality.Tom is ultimately portrayed as heroic, but also realistically, so that his flaws can be easily spotted and used to increase the ironic impact of the novel. In fact, careful study of Toms behavior throughout the novel reveals that Tom was neither noble nor pure. Rather, he was frequently vindictive, violent, and obscuremuch like the natural world to which he was colligate (Coulombe 129) and &8212 ironically &8212 it is within this construction of nature, as a character, that Twain achieves a more dour and realistic expression.Twains impulse to romanticize even human bigotry is evident in his depiction of red man Joe and gasc onade Potter, during the trial-scene when bollix fallaciously confesses to murdering the twist around. Historical reality dictates that it was white men who cam and tricked the native American tribes out of their lands and destroyed their culture, a fact readily available to anyone, even in Twains time, who cared to exert minimal energy doing research.However, rather than seizing on this massive historical reality, Twain opts to facilitate the extant prejudice against racial types that existed in his time, and continue to exist, by positing a mythic half-breed, Injun Joe, who is more cunning and diabolical than the white society he despises. During the trial scene, Muff Potter is confronted with his knife which was used by Injun Joe to slay the Doctor in the cemetery.Potters reaction is pitiful Potter lifted his face and looked around him with a pathetic hopelessness in his look. He saw Injun Joe, and exclaimed Oh, Injun Joe, you promised me youd never (Twain 100) and then, slow ly, Potter realizes that he must confess to his crime. The reverse gear of historical reality is chilling. In reality, Native Americans were often controlled and victimized with strong drink and in Twains depiction, the half-breed, Injun Joe, has turned these realities on their head.It is the Indian who is dastardly and manipulative and it is the white man, Muff Potter, who is drunkenly victimized and falsely sentenced to death. Such reversals under the fluent realism of Twains technique can only be considered, rightly, as propaganda. By no stretch of the imagination can propaganda ever be regarded as realistic or objective, so it is obvious that on at least three major themes materialism, mortality, and racial prejudice, Twain embraces a mythic, rather than realistic, mode of expression in Tom Sawyer.Again, as in the treasure-hunt scenario, Twain attempts to balance his mythically driven conceptualization of race with what appears to be a rotund adn realistic description of the court-room itself and the boys reaction to Potters confession Then Huckleberry and Tom stood dim and staring, and heard the stony-hearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every aftermath that the clear sky would deliver Gods lightnings upon his head, (Twain 100).This passage, in fact, only strengthens the essentially culturally chauvinistic impulse of the courtroom scene by positing the half-breed no only as a notorious murderer but as an enemy of the white mans God. Twains romanticism may be rightly regarded as determinant in the thematic expression of Tom Sawyer. In every case, it is mythic impulse rather than natural or historical realism that drives both the conceptualization and execution of the scenes in Tom Sawyer and the associated themes which these scenes express.Rather than solidification the aesthetic ideas of literary realism, Twains use of the idiom in Tom Sawyer is sublimated to his interest in forwarding culturally resonant, American myths which would manifestly engage and entertain his audience. It is quite possible that Twains own material ambitions, as previously mentioned, drove, at least in part, his decision to make a literary concession throughout Tom Sawyer to romantic myths, a concession which completely eradicated any claim that might be made on Twains behalf that the novel embodied literary realism.Works Cited Aspiz, Harold. Tom Sawyers Games of Death. Studies in the falsehood 27. 2 (1995) 141+. Barrish, Phillip. American Literary Realism, Critical Theory, and Intellectual Prestige, 1880- 1995. Cambridge, England Cambridge University Press, 2001. Borus, Daniel H. Writing Realism Howells, James, and Norris in the Mass Market. Chapel Hill, NC University of North Carolina Press, 1989.Coulombe, Joseph L. Mark Twain and the American West. Columbia, MO University of Missouri Press, 2003. Long, E. Hudson. Mark Twain Handbook. brand-new York Hendricks House, 1957. Smith, Henry Nash, ed. Mark Twain A Collection of Cri tical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, 1963. Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. New York P. F. Collier & Sons, 1920.American LiteratureIf I was educateing a course in American Literature since 1865, the texts that I would choose to teach would be Tulips by Sylvia Plath, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, Sula by Toni Morrison, omniscient Blood by Flannery OConnor, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Daisy Miller by Henry James, and Drown by Junot Diaz.I feel that it is important to chronologically span the 150 or so years of literature in this time period, to choose a diversity of authors in terms of sex activity, race and sexuality, to represent the nation regionally as well as possible, to include texts that think on important issues in the nation including immigration, gender equality and race relations, and to point on texts that are comparatively accessible and reflect the time period in which they are written. With these texts, I feel that this is accomplished.Chronologically, this list is relatively complete there are texts that represent the period of reconstruction (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) and that are from around ten years ago (Drown). Indeed, different aspects of this list speak to the Industrial Revolution and ever-changing face of America through scientific advancement, and others dissertate the ways that race and gender exist in the time period in which they are written (The Yellow Wallpaper and Sula, for example).Further, not only do these texts represent a breadth of time periods, but they also show different regions of the United States, including the southmost (Wise Blood) and the West (Housekeeping), with the typical representation of the Northeast and many texts that are not necessarily interchange to any specific region.Through providing a diversity of chron ological and regional representation, I feel that students, especially in a nation that is not as familiar with the United States as we are, would be able to get a better feel of how the United States changed over the past 150 years and how the different regions of the United States face different challenges. Just as its important to represent different literal aspects of the United States, its just as important to represent the diversity of people that make the nation up.By providing works from authors like Toni Morrison and Junot Diaz, students would get a perspective on the African American and immigrant experience in the United States, respectively. Indeed, America exists differently for the immigrant characters in this collection of Diaz short stories than it does for the characters seeking the American Dream in The Great Gatsby, and its important for students to research these differences among communities in the U. S.Indeed, this collection of texts also reflects issues that are of the utmost importance in the United States Tulips and The Yellow Wallpaper discuss what it means to be a woman and how motherhood or marriage can trap women, for example. Wise Blood explores the intricacies of religion, and more specifically Christianity, in the South, and Sula thoroughly discusses how black Americans live in the Bottom while whites live at the top long after the conclusion of the courteous War.Students reading my list of texts would be exposed to a breadth of issues, while also reading canonical literature that explores natures such as Leaves of Grass and the work of Henry James and his take on relationships and people. All of the works that are included in this list cover so many different aspects of American Literature, and together they paint a picture that represents the time period and nation as well as any ten-piece collection can.Regionally, canonically and chronologically, the list covers all of the essential points present in American literature , and it also touches on sixfold issues of diversity within the texts as well as issues central to American culture in these different time periods. These poems, short stories, novellas and novels are an excellent window into American Literature as well as the ever-ubiquitous American culture, and I would be excited to teach these texts to any classroom. 2nd Essay southerly Literature is fraught with guilt, struggle and a resistance to dominant American cultural norms.Three of the most important authors in southerly Lit, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner and Flannery OConnor, are all incredibly attentive to issues important to all Southern people, but they each discuss Southern life in a different form. While all three deal with the integral issues of race relations in the South, the constant struggle with the separation of the North from the South, and what exactly it means to have a Southern identity element, each of these authors does this in a very different manner.Hurston focuses on African American dialect and unique experiences within those communities, Faulkner traditionally discusses close-knit small town communities in a stream of consciousness and highly narrative manner, and OConnor takes a highly moralistic tone, with a focus on religion and confederacy in the South. Hurstons soapsuds is similar to her most historied Their Eyes Were watching God in that gender struggles and dialect within African American communities are showcased. Indeed, one of the central conflicts in eliminate is the struggle for strength within the relationship between Delia and Sykes Jones.Even though aspects of Southern femininity and masculinity are inherent to this struggle, femininity is the focus as this is typical of Hurston and the protagonist, and thereby where the readers sympathies more dominantly lie, is with Delia Jones. The work focuses on how African American communities exist, with a focus on Delias sing and the music thats present, thereby demonstr ating a focus on an oral tradition that doesnt necessarily exist within Faulkner and OConnors work.Further, the end of the short story demonstrates how women are able to obtain dominance in relationships, if they ever are able to do so, through Sykes terrible death. Indeed, this story demonstrates many of Hurstons focuses, and it shows typical struggles within Southern African American communities in terms of gender relations and oral traditions versus dominant narratives. Faulkners Barn desirous is different from this in that its focus is on a father and son, and also on the town in which the characters live.Indeed, the story begins in The store in which the justice of the Peaces court was sitting and continues to focus on the actual location and Southern-ness of the setting. Like Hurston, the dialogue of Barn Burning is uniquely Southern, with the characters saying the word it as hit, thereby demonstrating Southern dialect and accents in a way that separates it from any Northern dialogue. Also like Hurstons work, the story discusses race relations in the South, though necessarily from a white perspective instead of a black perspective.Because of this, the community at the center of the story is a white community instead of a black community, and it thereby emphasizes race relations and oppressive institutions within Southern society instead of exploring the ways in which African American communities form themselves. While there are no explicit OConnor works on the syllabus, it would be remiss to discuss Southern writing without using OConnor as an example.In her A Good Man is unexpressed to Find, for example, the explicit focus of the narrative is on what it means to be a good person, and how a criminal is not necessarily a more evil and corrupt person than a grandmother without good intentions. While the criminal who murders the family who are at the center of the story is clearly not a good man, neither is the matriarchal grandmother who is central to t he story indeed, she would have been good if it had been somebody there to shoot her every atomic number 42 of her life. OConnor discusses Southern society in terms of morality and religion throughout her novels and short stories, and within this discussion also exists issues of race relations, Southern society and dialect, and other things. Indeed, OConnor, Faulkner and Hurston all recognize the differences between the South and other regions in the United States, the unique moral and community systems that exist there, and demonstrate these aspects differently. 3rd Essay William Carlos Williams The Red Wheelbarrow and e.e. cummings my pleasant old etcetera both rely on illicit, modernist poetic form and use this form to convey separate messages. Williams poem uses its form to put fierceness on a dependence on the smallest things indeed, the form and subject of The Red Wheelbarrow hinge on the castbarrow itself, and demonstrate how form and subject are both integral to a poem s ultimate message. Similarly, cummings unconventional form is different from almost any other poet and uses multiple definitions of etcetera.Both poems show how form is as essential to function as subject and literal messages are, and both use this form to reiterate the meaning of the poem. Williams The Red Wheelbarrow is from a time period in which poets were able to play with form and think more consciously about how a poem can be unconventional in form and still convey a message. Indeed, this poem more or less relies on form to convey that message. What is so interesting about this poem is that there is no terribly clear message in the poem in fact, it initially seems to not say much of anything and instead to toy around with words.However, the way the poem is structured, the seemingly insignificant nouns are placed at the forefront. As the poem reads, so much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow (lines 1-4). Here, the poem does in fact depend on the barrow every couplet in Th e Red Wheelbarrow hinges upon a second one-word line that consists of a relatively common and insignificant noun. The nouns continue to posit the poem. The red wheelbarrow is glazed with rain / water / beside the white / chickens (lines 5-8), presentation that while each couplet is grounded by the final one-worded line, the entire poem is grounded by the wheelbarrow.Indeed, all of the lines refer back to it it is the thing that is glazed with rainwater, and it is the thing that is beside the white chickens. The first couplet itself makes it increasingly clear that the wheelbarrow is at the center of this poem in multiple ways everything in the poem depends on it literally, as is stated in the first two lines, but it is also structurally at the center of the poem. William Carlos Williams is able to use this unconventional form to make a statement about what is important after all, how can so much depend on a wheelbarrow unless Williams demonstrates it in this unconventional way?Si milarly, e. e. cummings poem my sweet old etcetera challenges ideas of what the etcetera of the poem is by introducing it in a form that allows multiple interpretations. Indeed, the poem begins with my sweet old etcetera / aunt lucy (lines 1-2), and also includes references to it as not to / mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers / etcetera wristers etcetera (lines 11-13), my / mother hoped that / I would die etcetera (lines 13-15), my / self etcetera lay quietly (lines 19-20), and dreaming, / et / cetera, of / Your smile / eyes knees and of your Etcetera (lines 23-27).All of these uses of etcetera are different and challenge what exactly the word means indeed, the word literally refers to a continuing list of things, but here sometimes its used in an apathetic sense, sometimes as a euphemism, and other times as its definition connotes. Like The Red Wheelbarrow, this poem hinges on the definition of one word, and because of seemingly spontaneous line breaks and capitalization, that wor d carries entirely different meanings at different places in the text.Interestingly, in the last parenthetical notation, etcetera refers to both the never-ending list of actions of the speaker and also, presumably, the body of the woman who is being described, thereby showing the many definitions of the word. Both The Red Wheelbarrow and my sweet old etcetera use relatively unconventional form to challenge traditional notions of established words and concepts. By relying on a different method of poetry and description, both writers are able to disrupt these ideas that are so closely tied to the words, and also to redefine both the words and the poetic form that they are using to describe them.4th Essay If I could choose any two authors to explore more fully, I would pick Zora Neale Hurston and Henry James to look at further. Not only are these two authors very different in terms of their writing styles, but they also are from different time periods and different literary perspective s, with Hurston generally describing communities and concrete people more fully while James writes conceptually and canonically in a way that focuses on narrative and other literary forms.Both authors speak to different audiences, both of which I at least partially identify with, and I look forward to reading more by each author. In this course, we read Sweat by Hurston, which I wrote about for one of my other essays. I really enjoy this work not only because I enjoy Southern literature, but also because it focuses on a different aspect of identity than many of the authors that weve read in this course.Indeed, Hurston focused on African American oral narratives, and was actually often involved in sociological work and gathering African American folktales to preserve in writing instead of simply within an oral tradition. Because her life was not always dog-tired in looking at writing through a austere literary lens, I think that she has a unique perspective in representing life as it truly exists within communities that are not typically discussed in popular fiction.She herself grew up in an African American town, and is oddly knowledgeable and gifted and representing these types of communities. I would love to read Their Eyes Were Watching God if only because it is similar to Sweat but, as a novel instead of a short story, allows more time to delve into a characters mindset and to develop a sense of what it means to live within an African American community. Further, I think that Hurston has a unique and powerful style that explores language in a way that many authors simply dont.She is able to write using life-threatening symbolism and metaphors throughout her prose, but shes also able to interesting, intelligently and authentically portray the language that exists within black southern communities, something that most authors would not even think about discussing. Indeed, because of her early life in a unique community that most canonical authors do not understand, her sociological work on oral narratives within black communities, her interesting view on language and style, and her emphasis on womens issues and gender equality, I would love to look more closely at Zora Neale Hurstons body of literature.Henry James is also an incredibly important figure in American Literature, but for very different reasons than Hurston. Indeed, James style is not as accessible or engaging as Hurstons often is, and he is much more cerebral in the issues that he chooses to tackle. As Daisy Miller demonstrates, though, James has a terrific understanding of how to manipulate narrative to show multiple dimensions of characters, and his other work demonstrates this even further.The novel which I would most like to read by him is The Turn of the Screw, primarily because it is both a frame narrative (similar to the Canterbury Tales), which provides many unique and interesting insights into narrative, and also because it is a unique version of a ghost story that is much more literary in style than most of what gets represented in popular culture today. Because James is so able to take on narrative, I enjoyed Daisy Miller thoroughly not only were the characters deep, complex, round and interesting, but the timeline was also challenging.I really enjoy reading Henry James because he is, in many ways, timeless while his work is obviously dated in certain ways in terms of subject and the setting, the human condition is so central to everything that he writes that it can be understood outside of this context. Because of his narrative abilities, interest in the human psyche and innate human struggles, challenging prose that pushes different ideas of symbolism and identity, and the innovative subjects that he chooses to write about, I would also very much enjoy looking at what else Henry James has written.