A History of American Literature 1900 - 1950 - (Wiley-Blackwell Histories of American Literature) by Christopher Macgowan (Hardcover)

About the Book

"For Henry Adams writing in The Education of Henry Adams (1918) his nineteenth century education had left him completely unprepared to understand the new century that he saw around him, and he feared that the impersonal technologies that characterized the new century would provide little inspiration for artists. The change would go on to be even greater than Adams had imagined. This volume of the Blackwell History of American Literature covers the period when the USA became an international power, at first regionally and then following the First Word War on the global stage. American literature explores the impact of this change upon questions of community, identity, and values from both regional and international perspectives. The early years of the 1900s saw the final works of Henry James and Mark Twain, both writers prefiguring in their own ways the challenge to comfortable certainties that would shortly come with modernism. The ways in which writers dramatized such change will be a major theme of the history. Wharton and Dreiser developed the strategies of realism and naturalism inherited from Crane and Norris. With the work of such figures as Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, and Faulkner the acceptance of limitation, Anderson's "little things" in his Winesburg, Ohio, found formal parallels in the writers' challenges to the conventions of nineteenth century unities. Responding to the work of Lawrence, Joyce and Woolf among others, and the impact of Freud and new ideas in science, they looked for what still might be certain in a world of increasingly rapid change, and raised questions about what value or use any such limited certainties might have. Modernist experiment is much more muted in the work of Willa Cather, although the themes are similar, and are explored to different degrees by other writers too--the dangers of romanticizing the past, and the challenges of the transition from a pastoral, pioneer culture to an industrial one"--

Book Synopsis

A look at the first five decades of 20^th century American literature, covering a wide range of literary works, figures, and influences

A History of American Literature 1900-1950 is a current and well-balanced account of the main literary figures, connections, and ideas that characterized the first half of the twentieth century. In this readable, highly informative book, the author explores significant developments in American drama, fiction, and poetry, and discusses how the literature of the period influenced, and was influenced by, cultural trends in both the United States and abroad.

Considering works produced during America's rise to prominence on the world stage from both regional and international perspectives, MacGowan provides readers with keen insights into the literature of the period in relation to America's transition from an agrarian nation to an industrial power, the racial and economic discrimination of Black and Native American populations, the greater financial and social independence of women, the economic boom of the 1920s, the Depression of the 1930s, the impact of world wars, massive immigration, political and ideological clashes, and more. Encompassing five decades of literary and cultural diversity in one volume, A History of American Literature 1900-1950

• Covers American theater, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, magazines and literary publications, and popular media
• Discusses the ways writers dramatized the immense social, economic, cultural, and political changes in America throughout the first half of the twentieth century
• Explores themes and influences of Modernist poets, expatriate novelists, and literary publications founded by women and African-Americans
• Features the work of Black writers, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish Americans

A History of American Literature 1900-1950 is essential reading for all students in upper-level American literature courses as well as general readers looking to better understand the literary tradition of the United States.

From the Back Cover

A readable, informative, and up-to-date look at the first five decades of twentieth-century American literature

Covering a wide range of literary works, figures, and influences, A History of American Literature 1900-1950 explores significant developments in American drama, fiction, and poetry. Author Christopher MacGowan discusses how the literature of the period influenced, and was influenced by, cultural trends and attitudes in both the United States and abroad.

This volume provides a well-balanced account of the main literary figures, connections, and ideas that characterized American literature of the period. Throughout the text, the author explores themes of Modernist poets and expatriate novelists, literary publications founded by women and African Americans, Native American and Asian American writers, the ways writers dramatized the enormous social, economic, cultural, and political changes in America, and much more.

Providing deep insights into how American writers reflected issues ranging from the racial and economic discrimination of the age to America's transition from an agrarian nation to an industrial power, A History of American Literature 1900-1950 is essential reading for students in upper-level American literature courses and general readers with interest in the literary tradition of the United States.

About the Author

CHRISTOPHER MACGOWAN teaches modernist poetry and American literature at the College of William and Mary, where he is a William R. Kenan Jr. Professor. He is a specialist in the poetry of William Carlos Williams and has published on Sherwood Anderson, Denise Levertov, Ford Madox Ford, and Vladimir Nabokov. He is the author of Twentieth-Century American Poetry and The Twentieth Century American Fiction Handbook.