A History of American Literature 1900 - 1950
Wiley-Blackwell Histories of American Literature
1. Edition June 2024
496 Pages, Hardcover
Handbook/Reference Book
A look at the first five decades of 20th 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.
1 American Literature in 1900 1
Prose and Fiction: Taking on the New Century 3
Regional Fictions: Austin, Glasgow, Cather, and Roberts 23
Black Writing: The Washington and Du Bois Debate 33
American Theater in the First Decades 39
Native American Literature in the Early 1900s 43
Poetry Before the Modernists 47
The Chicago Renaissance: Masters, Lindsay, and Sandburg 49
The Poetry of Feeling: Teasdale, Millay, Wiley, and Bogan 57
The Poetry of Place: Jeffers, Robinson, and Frost 64
2 The Twenties: Becoming International 72
Innovation and American Theater in the 1920s 73
Prose in the American Grain: Lewis, Anderson, Faulkner 82
The Expatriates: "Being Geniuses Together" 96
"Making It New" Modernist Poetry and the 1920s 115
The South: Fugitives and Agrarians 139
The Harlem Renaissance 142
3 The Thirties: Depression and a Prelude to War 163
Poetry: Some Legacies of Modernism 168
Drama in the 1930s: After O'Neill 178
Fiction in the 1930s: A National and International Canvas 197
Black Writing in the 1930s 226
Immigrant Writing in the First Decades 234
Proletarian Literature 246
American Writers and the Spanish Civil War 263
4 WAR: "Thus dawn the 1940s..." 270
The Media: Books, Hollywood, and Television 270
Literature and the War: Fiction and Nonfiction 276
Literature and the War: Poetry 290
Literature and the War: Theater 302
5 Into Mid-Century 304
Native American Literature 1920-1950 304
Postwar Theater: The Early Careers of Inge, Williams, and Miller 317
Poetry into Mid-Century: Evaluating the Modernist Legacy 333
Black Writing into Mid-Century 356
Fiction in the 1940s 377
J. D. Salinger and Vladimir Nabokov 377
Southern Writing 382
Jewish American Fiction 394
Urban Fiction: Tales of Three Cities 402
Los Angeles 402
New York 408
Chicago 412
And Other Places: Past, Present, and Future 415
Past 415
Present 417
Future 424
References 434
Index 463
