american lit

[Emil Miller]

As regards your last statement there, the majority of people who would be reading any of the 20th Century American novels with any seriousness (I mean this in a literary way, if catch my drift), would undoubtedly read poetry as well and not just stick to the genre of novels.

Indeed, when I first began reading novels when I was younger (slightly younger - I'm not too old even now), I quickly realized that if I was to understand anything about literature during any time period, I would have to read a ton of poetry. At first this seemed a chore, but my mind has obviously changed since then.

Well, I don't disagree that a reading of poetry might help some people to appreciate reading novels in a literary way but I wouldn't say it was essential.
It would depend on the person. If they were studying for a degree in literature it most cerftainly would help, but outside of the academic sphere, which is where the majority of readers reside, I think an intelligent reader would be able to appreciate the finer points of writing were they to spend a number of years being selective and systematic in what they read.

[JBI]

There are a good many more than ten contributors to the Poems, Poets and Poetry Forum and the very latest is a thread on Wallace Stevens.
You might care to check it out.

Yes, and you would note besides the few posts by other people, that thread is essentially a one-man show of Quasimodo.

The threads themselves get less posts in general than threads here, and by fewer members. The board itself has only a few names that seem to pop up commonly. Trust me, I post there, I've seen it. There have even been threads about the subject of lack of activity on the board.

This isn't to poke and Dr. Hill, who, though zealous, is still quite young (I too, am quite young for that matter) and perhaps hasn't had the exposure some of us have had, but in truth comments like that can only be made after a long lapse into the study of a tradition are undertaken. It is difficult, because it requires immense amounts of reading, in all literary forms, non-fiction included, but in order to really make those comments, you need to be a super-critic. The whole twentieth century isn't even one area of study, it's really two, and that is just American.

I think though, that the range of American twentieth century literature, in terms of prose and poetry is immense. Such a statement, equating literature to a thematic construct is dangerous. It works in principle - the bettering yourself theme is a popular one, but in terms of range, there is a big difference between Hemingway, or Faulkner, or Willa Cather, or F. Scott Fitzgerald, and from William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, or Robert Frost, and that is just the first half, and only a few names.

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE=JBI;642898]Yes, and you would note besides the few posts by other people, that thread is essentially a one-man show of Quasimodo.

The threads themselves get less posts in general than threads here, and by fewer members. The board itself has only a few names that seem to pop up commonly. Trust me, I post there, I've seen it. There have even been threads about the subject of lack of activity on the board.

This isn't to poke and Dr. Hill, who, though zealous, is still quite young (I too, am quite young for that matter) and perhaps hasn't had the exposure some of us have had, but in truth comments like that can only be made after a long lapse into the study of a tradition are undertaken. It is difficult, because it requires immense amounts of reading, in all literary forms, non-fiction included, but in order to really make those comments, you need to be a super-critic. The whole twentieth century isn't even one area of study, it's really two, and that is just American.

Alright, I'm sorry if you feel that poetry isn't sufficiently represented in the forum but I don't see how the situation can be improved.
I have to agree with you that now Dr.Hill has revealed his age in a subsequent post, he is obviously too young to have had the years of reading experience required to seriously comment on literature; American or otherwise.
In the case of Gatsby, however, 17 ought not be a bar to its appreciation, I also was that age when I first read it and was totally bowled over; and have been ever since.
However, one thing in his favour is his realisation that a story such as Twighlight isn't worth botherering with when there is so much writing that is.
Obviously I haven't read it, I don't have to, because the moment I see the word 'vampire' I know it is just another of the countless, and usually childish, rip-offs from Dracula. and underlines what I have said previously about the hype that has dogged publishing in the post-war period.

[PabloQ]

Maybe we can take this thread a different direction and I can spin a new one if we need it, but what make American Literature American? Regardless of discipline (novel, poem, short story, essay or drama), what make a work American? Is it simply that the author is born in or resides in the US? Latin American and Canadian writers are already spun off into seperate classifications.
Are we talking about the contributions to all literature written by Amercans or is there a subset (one or more) of all literature that is uniquely American in its voice, its style, or in some other way? It's an interesting question and becomes even more so when we start talking about expats like Eliot and others.
What do you think? Discuss it here or spin a new one?

[kelby_lake]

there's some validity to the notion that affluence is anathema to great literature, the premise being that great literature is synonymous to great subject matter, and that comfortable middle to upper middle class lives are hardly the stuff to inspire awe and wonder.

It is the destruction of those high/middle echelons that is so fascinating. When you're sitting on a street, it's not that far to fall to the ground, but what if you're standing on a high tower which you're desperately trying to rebuild as it slowly crumbles?

Middle classes rely so much on keeping a respectable place in society. They don't want to become yobs and 'scum'. So they try and hide their problems, meaning that they boil up and then explode.

[Emil Miller]

Maybe we can take this thread a different direction and I can spin a new one if we need it, but what make American Literature American? Regardless of discipline (novel, poem, short story, essay or drama), what make a work American? Is it simply that the author is born in or resides in the US? Latin American and Canadian writers are already spun off into seperate classifications.
Are we talking about the contributions to all literature written by Amercans or is there a subset (one or more) of all literature that is uniquely American in its voice, its style, or in some other way? It's an interesting question and becomes even more so when we start talking about expats like Eliot and others.
What do you think? Discuss it here or spin a new one?

This isn't easy to answer because of the reasons you have already given but ultimately I suppose it would come down to nationality. Lets take T.S.Eliot, who lived for so long in in England and is buried in the small English village of East Coker from where his ancestors originated, as an example.
Despite his having taken British nationality, I dont think anyone would describe Eliot as anything other than an American poet; so perhaps birthplace also plays a part in this.
Another example would be Henry James who lived mostly in Europe and also took British nationality shortly before he died. He is still classed as an American writer and nobody, as far as I know, disputes it.
But what does one do about Joseph Conrad? He was born in Europe of polish parents but is accaimed as British writer. So how far does the American analogy hold up?
There a number of examples of cosmopolitan writers from the US; Hemingway, Fitzgerald etc. who, unlike James, are distinctley American in their writing even when writing about the foreign countries they lived in.
By that I mean that James writes like an Englishman, whereas the others view the Old World from a New World standpoint.
Take Somerset Maugham: he was born in France, but due to the technicality of having been born in the British Embassy in Paris, the birth was deemed to have taken place on Briitish soil, and although he subsequently spent most of his life in France, he is a British writer.
So viewed from an international level,nationality alone doesn't seem to confer a distinctive American voice on those writers born in the US so, perhaps, birthplace is the most convenient yardstick to use.

[PabloQ]

This isn't easy to answer because of the reasons you have already given but ultimately I suppose it would come down to nationality. Lets take T.S.Eliot, who lived for so long in in England and is buried in the small English village of East Coker from where his ancestors originated, as an example.
Despite his having taken British nationality, I dont think anyone would describe Eliot as anything other than an American poet; so perhaps birthplace also plays a part in this.
Another example would be Henry James who lived mostly in Europe and also took British nationality shortly before he died. He is still classed as an American writer and nobody, as far as I know, disputes it.

I don't know enough about Eliot to comment too far on him. I just hold him responsible for that damn "Cats" musical.
It's interesting that you start with James. I've read several of his later novels and I don't find anything particularly American about them. I really felt that I was reading a European novel (Portrait, Wings of the Dove, and the Ambassadors). For the most part. James ignores the US altogether and distances the plot and its characters from it even though the characters may have come from there. So I put James in the classification of an American writer (by birth) who contributed to literature as a whole, but not with works that were uniquely American in nature.
Mark Twain, on the other hand, is a truly American author. His voice, his subject matter, his dialectic writing is uniquely American. Huckleberry Finn doesn't work on the Danube or the Seine or the Thames. Other 19th century novelists that qualify are Hawthorne, Melville, and (God help us all) Fennimore Cooper. Moving into the 20th century, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, Crane, Steinbeck, and Faulkner clearly write on American themes.
For poets, I'd start with Longfellow and Whitman.
So I think there is a subset of all literature that is uniquely American written by Americans. But the point holds as well the other way as with James. I don't know that Hemingway wrote anything particularly American, but he made a significant contribution to literature as a whole. I hope others chime in on the topic.

[mayneverhave]

Hemingway's protagonists are American, and act American, even though they are all set in European countries - just like their creator. Out of his major 3 novels (The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls), all of them feature American protagonists in Europe (mostly for military reasons). Despite this dislocation though, Hemingway's style and proganonists are all very American, while his subject matter (which in The Sun Also Rises deals with supressed emotions, seasonal cycles, and, in theory, the myth of the Fisher King) is more universal than American.

As regards Fitzgerald: I don't know how you could consider the author of the Great Gatsby anything but American.

Eliot, himself, attributed his unique style to his being both American and English - and it is hard to place his work in either tradition.

As for Faulkner - of whom I like best - aside from his focus on the American South and traditional southern values, there is nothing in his style that is specifically American. In his novels we see characters in the tradition of all literary cultures and not just American.

[Virgil]

Hemingway's protagonists are American, and act American, even though they are all set in European countries - just like their creator. Out of his major 3 novels (The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls), all of them feature American protagonists in Europe (mostly for military reasons). Despite this dislocation though, Hemingway's style and proganonists are all very American, while his subject matter (which in The Sun Also Rises deals with supressed emotions, seasonal cycles, and, in theory, the myth of the Fisher King) is more universal than American.

As regards Fitzgerald: I don't know how you could consider the author of the Great Gatsby anything but American.

Eliot, himself, attributed his unique style to his being both American and English - and it is hard to place his work in either tradition.

I pretty much agree with all of the above. I do think the Hemngway themes are more than as you state. The self realization of the central characters strike me as American.

As for Faulkner - of whom I like best - aside from his focus on the American South and traditional southern values, there is nothing in his style that is specifically American. In his novels we see characters in the tradition of all literary cultures and not just American.

Here I strongly disagree. There is a historical context in Faulkner that situates most of his novels in a time and place that is wholey American. The themes of race and the aftermath of the civil war and the characters are completely southern. You can't possibly think they are French or English or Chinese or even from New York. This is more than just a focus. It is inherent.

[mayneverhave]

I pretty much agree with all of the above. I do think the Hemngway themes are more than as you state. The self realization of the central characters strike me as American.

No, of course Hemingway's themes are more complex than how I generalized them. What I meant by saying that thematically Hemingway is not distinctly American is that - at least how I read A Farewell to Arms, and especially The Sun Also Rises - you can interperet his novels as dealing with themes are thatcan be found in The Waste Land. This meaning: the impotence of the major figure, the drying up and death of a previously fertile land, the end of the cycle of seasons and rebirth, etc. This is thematic resemblance to the Waste Land is most apparent in The Sun Also Rises, and by resembling the Waste Land in theme, The Sun Also Rises then resembles the hundreds of other works that deal with the theme of death and rebirth (including Yeats, Vico, Joyce, Stravinsky, etc.) that is not necessarily American, but Universal.

But yes. His characters, in the most obvious ways, are undoubtedly American.

Here I strongly disagree. There is a historical context in Faulkner that situates most of his novels in a time and place that is wholey American. The themes of race and the aftermath of the civil war and the characters are completely southern. You can't possibly think they are French or English or Chinese or even from New York. This is more than just a focus. It is inherent.

What I meant here was intended to be complimentary to Faulkner - the idea that he is not bounded thematically by location. You are correct, Faulkner is a southern writer, his main novels are all set in the south, as are his characters, histories, etc. But as is always the case in great literature, setting is transcended by theme, and therefore Quentin Compson, while a southerner, can be read as continuing the line of tortured, intellectual, introspective protagonists like Hamlet, Ivan Karamazov, etc.

Here is a quote concerning Faulkner by Ralph Ellison:

"For all his concern with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man. Thus we must turn to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for the greatness of our classics."

I am not sure whether the "our" here refers to American, or world-wide. If this quote sounds familiar it is because it adornes the back cover of every Faulkner novel printed by Vintage.

[JBI]

That Ellison quote is so dated. There is no "nature of man" according to the currents of scholarship, but merely currents of A Man, or some Men. I don't deny Faulkner's genius, but his brilliance isn't in creating moral purposes, but more of destroying and building dark myths and superstitions. If anything he sought to dissect the south, and the results are often haunting, yet he did it very well, so unmistakably brilliant.

[mayneverhave]

That Ellison quote is so dated. There is no "nature of man" according to the currents of scholarship, but merely currents of A Man, or some Men. I don't deny Faulkner's genius, but his brilliance isn't in creating moral purposes, but more of destroying and building dark myths and superstitions. If anything he sought to dissect the south, and the results are often haunting, yet he did it very well, so unmistakably brilliant.

I had a feeling someone would call me on that. I was more interested in the first part of the quote illuminating the idea of Faulkner not being bounded by location. I would agree with you however, in not considering him a moralist.

[americanlit]

thanks for all the replies. i read the bell jar and enjoyed Plath's dry, ironic style, possibly an influence on Joan Didion?

[promtbr]

The following is SO germane to this thread:

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/catalog/show_comment/240

(I do assume you have heard of him...)

[Virgil]

What I meant here was intended to be complimentary to Faulkner - the idea that he is not bounded thematically by location. You are correct, Faulkner is a southern writer, his main novels are all set in the south, as are his characters, histories, etc. But as is always the case in great literature, setting is transcended by theme, and therefore Quentin Compson, while a southerner, can be read as continuing the line of tortured, intellectual, introspective protagonists like Hamlet, Ivan Karamazov, etc.

Here is a quote concerning Faulkner by Ralph Ellison:

"For all his concern with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man. Thus we must turn to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for the greatness of our classics."

I am not sure whether the "our" here refers to American, or world-wide. If this quote sounds familiar it is because it adornes the back cover of every Faulkner novel printed by Vintage.

Oh I agree that Faulkner is universal, but you can say every author is universal. You listed Hemingway as American, but he was universal too. No one was probably more American than Mark Twain, but I think he's universal.