From Puritanism to Postmodernism : A History

From Modernist/Postmodernist perspective, leading critics Richard Ruland (American) and Malcolm Bradbury (British) address questions of literary and cultural nationalism. They demonstrate that since the seventeenth century, American writing has reflected the political and historical climate of its time and helped define America's cultural and social parameters. Above all, they argue that American literature has always been essentially "modern," illustrating this with a broad range of texts: from Poe and Melville to Fitzgerald and Pound, to Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Thomas Pynchon. From Puritanism to Postmodernism pays homage to the luxuriance of American writing by tracing the creation of a national literature that retained its deep roots in European culture while striving to achieve cultural independence.

Malcolm Bradbury is a novelist, critic, television dramatist and Emeritus Professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. He is author of the novels Eating People is Wrong (1959); Stepping Westward (1965); The History Man (1975); which won the Royal Society of Literature Heinemann Prize and was adapted as a famous television series; Rates of Exchange (1983) which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Cuts: A Very Short Novel (1987), also televised; and Doctor Criminale (1992). His critical works include The Modern American Novel (1984; revised edition, 1992); No, Not Bloomsbury (essays, 1987); The Modern world: Ten Great Writers (1988); From Puritanism to Post-modernism: A History of American Literature (with Richard Ruland, 1991) He is the author of a collection of seven stories and nine parodies, entitled Who Do You Think You Are? (1976), and of several works of humour and satire, including Why Come to Slaka? (1986), Unsent Letters (1988; revised edition, 1995) and Mensonge (1987). Many of his books are published by Penguin. In addition, he has written many television plays and the television 'novel' The Gravy Train and The Gravy Train Goes East. He has adapted several television series, including Tom Sharpe's Porterhouse Blue, Kinglsey Amis's The Green Man and Stella Gibbon's' Cold Comfort Farm, now a feature film.

Malcolm Bradbury lives in Norwich, travels good deal, and in 1991 he was awarded the CBE.

Preface

ix

Part I. The Literature of British America

The Puritan Legacy

3

(30)

Awakening and Enlightenment

33

(28)

Part II. From Colonial Outpost to Cultural Province

Revolution and (in) Dependence

61

(43)

American Naissance

104

(35)

Yea-Saying and Nay-Saying

139

(42)

Part III. Native and Cosmopolitan Crosscurrents: From Local Color to Realism and Naturalism

Secession and Loyalty

181

(38)

Muckrakers and Early Moderns

219

(20)

Part IV. Modernism in the American Grain

Outland Darts and Homemade Worlds

239

(30)

The Second Flowering

269

(47)

Radical Reassessments

316

(53)

Strange Realities, Adequate Fictions

369

(62)

Index

431

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From Puritanism to Postmodernism : A History of American Literature

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials