how does American literature compare to English literature?

[Jackson Richardson]

It was the coffee brought to me at breakfast. Dishwater, as I remember. Starbucks are OK here, but I prefer Cafe Nero. As I hint, it is my Italophilia.

[biblophile]

that is a difficult question. England has Dickens, Gissing, Dr. Johnson, but we have Melville. Twain, Poe, and Hawthorn.

[ennison]

Much better. Wider.

[ennison]

Damn. This is an old thread to which I have already replied with excessive vituperation. Anyway I've made my feelings
and faint ideas known so will say no more. PB you are a model of diplomacy

[JBI]

In simplistic terms, the American Pastoral landscape is Martha's Vineyard (especially now that the plantation is out of the question as an innocent space), the British Pastoral Landscape is Avallon. Lets say half of literature, especially earlier literature, tries to draw the reader back to these pastoral worlds.

The power of the best American poets then, with a truly American voice - Williams, Frost, Longfellow - or even in the prose of James, Thoreau, Emerson and Faulkner, all seem to be driving us back to this rural world of innocence in New England.

The British seem to have the idea of Jolly old England behind almost all their work prior to the end of the 19th century. It is this Arthurian space that gives destinction and formation to the English tradition - from Chaucer's tales, to Shakespeare's histories, to Spenser's Farie Queene and even through Milton and Wordsworth, and Hardy and so on.

[mande2013]

In simplistic terms, the American Pastoral landscape is Martha's Vineyard (especially now that the plantation is out of the question as an innocent space), the British Pastoral Landscape is Avallon. Lets say half of literature, especially earlier literature, tries to draw the reader back to these pastoral worlds.

The power of the best American poets then, with a truly American voice - Williams, Frost, Longfellow - or even in the prose of James, Thoreau, Emerson and Faulkner, all seem to be driving us back to this rural world of innocence in New England.

The British seem to have the idea of Jolly old England behind almost all their work prior to the end of the 19th century. It is this Arthurian space that gives destinction and formation to the English tradition - from Chaucer's tales, to Shakespeare's histories, to Spenser's Farie Queene and even through Milton and Wordsworth, and Hardy and so on.

You mean Avallon in France? As for the American Pastoral Landscape, perhaps any place that counts as rural or small town coastal New England would qualify. Even so, I would say the aforementoned notion of American Pastoral only applies to Americans who hail from east of the Mississippi River. I'm sure people in Arizona or Washington State have their own respective notions about what a Pastoral landscape would consist of. I suppose French Pastoral would be standing at the top of Montmartre overlooking Paris pretending nothing built after 1900 is in your view.

[ajvenigalla]

In simplistic terms, the American Pastoral landscape is Martha's Vineyard (especially now that the plantation is out of the question as an innocent space), the British Pastoral Landscape is Avallon. Lets say half of literature, especially earlier literature, tries to draw the reader back to these pastoral worlds.

The power of the best American poets then, with a truly American voice - Williams, Frost, Longfellow - or even in the prose of James, Thoreau, Emerson and Faulkner, all seem to be driving us back to this rural world of innocence in New England.

The British seem to have the idea of Jolly old England behind almost all their work prior to the end of the 19th century. It is this Arthurian space that gives destinction and formation to the English tradition - from Chaucer's tales, to Shakespeare's histories, to Spenser's Farie Queene and even through Milton and Wordsworth, and Hardy and so on.

I wonder how Melville and his work fits into this scheme.