A history of American literature; Second Edition

171mm 32.2mm 171mm

246mm

RICHARD

GRAY

“Richard Gray’s real achievement is somehow to have compressed more than 400 years of

thrillingly rich literary history between two covers.”

Literary Review

“Highly readable, jargon-free, and engaging.”

American Literary Scholarship

“How Gray managed to so captivatingly capture the depth and breadth of so complex a

literature in under a thousand pages is worth considering. […] Richard Gray possesses the

most balanced scholarship of the entire range of American literature I ever read. […] This is

the first history of American literature fully worthy of the multi-dimensionality of its subject.”

Norman Weinstein, Boise State University

First published in 2004, A History of American Literature is one of the most popular and

critically acclaimed surveys of American literature from pre-Columbian times to the present

available today. This widely anticipated second edition features a wealth of fresh updates

and new material, including a detailed survey of the fiction, drama, and poetry written in

response to 9/11 and the “war on terror.” Other additions include coverage of the cultural

consequences of the new era in American politics ushered in by the election of President

Obama, and the development of new literary and cultural movements such as the New

Formalists.

Written in an informed and approachable style by Richard Gray, one of the leading

authorities in the field, this survey helps the reader develop a deeper understanding of

and insight into the immense breadth of American literary traditions within the context of

American social and cultural history. While focusing on the full range of fiction, poetry,

drama, and non-fiction that has been incorporated into the mainstream literary canon, Gray

also considers popular American literary traditions such as oral literature, folktales, spirituals,

Westerns, detective stories, thrillers, and science fiction.

Compelling and authoritative, A History of American Literature, Second Edition, continues its

tradition of representing an unparalleled introduction to the full breadth and diversity of the

American literary tradition.

Richard Gray is Professor of Literature at the University of Essex and former Distinguished

Visiting Professor at a number of universities in the United States. He is the first specialist in

American literature to be elected a Fellow of the British Academy and has published over

a dozen books on the topic, including the award-winning Writing the South: Ideas of an

American Region (1986) and The Life of William Faulkner: A Critical Biography (1994).

His History of American Literature (Blackwell, 2004) is widely considered to be one of the

standard works on the subject.

Cover image: Plowed by Rob Browning, acrylic, 28” x 30”

www.robbrowningart.com

Cover design by www.cyandesign.co.uk

literature

A HISTORY OF

literature A HISTORY OF GRAY Second Edition

Praise for the First Edition:

Second Edition

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A HISTORY OF

amerıcanliterature

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A HISTORY OF

amerıcanliterature

Second Edition

RICHARD GRAY

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

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This edition fi rst published 2012

© 2012 Richard Gray

Edition history: Blackwell Publishers Ltd (1e, 2004)

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s

publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientifi c, Technical, and

Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

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how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our

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The right of Richard Gray to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted in

accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or

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sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services.

If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent

professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gray, Richard J.

A history of American literature / Richard Gray. – 2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-9229-3 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4051-9228-6 (paper)

1. American literature–History and criticism. I. Title.

PS88.G73 2011

810.9–dc23

2011026044

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDF: 9781444345674;

ePub: 9781444345681; Wiley Online Library: 9781444345704; Mobi: 9781444345698

Set in 10.5/13pt Minion by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India

1 2012

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To

Sheona

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Contents vii

Contents

Acknowledgments xi

1 The First Americans: American Literature Before

and During the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1

Imagining Eden 1

Native American Oral Traditions 4

Spanish and French Encounters with America 14

Anglo-American Encounters 21

Writing of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 27

Puritan narratives 28

Challenges to the Puritan oligarchy 32

Some colonial poetry 36

Enemies within and without 44

Trends toward the secular and resistance 48

Toward the Revolution 60

Alternative voices of Revolution 69

Writing Revolution: Poetry, drama, fiction 75

2 Inventing Americas: The Making of American

Literature, 1800–1865 88

Making a Nation 88

The Making of American Myths 92

Myths of an emerging nation 92

The making of Western myth 95

The making of Southern myth 105

Legends of the Old Southwest 109

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viii Contents

The Making of American Selves 114

The Transcendentalists 114

Voices of African-American identity 126

The Making of Many Americas 133

Native American writing 134

Oral culture of the Hispanic Southwest 139

African-American polemic and poetry 141

Abolitionist and pro-slavery writing 145

Abolitionism and feminism 154

African-American writing 161

The Making of an American Fiction and Poetry 171

The emergence of American narratives 171

Women writers and storytellers 190

Spirituals and folk songs 196

American poetic voices 199

3 Reconstructing the Past, Reimagining the Future:

The Development of American Literature, 1865–1900 219

Rebuilding a Nation 219

The Development of Literary Regionalism 224

From Adam to outsider 224

Regionalism in the West and Midwest 231

African-American and Native American voices 233

Regionalism in New England 235

Regionalism in the South 239

The Development of Literary Realism and Naturalism 255

Capturing the commonplace 255

Capturing the real thing 259

Toward Naturalism 269

The Development of Women’s Writing 281

Writing by African-American women 281

Writing and the condition of women 284

The Development of Many Americas 290

Things fall apart 290

Voices of resistance 293

Voices of reform 295

The immigrant encounter 299

4 Making It New: The Emergence of Modern

American Literature, 1900–1945 308

Changing National Identities 308

Between Victorianism and Modernism 320

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Contents ix

The problem of race 320

Building bridges: Women writers 326

Critiques of American provincial life 336

Poetry and the search for form 345

The Inventions of Modernism 359

Imagism, Vorticism, and Objectivism 359

Making it new in poetry 367

Making it new in prose 397

Making it new in drama 420

Traditionalism, Politics, and Prophecy 431

The uses of traditionalism 431

Populism and radicalism 446

Prophetic voices 462

Community and Identity 466

Immigrant writing 466

Native American voices 472

The literature of the New Negro movement and beyond 476

Mass Culture and the Writer 503

Western, detective, and hardboiled fiction 503

Humorous writing 509

Fiction and popular culture 512

5 Negotiating the American Century:

American Literature since 1945 519

Toward a Transnational Nation 519

Formalists and Confessionals 532

From the mythological eye to the lonely “I” in poetry 532

From formalism to freedom in poetry 540

The uses of formalism 548

Confessional poetry 554

New formalists, new confessionals 563

Public and Private Histories 568

Documentary and dream in prose 568

Contested identities in prose 576

Crossing borders: Some women prose writers 588

Beats, Prophets, Aesthetes, and New Formalists 599

Rediscovering the American voice: The Black Mountain writers 599

Restoring the American vision: The San Francisco Renaissance 606

Recreating American rhythms: The beat generation 610

Reinventing the American self: The New York poets 615

Redefining American poetry: The New Formalists 623

Resisting orthodoxy: Dissent and experiment in fiction 631

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x Contents

The Art and Politics of Race 640

Defining a new black aesthetic 640

Defining a new black identity in prose 651

Defining a new black identity in drama 663

Telling impossible stories: Recent African-American fiction 668

Realism and its Discontents 678

Confronting the real, stretching the realistic in drama 678

New Journalists and dirty realists 700

Language and Genre 705

Watching nothing: Postmodernity in prose 705

The actuality of words: Postmodern poetry 720

Signs and scenes of crime, science fiction, and fantasy 727

Creating New Americas 740

Dreaming history: European immigrant writing 740

Remapping a nation: Chicano/a and Latino/a writing 748

Improvising America: Asian-American writing 763

New and ancient songs: The return of the Native American 779

After the Fall: American Literature since 9/11 795

Writing the crisis in prose 795

Writing the crisis in drama 809

Writing the crisis in poetry 816

Further Reading 829

Index 857

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Acknowledgments xi

Acknowledgments

In this history of American literature, I have tried to be responsive to the immense

changes that have occurred over the past forty years in the study of American

literature. In particular, I have tried to register the plurality of American culture and

American writing: the continued inventing of communities, and the sustained

imagining of nations, that constitute the literary history of the United States. I have

accumulated many debts in the course of working on this book. In particular, I would

like to thank friends at the British Academy, including Andrew Hook, Jon Stallworthy,

and Wynn Thomas; colleagues and friends at other universities, among them Kasia

Boddy, Susan Castillo, Henry Claridge, Richard Ellis, the late Kate Fullbrook, Mick

Gidley, Sharon Monteith, Judie Newman, Helen Taylor, and Nahem Yousaf; and

colleagues and friends in other parts of Europe and in Asia and the United States,

especially Saki Bercovitch, Bob Brinkmeyer, the late George Dekker, Jan Nordby

Gretlund, Lothar Honnighausen, Bob Lee, Marjorie Perloff, and Waldemar

Zacharasiewicz. Among my colleagues in the Department of Literature, I owe a

special debt of thanks to Herbie Butterfield and Owen Robinson; I also owe special

thanks to my many doctoral students. Sincere thanks are also due to Emma Bennett,

the very best of editors, at Wiley-Blackwell for steering this book to completion, to

Theo Savvas for helping so much and so efficiently with the research and preparation,

and to Nick Hartley for his informed and invaluable advice on illustrations. Special

thanks are also due to Brigitte Lee and Jack Messenger for, once again, proving

themselves to be such thoughtful, meticulous, and creative copyeditors, and to my

daughter Jessica for (also once again) making such a first-class job of proofreading

and the compilation of the index. On a more personal note, I would like to thank my

older daughter, Catharine, for her quick wit, warmth, intelligence, and understanding,

and for providing me with the very best of son-in-laws, Ricky Baldwin, and two

perfect grandsons, Izzy and Sam; my older son, Ben, for his thoughtfulness, courage,

commitment, and good company; my younger daughter, Jessica, for her lively

intelligence, grace, and kindness, as well as her refusal to take anything I say on trust;

and my younger son, Jack, who, being without language, constantly reminds me that

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xii Acknowledgments

there are other, deeper ways of communicating. Finally, as always, I owe the deepest

debt of all to my wife, Sheona, for her patience, her good humor, her clarity and

tenderness of spirit, and for her love and support, for always being there when I need

her. Without her, this book would never have been completed: which is why, quite

naturally, it is dedicated to her.

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The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1

A History of American Literature, Second Edition. Richard Gray.

© 2012 Richard Gray. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Imagining Eden

“America is a poem in our eyes: its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it

will not wait long for metres.” The words are those of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and

they sum up that desire to turn the New World into words which has seized the

imagination of so many Americans. But “America” was only one of the several names

for a dream dreamed in the first instance by Europeans. “He invented America: a

very great man,” one character observes of Christopher Columbus in a Henry James

novel; and so, in a sense, he did. Columbus, however, was following a prototype

devised long before him and surviving long after him, the idea of a new land outside

and beyond history: “a Virgin Countrey,” to quote one early, English settler, “so

preserved by Nature out of a desire to show mankinde fallen into the Old Age of

Creation, what a brow of fertility and beauty she was adorned with when the world

was vigorous and youthfull.” For a while, this imaginary America obliterated the

history of those who had lived American lives long before the Europeans came. And,

as Emerson’s invocation of “America … a poem” discloses, it also erased much

sense of American literature as anything other than the writing into existence of a

New Eden.

Not that the first European settlers were unaware of the strangeness of America:

in October 1492, for example, Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) confided to his

journals that there were “a thousand kinds of herbs and flowers” in this New World,

“of all of which I remain in ignorance as to their properties.” His ignorance extended,

famously, into areas he was hardly aware of: convinced that he had arrived at the

continent of India, he christened the people he encountered Indians. “Their

language I do not understand,” admitted Columbus. And their customs he found

either odd or abhorrent. The “natives” went about “with firebrands in their hands,”

1

The First Americans

American Literature Before and During

the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods

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