American Literature

Each generation revises literary history and this is nowhere more evident than in the post-Second World War period. This Companion offers a comprehensive, authoritative and accessible overview of the diversity of American fiction since the Second World War. Essays by nineteen distinguished scholars provide critical insights into the significant genres, historical contexts, cultural diversity and major authors during a period of enormous American global political and cultural power. This power is overshadowed, nevertheless, by national anxieties growing out of events ranging from the Civil Rights Movement to the rise of feminism; from the Cold War and its fear of Communism and nuclear warfare to the Age of Terror and its different yet related fears of the 'Other'. American fiction since 1945 has faithfully chronicled these anxieties. An essential reference guide, this Companion provides a chronology of the period, as well as guides to further reading

Men of color, women, and uppity art at the turn of the century / Elizabeth Ammons -- Nineteenth-century women poets and realism / Cheryl Walker -- "I can't write a book" / Nancy Walker -- Reading her/stories against his/stories in early Chinese American literature / Amy Ling -- Native American literatures and the canon / Patricia Okker -- Romance and realism / Sanford E. Marovitz -- Problems of representation in turn-of-the-century immigrant fiction / Susan K. Harris -- Three black writers and the anthologized canon / Keneth Kinnamon -- Recanonizing the multiple canons of Henry James / Richard A. Hocks --From painful cult to painful realism / Alfred Habegger -- Is Huckleberry Finn politically correct? / Tom Quirk -- Whatever happened to Bret Harte? / Gary Scharnhorst.

Trading and telling : discovery and the British fur trade --Traveling for history -- Discovery and narrative structure in Samuel Hearne's Journey to the northern ocean -- Alexander Mackenzie's Voyages : discovery and the fur trade entrepreneur -- Alexander Henry's Travels and adventures : narrating captivity -- Early Western travels and the American self -- Lewis and Clark's History : the search for authority --Zebulon Pike and John Charles Frémont : pioneers of popular self-discovery -- Washington Irving : historian of American discovery --Irving's Columbus -- Irving on the prairies -- Irving's discovery of the Far West -- Poe and Thoreau : the romantic discovery narrative --Discovery and violence : Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym --Thoreau's discovery of America : a nineteenth-century first contact.

Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758 -- Criticism and interpretation; Taylor, Edward, 1642-1729 -- Criticism and interpretation; Mather, Increase, 1639-1723 -- Literary art; Mather, Increase -- Literary art; Taylor, Edward, 1642-1729 -- Criticism and interpretation; Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758 -- Criticism and interpretation; American literature -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- History and criticism; Christian literature, American -- Puritan authors -- History and criticism; American literature -- New England -- History and criticism; Puritan movements in literature; Redemption in literature; Puritans in literature; Littérature américaine -- ca 1600-1775 (Période coloniale) -- Histoire et critique; Littérature chrétienne américaine -- Auteurs puritains -- Histoire et critique; Littérature américaine -- Nouvelle-Angleterre -- Histoire et critique; Puritanisme dans la littérature; Rédemption dans la littérature; Puritains dans la littérature; Puritans in literature; Redemption in literature; Puritan movements in literature; Christian literature, American -- History and criticism; American literature -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- History and criticism

The four volume set consists of ninety-seven of the pamphlets originally published as the University of Minnesota pamphlets on American writers.

Includes entries for a wide variety of short stories containing biographical data, summary, character descriptions, themes, historical and cultural context, critical overview, critical excerpt, and an original critical essay.