History of American Literature [antikvár]

PREFACEThis volume offers the reader a very complete and convenient survey of American literature of the twentieth century. As the title indicates, it covers the years from 1910 to the present. It is a companion volume to the author's History of American Literature from the Beginning to 1910. The two books have been written so that they may be used entirely independently of one another. But together they give a continuous account of our literature; and the pattern and treatment are alike in the two.American literature in the twentieth century has brought us many major novelists, poets, dramatists, and prose writers of unusual interest. Such names as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolfe, Steinbeck, Faulkner among the novelists; Robinson, Frost, Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens among the poets; Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee among the dramatiststhese give only a suggestion of the wealth with which this book is concerned. In this volume we give full attention to them and many other important writers, discussing their background and distinctive characteristics, and presenting summaries of their chief works, with critical or explanatory comment wherever it seems helpful.The book, however, does not limit itself to the major writers. It is an inclusive survey, with thoughtful sections on lesser writers who have made valuable and varied contributions. Writers who are often grouped together because of a shared approachsuch as the Imagists, the Agrarians, and later the Projectivists, the Beats, the Black Poets,