American Literature Recommendations

[RJbibliophil]

In regards to a basic high school American Literature course, what ten(or so) works should be included?

[JBI]

As I lay Dying
The Great Gatsby
My Antonia
Prufrock and other Observations
Selected Works of Robert Frost
Short Stories by Flannery O'Connor
Huckleberry Finn
Selected Poems of Walt Whitman
Selected Essays of Gore Vidal
Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson

[mayneverhave]

The Sound and the Fury
The Great Gatsby
The Sun Also Rises
Whitman
The Catcher in the Rye
Perhaps the poetry of Ezra Pound and E.E. Cummings
Huckleberry Finn
The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot (though it is debatable as to how American he is)

[stlukesguild]

Tales of Hawthorne (Young Goodman Brown)
Essays of Emerson
Whitman-Selected Poems
Melville- Moby Dick
Dickinson- Selected Poems
Poe- Selected Tales
Twain- Huckleberry Finn
Henry James- Selected Tales (The beast in the Jungle)
Ambrose Bierce- Selected Tales (An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Chickamauga)
T.S. Eliot- The Wasteland, Selected Poems
Faulkner- As I Lay Dying
Flannery O'Connor- Selected Stories
Robert Frost- Selected Poems
Wallace Stevens- Selected Poems

[JBI]

Keep in mind it is highschool.

[mortalterror]

The Cask of Amontillado, The Raven- Poe
The Scarlet Letter- Hawthorne
Bartleby The Scrivener- Melville
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Twain
Essays of Emerson, and Selections from Walden
Poems of Whitman, Dickinson, and Longfellow
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock- T.S. Eliot
The Great Gatsby- Fitzgerald
The Old Man and the Sea- Hemingway
Go Down, Moses- Faulkner
Of Mice and Men- Steinbeck

I'd say that qualifies as required reading, although some of the selections are short teachable works rather than the author's masterpiece. The problem with the list, as I see it, is that it leaves out so many influential minor writers who helped form an epoch but had little lasting effect. For instance, I'm sure that Fitzgerald had The Rise of Silas Lapham on his mind when he wrote Gatsby, and it would be hard to over estimate the influence of Winesburg, Ohio on the developing style of Ernest Hemingway. Ezra Pound may be a minor poet today, but he knew every important person of his time. He bought them drinks, got them jobs, and sold their work. The Wasteland has his fingerprints all over it. You can't teach a curriculum effectively without these minor writers. They give the greater writers form and scope.

[kelby_lake]

Of Mice And Men
The Great Gatsby
The Crucible
A Streetcar Named Desire
Catcher in the Rye
Fahrenheit 451
Lolita
Moby Dick (make 'em sweat!)
Huckleberry Finn
Brave New World

[RJbibliophil]

Moby Dick (make 'em sweat!)


I'll think about sweating. But, I don't have much time, so I might eliminate that part. :p

Looks like there are some good ideas here.

[SirRaustusBear]

Okay, I tried to come up with a list that would represent fairly evenly different time periods and literary movements in American history.

a few short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Walden
Leaves of Grass
The Sea Wolf
The Sun Also Rises
The Sound and the Fury
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Of Mice and Men
On the Road
Beloved

Probably the biggest omission on this list is Mark Twain, but his most taught novel is Huckleberry Finn, which I think is flawed and pretty much inferior to every other book on this list. If you could throw in a couple more I'd do Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a Henry James novel, and some stories by Flannery O'Connor.

[Dori]

I don't know about longer works, but as for shorter works, I can recommend several.

I posted this a while back:


In my American Literature class (for that is what it really is---English class doesn't fit the description, I think), we're reading short works from various authors. A few of the authors we've read recently include Robert Benchley ("Sporting Life in America: Dozing") and Langston Hughes ("Four 'Simple' Tales"), James Thurber ("The Night the Ghost Got In"), O. Henry ("Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet"), and Ellis Parker Butler (Pigs is Pigs). Looks like Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is on deck (EPICAC).

I think all of the abovementioned works are humorous to say the least. I found "Pigs is Pigs" by Ellis Parker Butler to be my favorite and "Four 'Simple' Tales" to be my second. Actually, "Sporting Life in America: Dozing" is probably tied for second. All in all, a week of English class well spent (in my opinion---my classmates might beg to differ :D ).

Those are a few good, comedic short stories.

[mortalterror]

Okay, I tried to come up with a list that would represent fairly evenly different time periods and literary movements in American history.

a few short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Walden
Leaves of Grass
The Sea Wolf
The Sun Also Rises
The Sound and the Fury
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Of Mice and Men
On the Road
Beloved

Probably the biggest omission on this list is Mark Twain, but his most taught novel is Huckleberry Finn, which I think is flawed and pretty much inferior to every other book on this list. If you could throw in a couple more I'd do Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a Henry James novel, and some stories by Flannery O'Connor.

You seriously think that Beloved or Their Eyes Were Watching God are better novels than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? You might make a case for some of the others but I think you'd be hard pressed to do so in their case. As for The Sea Wolf, that's not even London's best novel. It starts off in the Captains Courageous theme, and then falls apart half way through, when it turns into a Robinson Crusoe-esque harlequin romance. It's also got this Heart of Darkness thing going on in places and it doesn't seem to know what it's supposed to be. The Call of the Wild is a much better novel and it almost made my list with London's short story To Build a Fire.

I felt a little bad about leaving Henry James and On The Road off of my list, but that's what college is for.

[SirRaustusBear]

I included The Sea Wolf because I read Call of the Wild when I was in elementary school (it was the first real literary book I ever read) and though I remember liking it I can't judge confidently whether it is good or not. Same goes for White Fang, but London's short stories may be more appropriate than the the Sea Wolf, all I've read is To Build a Fire, though.

And yeah I don't think Huck Finn is a particularly good book. It's main message is the black people are human, and therefore slavery is wrong. This could be taken further to argue that racism is wrong as well, except that Jim and every other black character in the book are portrayed as completely ignorant and superstitious. You could argue that this is realistic and an unfortunate result of the situation is which blacks were placed, but frankly Jim is made to be nonthreatening. He doesn't demand to be equal, he has no real feelings of injustice over slavery, and so the book's demand that blacks be treated with humanity comes out like an argument against beating a dog, in that people are guided by pity for the lesser being, rather any evidence of equality or manhood.

Then Twain, who was already writing a "safe" book about slavery and racism (it was published like twenty years after the civil war), doesn't even have the guts to finish what he started. The book ends with the Deuce ex machina freeing of Jim, which leaves a smile on every readers face, rather than him getting lynched, which maybe would've opened an eye or two. The greatest injustic of slavery portrayed in the book that I can remember is Jim being forces to move to Louisiana, whic hwhile unpleasant, doesn't quite compare to the constant threat of beatings, rape, and murder that slaves underwent in reality. The book was supposed to be more daring than Tom Sawyer but ends up being the same melodramatic feel-good kind of story.

Oh, and just one more detail that really angered me when I read it, Jim gets rich in the end, but the only way he gets money is a gift from a white kid. And he's really happy to accept this charitable offering, because once again, he is an object of pity, not respect.

The only really redeemable aspect of the book was the critiques of southern customs and beliefs, like the incident with the feuding families, but if I was looking simply to include a good satire on the list I would have put something by Sinclair Lewis.

[Inderjit Sanghe]

The Scarlet Letter
Moby Dick
The Great Gatsby
Ragtime
The Catcher in the Rye
The Old Man and the Sea
Selected Poe
Poetry of Emerson and Whitman
New York Trilogy
On the Road

[mortalterror]

I included The Sea Wolf because I read Call of the Wild when I was in elementary school (it was the first real literary book I ever read) and though I remember liking it I can't judge confidently whether it is good or not. Same goes for White Fang, but London's short stories may be more appropriate than the the Sea Wolf, all I've read is To Build a Fire, though.

And yeah I don't think Huck Finn is a particularly good book. It's main message is the black people are human, and therefore slavery is wrong. This could be taken further to argue that racism is wrong as well, except that Jim and every other black character in the book are portrayed as completely ignorant and superstitious. You could argue that this is realistic and an unfortunate result of the situation is which blacks were placed, but frankly Jim is made to be nonthreatening. He doesn't demand to be equal, he has no real feelings of injustice over slavery, and so the book's demand that blacks be treated with humanity comes out like an argument against beating a dog, in that people are guided by pity for the lesser being, rather any evidence of equality or manhood.

Then Twain, who was already writing a "safe" book about slavery and racism (it was published like twenty years after the civil war), doesn't even have the guts to finish what he started. The book ends with the Deuce ex machina freeing of Jim, which leaves a smile on every readers face, rather than him getting lynched, which maybe would've opened an eye or two. The greatest injustic of slavery portrayed in the book that I can remember is Jim being forces to move to Louisiana, whic hwhile unpleasant, doesn't quite compare to the constant threat of beatings, rape, and murder that slaves underwent in reality. The book was supposed to be more daring than Tom Sawyer but ends up being the same melodramatic feel-good kind of story.

Oh, and just one more detail that really angered me when I read it, Jim gets rich in the end, but the only way he gets money is a gift from a white kid. And he's really happy to accept this charitable offering, because once again, he is an object of pity, not respect.

The only really redeemable aspect of the book was the critiques of southern customs and beliefs, like the incident with the feuding families, but if I was looking simply to include a good satire on the list I would have put something by Sinclair Lewis.

You are missing something. Huckleberry Finn is also one of the funniest books ever written. I didn't realize that myself for a long time. The first four times I read it, I was just a child and I read it as an adventure novel. More than a decade went by before I picked it up again, but when I finally did I fell down laughing, holding my sides for air.

The characters are simple because they are meant to be buffoons and caricatures. There's more going on in the book than social commentary. If social commentary were what Twain was after, his protagonists wouldn't be hucksters, rubes, imbeciles, and children. If you think that Jim is too simple and kind hearted, then it ought to blow your mind that I nearly included Uncle Tom's Cabin on my must read list. I didn't only because Stowe is a writer famous for just one book, however important. But that novel does give you a feel for the writing of the time and the manner the subject was dealt with. It was a different time with different values, and we shouldn't try to judge it by today's morality.

[stlukesguild]

You are missing something. Huckleberry Finn is also one of the funniest books ever written. I didn't realize that myself for a long time. The first four times I read it, I was just a child and I read it as an adventure novel. More than a decade went by before I picked it up again, but when I finally did I fell down laughing, holding my sides for air.

The characters are simple because they are meant to be buffoons and caricatures. There's more going on in the book than social commentary. If social commentary were what Twain was after, his protagonists wouldn't be hucksters, rubes, imbeciles, and children. If you think that Jim is too simple and kind hearted, then it ought to blow your mind that I nearly included Uncle Tom's Cabin on my must read list. I didn't only because Stowe is a writer famous for just one book, however important. But that novel does give you a feel for the writing of the time and the manner the subject was dealt with. It was a different time with different values, and we shouldn't try to judge it by today's morality.


I certainly agree. Indeed, I would ask just what the hell the morality has to do with whether the book is good or bad... or "flawed"? Oscar Wilde, who was always right, says it best: "There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book; books are well written or badly written." Because you disagree with a character or hold an opposing political/social/religious point of view has nothing whatsoever to do with whether a given work of art is good or bad. I am fiercely opposed to many of the ideas expressed by Plato... but would never suggest that his work is thus "flawed".

[RJbibliophil]

It is not necessary to argue over the merit of Huckleberry Finn here, as I have already studied that novel and it is therefore irrelavent to this thread. :p

[SirRaustusBear]

Literay criticism is supposed to be based on three questions: What is the author trying to do? Do they succeed, and how well do they succeed? and Does the work demonstrate seriousness?

First, Twain has multiple goals, I hold the most prominent to be a denunciation of racism. Others include commentary on other southern customs and yes, humor.

I think he failed in his commentary on racism because of the melodramatic ending. Now about current morality effecting the reading of old texts, it does have some effect. For instance there are not a whole lot of explicitly racist books from this time period being read today, though I'm sure many were written. And of books that espouse the kind of subtle racism that Huck Finn does, they are not considered great simply because of their stance on race. Chinua Achebe famously said that Heart of Darkness was racist, but it is still read because racism aside, it is truly a great book. I don't think the same can be said for Huck Finn mostly because it takes on racism as its major theme and, in my opinion, fails, and does not have enough merit anywhere else to make up for this failure.

The humor in the book is used mostly to satirize southern society, which while done well, is not the best example of American satire, and if the goal were to teach satire a less flawed novel could be taught in its stead.

And the humor found in simply reading about the characters bumbling from misadventure to misadventure can be entertaining, but I'm looking for more than entertainment when teaching a book in school. And I don't think such pursuits as a writer would be labeled serious, not because humor cannot be used seriously, but for the same reason that the three stooges is less serious than, say, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which was written, as the author said, "For those who like to laugh while they think."

As for the Wilde quote, he may be right, but The Story of Little Black Sambo used to be taught in American elementary schools. It isn't anymore.

And lastly I would say that Plato is flawed. Not because I disagree with him but because many of his arguments stem from false principles and other lapses in logic. That doesn't mean I don't think Plato is a great philosopher and find the Republic to be a materpiece, is just means he didn't convince me that reincarnation exists. No philosophy is flawless, and Plato is very much worthwhile (mild understatement) for the greatness exhibited in the rest of his work.

[stlukesguild]

Twain has multiple goals, I hold the most prominent to be a denunciation of racism.

That is a rather large assumption... and one that would not hold up to what I know of artists. As a visual artist myself I know that individual works of art may have external or non-art intentions whether it be an expression of mourning, outrage, lust, etc... however all of these can be quite clearly expressed without any recourse to art. In other words you suggest that Twain can be reduced to a simple statement of "Racism is bad"... (although you argue he isn't adamant enough in stating this). Then I suppose Dickens can be reduced to "Poverty Sucks" and Shakespeare's sonnets to "When I think of you, I feel blue"? Why then waste the time expanding these expressions into a novel or a series of sonnets (or a painting or symphony, for that matter)? The fact of the matter is that the goal of the artist is to create a memorable work of art. What a work is about... what it expresses is certainly important to the audience... and perhaps equally to the artist, however... it is not a measure of whether a work is good, bad, ugly. How is far more important.

I agree that there are works of literature that express outdated ideas or concepts. Certainly there are many works of art that express ideas that we would find racist, sexist, nationalistic or xenophobic, intolerant in any number of ways. Many of these we don't read any more. In most cases I would argue that this is not because of what they say but rather it is because they were simply not the strongest works of art to begin with. As you point out we still read the "Heart of Darkness". I might add we also still read the Bible, Dante, Milton, and any number of other writers who sometimes convey ideas we disagree with. The fact that Michelangelo sometimes conveys ideas that may be deemed sexist or religiously intolerant in no way lessens his importance as an artist.

You point out Kipling as an example of a "racist" writer whom is no longer read. That is unfortunate, and our loss. It is a symptom of the same thinking that would paint Twain a racist. Kipling challenges a great deal relating to Colonialism, the English notions of superiority, class superiority, etc... His crime, one would guess, is that in tackling these themes he did not go as far as we would have liked. As any human being, he was at least partially limited by the era in which he lived.

Personally, I have little use for the notion of rejecting any work of art that does not reinforce our own notions or values concerning how things "should" be. In its way it is no different than the sort of intolerance that might have been found in the Spanish Inquisition or in current Islamic extremism. Art is about dialog... to stifle the dialog only leads to hypocrisies as these ideas are not eliminated, but only hidden away and allowed to fester. Instead I would say lets have the dialog... let's throw the ideas out there on the table... let's continue to read Twain and Kipling and Conrad and discuss their merits as art as well as the ideas they convey. There is far more to all of these writers than merely an expression of an idea with which we don't agree.

[kelby_lake]

Granted I haven't read Huckleberry Finn- it's not my thing- but it should be left to other people to decide. And it's very famous.

[stlukesguild]

Granted I haven't read Huckleberry Finn- it's not my thing- but it should be left to other people to decide. And it's very famous.

If you haven't read it how do you know it's not your thing? Famous or not I'd rather decide for myself.

[SirRaustusBear]

Okay, if we ignore any of the social issues in the book and simply describe it as such: The story of a boy who feels restricted by society and a slave who together go on a journey in search of freedom, with some satirical elements and complicated moral questions, then sure it isn't a bad book and the characters are able to generate sympathy as well as laughs from readers.

But then the ending still destroys all of that. It turns into a silly melodrama. And I never said Huck Finn was a particularly bad book, or that it shouldn't be read, I just don't think it is one of the ten best American books ever written.

[mortalterror]

And I never said Huck Finn was a particularly bad book, or that it shouldn't be read, I just don't think it is one of the ten best American books ever written.

I don't know. I'd say it probably belongs in the top 3. Here's how I see the American novel.

1.Moby Dick
2.Huckleberry Finn
3.The Great Gatsby
4.The Old Man and the Sea
5.The Sound and the Fury
6.The Grapes of Wrath
7.Lolita
8.On the Road
9.The Catcher in the Rye
10.Catch-22
11.The Scarlet Letter
12.Slaughterhouse-Five

Thirteen would probably be a book by Bellow but I haven't read his best stuff and couldn't decide what that should be. Then you have to consider he was born in Canada, and Nabokov was born in Russia; so maybe we shouldn't count them. I know a list isn't much for supportive evidence, but I just have to say that Hucklberry Finn is one of the few books I always return to and think "Wow! Human beings did this." I think it might pale a bit next to King Lear, or The Inferno, but otherwise it's top notch.

[stlukesguild]

I don't know. I'd say it probably belongs in the top 3. Here's how I see the American novel.

1.Moby Dick
2.Huckleberry Finn
3.The Great Gatsby
4.The Old Man and the Sea
5.The Sound and the Fury
6.The Grapes of Wrath
7.Lolita
8.On the Road
9.The Catcher in the Rye
10.Catch-22
11.The Scarlet Letter
12.Slaughterhouse-Five

I'd probably go along with you on nos. 1 and 2... and wouldn't really question any of these as "essentials" among the American canon with the exception of The Catcher in the Rye, which you can toss to the side in favor of McCarthy's Blood Meridian or even something by Thomas Wolfe (and not Tom Wolfe). I'd probably take As I Lay Dying over The Sound and the Fury and I might also question whether The Old Man and the Sea even qualifies as a novel... a novella more likely... but that's just quibbling. I'd actually suggest that both Hemingway and Hawthorne are far stronger as writers of short stories than novels. But then... perhaps the one glaring omission: Where is Henry James?

[JBI]

I'd actually question more if The Old man and the Sea qualifies as American, seeing as Hemingway was every inch an x-pat.

[mortalterror]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]
I'd probably go along with you on nos. 1 and 2... and wouldn't really question any of these as "essentials" among the American canon with the exception of The Catcher in the Rye, which you can toss to the side in favor of McCarthy's Blood Meridian or even something by Thomas Wolfe (and not Tom Wolfe). I'd probably take As I Lay Dying over The Sound and the Fury and I might also question whether The Old Man and the Sea even qualifies as a novel... a novella more likely... but that's just quibbling. I'd actually suggest that both Hemingway and Hawthorne are far stronger as writers of short stories than novels. But then... perhaps the one glaring omission: Where is Henry James?

You're right, I suppose I did omit James and Wolfe. James didn't make the list for the same reason Bellow wasn't on it. I've only read their shorter works, so when I talk about novels they generally don't come to mind. As for Wolfe, I have a copy of his Look Homeward, Angel which I've never managed to read more than about thirty pages out of. I can't speak to the whole book, but I will say that it has one of the best openings I've ever read. You'd have to look to Lolita, or A Tale of Two Cities to find a better, and I think a strong opening is the hallmark of a good novel. I won't contest you there.

But I am curious to know why you think that The Catcher in the Rye or On the Road, as I believe you've stated elsewhere, are not good novels. I think that Catcher captured adolescent psychology better than any other book, and created a character which was memorable and appealing to a good cross section of Americana. In On the Road Kerouac has a sense of style, a flow of words and energy which you have to go to Hemingway or Proust to find an equal for, even if it is somewhat lacking in his other works.

As far as Blood Meridian goes, I read the book. I just re-read the first eight pages. I cannot see what people are so excited about. It's a good book, but not a great one. When my opinion differs from general critical appraisal, I like to hit the stacks and read different interpretations about a work, and see what I'm missing; but this book is so young it's still at first blush with it's community. It's rolling on a wave of good reviews from what seems to be a somewhat homogeneous class of literary critics, all of one mind and one time. I've differed from Harold Bloom before, and I'll differ again. Yet, I think it will probably be another thirty or forty years before we can call the race for or against this novel. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that McCarthy only looks so good to people right now because he has such a weak crop of competition.

[stlukesguild]

The fact that an artist leaves his homeland at age 18 or 20 has long struck me as irrelevant to whether he can be considered American (or French, or Russian, or whatever). Picasso spent almost his entire adult life in France and yet in no way is he a French artist. The Spanish influences are always there. Indeed, the "School of Paris" attracted artists and writers from around the world: Chagall, Soutine, Modigliani, Joyce, Hemingway... none of whom are French any more than Chopin is French and not Polish. Of course... by the same token I would probably qualify Nabokov as a Russian writer... in spite of his mastery of English.

[aeroport]

I'd actually question more if The Old man and the Sea qualifies as American, seeing as Hemingway was every inch an x-pat.


I'd actually suggest that both Hemingway and Hawthorne are far stronger as writers of short stories than novels. But then... perhaps the one glaring omission: Where is Henry James?

I very much agree with regard to Hawthorne's strength with shorter fiction. HJ is certainly a 'glaring omission', but considering that he, like Hem, was 'every inch an x-pat', it is not surprising that he is sometimes left off of such lists. However, if one includes HJ, it seems to me that one must include Hawthorne as well.

EDIT: Never mind.

[Drkshadow03]

I disagree. While I love Henry James, he hardly stands out in my mind as the must read American writer, especially if you only have ten books to list. In particular the question was geared towards what we be appropriate for high school students. I realize that many high schools force James upon their students, I've not met one yet who has enjoyed his work or really can appreciate his work.

In all fairness, the same might be said about some of the other authors, but somehow I think Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter will make more sense to them than Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady or The Turn of the Screw. The one exception might be Daisy Miller, but as great as it is I still don't see that as a work that is top ten material.

The Scarlet Letter by the way should definitely be in the top ten of any list.

[Kafka's Crow]

Whitman, A Selection of Poems
Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems
Hemingway The Snows of Kilimanjaro or The Old Man and the Sea
Eliot The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock
Pound, Selected Poems
Robert Frost, Loads of shorter poems
Eugene O'Neil Anna Christie or The Hairy Ape
Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire
John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces
Richard Wright The Native Son
Arthur Miller The Crucible or The Death of a Salesman

My omissions should show what I think of the American (or English) novel.

[aeroport]

I disagree. While I love Henry James, he hardly stands out in my mind as the must read American writer, especially if you only have ten books to list. In particular the question was geared towards what we be appropriate for high school students. I realize that many high schools force James upon their students, I've not met one yet who has enjoyed his work or really can appreciate his work.

In all fairness, the same might be said about some of the other authors, but somehow I think Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter will make more sense to them than Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady or The Turn of the Screw. The one exception might be Daisy Miller, but as great as it is I still don't see that as a work that is top ten material.

The Scarlet Letter by the way should definitely be in the top ten of any list.

I don't think it really makes sense to teach James in high school (but maybe that's just because half of my class refused to read even The Scarlet Letter); I've heard the whining of people who were forced through 'D.M.' in high school, and it sounds to me like a lit class wasted. And I agree that, while more accessible for an HS student, 'Daisy' is hardly worth it compared to other works. My comment was directed at posts 23 and 24, in which the question had less to do with high school than with the American novel in general; and, frankly, it seems to me that accessibility to high school students is not equal to 'greatness' by...any standard at all.

[stlukesguild]

The Catcher in the Rye never struck me as a great book. Perhaps I can't stomach the excessive adolescent angst at this point... but I will admit that it has been so long I'd be hard pressed to offer up a solid critical response to it. On the Road may be one of the best of one of the worst directions taken by American literature: the rambling, freewheeling/free-form exploration of the self... drug addled visionaries who are as ridiculous when compared to true visionaries such as Blake and Traherne as Andy Warhol is when compared to Rembrandt. Unfortunately both On the Road and Howl are clearly rooted in the same source: the magnificent Walt Whitman... who can be quite a visionary prophet himself, but who often gets the blame for his bast**d proteges. I can't stomach Kerouac's or Ginsberg's self-indulgences any more than I can most of the poets of the time such as Plath and Sexton, etc...

As for Blood Meridian... I agree that it is a young book and it will take some time for its real worth to be made clear. I will also admit that I first came to the book following the glowing recommendations of Harold Bloom. Like you... in spite of my respect for Bloom and agreement with him on most occasions, I am not one to take any single critic's opinion for gospel. In spite of Bloom's repeated praises for the poet, John Ashberry, I have found it difficult for me to imagine him as being anything more than "brilliant"... in the manner of being quite clever... but not all that profound. Having said that much I will also say that Blood Meridian absolutely stunned me. I cannot say that about almost any contemporary writer. The novel blends the most mundane (in an almost Kafkaesque manner) and matter-of-fact portrayals of extreme violence with an absolutely brilliant villain of an almost mythic-religious tragedy, and descriptive... nay poetic passages that are almost baroque and visionary in their splendor. In these the book reminds me of nothing so much as of similar passages in Moby Dick. The book strikes me as a brilliant expression of the split personality of America... then and now: a nation of almost unfathomable natural beauty and mythical/religious longing... and of the most callous violence. It always reminds me of that great line from the old Johnny Cash song, "I went walkin' with a Bible and a Gun..." If I remember well the book certainly starts out slow... and mundane with the Kid, and it isn't until we really get into the violent acts of the Glanton Gang (and the splendor of the landscape) and the horrific/mythic figure of Judge Holden that it takes on a far more brilliant aspect.

In spite of Pound's influence and support of other poets... and in spite of a few brilliant shorter poems and some absolutely magnificent passages in the Cantos, I would never place him in the first tier of American poetry, let alone literature as a whole. I would have to turn to Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane before him... and maybe even the poems of Melville, Thoreau, Emerson, and Tuckerman before him (although surely not Poe:sick:).

[Kafka's Crow]

From a foreigner's perspective: Modernism in English Language does not exist without Ezra Pound. Poe is the most influential of the American poets (the only one with influence outside his native country) before Eliot and Pound. Now you can go back to agreeing among yourselves.

[mortalterror]

I really like Poe too. I'll qualify that and say I like certain pieces that Poe did. I think that he wrote some really amazing short stories. He invented the detective story. He had more influence on Baudelaire and the French literary scene than he had even on American belles-lettres; so there's no discounting his influence. While I'm not greatly familiar with his poems, I do have a soft spot for The Raven, and The Bells. You also have to consider the effect Annabel Lee (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/annabel-lee/) had on Nabokov's Lolita. Sure, he wrote a lot of garbage, and he could often be grotesque, but like H.P. Lovecraft, sometimes his stuff just comes together in really unique ways exploring subject matter which other serious writers for the most part have left unexamined.

Pound is another writer I am awfully fond of. I'd say that Kafka is right again, and that he was more influential than even T.S. Eliot. In a Station of the Metro, The River Merchant's Wife, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, his first Canto, Make-Strong Old Dreams Lest This Our World Lose Heart, The ABC of Reading, and The Spirit of Romance are all texts which I cherish. Yet, hung in the balance, they do not equal the shear mastery Eliot achieved in The Wasteland, Prufrock, The Hollow Men, Journey of the Magi, Ash-Wednesday, or the Four Quartets.

SLG, what you are saying about Kerouac and Ginsberg interests me because you disagreed with me when I said much the same thing about Keats, Shelley, and Byron: "rambling, free wheeling, self indulgent, expression of the self." Most of your complaints can be leveled to a similar degree at those romantic poets as at the Beats. I'll credit some of what you say, because I think their free form ideas, and emotional excess can be more neurotic than visionary, and often show a lack of focus and discipline. Yet, I do think there is something to be said for the first part of Howl. Also, while I lament that Burroughs and Miller could not write sustained linear narratives, they were groundbreaking and full of powerful imagery. (I include Miller there not because he belonged to the same time period, but rather because he seems to have had similar artistic styles with the beats, and less in common with his contemporaries Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck. Also his stuff stopped being under ban about the time the beats were in vogue.)

[stlukesguild]

I'm not underestimating Poe... except as a poet. With a few exceptions i find his poetry mediocre at best. His short stories are something altogether different... and certainly they did play a huge role in influencing others outside of the US. Whitman's influence eventually far exceeds Poe's... but I don't think it was anywhere near as immediate.

I also agree that Pound's influence was/is quite profound. But I find that it may be far greater than the actual work supports. Currently Marcell Duchamp is imagined as being one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. His actual work, however, pales before figures such as Klee, Beckmann, Bonnard, Rothko, etc... to say nothing of comparisons with such giants as Matisse and Picasso. Pound rarely approaches the sheer mastery of Eliot, Hart Crane, Frost, or Wallace Stevens... to say nothing of Yeats.

As for my comments on the Beats... I was aware that much of what I find lacking in them echoes the criticisms raised against the Romantics. They are undoubtedly the decadent result of the movement put into play by Keats, Shelley, Whitman, and others. Certainly it is a valid statement to suggest that at their worst the Romantics could produce some real poems of idealized mush (although as we noted before, the "classicists" could be equally bad at times, producing lifeless examples of academic perfection). I find that for all their idealization, they were still firmly rooted well enough in an appreciation of rigorous poetic form, structure, and language that they produced more than their share of masterful poems. Perhaps, by way of analogy, I can point out that Bach hardly ever composed a weakly structured piece of music nor did Ingres ever paint a weakly structured painting. On the other hand, the Romantic Beethoven and Schumann composed endless flops and Monet covered acres of canvas with sickly-sweet mush... and yet they all also produced more than their fair share of brilliant artistic expressions. Bach and Raphael have the mindset that allows them to work and rework everything until it is brought to perfection... or cast aside. The Romantics often lack this ability, being hit or miss... yet with quite a bit more "hits" than the Beats will ever be able to sustain.

[aeroport]

Poe is the most influential of the American poets (the only one with influence outside his native country) before Eliot and Pound.
Pity.

[mortalterror]

I wonder why nobody seems to like Longfellow here? Whitman, Eliot, Pound, Dickinson, and even Poe all get their due; but nobody mentions Longfellow.

[Scheherazade]

The Catcher in the Rye never struck me as a great book. Perhaps I can't stomach the excessive adolescent angst at this point... but I will admit that it has been so long I'd be hard pressed to offer up a solid critical response to it. On the Road may be one of the best of one of the worst directions taken by American literature: the rambling, freewheeling/free-form exploration of the self... drug addled visionaries who are as ridiculous when compared to true visionaries such as Blake and Traherne as Andy Warhol is when compared to Rembrandt. Unfortunately both On the Road and Howl are clearly rooted in the same source: the magnificent Walt Whitman... who can be quite a visionary prophet himself, but who often gets the blame for his bast**d proteges. I can't stomach Kerouac's or Ginsberg's self-indulgences any more than I can most of the poets of the time such as Plath and Sexton, etc...
Nicely put but "On the Road may be one of the best of one of the worst directions taken by American literature: ?

[Virgil]

I'm not underestimating Poe... except as a poet. With a few exceptions i find his poetry mediocre at best. His short stories are something altogether different... and certainly they did play a huge role in influencing others outside of the US. Whitman's influence eventually far exceeds Poe's... but I don't think it was anywhere near as immediate.

I completely agree on the poetry of Poe. As to the short stories, to be honest, I'm not overwhlemed. Other than perhaps The Fall of the House of Usher, I don't find all that much complexity there. But, Poe was writing at a time when the art of the short story was relatively immature, and so was breaking new ground. I usually give him the benefit of the doubt there and acknowledge his importance to maturing it as an art.


I also agree that Pound's influence was/is quite profound. But I find that it may be far greater than the actual work supports. Currently Marcell Duchamp is imagined as being one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. His actual work, however, pales before figures such as Klee, Beckmann, Bonnard, Rothko, etc... to say nothing of comparisons with such giants as Matisse and Picasso. Pound rarely approaches the sheer mastery of Eliot, Hart Crane, Frost, or Wallace Stevens... to say nothing of Yeats.
I do not think that Pound was as profound/significant (or whatever term we are grasping for) as Eliot or Stevens or Yeats. But if you look at the best (he wrote al lot) of Pound I think it compares favorably to the best of Crane or Frost. I do think Pound is an important poet. He's really at the heart of the modernist movement.


As for my comments on the Beats... I was aware that much of what I find lacking in them echoes the criticisms raised against the Romantics. They are undoubtedly the decadent result of the movement put into play by Keats, Shelley, Whitman, and others. Certainly it is a valid statement to suggest that at their worst the Romantics could produce some real poems of idealized mush (although as we noted before, the "classicists" could be equally bad at times, producing lifeless examples of academic perfection). I find that for all their idealization, they were still firmly rooted well enough in an appreciation of rigorous poetic form, structure, and language that they produced more than their share of masterful poems. Perhaps, by way of analogy, I can point out that Bach hardly ever composed a weakly structured piece of music nor did Ingres ever paint a weakly structured painting. On the other hand, the Romantic Beethoven and Schumann composed endless flops and Monet covered acres of canvas with sickly-sweet mush... and yet they all also produced more than their fair share of brilliant artistic expressions. Bach and Raphael have the mindset that allows them to work and rework everything until it is brought to perfection... or cast aside. The Romantics often lack this ability, being hit or miss... yet with quite a bit more "hits" than the Beats will ever be able to sustain.
I thnk this expresses my feeling exactly! I could not have said it better. :)

As to the rambling nature of On The Road, yes I agree it's somewhat lacking, but I do think it has a certain quality. The aesthetics of it are quite in synch with its themes. Plus I found it a really fun novel. The problem for me is that the copy cats can't build on it. It's been done, and so there is nothing else to say. And whatever was fun in On The Road, the copy cats seem to take it to a bitter outlook of life, and so destroy whatever was fun in the novel.

[Kafka's Crow]

I wonder why nobody seems to like Longfellow here? Whitman, Eliot, Pound, Dickinson, and even Poe all get their due; but nobody mentions Longfellow.

I grew up on The Song of Hiawatha, its beauty, its pathos and the absolute hilarity of its parodies.

[Mockingbird_z]

the Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
the Sun also rises Hemingway
The catcher in the rye Salinger
To kill a mockingbird Harper Lee
Moby Dick Herman Melville

[JBI]

Poe hardly had that profound an affect on poetry. He is essentially (to my eye) a clumsy mix of Byronic metrics with Shellean devices. It is unfair to create this list of people based on their influence. Emily Dickinson wasn't nearly as influential (and still remains today one of the most idiosyncratic poets) in American history, yet she is clearly one of the best, if not the best (to me her only rivals are Whitman and Stevens, and perhaps Frost). Poe hardly qualifies as one of America's top 10 poets, let alone top 50.

To quote Nabokov's use of a Anabel Lee, perhaps he didn't do it out of homage, but in mockery. It would be very like Nabokov to use it in such a regard.

The Beats I agree are quite the period piece. They lacked the vision and artistry of those who they imitated, and seem to me to be completely time-driven, and not interested in anything but what was going on around them, whereas someone like Whitman clearly saw a much bigger picture.

As for Ezra Pound, I see him as more glue than poet. He did a good job at arranging things for American x-pats, and for getting things published, but his best work, as it seems to me, appears to be his translations, which can hardly be credited as his own. He, to me at least, tried to cloak his insecurity about his work by using huge multi-lingual allusions. What fun or enjoyment is there in reading a poet who throws long allusions in Greek letters, and obscure Latin sources.

His Cantos, which are probably his most enduring work, are hardly as important as Eliot's Wasteland, Frost's poems, Crane's Bridge, and any part of Leaves of Grass. To suggest that pound make a top 10 list is to me absurd. Especially when the list isn't just limited to poets.

[Virgil]

As for Ezra Pound, I see him as more glue than poet. He did a good job at arranging things for American x-pats, and for getting things published, but his best work, as it seems to me, appears to be his translations, which can hardly be credited as his own. He, to me at least, tried to cloak his insecurity about his work by using huge multi-lingual allusions. What fun or enjoyment is there in reading a poet who throws long allusions in Greek letters, and obscure Latin sources.

His Cantos, which are probably his most enduring work, are hardly as important as Eliot's Wasteland, Frost's poems, Crane's Bridge, and any part of Leaves of Grass. To suggest that pound make a top 10 list is to me absurd. Especially when the list isn't just limited to poets.

I didn't say he would make the top ten. But I think Hugh Selwin Morberly (spelling????, I'm completely guessing) and Canto 17 are incredibly original and top notch. The Pisan Cantos are also top notch. His best poetry was not the translations. There is some really good work there.

[PeterL]

Poe hardly had that profound an affect on poetry. He is essentially (to my eye) a clumsy mix of Byronic metrics with Shellean devices. It is unfair to create this list of people based on their influence. Emily Dickinson wasn't nearly as influential (and still remains today one of the most idiosyncratic poets) in American history, yet she is clearly one of the best, if not the best (to me her only rivals are Whitman and Stevens, and perhaps Frost). Poe hardly qualifies as one of America's top 10 poets, let alone top 50.

To quote Nabokov's use of a Anabel Lee, perhaps he didn't do it out of homage, but in mockery. It would be very like Nabokov to use it in such a regard.


Nearly all of Poe's verse was humorous or satirical, and that was why Nabokov used "Annabel Lee" in {i]Lolita[/i]. As a writer of humorous verse, he was at the top, except for whoever wrote "The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck, Eating peanuts by the peck".

[JBI]

Poe was hardly top notch at poetry. Like I said, his verse is loaded with cliché and predictable lines. He is the people-who-don't-normally-read-poetry's poet in every regard. His stories perhaps have some enduring quality, but the best of his verse is hardly as strong as other American poets.

Virgil, On the topic of the Cantos, trying to relate back to the topic of this thread, Pound would perhaps be the worst choice for American poet. Not only is his status questionable, but even if we accept them as masterworks, there is still the problem of a highschool class unscrambling his language, which, I would point out, still confuses many accomplished English scholars. He is hardly the most accessible poet.

On another note. Though there are great passages in the Cantos, there are also some extremely inappropriate and disgusting ones. They are clearly not something you want anyone reading out of context.

[Virgil]

Poe was hardly top notch at poetry. Like I said, his verse is loaded with cliché and predictable lines. He is the people-who-don't-normally-read-poetry's poet in every regard. His stories perhaps have some enduring quality, but the best of his verse is hardly as strong as other American poets.

Virgil, On the topic of the Cantos, trying to relate back to the topic of this thread, Pound would perhaps be the worst choice for American poet. Not only is his status questionable, but even if we accept them as masterworks, there is still the problem of a highschool class unscrambling his language, which, I would point out, still confuses many accomplished English scholars. He is hardly the most accessible poet.

On another note. Though there are great passages in the Cantos, there are also some extremely inappropriate and disgusting ones. They are clearly not something you want anyone reading out of context.

Oh you're absolutely right. I lost track of the original topic. :lol:

[Kafka's Crow]

Nearly all of Poe's verse was humorous or satirical, and that was why Nabokov used "Annabel Lee" in {i]Lolita[/i]. As a writer of humorous verse, he was at the top, except for whoever wrote "The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck, Eating peanuts by the peck".

The boy stood on the burning deck
Eating peanuts by the peck.
His father called,
He could not go
Because he loved those peanuts so.

or do you mean the rude version?

I wonder what they find so wrong with Poe? In case of Pound it is understandable that his political views can lead some to try and assassinate his reputation but what is wrong with Poe? The fact remains, beyond American shores, these two poets are considered to be the greatest. As I said in another post, Modernism is the Pound Era. Thankfully his reputation is very much intact in spite of everything. Yes a school course in American Literature should have some shorter poems by Pound by all means. How can you teach Modernism without discussing Pound?

[PeterL]

The boy stood on the burning deck
Eating peanuts by the peck.
His father called,
He could not go
Because he loved those peanuts so.

or do you mean the rude version?

That's the one I was looking for. I found several sites that had pieces of it, but I didn't find the full text. I also learned that it was a parody of "Casablanca", which was a serious poem.


I wonder what they find so wrong with Poe? In case of Pound it is understandable that his political views can lead some to try and assassinate his reputation but what is wrong with Poe? The fact remains, beyond American shores, these two poets are considered to be the greatest. As I said in another post, Modernism is the Pound Era. Thankfully his reputation is very much intact in spite of everything. Yes a school course in American Literature should have some shorter poems by Pound by all means. How can you teach Modernism without discussing Pound?

Yes, I can easily understand people hating Pound. One could teach Modernism in prose only to avoid Pound. At least Pound was better than Whitman, and many people try to push Whitman as the basis of all American poetry.

My guess is that they take Poe's poetry as something serious, and that is also true of most people in the U.S. Some of it was serious, but some of his best known poetry is humorous, "The Raven" and Annabel Lee" are just two examples of his humorous verse. I don't know his poetry well, but "The Bells" is very good by most ways that poetry can be rated. Maybe they don't like poetry that has rhyme and meter. I think that I'll download Poe's complete works and become a little more familiar with his lesser known writings.

[PeterL]

Your assertion that Poe is humorous verse I disagree with. I just think it is humorous now, but simply because of its mediocrity. I think with the Raven Poe tried to create a Shellean work, mixed with an unconventional metre. He was very much emulating his English and American contemporaries, and wasn't trying to be humorous, as you argue, but Gothic in mode.


If you fail to see the humor in some of Poe's verse, then you are like many people who don't see the absurdity of the last lines of "Annabel Lee". If he didn't expect people to laugh at that, then he had a lower opinion of humanity, than even I do.

[JBI]

You mean the metaphor at the end for his emotional death. I don't think it is meant to be humorous, but metaphorical.

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.


Where is the comedy in that, unless you are proposing necrophilia, which I cannot agree with. To me the ending reads as if saying she is eternalized in his longing, brought about by the rush of the sea, a metaphor for the human subconscious. Where is the humor, please tell me.

[Drkshadow03]

Oh, I don't know I kind of like Poe's poetry. "Alone" is an extremely powerful poem that really speaks to me. "A Dream Within a Dream" is great too.

Instead of debating who belongs on a top ten, maybe it would be more fruitful to write up a list of essential American Lit by period?

[stlukesguild]

The fact remains, beyond American shores, these two poets are considered to be the greatest.

But is this truly a "fact"? Yes, Poe certainly had an influence upon the French... especially, one might suggest, Gautier, Baudelaire, Mallarme, perhaps even Verlaine. But what of Whitman? He is certainly a huge presence in Spanish and Latin-American literature: Garcia-Lorca, Pessoa, Neruda, Octavio Paz. In Italy both Pavese and Saba claim Whitman as a major influence. At the same time he stands as a central figure to T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound (In spite of their denials), Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, and even Ginsberg.

I can easily understand people hating Pound. One could teach Modernism in prose only to avoid Pound. At least Pound was better than Whitman, and many people try to push Whitman as the basis of all American poetry.

My guess is that they take Poe's poetry as something serious, and that is also true of most people in the U.S. Some of it was serious, but some of his best known poetry is humorous, "The Raven" and Annabel Lee" are just two examples of his humorous verse.

As I noted earlier I don't hate either Poe or Pound, Politics means nothing to me in evaluating an artist's merit. Pound has some marvelous poems and some truly inspired passages in the Cantos. I agree that his translations are among his greatest work. neither do I question his importance as an influence upon Eliot, Yeats, and others. I do question just how influential he continues to be... the idea that he is seen as the central American poet outside of the US... and the suggestion that his work stands on par with Eliot, Stevens or others at their finest. The notion that his work surpasses that of Whitman is not even worth consideration... rather like suggesting that Andre Breton (for all of his impact upon literature and art) is a superior poet to Baudelaire.

Poe as a humorist? Yes, there certainly was this side to his work. Personally I find his stories to be his greatest contribution. He creates a marvelous sensual/sensory atmosphere that is far more important than the narrative or characterization. He makes it clear in his essay upon composition that he sees this "atmosphere" or "mood" as so central that he avoids longer literary forms in which the atmosphere would be lost when the book is put down and the reader attends to the realities of everyday life. This concept has a major impact upon such writers as Gautier, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarme... even Pater and Huysmans. His poetry, however, does indeed strike me as poetry as imagined by those who don't read poetry very often. I reject the notion that we are all missing the point and that it was intentionally humorous (and not accidentally... and embarrassingly so). Even if that were so do we then assume that something is good if the artist knew it was bad... because it's secretly ironic? However, Poe himself would seem to counter the notion that his poetry... and especially The Raven, were intended to be humorous. Again, in his essay upon composition Poe declares his intention as clearly being an expression of a mood of melancholy and tragedy as the highest forms of "beauty" (no doubt inspired by Burke) and as such he selected the particular theme of the dead lover, the image of the raven, and the refrain.

[bounty]

hmm, flew through the posts and was disappointed to not see anything by james fenimore cooper. almost anything from the leatherstocking series would be great. the last one i read in the series was the pathfinder and i loved it.

i think i might be the only one to mention this too---for sure some quality selections from zane grey.

one way i can interpret the original question is not just works by american authors but also, works about america.

[rgdmalaysia]

I just finished "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates.

I've been hearing about this book for years, that it is THE great lost masterpiece.,,

It is a well-plotted, thorough and excellent piece of writing....Yates has an eye for detail and he seems to have spent a lot of time thinking about his characters down to what type of shoes they would wear that would match their personalities.

I also liked the message....Be content with what you have....Not everyone is meant to be a Bohemian and be famous....The world needs office workers too....At least, that is how I interpreted it.

I found the ending slightly rushed but that's a small criticism....A book worth seeking out.

[RJbibliophil]

What a lively discussion. :lol: Dare I even suggest you three comment on this thread? (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=557839#post557839)

I do have some good ideas, though.