Поможем в ✍️ написании учебной работы

Имя

Поможем с курсовой, контрольной, дипломной, рефератом, отчетом по практике, научно-исследовательской и любой другой работой

Выберите тип работыЧасть дипломаДипломная работаКурсовая работаКонтрольная работаРешение задачРефератНаучно - исследовательская работаОтчет по практикеОтветы на билетыТест/экзамен onlineМонографияЭссеДокладКомпьютерный набор текстаКомпьютерный чертежРецензияПереводРепетиторБизнес-планКонспектыПроверка качестваЭкзамен на сайтеАспирантский рефератМагистерская работаНаучная статьяНаучный трудТехническая редакция текстаЧертеж от рукиДиаграммы, таблицыПрезентация к защитеТезисный планРечь к дипломуДоработка заказа клиентаОтзыв на дипломПубликация статьи в ВАКПубликация статьи в ScopusДипломная работа MBAПовышение оригинальностиКопирайтингДругое

Нажимая кнопку "Продолжить", я принимаю политику конфиденциальности

Higher and Secondary Special Education Ministry of the Republic of Uzbekistan

 

Gulistan State University

«History of American Literature»

Guliston‑2005

Introduction

In the tenth century brave Scandinavian sailors reached the Western coast of the Present USA. On 12th of October 1492 Christopher Columbus landed on one of the islands (in the region of Cuba). About 1500 Florentine Amerigo Vespuchi came to the shores of the New World. But only at the beginning of the XII century did Europeans begin to open up Western Coasts of the North America. At that time the Spaniards founded settlements along the Atlantic coast (in the territory of the present day Florida, Georgia and South California). The Dutchmen settled in the district of Hudson. In Manhatten island (Hudson-) 1613 the Dutch settlement became New Amsterdam. In 1604 Frenchmen founded the first settlements in Canada. Englishmen set about to colonize America, a little later, the first English colony was Virginia which was founded in 1607. In 1620 «Mayflower» brought from England the first detachment of the colonists = puritans, who founded New Plymouth (near present day Boston). Later near that place there sprang up New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and these united under the name of New England. In 1634 there appeared Maryland and in 1681 William Penn founded the Quaker colony, Pennsylvania.

American Literature can not be captured in a simple definition. It reflects the many religious, historical and cultural traditions of the American people, one of the world's most varied populations. It includes poetry, fiction, drama and other kinds of writing by authors in what is now the US. It also includes non written material, such as the oral literature of the American Indians and folk tales and legends. In addition, American literature includes accounts of American written by immigrants and visitors from other countries, as well as works by American writers who spent all of their lives abroad.

The United States became an independent nation by winning the Revolutionary War in America (1775–1783). Much of the literature of this period addressed issues relating to American independence.

American literature begins with the legends, myths and poetry of the American Indians, the first people to live in what is now the US. Indian legends included stories about the origin of the world, the histories of tribes and tales of tribal heroes. With rare exceptions this oral literature wasn't written down until 1800's.

The earliest writing in America consisted of the journals and reports of European explorers and missionaries. These early authors left a rich literature describing their encounters with new lands and new civilizations. They publicized their adventures, described the New World, and tried to attract setllers in words that sometimes mixed facts with propaganda.

Colonists from England and other European countries began settjing along the eastern coast of North America in the early 1600's and created the first American colonial literature. The colonies in Verginia and New England produced the most important writings in the 1600's. In the 1700's, Philodelphia emerged as the literary center of the American colonies.

Captain John Smith wrote what is regarded as the first American book, «A True Relation of… Virginia (1608). It describes how he and other colonists established the first permanent E. settlement in America at Jamestown, John Smith wrote «A Description of New England) in 1616. Smith told a version of the famous story of Pocahontas in The General Histories of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles (1624). The story claims that Pocahontas, the daughter of an Indian chief, saved Smith's life when her father was about to have him killed.

In «The History of the Present State of Virginia» (1705) historian Robert Beverley wrote about the tragic destruction of the American Indians.

To Beverley, the Indians represented possibilities for happiness, innocence, harmony and freedom. In 1620, the Pilgrims founded Plymouth Colony the second permanent E.settlement in America. Many Pilgrims belonged to a group of E. Protestants called Puritans.

The Puritans recorded their own history out of a desire to communicate with fellow believers in England, to attract new coloniests, and to justify their move to a new country. Cotton Mathew wrote more than 400 works on many subjects.

Historical works aimed at recording the life of the Puritans, their journey to America, and the major events, as well as the everyday chronicle, of their life in the New World. William Bradford, «History of Plymanth Plantation». Adward Johnson «History of New England», Coblun Mather «Masnalia Christi Americana». Underlying all these writings, one always finds the idea of Providence; the worldwhich is described is always seen as a reflection of the divine order so that constant analogies are drawn between the beauty of nature and the still of the Architect who created it. Sermons were by far the most common sort of literature in American Colonial communities totally controlled by the church. Dozens of ministers published the sermons that they had written, the best known being those of Thomas Hooker, Increase and Colton Mather.

In spite of the Puritans admiration for the classics and poets like Milton, poetry was often distrussed for appealing for much to the senses and the imagination.

John Smith (1580–1631)

 

John Smith lived a life crammed with adventure and achievement during a great age of exploration. It had not taken long for adventurers and merchants to begin to explore the New World Columbus had discovered. The Spanish to the south, the French to the north, the English along the mid-Atlantic coast, the Dutch, the Swedes, the Portuguese – all of Europe seemed to be moving west. By Smith’s time, about 1600 exploration and the search for gold were still important, but the desire to establish permanent settlements was growing. Smith strong-willed, imaginative, a born leader – was in the right place at the right time.

In 1607 the first permanent English settlement Jamestown, Virginia, was formed. It was made up of one hundred men and four boys, and the man in charge was the twenty-seven year-old Captain John Smith. The colony would not have survived without John Smith. As it was, over half the colonists died during the first winter. After two years in Jamestown, Smith returned to England.

In 1614 a group of English merchants, who hoped to get rich from gold, whale oil, and furs, financed a six-month expedition to New England for Smith. He explored the coast of Main to Cape Cod, made maps, traded with Indians, and went back to England, never to return to America. Yet Smith wanted to return as we can see from his «Description of New England», published in 1616. Although he calls this work a description, Smith’s main purpose is not to describe but to persuade. This pamphlet is essentially and advertisement, a kind of seventeenth – century «commercial». It is an effort to raise money for another new expedition and to convince Englishmen to join Smith in establishing a new colony of which he hoped to be governor.

The United States became an Independent nation by winning the Revolutionary War in America (1775–1783). Much of the literature of this period addressed issues relating to American independence.

Thomas Paine soon became famous for his fiery essays in support of the American patriots. His pamphlet «Common Seuse» (1776) called for complete independence from Great Britain. In a series of pamphlets called «The American Crisis» (1776–1783), he encouraged the rebels to persist during the darkest days of the Revolutionary War.

James Hector St. John De Creve Coeur the French – born essayist (1735–1813), helped the colonists think of themselves as American rather than Europeans. Crevecoeur saw America as a new land where individuals could throw off old Prejudices, suffocating social Customs, and tyrannical government.

Franklin, Paine and Creve Coeur wrote in disnified, but Plain and clear, prose. This style reached its peak in the ringing eloquence of the «Declaration of Independence» written by Thomas Jefferson. The same type of writing appears in the sober language of the Constitution of the U.S-s, much of which was dratted by Gonverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay used this clear style in «The Federatist» (1784–1788), and series of public letters that persuaded New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution.

William Cullen Bryant

 

William Cullen Bryant merits a claim to be one of America’s first naturalist poets. Born after the Revolutionary War, Bryant turned to nature as a source for poetic inspiration. «Thanatopsis», the name of his most famous nature poem, is a Greek word meaning «view of death». The opening lines assert:

To him who in the love of nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language…

Edgar Allan Poe, was also a master of the prose tale. A gifted, tormented man, Poe thought about the proper function of literature for more than any of his predecessors, with the result that he became the first great American literary critic…

The next great American Romanticist, however, drew on America for both characters and seltings, and his work, though theoretical and philosophical, does mirror the attitudes and moves of the time. He was a Shy New Englander named Nathaniel Hawthorne. Although he wrote no poetry his short Stories and novels still rank among the best that America has produced.

Abolitionism. Harriet Beacher Stowe «Uncle Tom’s Cabin»

Transcendentalism. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the «Great Awakener» the founder of Transcendentalism, deeply influenced American literature. His Speeches «The American Scholar» (1837) and «Divinity School Address» (1838). His treatise «Nature» (1836). In 1840 started publishing «The Deal», the Transcendentalism review. 1841. Essays, first series. (Second series in 1844). 1845–1846 «Lectures on Representative Men» (published 1880); Poems.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)

 

Edgar Allan Poe is certainly one of the best known and most popular of American writers. His stories are read by children, probed with the tools of psychoanalysis by critics, and transformed into films. His poems, notably «The Raven», «To Helen» and «Annable Lee», are widely anthologized. And his critical notion that a poem should be readable in a single sitting so as not to mute its single effect is a familiar critical principle. More importantly, Poe’s poetic theories, outlined in such pieces as «The Poetic Principle», «The Rationale of Verse» and «The Philosophy of Composition, had a profound influence on the French symbolist movement.

Before he became a famous poet and short – storey writer, Poe was known as a journalist and magazine editor. He wrote numerous reviews about works now forgotten while producing his own memerable tales and poems. And though he never realized his dream of founding a literary magazine of his own, be contributed to many, including those he edited. Aa a writer for popular periodicals like the «Broadway Journals» and Graham’s «Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine», and as an editor of literary periodicalssuch as the «Southern Literary Messenger» Poe came to understand very well the audiences who read his work. He aimed his work, as he wrote, «not above the popular, or below the critical, taste» turning the fictional conventions of his own time to odd account. In tales such as «Ligeia» and «The Fall of the House of Usher», for example he put his personal stamp on the gothic horror story. He remodeled the tale of exploration in works like «A Descent into theMaelstorm», and he developed the genre of the detective story, or «tale of racionation» as he called it, with such stories as «The Gold Bug», «The Murders in the Rue Morgue», and «The Purlioned Letter». Still another genre he touched on was science fiction with his fantastic story» The Balloon Hoax». As various as was Poe’s genius and as varied as were the fictional subgenres he worked in, one element of his work remains consistent: his concern with the workings of the human mind.

Writers as diverse as Bandelaire and Dostoevsky admired Poe’s work. Bandelaire, who translated many of Poe’s tales, in fact, acknowledged Poe’s influence by writing that if Poe hadn’t existed Bandelaire would have had to invent him. Dostoevsky was unstiuting in his praise of Poe’s revelations of minds at war with thenselves. Although Dostoevsky’s own explorations of extreme states of consciosness and his dramatic depictions of behavior honed by guilt are more ambitious and monumental than Poe’s sketches and tales, the Russian writer felt a kindship with Poe.

Poe’s life was as tormented as the minds of his stories narrators. He was born to itinerant actors in Boston. His father died when he was a year old and his mother a year later. Edgar was and his brother and sister were taken as foster children into the Rome of a Richmond tobacco merchant, John Allan. Poe was educated in England and at the University of Vifginia, where he was provided with insafficient funds for food, books, and clothing by John Allan. Living among wealthy young men, Poe resorted to gambling, wich further worsened his financial situation and contributed what was an already seriously strained relationship with his foster father, who disapproved of his literary ambitions. The upshot was that Poe withdrew from the university and was left to make his own way as an author.

In 1837 he moned his familyfrom Baltimore to New York, where he published his only full-length fictional work, «The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym». In 1840 he published his «Tales of the Grotesqu and Arabesque» (1840). Poe borrowed the terms «grotesque» and «arabesque» from the Romantic poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott, and meant them to suggest the terror associated with the bizarre and the beautiful associated with the poetic. He also meant to suggest that both elements were present in many stories in his collection.

«The Fall of the House of Usher» is among Poe’s most famous and most accomplished tales. The house that falls is both the literal Usher habitation and the family it signifies. The house also represents the mind of Roderick Usher. In its density of detail, bizarre events, and uncanny tone, the story suggest gothic fiction. In its psychological richness and fainted family history, it reaches back to Greek tragedy.

«The Cask of Amontillado» examplifies Poe’s genius at displaying a mad narrator whose intent is to convince his listeners of his sanity. Perhaps Poe’s best – known example of this type is the narrator of «The Tell – Tale Heart». But «The Cask of Amontilado» is an even richer story, with Poe pulling out all the stops in displaying multiple ironies while his narrator fels compelled to tell somebody of the perfect murder he committed fifty years before. The question is why he tells this tale after so many years.

In «The Purloined Letter» Poe gives way to his bent for stories of crime and punishment, this time from the outside point of view of the detective rather than from inside the criminals mind. Rather than considering what he would have done in like circumstances, the detective, Monsieur Dupin, must try to think the way the criminal thought, which is precisely what he does en route to to solving the case. The story celebrates Poe’s appreciation of the rational mind and contains a number of examples of riddles and games in which Poe delighted. It also ends with an elaborate puzzle built on a complex literary allusion, which contains the key Poe uses to unlock the inticacies of the story’s plot.

Poe’s fictional performances delighted audience in his own time continue to engage and intrigue readers today. Even though his style is ornate and his language far from colloquial, he remains a most readable writer, largely because he builds suspense, creates atmosphere, and probes the psychological complexities of his characters’ minds and hearts. If it is the horror of his stories that first draws readers in, it is Poe’s psychological richness and his control of tone that continue to bring them back for repeated readings of some inmatchable stories.

 

The Transcendentalists

 

Transcendentalism emerged in the 30ies. This time witnessed noticeable sharpening of capitalist contradictions. People began their strikes, workers uprising and unions helped the appearance of romanticists, who stood agains mercantalism. There began chasses after dollars. The new literary trend leaked upon the aesthetics of romanticism and it was a new branch of romanticism.

In 1836 there was founded «Transcendentalist Club» at the head of which stood Ralph Waldo Emerson. The members of the Club were Henry David Thorean (1817–1862), Teodore Parker, George Reeply, Amos Alcolt, Elizabeth Pibody, Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) and others.

Transcendentalism is a specific American philosophical and literary trend.

To transcend something is to rise above it, to pass beyond its limits.

Transcendentalism is based on the belief that the most fundamental truths about life and death can be reached only by senses. The transcendentalism believed that each and every man and woman living as a true individual, free from restrain dogma and dull habits of thought, could know something spiritual reality but could not know it through logic or the data of the senses.

Transcendentalists did not have a strict doctrine or code. This trend is more a tendency, an attitude, than it is a philosophy.

Nature played an impotant role in the trenscendentalist view. Nature was divine, alive with spirit, the human mind could read nature, find truths in it. To live in harmony with nature, to allow one^s deepest intaitive being to communicate with nature, was a source of goodness and inspiration.

The trnscendentalists believed that deep intaition of a stiritual reality is available to us only if we allow ourselves to be individuals, and Transcentalist writing places a strong emphasis on individualism.

Trenscendentalists assert that the powers of the individual mind and soul are equally available to all people. These powers are not dependent upon wealth or background or education. We all have a potential equality as spiritual beings, and the divinity within each of us can be realized by the learned minister and the scholar. For Emerson every person can be a kind of poet, realising individual imaginative power.

Society, with its emphasis on material succes, is often seen as a source of corruption.

The tone of transcendentalism writing is often optimistic and aspiring. It frequently suggests that the individual, in hormony with the divine universe, can transform the world. The New England movement, as represented by Emerson and others, has characterized by the absence of a forcual system of thought, the exeltation of the spiritual in a general sense over the material, and the immanence of the divine all the creation, especially as set forth in Emerson’s «Oversoul». Transcendentalists state that only practice, experience, the surrounding world form a person. They thought that a man is by birth inherent in undestending truth and errors, good and evil and that these ideas transcendental, i.e. they come to a man without experience. But the transcendentalists condemned the moral and the practice of bourgeois America, its ideals. Transcendentalism became a kind of a protest form of American intellegentia against aethetically pushing sides of capitalist progress in the USA.

Transcendentalists thought that the society would develop homoniously, if evry person did his best. At the same time the transcendentalists were anxious about the corruption of the American society, wallowed in mercenary calculations, which ignored spiritual interestes.

Rejecting Calvinism and the materialism of society, Emerson and Thoreau asserted their beliefs in deism, in individualism and self-reliance, and in the for national literature. These ideas, most clearly expressed in Emerson’s «Nature» (1836) or «Self-Reliance» (1841) and in Thoreau’s «Walden» (1854) or «Civil Disobedience» (1848), directly influenced three groups of writers:

The writers of the «American Renaissance», Hawthorne, Poe and Melvill, whose symbolic and imaginative works are however more pessimistic, dealing with the individual caught between his own values and those of society, (cf. Edgar Allan Poe’s «Tales»; Nathaniel Hawthrone’s «The Scarlet Letter» (1850) or «The House of the Seven Gables» (1851); Herman Melville’s «Moby Dick» (1851).

Walt Whitman, the prophet and seer, the believer in democracy, in the vitality of man and in the necessary emergency of an American poetry («Leaves of Grass», 1855).

The Schoolroom or Household Poets, Longfellow, Lowell and Whittier, so called because of the tremendous popularity of their works which were read at home and in school. They often used historical themes, folk materials, and traditional forms such as the ballad (e.g. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s «Evangeline», 1847, or «The Song of Hiawatha», 1855); John Greenleaf Whitter’s «Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyll» (1866); James Russell Lowell’s «The Biglow Papers» (1846–1848), and «A Fable for Critics» (1848).

 

Philip Freneau (1752–1832)

 

Philip Freneau wrote a college poem in 1772 entitled «The Rising Glory of America». The future of his country was always a subject of interest for poet and citizen Freneau.

During the Revolutionary War Freneau became an ardent supporter of the American cause. While on sea duty he was captured by the British and placed aboard prison ship, an experience which inspired a long poem entitled «The British Prison Ship». He wrote a number of other long poems, but he was at his best in his short lyrics, such as «The Wild Honey Suckle». Many of these short works, including «On the Emigration to America», «The Indian Burying ground», and «To the Memory of the Brave Americans», deal with American subjects, and it is for these poems that Freneau is best remembered today.

Freneau can be considered one of America’s first great nationalist poets.

During the last years of his life he criticized severely the anti-demoeratic charaeter of the America bourgeois State and was opposed to the realtirnany policy of the Federalists. During the Anglo-American war of 1812 he wrote a number of poems against England.

Though his political poetry was his most important contribution to American letters, he is remembered also for his lyrical poems, of which «The Indian Burying Ground» and «The wild Honey-Suckle» deserve mention as examples of sentimentalism to American poetry. Philip Frenean was a fearless exposer (accuser кораловчи-фош этувчи) of soeial iujusfice, Untiring = (tiveless) (чарчашни билмайдиган – неутомимый) defender of the interests of his people. He graduated from the Princton University in 1771. He became a poet of the American revolution, its herald (=messenger – глашатай-жарчиси) At Jefferson’s proposal he created «The National Gareble», which became a fighting organ of the demoeratic party, Philip Frenean contiuned Peine’s works. Philip hated monarchy and clespotism he critized new capitalist relations. He considered verb artist only those poor = (камбагал) writers = (men off pen) as the latter are independent and incovcuptable (неподкупный – сотилмайдиган).

In this poem «Mack Swiggen. Sative» шеър (1775) he creates sativical image of a (dull, untalented) ungifted poet, dullard = (blockhead) – трища Mack Swiggen. Mac sevved the stroug people of the time and sained glory and money.

In 1793 he wrote about the tasks of American Verbs and writers. In his article «True Purposes of the Theatre» (1797) Frenean cypressed his deep thoughts on the dask of the art.

Frenean was one of the pioneers who fought for independent American literature. And his poem (шеър) «Literary Import» (1788) is about it.

During the War for Independence Frenean exited in Philadelphia a magazine «Foural of a Fvee Man» (1781–1783).

In his series of essays «The Peilosopher of the Forest» () we can read his allegorical story «The Island of Grabbers» () In New York he founded «City Newspaper» () (1788–1790) he planed there many newessays, stories.

In «An old soldier and his Dog» (1790) Freneun shows tragic fate of a soldier who became poor and a cripple (калена).

Frenean exposes the power of money in «A Political Creed» (Политические размышления) (1797).

In the middle of the 90‑ies he created a curious book «Tomo-Cheki, An Indian from a trible of (крик) = yell (screeun) of Philadelphia». Frenean is seen here as a revolutionary enlightener.

Frenean is justly considered to be a father of American poefry. He was the poet of two rewolutions-american and French.

«The house of Night» 1778 (Дом ночи). There we can read «The Power of Fancy», «To the memory of the Brave Americans», «stauras to an Alien» and other poems.

He wrote many poems about American indiaus In a poem «American Freedom» (1775) (поэма) he believes in the victory of Americans as they are fightiny for their rights and their fight just.

In 1778 he wrote his poem «American is Independent» where the anthour castigates George III.

His poems about the slaver in America are deep and there the outhor stigmatizes the slave owners of West-India.

Philip Frencan was the second outstanding = sreat son of America after Peine. The son of New York voine morchant of French descent, Philip Frencan had a stormy life; he was a student, rebel, poet, journalist, trader, sailor, war-prisoner, and a government clerk. At the outbreak of American bourgeois revolution he wrote several satires against the English. In 1780 he was captured by them and put in a British prison-ship, the horrors of whichhe described in the poem «The British Prison – Ship» (1781), «Британский тюремный корабль», published after he had been released in Exchange for English prisoners. His political poems earned him the title of the poet of the American Revolution. These were collected by him into the volume Poems Written between the Years 1768 and 1794. In 1799 he published his «Letters on Various Interesting and Important Subjects».

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in 1807 in Portland (Maine – Мэн) on the coast of the Atlantic ocean in the family of an (lawyer – хукукшунос), who was proud of their forefathers. The latters came to New England on a famous «Mayflower». The poet’s grandfather general Longfellow was – a her a of the War for Independence, the poet’s uncle was a noval lieutenaut = [lu: ten nt] = (морской лейтенант) who later sank a slup and died together with the ship’s crew = [ship’s company = команда] in 1804 who did not want to be taken prisoners. Still a student at Bowdoin college (together with him there studied Nathanicl Hawthorne) (1804–1864). Having graduated from the collegehe went to Europe to study languages and During 1826–1829 he visited France, Spain Haly and Germany. He began to write poems and prose at the Bowdoin college. He deseribed his travels in his book of sketches = (очерков) [] преступающий границы, нарушающий (приличия и т.п.) «Outre-Mer A Pilgrimaje beyond the Sea» (1835) («За морем»)

Returning to the USA he began to heach new languages at the Bowdoin college; in 1834 he was invited as a professor to Harward University in Cambridge where he delivered lectures on literature, wrote – historical and literary articles. Compiled text-books for those who studied French, Spain, Halian, translated poems from these languages.

Hawing been to Europe for the second time in Europe (Germany and Switzerland) in 1835, Longfellow in 1839 publised his novel «Hyperion» («Гиперион») and a poetic collection «Voices of the Night» («Голоса ночи») Two years later he createl «Ballads and Other Poems».

Returning from his third travel from Europe Longfellow published «Ballads and other Poems» and «Poems of Slavery» (1842) «Невольничьи песни» which may be considered as his answer to the great moral and political conflict of his time.

All his later life was connected with Cambridge.

In the 40‑ies the poet engaged himself with translations and in 1845 he created an interesting authology («European Poets» s) «Poets of Europe». When one could find poems of all European peoples, which were translated by Congfellow himself and other American poets. In the 70 – ies he published in the USA (многотомная антология в 31 томах, 20‑й том посвящен России). «Poems of Places» («Поэзия всех стран»).

In 1846 there appeard a collection «The Belfry of Brages and other Poems» («Башня в Брюгге и другие стихотворения») and among them the most favourite poem of the poet was «An arrow and a Song». Soon «Evangeline» (1847) = («Евангелина») the most sisnificant poem saw world The plot of the poem was prompted by Hawthorne.

Longfellow doesn’t give up prose writing either and writes «Kavanagh» (1849). («Кавана»). Poems of different years are colocted in the collection «The Seaside and Fireside» (1849) («У моря и очага»). In 1851 «The Golden Legud» («Золотая легенда») is written. His famous poem «The Song of Hiawatha» appeared in 1855 «_________» – «Хайвонот хакида кушик».

Three years later «The Courtship of Uiles Staudish» (1858). («Сватовство Майлза Стендинса») appeared. Here poets forebathers are gloriotied. This same year saw the publication anothelyric collection «Birds of Passage» («Перелетные птицы»).

In 1863 he published his early written poems under the title of «Tales of a Waysideinn» («Рассказы придорожной гостиницы»).

In 1865–1867 he completed his gigantic work-the translation of Dante’s «Divine Comedy».

Langfellow wrote sonnebs as well. In 1872 he published «Three Song Books» together with the tragedy «Iuda Makkaway». In 1872 he wrote «Mask of Tiador». 1978 saw «Keramos and other Poems» = Керамос. His last poem work was «Ultima Thule» («За пределами» лат.)

Longfellow was a man of action. Professor Longfellow worked as a Rcturer. On the literatures of modern Europe. He was neither o brilliant teacher nor a dull one. Some consider Longfellow to be America’s first professional poet.

In 1843 Longfellow married Frances Appleton, who was a daughter of one of the wealthiest merchants in Boston, she brought him as a wedding gif the handsome Craidie House and grounds in Cambridge, once the headquarters of General Wasington. «Псалом жизни».

His poems «A Psalm of Life» and «The Reaper of the Flowers», were very popular.

Philip Frenean was the second outstauding great son of America after Peine. The son of New York. Wine merchant of French descent, Philip Frenean had a stormy life; he was a sailor, vebel, poet, lournalist, trader, sailor, war-prisoner, and a government clerk. At the outbreak of American bourgeois revolution he wrote several satires against the English. In 1780 he was captured by them and put in a British prison-ship, the horrors of which he deseribed in the poem the British Prison-ship (1791), published after he had been released in exchange for English prisoners. His political poems earned him the title of the poet of the American revolution. These were collected by him into the volume «Poems Written between the Year 1768 and 1794». In 1799 he published his «Letters on Varions Interesting and Important Subjects».

During the last years of his life he criticized severely the anti-demoeratic charaeter of the America bourgeois State and was opposed to the realtirnany policy of the Federalists. During the Anglo-American war of 1812 he wrote a number of poems against England.

Though his political poetry was his most important contribution to American letters, he is remembered also for his lyrical poems, of which «The Indian Burying Ground» and «The wild Honey-Suckle» deserve mention as examples of sentimentalism to American poetry. Philip Frenean was a fearless exposer (accuser кораловчи-фош этувчи) of soeial iujusfice, Untiring = (tiveless) (чарчашни билмайдиган – неутомимый) defender of the interests of his people. He graduated from the Princton University in 1771. He became a poet of the American revolution, its herald (=messenger – глашатай-жарчиси) At Jefferson’s proposal he created «The National Gareble», which became a fighting organ of the demoeratic party, Philip Frenean contiuned Peine’s works. Philip hated monarchy and clespotism he critized new capitalist relations. He considered verb artist only those poor = (камбагал) writers = (men off pen) as the latter are independent and incovcuptable (неподкупный – сотилмайдиган).

In this poem «Mack Swiggen. Sative» шеър (1775) he creates sativical image of a (dull, untalented) ungifted poet, dullard = (blockhead) – трища Mack Swiggen. Mac sevved the stroug people of the time and sained glory and money.

In 1793 he wrote about the tasks of American Verbs and writers. In his article «True Purposes of the Theatre» (1797) Frenean cypressed his deep thoughts on the dask of the art.

Frenean was one of the pioneers who fought for independent American literature. And his poem (шеър) «Literary Import» (1788) is about it.

During the War for Independence Frenean exited in Philadelphia a magazine «Foural of a Fvee Man» (1781–1783).

In his series of essays «The Peilosopher of the Forest» () we can read his allegorical story «The Island of Grabbers» () In New York he founded «City Newspaper» () (1788–1790) he planed there many newessays, stories.

In «An old soldier and his Dog» (1790) Freneun shows tragic fate of a soldier who became poor and a cripple (калена).

Frenean exposes the power of money in «A Political Creed» (Политические размышления) (1797).

In the middle of the 90‑ies he created a curious book «Tomo-Cheki, An Indian from a trible of (крик) = yell (screeun) of Philadelphia». Frenean is seen here as a revolutionary enlightener.

Frenean is justly considered to be a father of American poefry. He was the poet of two rewolutions-american and French.

«The house of Night» 1778 (Дом ночи). There we can read «The Power of Fancy», «To the memory of the Brave Americans», «stauras to an Alien» and other poems.

He wrote many poems about American indiaus In a poem «American Freedom» (1775) (поэма) he believes in the victory of Americans as they are fightiny for their rights and their fight just.

In 1778 he wrote his poem «American is Independent» where the anthour castigates George III.

His poems about the slaver in America are deep and there the outhor stigmatizes the slave owners of West-India.

Philip Frencan was the second outstanding = sreat son of America after Peine. The son of New York voine morchant of French descent, Philip Frencan had a stormy life; he was a student, rebel, poet, journalist, trader, sailor, war-prisoner, and a government clerk. At the outbreak of American bourgeois revolution he wrote several satires against the English. In 1780 he was captured by them and put in a British prison-ship, the horrors of whichhe described in the poem «The British Prison – Ship» (1781), «Британский тюремный корабль», published after he had been released in Exchange for English prisoners. His political poems earned him the title of the poet of the American Revolution. These were collected by him into the volume Poems Written between the Years 1768 and 1794. In 1799 he published his «Letters on Various Interesting and Important Subjects».

During the last years of his life he cviticter severely the anti-democratic character of the American bourgeois State and was opposed to the realtirnary policy of the Federalists. During the Anglo-American war of 1812 he wrote a number of poems against Ebgland.

Though his political poetry was his most important contribution to American Letters, he is remembered also for his Lyrical poems, of which «The Indian Burying Ground» and «The Wild Honey-Suckle» deserve mention as examples of sentimentalism to American poetry.

Philip Frencan was a fearless exposer (accuser кораловчи-фош этувчи) of social injusfice, Untiring = (fiveless) (чарчашни билмайдиган – неутомимый) defender of the interests of his people. He graduated from the Princfon University in 1771. He became as poet of the American revolution, its herald (=messenger – глашатай – жарчиси) At Jefferson’s proposal he created «The National Gareble», which became a fighting organ of the demoeratic party. Philip Frencan continued Peine’s works. Philip hated monarchy and despotism he criticized new capitalist relations. He considered revls articlist only those poor = (камбагал) writers = (men oof pen) as the latter are independent and incorcuptable (неподкупный-сотилмайдиган).

In his poem «Mak Swiggen Satire» шеър (1775) he created sativical image of a (dull, untalented ungitted poet, dullard = (blockhead) – туница Mack Swiggen. Mac severed the strong people of the time and sained glory and money).

In 1793 he wrote about the tasks of American poets and writers. In his article «True Purposes of the Theatre» (1797) Frencan expressed his deep thoughts on the art.

Frencan was one of the pioneers who fonght for independent American literature. And his poem (шеър) «Literary Import» (1788) is about it.

During the war for ludependence Frenqau ekited in Pliladelplia a magazine «Foural ofa Fvee Mein» (1781–1783).

In hisseries of essays «The Plilosopher of the Forest» («Философ из лесной гуши») we can real his allegorical story. «The Islaud of Grabbers» («Остров хануг»).

In New York he founded «City Newspaper» (Городская газета) (1788–1790) he plaied there many new essays, stories.

In «Om old soldier and his Dog» (1790) Frencan shows tragic fate of a soldier who became poor and a cripple (калена).

Frencan exposes the power of moven in «A Political Greed» («Политические размышления») (1797).

In the middle of the 90‑ies he created a curious book «Tomo-Cheeki, An Indian from a trible of (крип) = yell, (screem) of Pliladelphia». Frencan is seen here as a revolutionary enlightener.

Frencan is justly considered to be a father of American poetry. He was the poet of two revolutious – American and French.

«The House of Night» (1778) (Дом ночи). There we can read «The Power of Fancy», «To the memory of the Brave Americans», «Stauras to an Alien» and other poems.

He wrote many poems about American Indiaus In a poem «American Freedom» (1775) (поэма) he believes in the victory of American, as they are fishtiny for their rights and their fight just.

In 1778 he wrote his poem «America is independent» where the anthor castisates George III.

His poems about the slavery in America are also deep and there the author stigmatizes (клеймит) the slaveowners of West-India.

The Wild Honey Suckle by Philip Frenau (1752–1832)

Fair flower, that does so comely grow,

Hid in this silent, dull retreat,

Untouched thy honied blossom blow,

Unseen thy little branches greet,

No roving foot shall crush thee here,

No bush hand provoke a tear.

By Nature’s self in white arrayed,

She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,

And planted here the guardian shade,

And send soft waters murmuring by,

Thus quietly thy summers goes,

The days declining to repose.

Smith with those charms, that must decay,

I grieve to see your future doom,

They died-nor were those flowers more gay,

The flowers that did In Eden bloom;

Unpitying frosts, and Autumn’s power

Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dews

At first thy little being came:

If nothing ones, you nothing lose,

For when you die you are the same;

The space between, is but an hour,

The frail duration of a flower.

Eden: Garden that was the home of the first man and woman,

Adam and Eve, as told in the book of Genesis of the bible

 

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

 

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was an American lyrical poet, and an obsessively private writer – only seven of her some 1800 poems were published during her lifetime. Dickinson withdrew from social contact at the age of 23 and devoted herself in secret into writing.

Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a family well known for educational and political activity. Her father, an orthodox Calvinist, was a lawyer and treasurer of Amherst College, and also served in Congress. She was educated at Amherst Academy (1834–47) and Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (1847–48). Around 1850 Dickinson started to write poems, first in fairly conventional style, but after ten years of practice she began to give room for experiments. From c. 1858 she assembled many of her poems in packets of 'fascicles', which she bound herself with needle and thread.

After the Civil War Dickinson restricted her contacts outside Amherst to exchange of letters, dressed only in white and saw few of the visitors who came to meet her. In fact, most of her time she spent in her room. Although she lived a secluded life, her letters reveal knowledge of the writings of John Keats, John Ruskin, and Sir Thomas Browne. Dickinson's emotional life remains mysterious, despite much speculation about a possible disappointed love affair. Two candidates have been presented: Reverend Charles Wadsworth, with whom she corresponded, and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican, to whom she addressed many poems.

After Dickinson's death in 1886, her sister Lavinia brought out her poems. She co-edited three volumes from 1891 to 1896. Despite its editorial imperfections, the first volume became popular. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, the poet's niece, transcribed and published more poems, and in 1945 Bolts Of Melody essentially completed the task of bringing Dickinson's poems to the public. The publication of Thomas H. Johnson's 1955 edition of Emily Dickinson's poems finally gave readers a complete and accurate text.

Dickinson's works have had considerable influence on modern poetry. Her frequent use of dashes, sporadic capitalization of nouns, off-rhymes, broken metre, unconventional metaphors have contributed her reputation as one of the most innovative poets of 19th-century American literature. Later feminist critics have challenged the popular conception of the poet as a reclusive, eccentric figure, and underlined her intellectual and artistic sophistication.

Emily Dickinson is still considered America’s foremost woman poet. Of her more than 1,700 extend poems, only a handfull were published in her lifetime. She never merried and she seldom left her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, but she transcended all physical limitations in her extensive, artistic correspondence and, even more so, in her unflinchingly honest, psycologically penetrating and technically adventurous poems.

One hundred nine of her best and best-remembered works are reprinted here exactly as they appeared in the first three posthumous anthologies: the 1890 volume (Poems by Emily Dickinson / Edited by two of her friends / Mabel Loomis Todd and T.W. Higginson, Roberts Brothers, Boston [the 16^th edition, 1897, was the specific source]), the 1891 volume (same title as a above, plus Second Series [the 5^th edition, 1893, was the specific source]) and the 1896 volume (same title as for 1890, plus Third Series [1^st edition was source]). The titles (such as «Escape» and «Compensation») given to some of the poems by the early editors are retained here for completeness, but since they were not original with the poet, they have not been entered in any table of contents or index of titles. An index of first lines has been provided, however, at the end of this volume.

Success by Emily Dickinson.

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne’er succeed

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host

Who took the flag today

Can tell the definition

So clear, of victory

As he, defeated dyind,

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Break, aganized and clear.

 

Hamlin Garland (1860–1940)

 

Garland was reared in circumstances that forced him to a firsthand recognition of the distance between the national image of the western lands as promise and fulfillment on the one hand much grimmer actually on the other. His father stubbornly clung to the idea to the idea of the of the fortune yet to be made on the border farm and faithful to the promissory note of America, emigrated from Maine to West Salem, Wisconsin when Garland was born. The fortune never materialized and the family moved to north-eastern Iowa, where Garland lived for 12years, attending the Cedar Valley Seminary.

Still seeking the family moved to Ordway, South Dakota; but instead of fortune the Garlands met with toil, dullness and the hostility of the nature. Wanting to teach and to escape his environment, Hamlin sold his Dakota claim at a small profit and became one of the «back-trailers from the middle border» in fleeing to Boston. His movement from the west to east was. Significant: although the national insisted that the land of the «folk» and democratic realization lay westward, and the east was effete, artificial and aristocratic, many nevertheless sought the very kind of life that the American was supposed to spurn. The split in perception, the double goals in Garland are not merely personal but typical of many American men of letters.

In Boston he lived alone and struggled to find a new life. He educated himself in the Boston public library and studied and taught in the Boston School of Oratory, all the while trying to write. He read Spencer, single-tax economics, the issues of realism and impression in fiction. In 1887he returned to the Midwest for a visit and saw with new perspective the treeless prairies the unremittingly brutalizing toil and the frontier’s murderous effect on his parents. Enraged he returned east and began to contribute stories to B.O. Flower’s influential «Arena». Eneouragedby Joseph Kirckland, Flower and William dean Howells, he attempted to create «veritism» in function a realism that wouldn’t stop short with accepted subjects and attitudes but would also include the less pretty experiences that had led to his disenchantment. In 1891 he published «Main-travelled roads; in the heat of his experience, he had written all the stories in this volume between1887and 1889. often «Main – Travelled roads» (1910) was in turn, a collection made up out of «Prairie Folks» (1893) and «Wayside Courtships» (1897) these two consisted of stories written in the short, fruitfull period.

Mark Twain (1835–1910)

 

«American satirical and critical literature began with Mark Twain», said Chernishevsky. Mark Twain, an honest democrat, satirized the American press («Running for Governor»), (Моя кардитура в губернатори). He exposed, in biting satire, race diserimation and he so-called American democracy («Goldsmitn’s Friend Abroad Again»), 2) bribery and corruption in the highest political cireles of the United States (The Gilled Age» 1) Chares Warner the novel of was written in co-authorstup with 1873, the bourgeois «Culture» of the dollar The Man who Corrupted Hodleyberry (1898). Mark Twain altacked the imperialist policy of the reactionary government with wrath and indignation, and vaised his voice in defence of the nactives of the Philippine Islands (I’filipi:n ailandz) =Филлипины), who were subjected to the iron heel of American imperialism («A Defence of General Funston,» 1902). Imperialist exploitation of colonial peoples is robbery, humiliation and slow, slow murder, said Mark Twain. (Приключения Тома Сайёра). Two of his earlier works – «The Adventures of Tom Sowyer» (1876) and «The Adventures of Huckleberry finn» (1888) – are Beloved by children, as well as growp – ups, all over the world. It is because the joys and sovvows of childhood are depicted with such deep human understanding and sympanty that children and grown-ups alike have the feeling that it is their present and past that is benig brought before them. But there is also sharp social criticism in the books. We see the narrow – mindedness, dullness and backwardness of petty bourgeois lite in the American small town, and the cruel conditions under which the Negro slates lived.

Is there really any evidence that Mark Twain was «greatly influenced» by the 1905 revolution? That sounds bizarre.

Mark Twain was greatly influenced by the Russian Revolotion of 1905; but he did not understand the great historical rote of the working class. That is wily pessimism may be found in some of his works.

Howerer, in his works is eypressed the protest of the masses against capitalism and its evils. Mark Twoins worksbroadly democratic, deeply human, openly anti – imperialistic and brillianty satiric – are of the greatest importance today, when the fight of the progressive people for place and happiness and against imperialism and fascism is becoming more and more intense.

During 1857–1861 le was a pilot лоцман on a Mississippi steamboat, until the Civil war blockaded the river. Them Cobfederate volunteer.

In 1862 Samuel fried to find silver in Nevada them became a reported for the Territorial Enterprise. Started written falles under the pseudonym of Mark Twain.

From 1864 to 1866 the made a trip to Hawaii and delivered popular lectures in California and Nevada.

In 1867 he rublished the Celebrated Jumpiny Froy of Calaveras County and Other Tales. Two years later he wrote («Простаки за границей») = «The Iunocents Abroad or the New Piligrim’s Progress» In 1872 Mark Twain’s Nevada sketches «Roughing H» («Налегке» – «Огрубевшие») appear and the book is about gold seekers of Nevada.

He made a trip to Europe during 1878–1879. His stories «My Watch» («Мои часы») and «Journalism in Tennesses» («Журналистка в Теннессе») are best ones.

«The Prence and the Pauper» (1882) («________») was published in 1882 and «A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court» came into existence in 1889 («Янки из Коннектикута при двора короля Артура»).

«The Tragedy of Pudd’n head Wilson» («Простофиля Вильсон») saw the world in 1894.

Two years later Mark Twain created «Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc» («Личные воспоминания о жизни д’Арк»).

In 1892 there appeared «The American Claimaut» («Американский претендент»).

Many people recognize Samuel L. Clemens only by his pseudonym, Mark Twain, and they know him as primarily a humorist, a funny man to be read for laughs. Nothing could be more unjust, for Mark Twain is a major writer in American literature and one of the World’s great satirists.

He was a brilliant spokesman for the American frontiersman, often called the «Lincoln of our literature «. His father was an old-time pioneer from Virginia; the son was born at Florida, Missouri, in 1835. Not long thereafter the family settled in Hannibal, Missoury, on the bank of the Mississippi, the famous river which Mark Twain made doubly famous in three of his most important works. The father died when the son was only twelve, and Mark Twain went to work in typical American fashion, as a small-town boy who must pull his weight on a fatherless family. His older brother, Orion Clemens, was editor of the local newspare, and Samuel became a printer while doing odd literary jobs for his brother.

Until about 1870 – some dozen years after his getting his pilot’s license – Mark Twain belongs to the Far West. He became a silver miner in Nevada; next, a newspaper reporter; next, a special correspondent in the Sandwich Islands; next, a roving correspondent in Europe and the East; next, an instractional torch-bearer on the lecture – platform; and finally, he became a scribbler of books, and an immorable fieture among the other rocks of New England. Perhaps M. Twain did not strike gold in Nevada, but he discovered in the Far West his true vocation, which was that of writer extraodinary. His career as «newspaper reporter» came in California, and he was correspondent for the Sacramento «Unoin» in Hawaii. In 1867 he sailed on the «Quaker City» to the Holy Land and to Europe, and it was the fruit of his journey,» The Innocents Abroad» (1869), which first gave him an inernational reputation. Before that he had written some sketches and started his career as professional humorist on the lecture platform. In 1870 he moved to the home city of his new wife, to Elmira, New York, and entered upon the final greatest stage of his career. Later he moved with his family to Hartford, where he died in 1910.

His best productive years, from» The Innocents Abroad» to «Joan of Arc» (1896), speak for themselves. We may consider him first as a novelist and writer about the Mississippi River, as in «The Adventures of Tom Sawyer» (1876), «Life on the Mississippi» (1883), and «The Adventuresof Huckleberry Finn» (1884). These books are remarkable accounts of the society that bordered the Mississippi in the middle of the 19th century, and they catch almost ideally the life of the small-town American boy. For all their surface romanticism, they fundamentally realistic and often satirical portraitures. These are the travel – books; in addition to «The Innocent Abroad», by include «Roughing It» (1872). «A Tramp Abroad» (1880), and «Following the Equator» (1897). These are almost always vivid, however, and especially «TheInnocent Abroad», endowed with great potentialities of the comic.

When Mark Twai is deseribius an American milieu in this way, he is superb: but when he ventures into Europe and talks similarly about Europeans, He betrays his provincialism. In no respect is he more typically a frontiersman than in his remarkable contempt for the French.

A final group of Mark Twains works is usual category of the miscellanous comprising «The Prince and the Rauper» (1882), «A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court» (1889) and Joan of Arc» (1896). These have been popular, and deservedly so; they are most characteristic of their author, for with their humor and tenderness and sympathy they illustrate also an intolerance of the traditional and the royal.

He was at all times a sincere and devote missionary for democracy: he had also the typical American’s fondness for the underdog in any and all situations. But as the creator of pictures of a vital era in American History, an era now departed, Mark Twai has the freshness and truth to life necessary to give him a place of high honor in world literature: as a creator of human types and as a reporter of society he has an inevitably kinship with Chaucer and Aristophanes; as a brooder on the shortcomings of man, he is one with Swift, Voltaire, and La Bruyere. And as the greetful portrayer and castigator of American society he is alone.

Mark Twain whose real name was Samuel Clemens; spend his childhood and youth in the small town of Hannibal, Missouri. Life was very hard at the time and had to lave school and look for work. He learned printing and worked as a printer. At 20 he became a skilful pilot on a boat travelling up and down the Mississippi. Then he spent a year with the goldseekers in the West. The many professions that he tried gave him a wide knowledge of life and people. Long years of work as a reported and journalist made him acquainted with the corrupt method of the American press and of the American government, which he later attacked so mercilessly in his works.

There is much fun and humor in most of Mark Twain’s works.

American satirical and critical literature began with Mark Twain, said Cherrishevsky. Mark Twain, an honest democrat, satirized the American press («Running for Governor»), he exposed in biting satire, race discrimination and so – called American democracy («Goldsmith’s Friend Abroad Again»), Bribery and corruption in the highest political circles of the United States («The Gilded Age», 1873), the bourgeois «culture» of the dollar «the Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg» (1898). Mark Twain attracted the imperialist policy of the reactionary government with wrath and indignation, and raised his voice in defense of the natives of the Philippine Islands, who were subjected to the iron heel of American imperialism («A defense of general Funstone», 1902).

Imperialist exploitation of colonial peoples is «robbery, humiliation and slow, slow murder», said Mark Twain.

Two of his earlier works – «the Adventures of Tom Sowyer» 1876 and «The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn» 1888 – are Beloved by children, as well as grown – ups, all over the world. Its became the joys and sorrows of childhood are depicted with such deep human understanding and sympathy that the children and grown – ups a like have the filling that it is their present and past that is being brought before them. But there is also sharp social criticism in the books. We see the narrow – mindedness, dullness and back – wordiness of petty bourgeois life in the American small town, and the cruel conditions under which the Negro slaves lived.

Mark Twain was greatly influenced by the Russian Revolution of 1905; but he didn’t understand the great historical role of the working class. That is why pessimism may be found in some of his works.

However, in his works is expressed of the masses against capitalism and its evils. Mark Twain’s works – broadly democratic, deeply human, openly anti – imperialistic and brilliantly satiric – are of the greatest importance today, when the fight of the progressive people for peace and happiness and against imperialism and fascism is becoming more and more intense.

«American satirical and critical literature began with Mark Twain», said Chernishevsky. Mark Twain, an honest democrat, satirized the American press («Running for Governor»), (Моя кардитура в губернатори). He exposed, in biting satire, race diserimation and he so-called American democracy («Goldsmitn’s Friend Abroad Again»), 2) bribery and corruption in the highest political cireles of the United States (The Gilled Age» 1) Chares Warner the novel of was written in co-authorstup with 1873, the bourgeois «Culture» of the dollar The Man who Corrupted Hodleyberry (1898). Mark Twain altacked the imperialist policy of the reactionary government with wrath and indignation, and vaised his voice in defence of the nactives of the Philippine Islands (I’filipi:n ailandz) =Филлипины), who were subjected to the iron heel of American imperialism («A Defence of General Funston,» 1902). Imperialist exploitation of colonial peoples is robbery, humiliation and slow, slow murder, said Mark Twain. (Приключения Тома Сайёра). Two of his earlier works – «The Adventures of Tom Sowyer» (1876) and «The Adventures of Huckleberry finn» (1888) – are Beloved by children, as well as growp – ups, all over the world. It is because the joys and sovvows of childhood are depicted with such deep human understanding and sympanty that children and grown-ups alike have the feeling that it is their present and past that is benig brought before them. But there is also sharp social criticism in the books. We see the narrow – mindedness, dullness and backwardness of petty bourgeois lite in the American small town, and the cruel conditions under which the Negro slates lived.

Is there really any evidence that Mark Twain was «greatly influenced» by the 1905 revolution? That sounds bizarre.

Mark Twain was greatly influenced by the Russian Revolotion of 1905; but he did not understand the great historical rote of the working class. That is wily pessimism may be found in some of his works.

Howerer, in his works is eypressed the protest of the masses against capitalism and its evils. Mark Twoins worksbroadly democratic, deeply human, openly anti – imperialistic and brillianty satiric – are of the greatest importance today, when the fight of the progressive people for place and happiness and against imperialism and fascism is becoming more and more intense.

During 1857–1861 le was a pilot лоцман on a Mississippi steamboat, until the Civil war blockaded the river. Them Cobfederate volunteer.

In 1862 Samuel fried to find silver in Nevada them became a reported for the Territorial Enterprise. Started written falles under the pseudonym of Mark Twain.

From 1864 to 1866 the made a trip to Hawaii and delivered popular lectures in California and Nevada.

In 1867 he rublished the Celebrated Jumpiny Froy of Calaveras County and Other Tales. Two years later he wrote («Простаки за границей») = «The Iunocents Abroad or the New Piligrim’s Progress» In 1872 Mark Twain’s Nevada sketches «Roughing H» («Налегке» – «Огрубевшие») appear and the book is about gold seekers of Nevada.

He made a trip to Europe during 1878–1879. His stories «My Watch» («Мои часы») and «Journalism in Tennesses» («Журналистка в Теннессе») are best ones.

«The Prence and the Pauper» (1882) («________») was published in 1882 and «A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court» came into existence in 1889 («Янки из Коннектикута при двора короля Артура»).

«The Tragedy of Pudd’n head Wilson» («Простофиля Вильсон») saw the world in 1894.

Two years later Mark Twain created «Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc» («Личные воспоминания о жизни д’Арк»).

In 1892 there appeared «The American Claimaut» («Американский претендент»).

Hamlin Garland (1860–1940)

Garland was reared in circumstances that forced him to a firsthand recognition of the distance between the national image of the western lands as promise and fulfillment on the one hand much grimmer actually on the other. His father stubbornly clung to the idea to the idea of the of the fortune yet to be made on the border farm and faithful to the promissory note of America, emigrated from Maine to West Salem, Wisconsin when Garland was born. The fortune never materialized and the family moved to north-eastern Iowa, where Garland lived for 12years, attending the Cedar Valley Seminary.

Still seeking the family moved to Ordway, South Dakota; but instead of fortune the Garlands met with toil, dullness and the hostility of the nature. Wanting to teach and to escape his environment, Hamlin sold his Dakota claim at a small profit and became one of the «back-trailers from the middle border» in fleeing to Boston. His movement from the west to east was. Significant: although the national insisted that the land of the «folk» and democratic realization lay westward, and the east was effete, artificial and aristocratic, many nevertheless sought the very kind of life that the American was supposed to spurn. The split in perception, the double goals in Garland are not merely personal but typical of many American men of letters.

In Boston he lived alone and struggled to find a new life. He educated himself in the Boston public library and studied and taught in the Boston School of Oratory, all the while trying to write. He read Spencer, single-tax economics, the issues of realism and impression in fiction. In 1887he returned to the Midwest for a visit and saw with new perspective the treeless prairies the unremittingly brutalizing toil and the frontier’s murderous effect on his parents. Enraged he returned east and began to contribute stories to B.O. Flower’s influential «Arena». Eneouragedby Joseph Kirckland, Flower and William dean Howells, he attempted to create «veritism» in function a realism that wouldn’t stop short with accepted subjects and attitudes but would also include the less pretty experiences that had led to his disenchantment. In 1891 he published «Main-travelled roads; in the heat of his experience, he had written all the stories in this volume between1887and 1889. often «Main – Travelled roads» (1910) was in turn, a collection made up out of «Prairie Folks» (1893) and «Wayside Courtships» (1897) these two consisted of stories written in the short, fruitfull period.

 

O. Henry (1867–1910)

O. Henry (1862–1910) was a prolific American short-story writer, a master of surprise endings, who wrote about the life of ordinary people in New York City. A twist of plot, which turns on an ironic or coincidental circumstance, is typical of O. Henry's stories.

William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) was born in Greenboro, North Carolina. His father, Algernon Sidney Porter, was a physician. When William was three, his mother died, and he was raised by his paternal grandmother and aunt. William was an avid reader, but at the age of fifteen he left school, and then worked in a drug store and on a Texas ranch. He moved to Houston, where he had a number of jobs, including that of bank clerk. After moving to Austin, Texas, in 1882, he married.

In 1884 he started a humorous weekly The Rolling Stone. When the weekly failed, he joined the Houston Post as a reporter and columnist. In 1897 he was convicted of embezzling money, although there has been much debate over his actual guilt. In 1898 he entered a penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio.

While in prison O. Henry started to write short stories to earn money to support his daughter Margaret. His first work, «Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking» (1899), appeared in McClure's Magazine. After doing three years of the five years sentence, Porter emerged from the prison in 1901 and changed his name to O. Henry.

O. Henry moved to New York City in 1902 and from December 1903 to January 1906 he wrote a story a week for the New York World, also publishing in other magazines. Henry's first collection, Cabbages And Kings appeared in 1904. The second, The Four Million, was published two years later and included his well-known stories «The Gift of the Magi» and «The Furnished Room». The Trimmed Lamp (1907) included «The Last Leaf». Henry's best known work is perhaps the much anthologized «The Ransom of Red Chief», included in the collection Whirligigs (1910). The Heart Of The West (1907) presented tales of the Texas range. O. Henry published 10 collections and over 600 short stories during his lifetime.

O. Henry's last years were shadowed by alcoholism, ill health, and financial problems. He married Sara Lindsay Coleman in 1907, but the marriage was not happy, and they separated a year later. O. Henry died of cirrhosis of the liver on June 5, 1910, in New York. Three more collections, Sixes And Sevens (1911), Rolling Stones (1912) and Waifs And Strays (1917), appeared posthumously.

William Sidney Porter known by his pseudonym, O. Henry, was born in North Carolina. After a brief period of schooling he worked in a drugstore, then went to Texas, where after truing various professions he became a teller in a bank. When a loss of a thousand dollars was discovered, Porter, though he was innocent of the theft, fled to Central America: but on learning that his wife was on her death – bed, he returned home and was imprisoned for 3 years. After his release in 1902, he settled in New – York, writing short stories for magazines. They were published in the collections «The Four Million» 1906, «Heart of the West» 1907, «The Trimmed lamp» 1907, «The Gentle Grafted» 1908, «The Voice of the City» 1908, «Cabbages and Kings» 1904.

In this short stories O. Henry described amusing incidents of every day life in large cities on the ranches, and on the highways of America. For the most part he deliberately avoided important social themes, entertain his readers with humorous plots dependent coincidence and characterized by unexpected endings. A few of his stories touch upon serious themes. Taken as a whole, the work of O. Henry is bourgeois in its spirit. He wrote to console his readers, to cheer them up by telling them: «well, your life is hard, but then there is a possibility for a woman to marry a man – millionaire, for a man to marry a woman – millionaire, or to find something else».

O. Henry was born in 1867 in the family of a doctor in the town of Greensborough of the Northern Caroline. William became ill of tuberculosis when he was twenty years old; in wattempt at curing himself, he went to Texas. Travelling on to Texas he changed tens of professions – he was a cowboy, a druggist, a designer, a cashier, a journalist, an editor. O Henry wrote «Roads of Destiny», «Options» (1909)’ «Strictly Business» (1910), «Whirlgigs». These collections were published as very interting in several magazines too. After his deuth his only novel «Cabbages and Kings» was published. He worked hard & much with literature.

O. Henry’s stories, were published by the newspapers & magazines willingly, bringing them much frofit but to the writer they brought only fame. The publishers demanded him to write humouristic and funny stories with intriguing ending, standards, which the author stamped for Sunday newspapers. O. Henry dreamed about serious work.

For 10 years of his literary life he wrote more than six hundred stories, comical plays and humouristic poems.

In 1904 there appeared O. Henry’s novel «Cabbages and Kings» it was followed by collections of short stories. «The Four Million» 1906, «The Trimmed Lamp» 1907, «Heart of the West» 1907 and others.

In «Cabbages and Kings» O. Henry created as he says «tragic», a comedy about the interrelations of the USA and its half – colony – the South America.

American dealers businessmen cynically interfere into political life of Latin American countries – such is the objective conclusion from «Cabbages and Kings». Satirically describing.

The Last Leaf

In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called «places.» These «places» make strange angles and curves. One Street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account!

So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a «colony».

At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. «Johnsy» was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hфte of an Eighth Street «Delmonico's» and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.

That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown «places».

Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house.

One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow.

«She has one chance in – let us say, ten,» he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer.» And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?»

«She – she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day» said Sue.

«Paint? – bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice – a man for instance?»

«A man?» said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. «Is a man worth – but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind».

«Well, it is the weakness, then,» said the doctor. «I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten.»

After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.

Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.

She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.

As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.

Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting – counting backward.

«Twelve,» she said, and little later «eleven»; and then «ten,» and «nine»; and then «eight» and «seven», almost together.

Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.

«What is it, dear?» asked Sue.

«Six,» said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. «They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now.»

«Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie.»

«Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?»

«Oh, I never heard of such nonsense,» complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. «What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were – let's see exactly what he said – he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self.»

«You needn't get any more wine,» said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. «There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too.»

«Johnsy, dear,» said Sue, bending over her, «will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down.»

«Couldn't you draw in the other room?» asked Johnsy, coldly.

«I'd rather be here by you,» said Sue. «Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves.»

«Tell me as soon as you have finished,» said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, «because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.»

«Try to sleep,» said Sue. «I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back.»

Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.

Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.

Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings.

«Vass!» he cried. «Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy.»

«She is very ill and weak,» said Sue, «and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old – old flibbertigibbet.»

«You are just like a woman!» yelled Behrman. «Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes.»

Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.

When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade.

«Pull it up; I want to see,» she ordered, in a whisper.

Wearily Sue obeyed.

But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground.

«It is the last one,» said Johnsy. «I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time.»

«Dear, dear!» said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, «think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?»

But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.

The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.

When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.

The ivy leaf was still there.

Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove.

«I've been a bad girl, Sudie,» said Johnsy. «Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and – no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook.»

And hour later she said:

«Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples.»

The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.

«Even chances,» said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. «With good nursing you'll win.» And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is – some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable.»

The next day the doctor said to Sue: «She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now – that's all.»

And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.

«I have something to tell you, white mouse,» she said. «Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and – look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece – he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell».

 

Stephen Crane (1871–1900)

 

Stephen Crane showed his extraordinary gift for writing very early. He stuieded the Syracuse University only one semester. During the semester he hed already began to worc on his first novel, «Maggie: A Girl of the Striets». He announced: announced: «Your little brother knows that he is going on steadily to make his simple little place and he can’t be stopped, he can’t even be retarded. He is coming».

Crane was the last of 14 children born to a Methodist minister, Jonathon Townley Crane.

In 1894 he wrote «The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War and it would proveto be yis first finest literary achievement.

1879 the Cranes family settled in Port Jervis, New – York, In 1898 he covered the Greco-Turkish war and the Spanish-American war.

Crane’s «Wilomville Stories» (1900) In 1897 he wrote his short storey: «The Blue Hotel» whoch was published in 1898. «The Open Boat» is based on his experiences of being shirwprecked while travelling to Cuba. «The Red Badge of Courage» was America first great war novel. In 1882, two years after the father, death Stephen was acting as a reporter of vacation news items for his brother Townley’s news – service agency in the resort town of Asbury Park, New – Jersey. Crane’s University days (1890–1891) were limited to two semesters – one of Lafayette College. And one at Syracuse University. But something of importance was going forward during this uninspired academic year: he wrote at least the first draft of «Maggie: a girl of the Streets» – an America’s first wholly deterministic novel. Unable to find a publisher for his account of a tenement girls descent to prostitution and suicide. Crane borrowed money and in 1893 brought it out himself in yellow pepper wrappers under the pseudonym of «Johnson Smith». Financially the book was stillborn, but it did serve to bring the young writer to the attention of Garland and William Dean Howells.

It is not a little ironic that Crane subscribed to the notion that an artist had actually to touch a segment of life before he could recreate it imaginatively, for «The Red Badge of Courage», American’s first great war novel, was written before Cranehad «smelled even the power of a shame battle». Books, pictures and veterans accounts of Civil War fighting, rather than any fighting itself, were the sources for his psychological study of a boy soldier’s struggle with the enormous horrors, both with in and without, which war unleashes. As a reporter in New – York he had explored the bars and brothels and flophouses of the Bowerry. After the success of «The Red Bade of Courage», he covered the activities of the filibusters who were gunrunning from Florida to Cuba against Spain: in the course of this activity he suffered the shipwreck «The Open Boat». In 1897 he covered the Greco – Turkish War for two newspapers: the following year it was Spanish – American War. He died of tuberculosis in June of the following year. Although he didn’t reach his 29^th birthday. His early stories ware published in a collectioned «Last Words» (1901). Stepen Crane wrote articles «The King’s Favour» (1891) and «A Foreign Policy in Three Glimpses». He published his book «The Monster». «Whilomville Stories» is a collection of stories about the children of a little American town. His books fills 12 volumes.

In addition to the titles mentioned above Crain’s works include «The Little Regiment» (1896), «George’s Mother» (1896), «The third Violet» (1897), «The Open Boat and other tales of Adventure» (1898), «Active Service» (1899), «The Wounds in the Rain» (1900), «Great Battles of the World» (1901), «Last Words» (1902), «The O’Ruddy, with Robert Barr» (1903).

Crane also wrote some poetry collected in two volumes – «The Black Riders» (1895) and «War Is Kind» (1899). These short, bitter poems reveal a man whose life had been filled with pain and hardship but who refused to shut his eyes to the grim truths he saw.

 

Frank Norris (1870–1902)

 

He began to write his novel «Vandover and the Brute» early but it was published later in Norris’s life was short but full. The son of a successful businessman and actress, Norris was born in 1870 in Chicago. When he was 14 his family moved to Oakland. California from Chicago. 3 years later he was in Paris as an art student 1887–1889 devoting himself, however, more to literature than painting. In 1890 at his father’s insistence, he returned home to become a student at the Berkley University of California, which he attended for 4 years without earning his degree. In 1894 he enrolled at Harvard as a special student in English. He completed «Miss. Teague» (1899), a relentless novel in the naturalistic manner of Zola. «Vandouver and the Brute» another daring piece of naturalism, was written about the same time, but it was not published until 1914, and then from an uncorrected draft of the novel. In 1903 his circle of articles was collected in «The Responsibilities of the Novelist».

University days behind him, Norris, took himself off to South Africa during the Boer war to write a serious of sketches; he was captured by the Boers, suffered an attack of fever, and was ordered to leave the country. Back home, he joined the staff of a San – Francisco magazine, then «Wave», to which he made frequent contributions. 1898, «Mc – Clures Magazine» sent him to Cuba to cover the Spanish – American War. The last few years of his life were spent in writing and, for a brief time, editorial reading for Doubleday, Page, the publishing company. In this latter activity, his work wasn’t without significance: Norris got the company to publish Driser’s «Sister Carrie». He died of post – operative complications resulting from an appendectomy.

Although Norris wasn’t himself a great novelist, he had a grandiose concept of the role of the novelistic society. Of the three great «molders of public opinion and public morals» – the press, the pulpit, and the novel – Norris felt the last to be potentially the most powerful. In 1899 he wrote to a friend «the big American novel is going to come out of the West». This is the origin if his projected «Epic of the Wheat», a trilogy which was to tell the story of the production, distribution, and consumption of American wheat. «The Octopus» (1901) portrays the struggle of the California wheat growers against more powerful interests: «The Pit» is about the old Chicago Board of Trade: «The Wolf» was to have dealt with the relation of American wheat to starving countries with old there faults, «The Octopus» and «The Pit» loan as large in the history of the American economic novel as does «Mc Teague» in the history of American literary naturalism. His story «A Deal in Wheat» is written after «The Pit» is about the defeat of the common people.

Norris wrote the following works as well: «Moren of the Lady Latty» (1898), «Blix» (1899), «A Man’s Woman» (1900), «The Responsibilities of the novelist» (1903), «A deal in wheat and other stories» (1903), «The Joyous Miracle» 1906, «The Third Circle» (1909).

Literature

 

1. Анастасьев Н. Фолкнер. М., 1976

2. Балгрон Р. Джек Лондон, человек писатель, бунтарь. М., 1981

3. Беляеев А.А. Социальный американский роман 80 – годов и буржуазная критика. М. 1969.

4. Боброва М.Н. Марк Твен. М. 1962.

5. Богославский В.Н. Джек Лондон. М., 1964

6. Богославский В.Н. Эптон Синклер. М., 1976

7. Брукс Ван Вик. Писатель и американская жизнь. М., 1967–1971.

8. Быков В.М. Джек Лондон М., 1964.

9. Венедиктова Т.Д. Поэзия Уолта Уитмена. М., 1982.

10. Гиленсон Б.А. Социалистическая традиция и литературе США. М., 1975

11. Гиленсон Б.А. Американская литература 30‑х годов XX века М., 1974

12. Гладков Т.К. Джон Рид. М., 1966

13. Грибанов Б.Т. Хемингуй. М., 1971.

14. Засурский Я.Н. Теодор Драйзер. М., 1977

15. Зверев А.М. Модернизм в литературе США. Формирование, эволюция, кризис. М., 1979

16. Зверев А.М. Американсикй роман 1920–30‑х гг. М., 1982

17. Злобин Г.П. Современная драмматургия США. М., 1968.

18. Кашкин И.А. Для читателя-современника. Статья и исследования. М., 1968.

19. Кашкин И.А. Эрнест Хемингуэй. М., 1966.

20. Киреева И.В. Литературное творчество Джона Рида. Горький, 1974.

21. Ковелев Ю. Герман Мелвилл и американский романтизм. Л., 1972.

22. Левидова И.М.О. Генри и его новелла. М., 1973.

23. Литература США XX века. Опыт типологического исследования. М., 1978.

24. Мендельсон М.О. Жизнь и творчество Уитмена. М., 1969

25. Мендельсон М.О. Роман США сегодня. М., 1977.

26. Мулярчик А С. Послевоенные американские романисты. М., 1980

27. Николюкин А.Н Литературные связи России и США. М., 1981.

28. Оленова О. Современная американская новелла. Киев, 1973

29. Основные тенденции развития современной литературы США. М., 1973.

30. Паррингтон В.Л. Основные течения американской мысли. Т. 1–3. М., 1962–1963.

31. Проблемы литературы США XX века Сборник статей. М., 1970.

32. Проблемы новейшей литературы США. Киев, 1981.

33. Ромм А.С. Марк Твен. Л; 1977.

34. Ронгонен Л.И. Генри Лонгофелло и его поэма «Песнь о Гайавате». М., 1982.

35. Савуренок А.К. Романы У. Фолкнера 1920–1930‑х годов. Л., 1979.

36. Старцев А.И. От Уитмена до Хемингуэя. М., 1972.

37. Старцев А.И. Марк Твен и Америка. М., 1963.

38. Финкельштейн И Л. Хемингуэй-романист. Горький, 1974.

39. Фонер Ф. Марк Твен – социальный критик. М., 1961

40. Шейнкор В.Н. Романы Дж.Ф. Купера о Кожаном чулке и некоторые вопросы американского романтизма. Мурманск, 1968.

41. Яценко В.И. Эрскин Колдуэлл. Очерк творчества. Восточносибирское книжное издательство, 1967.

Higher and Secondary Special Education Ministry of the Republic of Uzbekistan

 

Gulistan State University

«History of American Literature»

Guliston‑2005

Introduction

In the tenth century brave Scandinavian sailors reached the Western coast of the Present USA. On 12th of October 1492 Christopher Columbus landed on one of the islands (in the region of Cuba). About 1500 Florentine Amerigo Vespuchi came to the shores of the New World. But only at the beginning of the XII century did Europeans begin to open up Western Coasts of the North America. At that time the Spaniards founded settlements along the Atlantic coast (in the territory of the present day Florida, Georgia and South California). The Dutchmen settled in the district of Hudson. In Manhatten island (Hudson-) 1613 the Dutch settlement became New Amsterdam. In 1604 Frenchmen founded the first settlements in Canada. Englishmen set about to colonize America, a little later, the first English colony was Virginia which was founded in 1607. In 1620 «Mayflower» brought from England the first detachment of the colonists = puritans, who founded New Plymouth (near present day Boston). Later near that place there sprang up New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and these united under the name of New England. In 1634 there appeared Maryland and in 1681 William Penn founded the Quaker colony, Pennsylvania.

American Literature can not be captured in a simple definition. It reflects the many religious, historical and cultural traditions of the American people, one of the world's most varied populations. It includes poetry, fiction, drama and other kinds of writing by authors in what is now the US. It also includes non written material, such as the oral literature of the American Indians and folk tales and legends. In addition, American literature includes accounts of American written by immigrants and visitors from other countries, as well as works by American writers who spent all of their lives abroad.

The United States became an independent nation by winning the Revolutionary War in America (1775–1783). Much of the literature of this period addressed issues relating to American independence.

American literature begins with the legends, myths and poetry of the American Indians, the first people to live in what is now the US. Indian legends included stories about the origin of the world, the histories of tribes and tales of tribal heroes. With rare exceptions this oral literature wasn't written down until 1800's.

The earliest writing in America consisted of the journals and reports of European explorers and missionaries. These early authors left a rich literature describing their encounters with new lands and new civilizations. They publicized their adventures, described the New World, and tried to attract setllers in words that sometimes mixed facts with propaganda.

Colonists from England and other European countries began settjing along the eastern coast of North America in the early 1600's and created the first American colonial literature. The colonies in Verginia and New England produced the most important writings in the 1600's. In the 1700's, Philodelphia emerged as the literary center of the American colonies.

Captain John Smith wrote what is regarded as the first American book, «A True Relation of… Virginia (1608). It describes how he and other colonists established the first permanent E. settlement in America at Jamestown, John Smith wrote «A Description of New England) in 1616. Smith told a version of the famous story of Pocahontas in The General Histories of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles (1624). The story claims that Pocahontas, the daughter of an Indian chief, saved Smith's life when her father was about to have him killed.

In «The History of the Present State of Virginia» (1705) historian Robert Beverley wrote about the tragic destruction of the American Indians.

To Beverley, the Indians represented possibilities for happiness, innocence, harmony and freedom. In 1620, the Pilgrims founded Plymouth Colony the second permanent E.settlement in America. Many Pilgrims belonged to a group of E. Protestants called Puritans.

The Puritans recorded their own history out of a desire to communicate with fellow believers in England, to attract new coloniests, and to justify their move to a new country. Cotton Mathew wrote more than 400 works on many subjects.

Historical works aimed at recording the life of the Puritans, their journey to America, and the major events, as well as the everyday chronicle, of their life in the New World. William Bradford, «History of Plymanth Plantation». Adward Johnson «History of New England», Coblun Mather «Masnalia Christi Americana». Underlying all these writings, one always finds the idea of Providence; the worldwhich is described is always seen as a reflection of the divine order so that constant analogies are drawn between the beauty of nature and the still of the Architect who created it. Sermons were by far the most common sort of literature in American Colonial communities totally controlled by the church. Dozens of ministers published the sermons that they had written, the best known being those of Thomas Hooker, Increase and Colton Mather.

In spite of the Puritans admiration for the classics and poets like Milton, poetry was often distrussed for appealing for much to the senses and the imagination.

John Smith (1580–1631)

 

John Smith lived a life crammed with adventure and achievement during a great age of exploration. It had not taken long for adventurers and merchants to begin to explore the New World Columbus had discovered. The Spanish to the south, the French to the north, the English along the mid-Atlantic coast, the Dutch, the Swedes, the Portuguese – all of Europe seemed to be moving west. By Smith’s time, about 1600 exploration and the search for gold were still important, but the desire to establish permanent settlements was growing. Smith strong-willed, imaginative, a born leader – was in the right place at the right time.

In 1607 the first permanent English settlement Jamestown, Virginia, was formed. It was made up of one hundred men and four boys, and the man in charge was the twenty-seven year-old Captain John Smith. The colony would not have survived without John Smith. As it was, over half the colonists died during the first winter. After two years in Jamestown, Smith returned to England.

In 1614 a group of English merchants, who hoped to get rich from gold, whale oil, and furs, financed a six-month expedition to New England for Smith. He explored the coast of Main to Cape Cod, made maps, traded with Indians, and went back to England, never to return to America. Yet Smith wanted to return as we can see from his «Description of New England», published in 1616. Although he calls this work a description, Smith’s main purpose is not to describe but to persuade. This pamphlet is essentially and advertisement, a kind of seventeenth – century «commercial». It is an effort to raise money for another new expedition and to convince Englishmen to join Smith in establishing a new colony of which he hoped to be governor.

The United States became an Independent nation by winning the Revolutionary War in America (1775–1783). Much of the literature of this period addressed issues relating to American independence.

Thomas Paine soon became famous for his fiery essays in support of the American patriots. His pamphlet «Common Seuse» (1776) called for complete independence from Great Britain. In a series of pamphlets called «The American Crisis» (1776–1783), he encouraged the rebels to persist during the darkest days of the Revolutionary War.

James Hector St. John De Creve Coeur the French – born essayist (1735–1813), helped the colonists think of themselves as American rather than Europeans. Crevecoeur saw America as a new land where individuals could throw off old Prejudices, suffocating social Customs, and tyrannical government.

Franklin, Paine and Creve Coeur wrote in disnified, but Plain and clear, prose. This style reached its peak in the ringing eloquence of the «Declaration of Independence» written by Thomas Jefferson. The same type of writing appears in the sober language of the Constitution of the U.S-s, much of which was dratted by Gonverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay used this clear style in «The Federatist» (1784–1788), and series of public letters that persuaded New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution.

William Cullen Bryant

 

William Cullen Bryant merits a claim to be one of America’s first naturalist poets. Born after the Revolutionary War, Bryant turned to nature as a source for poetic inspiration. «Thanatopsis», the name of his most famous nature poem, is a Greek word meaning «view of death». The opening lines assert:

To him who in the love of nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language…

Edgar Allan Poe, was also a master of the prose tale. A gifted, tormented man, Poe thought about the proper function of literature for more than any of his predecessors, with the result that he became the first great American literary critic…

The next great American Romanticist, however, drew on America for both characters and seltings, and his work, though theoretical and philosophical, does mirror the attitudes and moves of the time. He was a Shy New Englander named Nathaniel Hawthorne. Although he wrote no poetry his short Stories and novels still rank among the best that America has produced.

Abolitionism. Harriet Beacher Stowe «Uncle Tom’s Cabin»

Transcendentalism. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the «Great Awakener» the founder of Transcendentalism, deeply influenced American literature. His Speeches «The American Scholar» (1837) and «Divinity School Address» (1838). His treatise «Nature» (1836). In 1840 started publishing «The Deal», the Transcendentalism review. 1841. Essays, first series. (Second series in 1844). 1845–1846 «Lectures on Representative Men» (published 1880); Poems.