american literature essay

Imprinted by Belief

An essay series on American literature and faith.

Credit... Nada Hayek

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By Ayana Mathis

Ayana Mathis’s most recent novel, “The Unsettled,” was published in September.

• Published Aug. 24, 2023 Updated April 11, 2024

The essays in this series hold that American literature is imprinted by belief: freighted by ideas about morality, justice and standards for living that are derived from the nation’s Christian underpinnings. Christianity’s imprint on our literature isn’t necessarily about piety or doctrine — though that is sometimes the case. It also trucks in paradox and, at its best, acts as a hedge against over-simplistic and reductive notions of society and of person. In American literature, religious ideas are often more implicit than explicit — a pool into which the work dips, often to great effect. James Baldwin’s soaring, sermonic prose; Toni Morrison’s scriptural authority; William Faulkner’s Genesis-like cosmologies of Southern identity and place: All draw heavily on a Christian-inflected aesthetic. Which is not to elevate this belief system above others in a country as multifaith as it is multicultural and multiracial. To the contrary, among the issues we will encounter in this series is Christianity’s tendency to take down its faith counterparts. Christianity can be a real bruiser. It is cherry-picked and jury-rigged, co-opted and corrupted, and yet it remains inextricable from American identity — which is precisely why it repeatedly finds its way into our fiction.

For American writers even now, Christianity continues to provide a vast web of references, imagery and metaphor. This web is ever pressing, particularly at this juncture, when so much of what passes for Christian sentiment is reductive and illegitimately recruited for political and economic motives. Such forces risk hijacking religious conversation so that we can no longer see ideals that might remind us that human beings are capacious and sacred, and that our dealings with one another ought to reflect as much. I propose these essays as a means of, to borrow the title of one of Adrienne Rich’s most famous poems, “Diving into the Wreck”; each will examine a different aspect of human experience: the prophetic; forgiveness; suffering and evil; apocalypse; and hope. As Rich writes: “I came to see the damage that was done/and the treasures that prevail.”

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The Ten Best American Essays Since 1950, According to Robert Atwan

in Books , Literature | November 15th, 2012 3 Comments

“Essays can be lots of things, maybe too many things,” writes Atwan in his fore­ward to the 2012 install­ment in the Best Amer­i­can series, “but at the core of the genre is an unmis­tak­able recep­tiv­i­ty to the ever-shift­ing process­es of our minds and moods. If there is any essen­tial char­ac­ter­is­tic we can attribute to the essay, it may be this: that the truest exam­ples of the form enact that ever-shift­ing process, and in that enact­ment we can find the basis for the essay’s qual­i­fi­ca­tion to be regard­ed seri­ous­ly as imag­i­na­tive lit­er­a­ture and the essay­ist’s claim to be tak­en seri­ous­ly as a cre­ative writer.”

In 2001 Atwan and Joyce Car­ol Oates took on the daunt­ing task of trac­ing that ever-shift­ing process through the pre­vi­ous 100 years for  The Best Amer­i­can Essays of the Cen­tu­ry . Recent­ly Atwan returned with a more focused selec­tion for  Pub­lish­ers Week­ly :  “The Top 10 Essays Since 1950.”  To pare it all down to such a small num­ber, Atwan decid­ed to reserve the “New Jour­nal­ism” cat­e­go­ry, with its many mem­o­rable works by Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Michael Herr and oth­ers, for some future list. He also made a point of select­ing the best essays , as opposed to exam­ples from the best essay­ists. “A list of the top ten essay­ists since 1950 would fea­ture some dif­fer­ent writ­ers.”

We were inter­est­ed to see that six of the ten best essays are avail­able for free read­ing online. Here is Atwan’s list, along with links to those essays that are on the Web:

• James Bald­win, “Notes of a Native Son,” 1955 (Read it here .)
• Nor­man Mail­er, “The White Negro,” 1957 (Read it here .)
• Susan Son­tag, “Notes on ‘Camp,’ ” 1964 (Read it here .)
• John McPhee, “The Search for Mar­vin Gar­dens,” 1972 (Read it here with a sub­scrip­tion.)
• Joan Did­ion, “The White Album,” 1979
• Annie Dil­lard, “Total Eclipse,” 1982
• Phillip Lopate, “Against Joie de Vivre,” 1986 (Read it here .)
• Edward Hoagland, “Heav­en and Nature,” 1988
• Jo Ann Beard, “The Fourth State of Mat­ter,” 1996 (Read it here .)
• David Fos­ter Wal­lace, “Con­sid­er the Lob­ster,” 2004 (Read it here  in a ver­sion dif­fer­ent from the one pub­lished in his 2005 book of the same name.)

“To my mind,” writes Atwan in his arti­cle, “the best essays are deeply per­son­al (that does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal) and deeply engaged with issues and ideas. And the best essays show that the name of the genre is also a verb, so they demon­strate a mind in process–reflecting, try­ing-out, essay­ing.”

To read more of Atwan’s com­men­tary, see his  arti­cle in Pub­lish­ers Week­ly .

The pho­to above of Susan Son­tag was tak­en by Peter Hujar in 1966.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

30 Free Essays & Sto­ries by David Fos­ter Wal­lace on the Web

by Mike Springer | Permalink | Comments (3) |

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Check out Michael Ven­tu­ra’s HEAR THAT LONG SNAKE MOAN: The VooDoo Ori­gins of Rock n’ Roll

Wow I think there’s oth­er greater ones out there. Just need to find them.

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Free American Literature Essay Examples & Topics

It is tough to come up with a definition of what American literature is. It is a product of the cultural diversity of people who live and write in the United States. However, not every literary work produced in the US can be included in this list.

Of course, American literature is predominantly in English. One of the early 21st century developments is an increase in authors who write in their language. However, they still can be considered American. As a result, African American, Asian American, and other ethnic branches of literature emerged.

Assigned to write an essay about American literature? In this article, our experts tried to simplify the task for you. We’ve described the periods of the United States literary tradition so you can navigate freely. Also, check a list of topics for your American literature essay. Finally, see some examples of the works written by other students.

Literature reflects society. It magnifies all the good and bad values, mirroring the life of the country and its development. In this section, we’ve described the main periods in US history. It will help you realize what to discuss in your essay on American literature.

• The Colonial and The Early National Period (1607-1830)

The first European settlers started describing their experiences in the 1600s. The narration was practical, direct, and copied the British literary style. The earliest American literary works were mainly nonfictional. The first president of the Jamestown Colony wrote about his personal experiences and published them from 1608 till 1624. Such prominent writers as Nathaniel Ward and John Winthrop elaborated on the topic of religion. African American tradition started during that period, too. For instance, Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano created the first slave narratives.

• The Period of American Renaissance (1830-1870)

Romanticism values a person’s emotions over reason. American writers embraced this movement at the beginning of the 19th century. For example, Edgar Allan Poe was one of the vivid examples of Romantic writers. In New England, several thinkers emerged too after 1830. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote essays, while Henry Thoreau wrote a story of his life. Poets such as Herman Melville and Walt Whitman began publishing their works at that time too.

• The Realistic and Naturalist Period (1870-1914)

The Civil War fueled the realistic period in American literature. Mark Twain was one of the most notable writers of that era. In his novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , he depicted the actual Americans.

Naturalism is another literary movement that was prevalent at that time. For example, Theodore Dreiser embraced it. His novel Sister Carrie is an essential American naturalist novel.

• The American Modernist Period (1914-1939)

The modernist period was one of the most fruitful in American history. It got intensified after the advancement in science and technology. The outcomes of WWI and the Great Depression caused a lot of contradiction. Thus, it found its way into art and literature. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Wright, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, T.S. Eliot, and many more writers became dominant voices .

• The Contemporary Period (1939-Present)

The period has started after World War II. American literature during that time became more inclusive and had a variety of voices. Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison tell stories of race and sexuality. American contemporary novels had many forms, like postmodern and feminist ones.

You may wonder what to write in your American literature essay. The abundance of writers and literary works make it difficult to choose. That’s why we combined several ideas. We hope you’ll find them useful in identifying the topic for your work. If not, you can let our title generator create a few original ideas on the subject.

But first, check these ideas for your essay on American literature:

• Harriet Beecher’s art of persuasion as the author in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
• Naturalism and regionalism in American literary tradition.
• The influence of Phillis Wheatley on American Literature.
• What is American literature? What are its characteristics?
• The themes of early American literature.
• The importance of magical realism in American literature.
• Oral storytelling techniques in Native American literature.
• The influence of naturalism on American writers.
• Early American literature and the power of religious ideologies.
• The idea of masculinity in the colonial period in American literature.
• The black experience manifested through African American poetry.
• Historical factors that influenced the Romantic period of American literature.
• How did Gothic literature in American tradition start?
• Levels of literacy in African-American literature.
• Native American mythology in American literature.
• The issues of divorce and love in Latin American literature.
• The evolution of the role of women in American literature.
• The theme of perseverance in African American literature.
• The topic of slavery in early American literature.
• The significance of the American Renaissance for American literature.
• The role of James Fennimore Cooper in enhancing nationalism.

Thank you for your attention! American literature is indeed a vast subject. We hope that this article will help you focus on a good idea. If you are still unsure what topic to choose, check our American literature essay samples below. You can look through them faster if you use our summarizer .

1963 Best Essay Examples on American Literature

Theme and characters of twain’s “advice to youth”, the importance of literacy essay (critical writing), “shame” by dick gregory: what does gregory mean by shame.

• Words: 1448

“Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou

• Words: 1136

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”: Elements of the Story

“joyas voladoras” by brian doyle. summary and symbolism analysis, exploring relationship in raymond carver’s “why don’t you dance”, percival everett’s “the appropriation of cultures”, “borders” short story by thomas king analysis: conflict, themes, and more, the story of an hour critical analysis essay.

• Words: 1467

“Two Way to Belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee

• Words: 1128

“The Man to Send Rain Clouds.” Analysis of the Main Theme Conflict

• Words: 1075

The Lottery Literary Analysis – Summary & Analytical Essay

• Words: 1017

The Handmaid’s Tale Literary Analysis

• Words: 2158

“Goodbye to All That” by Joan Didion

“to live in the borderlands means you” by anzaldua, willy loman as a tragic hero: character analysis essay, the short story “the difficult path” by grace lin, critical analysis of the metamorphosis by franz kafka.

• Words: 1754

Hemingway’s Code Hero in The Old Man and the Sea. Traits & Definition

• Words: 1008

The Yellow Wallpaper

• Words: 1720

George Orwell’s 1984: Winston and Julia’s Relationship Essay

Stanley and blanche relationship in a streetcar named desire.

• Words: 1234

Rich Dad Poor Dad Essay

• Words: 1277

The Parable of the Sower Analysis: Themes & Environment

• Words: 1331

No Name Woman Analysis – Maxine Hong Kingston’s Short Story

• Words: 1055

Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds” Short Story: Literary Analysis

“iroquois creation story” by david cusick literature analysis.

• Words: 1534

Conflict in ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ by Connell

Historical context of “all my sons” by arthur miller.

• Words: 2098

Illusion vs. Reality in “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams

• Words: 1282

“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” by Neil Gaiman

Tuck everlasting: differences between the book and the film.

• Words: 1137

The “Inventory” Short Story by Carmen Maria Machado

“the story of an hour” by kate chopin: reading response, symbols of nihilism in the hemingway’s “sun also rises” and ”own life”.

• Words: 1763

Who Moved My Cheese Essay: Book Summary, Analysis & Real Life Examples

• Words: 1480

The Tell-Tale Heart Psychological Analysis & Critique

• Words: 2828

“Popular Mechanics” by Raymond Carver Review

Lady lazarus poem by sylvia plath’s, “letter from birmingham jail” rhetorical analysis essay, pecos bill: summary and analysis of the story, mark twain’s “the lowest animal” analysis, arthur miller: relationships in the “death of a salesman”.

• Words: 1124

Sociological Criticism of Twain’s “The War Prayer”

Naturalism in “the open boat” by stephen crane.

• Words: 1177

Only Disconnect by Gary Shteyngart Literature Analysis

Importance of point of view in “a rose for emily”, “o captain my captain” by walt whitman: literary devices, “little women” by louisa alcott literature analysis.

• Words: 2596

Burning Chrome by William Gibson Analysis & Summary

• Words: 1589

“Home” by Gwendolyn Brooks

The great gatsby reflection paper, analysis of “jelly-fish” by marianne moore, young goodman brown setting analysis, symbolism, & characters.

• Words: 1007

Racism in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain

• Words: 1978

Marxist Criticism on The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Essay

“i know why the caged bird sings” by maya angelou.

• Words: 1541

David Mccullough: Summary and Themes in “1776”

• Words: 1407

“Night Women” by Edwidge Danticat: The Protagonist Characteristics

“the street lawyer” by john grisham: plot recap.

• Words: 1113

An Analysis of Major Themes in A. Walker’s “The Welcome Table”

Parallelism in the declaration of independence, william blake’s a poison tree essay, sylvia plath’s “daddy”.

• Words: 1487

Dominant Tone of David Sedaris’s Essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day”

The cask of amontillado.

• Words: 1693

Importance of Anne Bradstreet’s poem “Contemplations”

“fiesta” a short story by junot diaz.

• Words: 1171

Slavery in To Kill a Mockingbird Novel

• Words: 1016

Capitol and District 12 in “The Hunger Games” by Collins

• Words: 1024

Landscape Symbolism in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”

“under the influence” a book by scott russell sanders, the different characters cause the lack of communication: kaufman, bel. sunday in the park.

• Words: 1360

“The Last Hippie” by Oliver Sacks

Miranda july’s “the swim team”, critique for ‘a rose for emily’.

• Words: 1713

“Monster” by Walter Dean Myers: Characters & Style

Loneliness and isolation in lahiri’s mrs. sen’s story.

• Words: 1148

Character Analysis of Connie in “Where are you going, Where have you been?”

“technoculture” concept in modern fiction, the lesson by toni cade bambara: analysis essay, symbolism in the “death of a salesman” by arthur miller, the thematic concept in water names, ‘the puritans and sex’ by edmund s. morgan, nature vs. nurture: “in cold blood” by truman capote.

• Words: 1114

Finding Oneself. “In Search for Epifano” by Anaya

• Words: 1621

Nancy Drew’s Character Analysis

• Words: 1372

Dark Humor in The Cask of Amontillado Essay

“where are you going, where have you been” ending and main scenes, “the big wave” by pearl s. buck: jiya and kino’s rise above fear.

• Words: 1106

Marlow in “Heart of Darkness”

“the sanctuary of school” story by lynda barry, “the black cat” by edgar allan poe.

• Words: 2254

“Rules of the Game” by Amy Tan

“impulse” short story by conrad aiken.

• Words: 1387

“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker Critical Analysis

• Words: 2187

Jared Diamond: Easter Island’s End

The short story “old chief mshlanga” by doris lessing, exploring mythology of fuku and zafa in junot diaz’s the brief wondrous life of oscar wao.

• Words: 1080

Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” vs. Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”

Haven character analysis report of ruth gruber.

• Words: 1180

The Importance of historical time period in Raymond Carver body of literature

• Words: 2208

O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”: Foreshadowing Analysis

Like a winding sheet by ann petry essay (critical writing).

• Words: 1032

The “I’m a Fool” Short Story by Sherwood Anderson

“fathers blessings” by mary caponegro, notion of time in faulkner’s “the sound and the fury”.

• Words: 1998

Misfit in F. O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”

• Words: 3005

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

“dance of the dead” by richard matheson.

• Words: 1127

Realism, Naturalism, and Modernism Period

Literary devices of “everyday use” by alice walker, race matters, cancel culture, and “boys go to jupiter”.

• Words: 1363

All Are Equal in Death

Flannery o’connor’s story “a good man is hard to find”, the novel “in the beginning” by chaim potok.

• Words: 1349

“To Kill a Mockingbird”: Book and Movie Differences

“neighbors” by raymond carver: an analysis, “i’m a fool” by sherwood anderson.

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American Literature Research Paper Topics

This article provides a comprehensive guide to American literature research paper topics , showcasing the depth and diversity of the literary landscape in the United States. From colonial beginnings to contemporary voices, American literature offers a rich tapestry of stories, themes, and perspectives. For students diving into this vast field, choosing the right topic is crucial. This guide not only lists an array of potential American literature research paper topics but also delves into the evolution of American literary movements, offers practical advice for topic selection, and gives tips on how to craft a compelling paper. Additionally, with iResearchNet’s expert writing services, students are equipped with professional resources to ensure their research endeavors are a success.

100 American Literature Research Paper Topics

American literature, a vast and diverse field, encompasses a range of themes, styles, and epochs. From the colonial tales of the early settlers to the modern narratives of the 21st century, the U.S. literary canvas is as broad as the country’s history. This comprehensive list offers a variety of American literature research paper topics divided into ten distinct categories, ensuring that every student can find a theme that resonates with their interests and academic goals.

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I. Colonial and Early American Literature

• The religious undertones in the works of Anne Bradstreet.
• Exploring captivity narratives: Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity.”
• Jonathan Edwards and the rhetoric of the Great Awakening.
• The role of nature in early American literature.
• Benjamin Franklin’s “Autobiography”: A study in self-fashioning.
• The evolution of the American Dream in early American writings.
• The emergence of American Gothic: Charles Brockden Brown’s “Wieland.”
• Slavery narratives: Comparing Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs.
• The role of women in colonial American literature.
• Native American oral traditions and their influence on early colonial writings.

II. Romanticism and the American Renaissance

• Washington Irving and the creation of American myths.
• Edgar Allan Poe: The master of American Gothic.
• Transcendentalism: The philosophies of Emerson and Thoreau.
• Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick”: An exploration of good vs. evil.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne’s exploration of Puritanical guilt in “The Scarlet Letter.”
• Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” and the birth of free verse.
• Emily Dickinson: A recluse’s perspective on society and nature.
• The frontier in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales.
• Gothic elements in the works of Louisa May Alcott.
• Dark romanticism: A comparative study of Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville.

III. Realism and Naturalism

• Mark Twain and the critique of American society in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
• Henry James and the art of psychological realism.
• The portrayal of urban life in Stephen Crane’s works.
• Edith Wharton’s critique of the Gilded Age in “The Age of Innocence.”
• The conflict of man versus nature in Jack London’s writings.
• The influence of Darwinism on American naturalist writers.
• Kate Chopin and the awakening of female sexuality.
• The immigrant experience in Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.”
• The rise of regionalism: Willa Cather and the American Midwest.
• Theodore Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” and the dark side of the American Dream.

IV. The Harlem Renaissance

• Langston Hughes and the jazz poetry movement.
• Zora Neale Hurston’s exploration of black folklore in “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
• Claude McKay and the politics of race in America.
• Jean Toomer’s “Cane”: A mosaic of African American life.
• The influence of jazz and blues on Harlem Renaissance literature.
• The role of magazines and journals in promoting African American voices.
• Nella Larsen’s exploration of racial identity in “Passing.”
• Alain Locke’s “The New Negro” and the redefinition of African American identity.
• Gender and sexuality in the works of Wallace Thurman.
• The intersection of visual arts and literature during the Harlem Renaissance.

V. Modernism

• F. Scott Fitzgerald and the disillusionment of the Jazz Age.
• Ernest Hemingway’s narrative style and the “Lost Generation.”
• Gertrude Stein and the avant-garde literary scene.
• T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” and the fragmentation of modern society.
• The influence of World War I on American modernist writers.
• John Dos Passos and the critique of capitalism in “The U.S.A. Trilogy.”
• William Faulkner’s innovative narrative techniques.
• The works of E.E. Cummings and the break from traditional poetic forms.
• The influence of expatriation on American modernist literature.
• Djuna Barnes and the exploration of sexuality in “Nightwood.”

VI. The Beat Generation

• Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”: Defining the Beat ethos.
• Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”: A protest against conformity and consumerism.
• William S. Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch” and its critique of post-war America.
• The role of jazz and drug culture in the Beat literary movement.
• The Beat Generation and their relationship with Eastern spirituality.
• Female voices in the Beat movement: Diane di Prima and Joanne Kyger.
• The legacy of Neal Cassady: From muse to writer.
• The impact of San Francisco Renaissance on the Beats.
• The Beats and their dissection of the American Dream.
• The global travels of the Beat Generation and their reflections in literature.

VII. Postmodernism

• Thomas Pynchon and the entropic vision of “Gravity’s Rainbow.”
• Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five”: War, time, and metafiction.
• Metafiction and historiographic metafiction in works by John Barth.
• The detective novel reimagined: Paul Auster’s “City of Glass.”
• Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and the haunting of history.
• Don DeLillo’s “White Noise” and the fear of death in postmodern society.
• Paranoia and conspiracy in Robert Coover’s novels.
• Postcolonial critique in Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses.”
• The consumerist dystopia in Bret Easton Ellis’s “American Psycho.”
• Maximalism in David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest.”

VIII. Contemporary American Literature

• Identity and multiculturalism in Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake.”
• The post-9/11 American psyche in novels by Jonathan Safran Foer.
• Magical realism and the immigrant experience in Junot Diaz’s “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.”
• The reimagining of the American West in Annie Proulx’s works.
• Technology and isolation in Dave Eggers’ “The Circle.”
• The deconstruction of the family narrative in Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections.”
• The changing American South in the works of Jesmyn Ward.
• Dystopian futures in Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Testaments.”
• Coming-of-age in the digital age: Sally Rooney’s novels.
• The clash of cultures in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Americanah.”

IX. Literature of the American Frontier and West

• The myth versus reality of the Wild West in Owen Wister’s “The Virginian.”
• Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” and the brutality of westward expansion.
• The legacy of frontier humor in Mark Twain’s early works.
• Women’s perspectives on the frontier: Willa Cather’s “O Pioneers!”
• Native American voices and the frontier: N. Scott Momaday’s “House Made of Dawn.”
• The environmental ethics of the American West in Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire.”
• Revisionist Westerns: Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove.”
• Exploration of masculinity and the mythic West in Sam Shepard’s plays.
• The Gold Rush in American literature: Joaquin Miller’s poetic works.
• The Asian American experience in the Old West: Sui Sin Far’s stories.

X. Science Fiction and Dystopian Literature

• The socio-political critiques in Philip K. Dick’s novels.
• Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series and the fall of the American empire.
• The fear of otherness in Robert A. Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land.”
• Environmental collapse in Octavia E. Butler’s “Parable” series.
• Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and the danger of censorship.
• The commercialization of society in Frederik Pohl’s “The Space Merchants.”
• Feminism and gender in Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness.”
• The evolution of the post-apocalyptic narrative in American science fiction.
• The role of technology and artificial intelligence in contemporary American science fiction.
• The resurgence of dystopian literature in the 21st century: Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” series.

American literature, shaped by history, society, and diverse voices, offers a plethora of research topics. Whether students wish to delve deep into a specific era or explore overarching themes across epochs, this list provides a starting point. Armed with these American literature research paper topics, scholars can embark on an enlightening journey through the annals of American literature, discovering insights that not only illuminate the texts but also reflect the nation’s evolving identity.

American Literature and the Range of Topics It Offers

American literature, as vast and varied as the landscape of the country itself, encapsulates the spirit, dreams, and dilemmas of its people over centuries. From the indigenous narratives of pre-colonial America to the postmodernist critiques of the late 20th century, the literary output of the United States mirrors the sociopolitical changes, cultural shifts, and individual narratives that have shaped its history.

Colonial and Early American literature, for instance, grapple with themes of discovery, colonization, and the quest for identity in a new world. Authors like Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards exemplify this era’s struggles and spiritual yearnings. Their works lay the foundation for the Romantic period that followed, characterized by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. These authors delved deep into the human psyche, often highlighting the dualities of human nature and the looming American wilderness.

The transcendentalist movement, spearheaded by figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, presented a unique take on individuality, nature, and spirituality. Their perspectives provided a stark contrast to the realist and naturalist writers of the late 19th century, who, influenced by Darwinism and the Industrial Revolution, presented a grittier, more deterministic view of the human experience.

The 20th century ushered in a literary renaissance, with the Harlem Renaissance leading the charge. This era, defined by writers like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Claude McKay, not only redefined African American literature but also laid the groundwork for successive generations of writers to explore themes of racial identity, inequality, and heritage.

American literature’s vast scope is further broadened by the Beat Generation, Postmodernists, and contemporary writers, each adding layers of complexity and depth to this already multifaceted literary tradition. The Beats, with their unorthodox lifestyles and candid explorations of sexuality, spirituality, and societal rebellion, paved the way for postmodernists to break literary conventions and question the very nature of narrative and authorship.

In the contemporary realm, the literary landscape is even more diverse, with authors from various backgrounds addressing issues such as immigration, gender identity, technology, and globalization.

Considering the vastness and depth of American literature, the range of potential American literature research paper topics is immense. Whether analyzing a specific author’s style, comparing literary movements, or delving into the socio-political implications of a particular work, students have a plethora of avenues to explore. The beauty of American literature lies not just in its rich tapestry of stories but also in the endless academic inquiries it sparks.

The American literary canon, forever expanding and evolving, stands as an open invitation for scholars, students, and readers alike to delve in, explore, and contribute to the ongoing conversation. The American literature research paper topics presented earlier merely scratch the surface of what’s possible, offering a starting point for those eager to embark on their own literary journey through the annals of American literature.

How to Choose an American Literature Research Paper Topic

The process of selecting American literature research paper topics can be both exciting and daunting. The vast expanse of literary works, spanning from the earliest colonial narratives to the contemporary experimental pieces, offers a plethora of subjects to dive into. However, choosing the right topic is crucial not only for academic success but also for maintaining personal interest throughout the research process. Here’s a comprehensive guide to assist you in making an informed choice:

• Start with Personal Interest: Your enthusiasm for a particular era, author, or theme can drive the quality of your research. Always consider what genuinely intrigues you about American literature. Is it the Harlem Renaissance, the transcendentalist movement, or the postmodern era?
• Read Widely: Before settling on a topic, immerse yourself in a variety of texts. By exploring a wide range of works, you might discover a previously unconsidered area of interest or identify gaps in existing research.
• Historical Context Matters: The socio-political backdrop against which a literary work was produced often deeply influences its content and themes. Understanding this context can provide richer layers of meaning to your research.
• Consider Genre and Form: Instead of focusing solely on an author or era, consider diving into specific literary forms – poetry, short stories, novels, plays – or genres like Gothic, mystery, or magical realism within American literature.
• Check Availability of Resources: It’s essential to ensure that adequate resources – primary texts, scholarly articles, critiques – are available on your chosen topic. Conduct preliminary research to gauge this.
• Consult Professors or Mentors: Engage in discussions with your professors or academic mentors. Their insights, based on years of experience and study, can guide you toward a promising research area or warn you about potential pitfalls.
• Evaluate Scope: Ensure that your chosen topic is neither too broad nor too narrow. A topic that’s too expansive can be overwhelming, while an overly specific subject might lack substantial content for a comprehensive paper.
• Interdisciplinary Approaches: Consider merging literary analysis with insights from fields like sociology, psychology, or history. For instance, you could study the portrayal of mental illness in American literature through both a literary and psychological lens.
• Stay Updated with Recent Scholarship: Literary interpretations evolve over time. Ensure you’re familiar with the latest scholarly discussions surrounding your topic. This can help refine your thesis and approach.
• Relevance and Contribution: Ask yourself how your research will contribute to the existing body of knowledge. Aiming for a fresh perspective or a unique interpretation can make your work stand out.

Choosing a topic for a research paper in American literature is a journey of discovery. It’s about finding the right balance between personal interest, academic relevance, and the potential contribution to the field. Remember, the process of research and writing should be as rewarding as the final product. By carefully selecting your topic, you set the stage for a fulfilling academic endeavor.

How to Write an American Literature Research Paper

Delving into the world of American literature is like embarking on a thrilling journey across time, cultures, and ideologies. From the early Native American oral traditions to the cutting-edge contemporary narratives, the literary landscape of America offers a vast terrain to explore and analyze. Writing a research paper on such a subject is not just about summarizing texts, but about adding to the discourse. Here’s a detailed guide to help you craft a compelling and insightful research paper on American literature:

Your research paper journey begins with a strong introduction. This is your chance to captivate your reader’s interest, provide some background on your topic, and present your thesis statement.

• Choose a Strong Thesis: A clear, concise, and debatable thesis is the backbone of your research paper. Ensure it provides a fresh perspective or a unique angle on your chosen topic.
• Research Thoroughly: Dive deep into primary sources (novels, poems, plays, etc.) and secondary sources (critiques, essays, and scholarly papers). Libraries, academic databases, and online literary journals are invaluable resources.
• Develop a Structured Outline: Before diving into writing, chalk out an outline. This ensures a logical flow to your arguments and helps in organizing your thoughts systematically.
• Maintain a Critical Perspective: While it’s essential to understand various interpretations, always maintain a critical lens. Challenge existing viewpoints, draw your conclusions, and support them with evidence.
• Incorporate Quotes Wisely: Direct quotes from literary works can bolster your arguments. However, use them judiciously. Ensure they serve a purpose in your narrative and always provide proper citations.
• Understand Literary Devices: Having a firm grasp of literary devices like allegory, symbolism, or irony will enhance your analysis. Highlight where authors have employed these tools and discuss their significance.
• Historical and Cultural Context: American literature cannot be detached from its historical and cultural backdrop. Embed your analysis within this context, offering a richer and more nuanced understanding.
• Stay Objective: While personal interpretations are vital, ensure your arguments remain objective. Avoid overly emotional or biased language.
• Revise and Edit: Once your initial draft is ready, take a break before revising. Fresh eyes can spot inconsistencies, redundancies, or errors. Check for clarity, coherence, and overall flow. Grammar, punctuation, and syntax should be impeccable.
• Properly Format and Cite: Adhere to the specified format, whether it’s APA, MLA, Chicago/Turabian, or Harvard. Properly cite all your sources to avoid plagiarism. Utilize tools or software that can help streamline this process.

Wrap up your research paper by reiterating your main arguments and thesis. Highlight the significance of your findings and hint at potential areas for future research. Writing an American literature research paper is a rigorous but rewarding process. It demands diligence, critical thinking, and a deep appreciation for the literary arts. Remember, it’s not just about presenting facts but weaving a story that adds value to the existing body of knowledge. With dedication and passion, you’ll not only craft an impactful research paper but also deepen your connection with the rich tapestry of American literature.

iResearchNet Writing Services

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Navigating the world of American literature is a daunting task, but with iResearchNet by your side, it becomes an enriching experience. Offering a perfect blend of academic rigor and creative flair, our services ensure that your research paper stands out, reflecting not just the vastness of American literature but also your unique perspective. Join hands with iResearchNet and transform your academic journey into a memorable literary adventure.

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From the raw, unfiltered brilliance of Mark Twain to the contemporary musings of Toni Morrison, American literature is a vast and varied landscape, teeming with stories that capture the essence of the American spirit. As a student, exploring this diverse tapestry offers both challenges and opportunities. With iResearchNet, you’re not just writing a research paper; you’re embarking on a journey through time, space, and human emotion.

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What, Exactly, Is American Literature?

Ilan stavans guests on the history of literature podcast with jacke wilson.

For tens of thousands of years, human beings have been using fictional devices to shape their worlds and communicate with one another. Four thousand years ago they began writing down these stories, and a great flourishing of human achievement began. We know it today as literature, a term broad enough to encompass everything from ancient epic poetry to contemporary novels. How did literature develop? What forms has it taken? And what can we learn from engaging with these works today? Hosted by Jacke Wilson, an amateur scholar with a lifelong passion for literature, The History of Literature takes a fresh look at some of the most compelling examples of creative genius the world has ever known.

America, America, America… a continent, a nation, a people, and a whole lotta books. But how does America define itself? Who defines it? Where did the idea of American exceptionalism come from? And how does literature fit into any of this? In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Ilan Stavans about his new book, What Is American Literature? .

________________________

Subscribe now on iTunes , Spotify , Google Podcasts , Android , Stitcher , or wherever else you find your podcasts!

Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, the publisher of Restless Books, and the host of the NPR podcast “ In Contrast. ” The recipient of numerous international awards, his work, adapted into film, theatre, TV, and radio, has been translated into 20 languages.

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• How to write a literary analysis essay | A step-by-step guide

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay | A Step-by-Step Guide

Published on January 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

Literary analysis means closely studying a text, interpreting its meanings, and exploring why the author made certain choices. It can be applied to novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other form of literary writing.

A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis , nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.

Before beginning a literary analysis essay, it’s essential to carefully read the text and c ome up with a thesis statement to keep your essay focused. As you write, follow the standard structure of an academic essay :

• An introduction that tells the reader what your essay will focus on.
• A main body, divided into paragraphs , that builds an argument using evidence from the text.
• A conclusion that clearly states the main point that you have shown with your analysis.

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Table of contents

Step 1: reading the text and identifying literary devices, step 2: coming up with a thesis, step 3: writing a title and introduction, step 4: writing the body of the essay, step 5: writing a conclusion, other interesting articles.

The first step is to carefully read the text(s) and take initial notes. As you read, pay attention to the things that are most intriguing, surprising, or even confusing in the writing—these are things you can dig into in your analysis.

Your goal in literary analysis is not simply to explain the events described in the text, but to analyze the writing itself and discuss how the text works on a deeper level. Primarily, you’re looking out for literary devices —textual elements that writers use to convey meaning and create effects. If you’re comparing and contrasting multiple texts, you can also look for connections between different texts.

To get started with your analysis, there are several key areas that you can focus on. As you analyze each aspect of the text, try to think about how they all relate to each other. You can use highlights or notes to keep track of important passages and quotes.

Language choices

Consider what style of language the author uses. Are the sentences short and simple or more complex and poetic?

What word choices stand out as interesting or unusual? Are words used figuratively to mean something other than their literal definition? Figurative language includes things like metaphor (e.g. “her eyes were oceans”) and simile (e.g. “her eyes were like oceans”).

Also keep an eye out for imagery in the text—recurring images that create a certain atmosphere or symbolize something important. Remember that language is used in literary texts to say more than it means on the surface.

Narrative voice

Ask yourself:

• Who is telling the story?
• How are they telling it?

Is it a first-person narrator (“I”) who is personally involved in the story, or a third-person narrator who tells us about the characters from a distance?

Consider the narrator’s perspective . Is the narrator omniscient (where they know everything about all the characters and events), or do they only have partial knowledge? Are they an unreliable narrator who we are not supposed to take at face value? Authors often hint that their narrator might be giving us a distorted or dishonest version of events.

The tone of the text is also worth considering. Is the story intended to be comic, tragic, or something else? Are usually serious topics treated as funny, or vice versa ? Is the story realistic or fantastical (or somewhere in between)?

Consider how the text is structured, and how the structure relates to the story being told.

• Novels are often divided into chapters and parts.
• Poems are divided into lines, stanzas, and sometime cantos.
• Plays are divided into scenes and acts.

Think about why the author chose to divide the different parts of the text in the way they did.

There are also less formal structural elements to take into account. Does the story unfold in chronological order, or does it jump back and forth in time? Does it begin in medias res —in the middle of the action? Does the plot advance towards a clearly defined climax?

With poetry, consider how the rhyme and meter shape your understanding of the text and your impression of the tone. Try reading the poem aloud to get a sense of this.

In a play, you might consider how relationships between characters are built up through different scenes, and how the setting relates to the action. Watch out for  dramatic irony , where the audience knows some detail that the characters don’t, creating a double meaning in their words, thoughts, or actions.

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Your thesis in a literary analysis essay is the point you want to make about the text. It’s the core argument that gives your essay direction and prevents it from just being a collection of random observations about a text.

If you’re given a prompt for your essay, your thesis must answer or relate to the prompt. For example:

Essay question example

Is Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” a religious parable?

Your thesis statement should be an answer to this question—not a simple yes or no, but a statement of why this is or isn’t the case:

Thesis statement example

Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is not a religious parable, but a story about bureaucratic alienation.

Sometimes you’ll be given freedom to choose your own topic; in this case, you’ll have to come up with an original thesis. Consider what stood out to you in the text; ask yourself questions about the elements that interested you, and consider how you might answer them.

Your thesis should be something arguable—that is, something that you think is true about the text, but which is not a simple matter of fact. It must be complex enough to develop through evidence and arguments across the course of your essay.

Say you’re analyzing the novel Frankenstein . You could start by asking yourself:

Your initial answer might be a surface-level description:

The character Frankenstein is portrayed negatively in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

However, this statement is too simple to be an interesting thesis. After reading the text and analyzing its narrative voice and structure, you can develop the answer into a more nuanced and arguable thesis statement:

Mary Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

Remember that you can revise your thesis statement throughout the writing process , so it doesn’t need to be perfectly formulated at this stage. The aim is to keep you focused as you analyze the text.

Finding textual evidence

To support your thesis statement, your essay will build an argument using textual evidence —specific parts of the text that demonstrate your point. This evidence is quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to explain your argument to the reader.

It can be useful to comb through the text in search of relevant quotations before you start writing. You might not end up using everything you find, and you may have to return to the text for more evidence as you write, but collecting textual evidence from the beginning will help you to structure your arguments and assess whether they’re convincing.

To start your literary analysis paper, you’ll need two things: a good title, and an introduction.

Your title should clearly indicate what your analysis will focus on. It usually contains the name of the author and text(s) you’re analyzing. Keep it as concise and engaging as possible.

A common approach to the title is to use a relevant quote from the text, followed by a colon and then the rest of your title.

If you struggle to come up with a good title at first, don’t worry—this will be easier once you’ve begun writing the essay and have a better sense of your arguments.

“Fearful symmetry” : The violence of creation in William Blake’s “The Tyger”

The introduction

The essay introduction provides a quick overview of where your argument is going. It should include your thesis statement and a summary of the essay’s structure.

A typical structure for an introduction is to begin with a general statement about the text and author, using this to lead into your thesis statement. You might refer to a commonly held idea about the text and show how your thesis will contradict it, or zoom in on a particular device you intend to focus on.

Then you can end with a brief indication of what’s coming up in the main body of the essay. This is called signposting. It will be more elaborate in longer essays, but in a short five-paragraph essay structure, it shouldn’t be more than one sentence.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

Some students prefer to write the introduction later in the process, and it’s not a bad idea. After all, you’ll have a clearer idea of the overall shape of your arguments once you’ve begun writing them!

If you do write the introduction first, you should still return to it later to make sure it lines up with what you ended up writing, and edit as necessary.

The body of your essay is everything between the introduction and conclusion. It contains your arguments and the textual evidence that supports them.

Paragraph structure

A typical structure for a high school literary analysis essay consists of five paragraphs : the three paragraphs of the body, plus the introduction and conclusion.

Each paragraph in the main body should focus on one topic. In the five-paragraph model, try to divide your argument into three main areas of analysis, all linked to your thesis. Don’t try to include everything you can think of to say about the text—only analysis that drives your argument.

In longer essays, the same principle applies on a broader scale. For example, you might have two or three sections in your main body, each with multiple paragraphs. Within these sections, you still want to begin new paragraphs at logical moments—a turn in the argument or the introduction of a new idea.

Robert’s first encounter with Gil-Martin suggests something of his sinister power. Robert feels “a sort of invisible power that drew me towards him.” He identifies the moment of their meeting as “the beginning of a series of adventures which has puzzled myself, and will puzzle the world when I am no more in it” (p. 89). Gil-Martin’s “invisible power” seems to be at work even at this distance from the moment described; before continuing the story, Robert feels compelled to anticipate at length what readers will make of his narrative after his approaching death. With this interjection, Hogg emphasizes the fatal influence Gil-Martin exercises from his first appearance.

Topic sentences

To keep your points focused, it’s important to use a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

A good topic sentence allows a reader to see at a glance what the paragraph is about. It can introduce a new line of argument and connect or contrast it with the previous paragraph. Transition words like “however” or “moreover” are useful for creating smooth transitions:

… The story’s focus, therefore, is not upon the divine revelation that may be waiting beyond the door, but upon the mundane process of aging undergone by the man as he waits.

Nevertheless, the “radiance” that appears to stream from the door is typically treated as religious symbolism.

This topic sentence signals that the paragraph will address the question of religious symbolism, while the linking word “nevertheless” points out a contrast with the previous paragraph’s conclusion.

Using textual evidence

A key part of literary analysis is backing up your arguments with relevant evidence from the text. This involves introducing quotes from the text and explaining their significance to your point.

It’s important to contextualize quotes and explain why you’re using them; they should be properly introduced and analyzed, not treated as self-explanatory:

It isn’t always necessary to use a quote. Quoting is useful when you’re discussing the author’s language, but sometimes you’ll have to refer to plot points or structural elements that can’t be captured in a short quote.

In these cases, it’s more appropriate to paraphrase or summarize parts of the text—that is, to describe the relevant part in your own words:

The conclusion of your analysis shouldn’t introduce any new quotations or arguments. Instead, it’s about wrapping up the essay. Here, you summarize your key points and try to emphasize their significance to the reader.

A good way to approach this is to briefly summarize your key arguments, and then stress the conclusion they’ve led you to, highlighting the new perspective your thesis provides on the text as a whole:

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
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By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

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Caulfield, J. (2023, August 14). How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay | A Step-by-Step Guide. Scribbr. Retrieved September 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/literary-analysis/

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Periods of American Literature

The history of American literature reaches from the oral traditions of Native peoples to the novels, poetry, and drama created in the United States today. This list describes its six major periods.

Pre-colonization

Literature has been created in what is today the United States for thousands of years. This history began with the many oral traditions of the Indigenous peoples of North America .

Among the Native peoples of the Plains, the Southwest, and parts of present-day California, Coyote was the central figure of the age before humans were created. Hundreds of tales told by these peoples describe his exploits as a trickster and as a benefactor to humankind.

Raven was Coyote’s counterpart for the Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast, the Pacific coast stretching from what is today Alaska to northwestern California. The Raven cycle is a collection of tales that describe the chaos that Raven creates and the order that eventually emerges, often at Raven’s expense.

The oral traditions of the Pueblo, in the Southwest, include stories about kachinas , the ancestral spirit-beings that exist among humans and actively shape their environment.

Among the Native peoples of the Plains, a wide range of creation myths explain how the world came into existence. The stories of the Comanche, for example, center on the Great Spirit, which created different groups of humans, while the Sioux describe how the winds came into being and, together with the Sun and the Moon, control the universe.

The Colonial and Early National Period (17th century–1830)

The first colonists of North America wrote, often in English, about their experiences starting in the 1600s. This literature was practical, straightforward, often derivative of literature in Great Britain , and focused on the future.

John Smith wrote histories of Virginia based on his experiences as an English explorer and as president of the Jamestown Colony. These histories, published in 1608 and 1624, include his controversial accounts of the Powhatan girl Pocahontas .

Nathaniel Ward and John Winthrop wrote books on religion, a topic of central concern in colonial America.

Anne Bradstreet ’s The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650) may be the earliest collection of poetry written in and about America, although it was published in England.

A new era began when the United States declared its independence in 1776, and much new writing addressed the country’s future. American poetry and fiction were largely modeled on what was being published overseas in Great Britain, and much of what American readers consumed also came from Great Britain.

The Federalist Papers (1787–88), by Alexander Hamilton , James Madison , and John Jay , shaped the political direction of the United States.

Benjamin Franklin ’s Autobiography , which he wrote during the 1770s and ’80s, tells a quintessentially American life story.

Phillis Wheatley , an African woman enslaved in Boston, was the first Black poet of note in the United States. Her first book was Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). Philip Freneau is another notable poet of the era.

The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown , was published in 1789.

Olaudah Equiano ’s autobiography, The Interesting Narrative (1789), is among the earliest slave narratives and stands as a forceful argument for abolition.

By the first decades of the 19th century, a truly American literature began to emerge. Though still derived from British literary tradition, the short stories and novels published from 1800 through the 1820s began to depict American society and explore the American landscape in an unprecedented manner.

Washington Irving published the collection of short stories and essays The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in 1819–20. It includes “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle,” two of the earliest American short stories.

James Fenimore Cooper wrote novels of adventure about the frontiersman Natty Bumppo. These novels, called the Leatherstocking Tales (1823–41), depict his experiences in the American wilderness in both realistic and highly romanticized ways.

The Romantic Period (1830–70)

Romanticism is a way of thinking that values the individual over the group, the subjective over the objective, and a person’s emotional experience over reason. It also values the wildness of nature over human-made order. Romanticism as a worldview took hold in western Europe in the late 18th century, and American writers embraced it in the early 19th century.

Edgar Allan Poe most vividly depicted, and inhabited, the role of the Romantic individual—a genius, often tormented and always struggling against convention—during the 1830s and up to his mysterious death in 1849.

Poe invented the modern detective story with “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841).

The poem “The Raven” (1845) is a gloomy depiction of lost love. Its eeriness is intensified by its meter and rhyme scheme.

The short stories “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) and “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846) are gripping tales of horror.

In New England, several different groups of writers and thinkers emerged after 1830, each exploring the experiences of individuals in different segments of American society.

James Russell Lowell was among those who used humor and dialect in verse and prose to depict everyday life in the Northeast.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes were the most prominent of the upper-class Brahmins , who filtered their depiction of America through European models and sensibilities.

The Transcendentalists developed an elaborate philosophy that saw in all of creation a unified whole. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote influential essays, while Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden (1854), an account of his life alone by Walden Pond. Margaret Fuller was editor of The Dial , an important Transcendentalist magazine.

Three men— Nathaniel Hawthorne , Herman Melville , and Walt Whitman —began publishing novels, short stories, and poetry during the Romantic period that became some of the most-enduring works of American literature.

As a young man, Hawthorne published short stories, most notable among them the allegorical “Young Goodman Brown” (1835). In the 1840s he crossed paths with the Transcendentalists before he started writing his two most significant novels— The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851).

Melville was one of Hawthorne’s friends and neighbors. Hawthorne was also a strong influence on Melville’s Moby Dick (1851), which was the culmination of Melville’s early life of traveling and writing.

Whitman wrote poetry that described his home, New York City. He refused the traditional constraints of rhyme and meter in favor of free verse in Leaves of Grass (1855), and his frankness in subject matter and tone repelled some critics. But the book, which went through many subsequent editions , became a landmark in American poetry, and it epitomized the ethos of the Romantic period.

During the 1850s, as the United States headed toward civil war, more and more stories by and about enslaved and free Black people were written.

William Wells Brown published what is often considered the first Black American novel, Clotel , in 1853. He also wrote the first African American play to be published, The Escape (1858).

In 1859 Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and Harriet E. Wilson became the first Black women to publish fiction in the United States.

Harriet Beecher Stowe ’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin , first published serially in 1851–52, is credited with raising opposition in the North to slavery.

Harriet Jacobs published a searing account of her life as an enslaved woman in 1861, the same year that the Civil War began. It became one of the era’s most influential slave narratives.

Emily Dickinson lived a life quite unlike other writers of the Romantic period: she lived largely in seclusion; only a handful of her poems were published before her death in 1886; and she was a woman working at a time when men dominated the literary scene. Yet her poems express a Romantic vision as clearly as Whitman’s or Poe’s. They are sharp-edged and emotionally intense. Here are five of her notable poems:

“I’m Nobody! Who are you?”

“Because I could not stop for Death –”

“My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun”

“A Bird, came down the Walk –”

“Safe in their Alabaster Chambers”

Realism and Naturalism (1870–1910)

The human cost of the Civil War in the United States was immense: more than 2,300,000 soldiers fought in the war, and perhaps as many as 851,000 people died in 1861–65. Walt Whitman claimed that “a great literature will…arise out of the era of those four years,” and what emerged in the following decades was a literature that presented a detailed and unembellished vision of the world as it truly was. This was the essence of realism . Naturalism was an intensified form of realism. After the grim realities of a devastating war, these styles became writers’ primary mode of expression.

Samuel Clemens was a typesetter, a journalist, a riverboat captain, and an itinerant laborer before he became, in 1863 at age 27, Mark Twain . He first used that name while reporting on politics in the Nevada Territory. It then appeared on the short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” published in 1865, which catapulted him to national fame. Twain’s story was a humorous tall tale, but its characters were realistic depictions of actual Americans. Twain deployed this combination of humor and realism throughout his writing. The following are some of Twain’s notable works:

Major novels: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

Travel narratives: The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), Life on the Mississippi (1883)

Short stories: “Jim Baker’s Blue-Jay Yarn” (1880), “The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg” (1899)

Naturalism, like realism, was a literary movement that drew inspiration from French authors of the 19th century who sought to document, through fiction, the reality that they saw around them, particularly among the middle and working classes living in cities.

Theodore Dreiser was foremost among American writers who embraced naturalism. His Sister Carrie (1900) is the most important American naturalist novel.

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) and The Red Badge of Courage (1895), by Stephen Crane , and McTeague (1899), The Octopus (1901), and The Pit (1903), by Frank Norris , are novels that vividly depict the reality of urban life, war, and capitalism.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was an African American writer who wrote poetry in Black dialect— “Possum” and “When de Co’n Pone’s Hot” —that were popular with his white audience and gave them what they believed was reality for Black Americans. Dunbar also wrote poems not in dialect— “We Wear the Mask” and “Sympathy” —that exposed the reality of racism in America during Reconstruction and afterward.

Sophia Alice Callahan , who was of Muskogee Creek descent, published in 1891 what is often considered the first novel by a Native woman: Wynema: A Child of the Forest . Zitkala-Sa , whose mother was Yankton Sioux, published a collection of Dakota stories, Old Indian Legends , in 1901. She used this collection and other early writings to document her experience of forced assimilation, and she spent the rest of her life advocating for Native peoples.

Henry James shared the view of the realists and naturalists that literature ought to present reality, but his writing style and use of literary form sought to also create an aesthetic experience, not simply document truth. He was preoccupied with the clash in values between the United States and Europe. His writing shows features of both 19th-century realism and naturalism and 20th-century modernism. Some of his notable novels include:

The American (1877)

The Portrait of a Lady (1881)

What Maisie Knew (1897)

The Wings of the Dove (1902)

The Golden Bowl (1904)

The Modernist Period (1910–45)

Advances in science and technology in Western countries rapidly intensified at the start of the 20th century and brought about a sense of unprecedented progress. The devastation of World War I and the Great Depression also caused widespread suffering in Europe and the United States. These contradictory impulses can be found swirling within modernism , a movement in the arts defined first and foremost as a radical break from the past. But this break was often an act of destruction, and it caused a loss of faith in traditional structures and beliefs. Despite, or perhaps because of, these contradictory impulses, the modernist period proved to be one of the richest and most productive in American literature.

A sense of disillusionment and loss pervades much American modernist fiction. That sense may be centered on specific individuals, or it may be directed toward American society or toward civilization generally. It may generate a nihilistic, destructive impulse, or it may express hope at the prospect of change.

F. Scott Fitzgerald skewered the American Dream in The Great Gatsby (1925).

Richard Wright exposed and attacked American racism in Native Son (1940).

Zora Neale Hurston told the story of a Black woman’s three marriages in Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937).

Ernest Hemingway ’s early novels The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929) articulated the disillusionment of the Lost Generation .

Willa Cather told hopeful stories of the American frontier, set mostly on the Great Plains, in O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918).

William Faulkner used stream-of-consciousness monologues and other formal techniques to break from past literary practice in The Sound and the Fury (1929).

John Steinbeck depicted the difficult lives of migrant workers in Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939).

T.S. Eliot was an American by birth and, as of 1927, a British subject by choice. His fragmentary, multivoiced The Waste Land (1922) is the quintessential modernist poem, but his was not the dominant voice among American modernist poets.

Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg evocatively described the regions—New England and the Midwest, respectively—in which they lived.

The Harlem Renaissance produced a rich coterie of poets, among them Countee Cullen , Langston Hughes , Claude McKay , and Alice Dunbar Nelson .

Harriet Monroe founded Poetry magazine in Chicago in 1912 and made it the most important organ for poetry not just in the United States but for the English-speaking world.

During the 1920s Edna St. Vincent Millay , Marianne Moore , and E.E. Cummings expressed a spirit of revolution and experimentation in their poetry.

Drama came to prominence for the first time in the United States in the early 20th century. Playwrights drew inspiration from European theater but created plays that were uniquely and enduringly American.

Eugene O’Neill was the foremost American playwright of the period. His Long Day’s Journey into Night (written 1939–41, performed 1956) was the high point of more than 20 years of creativity that began in 1920 with Beyond the Horizon and concluded with The Iceman Cometh (written 1939, performed 1946).

During the 1930s Lillian Hellman , Clifford Odets , and Langston Hughes wrote plays that exposed injustice in America.

Thornton Wilder presented a realistic (and enormously influential) vision of small-town America in Our Town , first produced in 1938.

The Contemporary Period (1945–present)

The United States, which emerged from World War II confident and economically strong, entered the Cold War in the late 1940s. This conflict with the Soviet Union shaped global politics for more than four decades, and the proxy wars and threat of nuclear annihilation that came to define it were just some of the influences shaping American literature during the second half of the 20th century. The 1950s and ’60s brought significant cultural shifts within the United States driven by the civil rights movement and the women’s rights movement . By the turn of the 21st century, American literature was recognized as being a complex, inclusive story that is grounded on a wide-ranging body of past writings produced in the United States by people of different backgrounds and is open to the experiences of more and more Americans in the present day.

Literature written by African Americans during the contemporary period was shaped in many ways by Richard Wright, whose autobiography Black Boy was published in 1945. He left the United States for France after World War II, repulsed by the injustice and discrimination he faced as a Black man in America; other Black writers working from the 1950s through the ’70s also wrestled with the desires to escape an unjust society and to change it.

Ralph Ellison ’s novel Invisible Man (1952) tells the story of an unnamed Black man adrift in, and ignored by, America.

James Baldwin wrote essays, novels, and plays on race and sexuality throughout his life, but his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), was his most accomplished and influential.

Lorraine Hansberry ’s A Raisin in the Sun , a play about the effects of racism in Chicago, was first performed in 1959.

Gwendolyn Brooks became, in 1950, the first African American poet to win a Pulitzer Prize.

The Black Arts movement was grounded in the tenets of Black nationalism and sought to generate a uniquely Black consciousness. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), by Malcolm X and Alex Haley , is among its most-lasting literary expressions.

Toni Morrison ’s first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), launched a writing career that would put the lives of Black women at its center. She received a Nobel Prize in 1993.

In the 1960s Alice Walker began writing novels, poetry, and short stories that reflected her involvement in the civil rights movement.

The American novel took on a dizzying number of forms after World War II. Realist, metafictional, postmodern, absurdist, autobiographical, short, long, fragmentary, feminist, stream of consciousness—these and dozens more labels can be applied to the vast output of American novelists. Little holds them together beyond their chronological proximity and engagement with contemporary American society. These are representative novels:

Norman Mailer : The Naked and the Dead (1948), The Executioner’s Song (1979)

Vladimir Nabokov : Lolita (1955)

Jack Kerouac : On the Road (1957)

Thomas Pynchon : The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)

N. Scott Momaday : House Made of Dawn (1968)

Kurt Vonnegut : Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

Eudora Welty : The Optimist’s Daughter (1972)

Philip Roth : Portnoy’s Complaint (1969), American Pastoral (1997)

Ursula K. Le Guin : The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)

Saul Bellow : Humboldt’s Gift (1975)

Toni Morrison : Song of Solomon (1977), Beloved (1987)

Alice Walker : The Color Purple (1982)

Sandra Cisneros : The House on Mango Street (1983)

Jamaica Kincaid : Annie John (1984)

Maxine Hong Kingston : Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1989)

David Foster Wallace : Infinite Jest (1996)

Don DeLillo : Underworld (1997)

Ha Jin : Waiting (1999)

Jonathan Franzen : The Corrections (2001)

Junot Díaz : The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)

Colson Whitehead : The Underground Railroad (2016)

Ocean Vuong : On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

The Beat movement was short-lived—starting and ending in the 1950s—but had a lasting influence on American poetry during the contemporary period. Allen Ginsberg ’s Howl (1956) pushed aside the formal, largely traditional poetic conventions that had come to dominate American poetry. Raucous, profane, and deeply moving, Howl reset Americans’ expectations for poetry during the second half of the 20th century and beyond. Among the important poets of this period are the following:

Anne Sexton

Sylvia Plath

John Berryman

Donald Hall

Elizabeth Bishop

James Merrill

Nikki Giovanni

Robert Pinsky

Adrienne Rich

Yusef Komunyakaa

W.S. Merwin

Tracy K. Smith

In the early decades of the contemporary period, American drama was dominated by three men: Arthur Miller , Tennessee Williams , and Edward Albee . Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949) questioned the American Dream through the destruction of its main character, while Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) excavated his characters’ dreams and frustrations. Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) rendered what might have been a benign domestic situation into something vicious and cruel. By the 1970s the face of American drama had begun to change, and it continued to diversify into the 21st century. Notable dramatists include:

David Mamet

Amiri Baraka

Sam Shepard

August Wilson

Ntozake Shange

Wendy Wasserstein

Tony Kushner

David Henry Hwang

Richard Greenberg

Suzan-Lori Parks

Young Jean Lee

Jeremy O. Harris

ENGL 201 American Literature I

• Course Description

A survey from the early Colonial period through the American Renaissance. Two critical papers are required.

For information regarding prerequisites for this course, please refer to the  Academic Course Catalog .

Course Guide

View this course’s outcomes, policies, schedule, and more.*

*The information contained in our Course Guides is provided as a sample. Specific course curriculum and requirements for each course are provided by individual instructors each semester. Students should not use Course Guides to find and complete assignments, class prerequisites, or order books.

English 201 provides an opportunity for students to explore and analyze some of the more significant works of American literature.  Through studying and writing about the literature, students will discover the connection between historical, philosophical, and religious views expressed by the authors of this period.

Course Assignment

Textbook readings and lecture presentations/notes.

No details available.

Course Requirements Checklist

After reading the Course Syllabus and  Student Expectations , the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

Discussions (2)

Discussions are collaborative learning experiences. Therefore, the student will create a thread in response to the provided prompt for each discussion. Each thread must demonstrate course-related knowledge. In addition to the thread, the student will reply to at least 1 classmate’s thread. For Discussion: American Literature from a Christian Worldview, the thread must be 250–300 words and the reply must be 200–250 words. For Discussion: Reflection, the thread must be 250–300 words and the reply must be 150–200 words. Both the thread and the reply must demonstrate correct, formal writing style. (CLO: 1, 6; CT 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

This step in the writing process will help the student to map out their ideas, develop organization, and ensure that they are on the right track. The student will develop a one-sentence thesis statement and outline for each essay. The student must plan for their thesis statement to be the last sentence of the intro paragraph. The thesis and outline should address one of the prompts from the essay instructions.

Essay: The Colonial Period Assignment

The student will compose a 750-word critical analysis essay (3–4 pages). The essay must focus on the colonial period of American literature that is covered in the course. The essay must include a title page, thesis statement, and outline followed by the essay and a correctly documented works cited page. The essay must include two (2) or more secondary, scholarly sources. The student will have the opportunity to receive instructor feedback by submitting the thesis and outline prior to the essay. (CLO: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; CT 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Essay: The Age of Reason/Revolutionary Period Assignment

The student will compose a 750-word critical analysis essay (3–4 pages) that focuses on the Age of Reason/Revolutionary Period of American Literature covered in the course. The essay must include a title page, thesis statement, and outline followed by the essay and a correctly documented works cited page. The essay must include two (2) or more secondary, scholarly sources. The student will have the opportunity to receive instructor feedback by submitting the thesis and outline prior to the essay. (CLO: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; CT 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Essay: The American Renaissance/Romantic Period Assignment

The student will compose a final paper of at least 1,200 words (4–5 pages) that incorporates a minimum of three (3) secondary, scholarly sources. The paper must have a title page, thesis statement, and outline followed by the paper and a correctly documented works cited page. The student will have the opportunity to receive instructor feedback by submitting the thesis and outline prior to the research paper. (CLO: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; CT 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Practice Quizzes (3)

In the module before each quiz, the student will take a Practice Quiz (Practice Quiz: The Colonial Period, Practice Quiz: The Age of Reason/Revolutionary Period, and Practice Quiz: The American Renaissance/Romantic Period) that will help him/her prepare for the subsequent quiz. Each Practice Quiz will be open-book/open-notes; consist of 16 multiple-choice and true/false; and have a 1-hour time limit. The student may take each Practice Quiz as many times as he/she likes until the due date. The final attempt will be counted toward the final grade. (CLO: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6; CT 1, 5)

Quizzes (3)

The student will take 3 quizzes (Quiz: The Colonial Period, Quiz: The Age of Reason/Revolutionary Period, and Quiz: The American Renaissance/Romantic Period). Each quiz will be open-book/open-notes; consist of 40 multiple-choice, true/false, and reading comprehension questions; and have a 1-hour time limit. Unlike the Practice Quiz, the student may only take each quiz once. (CLO: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6; CT 1, 5)

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Book Review: ‘We’re Alone’ by Haitian American writer Edwidge Danticat weaves personal and political

This cover image released by Graywolf Press shows “We’re Alone” by Edwidge Danticat. (Graywolf Press via AP)

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Haitian American writer Edwidge Danticat explores family, homeland and her literary heroes in “We’re Alone,” a new volume of essays that include personal narratives of her early years as child immigrant in Brooklyn to reportage of recent events like the assassination of a president back in her native county.

In the essay collection, the author of the celebrated memoir “Brother, I’m Dying,” and novels like “Breath, Eyes, Memory” and “Claire of the Sea Light,” moves from her native Port-au-Prince to the New York of her childhood and finally to the adopted hometown of Miami, where she lives as an adult with a family of her own.

In one essay in the slim volume, Danticat contemplates her family, describing the consequences of one uncle being gripped by dementia, his memory erased, his past suddenly vanished.

“An entire segment of our family history, of which he was the sole caretaker, was no longer available to us. Or to himself,” Danticat recalled.

Yet, she wrote, “family is not only made up of your living relatives. It is elders long buried and generations yet unborn, with stories as bridges and potential portals. Family is whoever is left when everyone else is gone.”

Another essay pays homage to distinguished writers of color she admires, including James Baldwin and Colombian Gabriel García Márquez.

On the plane to Grenada for a tourism conference, Danticat considers the work of Black feminist Audre Lorde, reading the essay Lorde wrote about the island just weeks after the 1983 U.S. invasion of her parents’ homeland.

Danticat fondly remembers the time she spent with friend and mentor American novelist Toni Morrison, including their participation in a conference in Paris.

And she reflects on the earthquakes and hurricanes that have rocked her native Haiti and other Caribbean countries in recent decades, following centuries of colonization.

“‘We are a people,’ is what we have been saying for generations to colonizers, invaders and imperialists hellbent on destroying us. And now, more than ever, Mother Nature, too.”

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews