Reviews for The American Tradition in Literature (concise) book alone

The average rating for The American Tradition in Literature (concise) book alone based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2007-09-13 00:00:00 Matthew Volmerding This book is the text of one of my Lit classes at LVC. It features some of the greatest contemporary writers and poets. There are many more, I will skip over some even if it seems like I included all of them. This is likely an expensive book (I don't recall what it cost me) but it beats purchasing several smaller books if you would like a sample of great writers. It also allows you to discover writers you may not have heard of or have heard of but have not encountered previously. I enjoyed all the selections I've read and look forward to discovering more. Some of the selected writers include: AN AGE OF EXPANSION 1865-1915 New Voices in Poetry: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Sidney Lanier Realists and Regionalists: Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Henry James, Ambrose Bierce, Joel Chandler Harris The Turn of the Century 1890-1910: Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Jack London MODERN AMERICAN LITERATURE 1915-1945 New Directions The First Wave Willa Cather, Gertrude Stein, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Hilda Doolittle Poets of Idea and Order William Carlos Williams, John Crowe Ransom, Hart Crane Literature of Social and Cultural Challenge Edna St. Vincent Millay, e.e. cummings, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston APPROCHAING A MILLENIUM 1945 TO THE PRESENT Drama at Midcentury Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller Poetry at Midcentury Theordore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman Fiction at Midcentury Eudora Welty, John Cheever, Flannery O'Connor The Sixties and After Drama Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, August Wilson Poetry Robert Bly, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Cathy Song, Dave Smith Fiction Toni Morrison, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Walker, Raymond Carver The Globalization of American Literature Vladimir Nabokov, Czeslaw Milosz, Isabel Allendale, Jamacia Kincaid

Review # 2 was written on 2009-08-04 00:00:00 Stephen Carter I am reviewing the 11th edition of this volume, even though that is not listed in Goodreads when I try to view the volume. What a shame that this is currently unavailable. This is a wonderful compilation of American literature from Walt Whitman to Edwidge Danticat. There are many other writers, many of whom I was unaware. Confession: This is one of my son's college textbooks, and I heisted it to get a taste of the works therein! The book has selections from major writers, plus some essays placing the works into some kind of context. The works are examined in terms of a series of categories: An Age of Expansion (with subcategories such as New Voices in Poetry, Realists and Regionalists), The Turn of the Century (19th to 20th) (subcategories: Prosperity and Social Justice at the Turn of the Century (19th to 20th) (subcategory: New Directions), The Literary Renaissance (The First Wave, Modernism and the American Voice, Poets of Idea and Order), A Literature of Social and Cultural Challenge (e.g., The Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance) The Second World War and Its Aftermath (Drama, The Age of Anxiety, Poetry, Fiction), A Century Ends and a New Millennium Begins (The Age of Anxiety, Poetry, Fiction, The Globalization of American Literature). As one can see, it is tough to review a volume that covers so much territory! So, I will simply note some interesting issues raised in this volume. First, let's take a look at the last slice of time--"A Century Ends and a New Millennium Begins." Drama? Sam Shepard's "True West." "Age of Anxiety"? Bob Dylan's song "Masters of War," Martin Luther King's "I have a dream." Poetry? Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, Bob Dylan and so on. Fiction? Toni Morrison, Anne Tyler, Amy Tan. And on it goes. One can always quibble about what goes into a sele4ctuion like this. But, overall, I think that this provides the reader with a nice sense of American literature from the Civil War era to the present.