American Literature And Culture 1900-1960

This introduction to American literature and culture from 1900 to 1960 is organized around four major ideas about America: that is it “big”, “new”, “rich”, and “free”.



Illustrates the artistic and social climate in the USA during this period.


Juxtaposes discussion of history, popular culture, literature and other art forms in ways that foster discussion, questioning, and continued study.


An appendix lists relevant primary and secondary works, including websites.


An ideal supplement to primary texts taught in American literature courses.

Gail McDonald is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Southampton. She is the author of Learning to Be Modern: Pound, Eliot, and the American University (1993). She is also a Founder and Past President of the Modernist Studies Association.

"To call this an 'introduction' or 'guide' to its topic is accurate but modest...McDonald does not attempt to redefine texts so much as portray their coincidental nature...Highly Recommended." Choice

List of Illustrations.
Timeline.
Acknowledgments.
Introduction.
1. Big.
Expansion and its Discontents.
The City.
Representing Nature.
Apocalypse.
The Sense of Place.
2. Rich.
Weber and Veblen: Reasons to Work and Reasons to Spend.
USA.
Work and Identity.
Labor Reform.
Consumption and Identity.
3. New.
Beginning Anew: Crevecoeur and Hawthorne.
Young America.
Making It New I: Literary Modernism.
Making It New II: The Other Arts.
4. Free.
The Multiple Meanings of Freedom.
War and the Affirmation of American Values.
Writing War.
Upstream Against the Mainstream.
“An Inescapable Network of Mutuality”.
Notes.
Websites for Further Study of American Literature and Culture.
Bibliography.
Index