Contends that arguments against New Criticism should place the movement in historical context. Suggests that historians of American criticism rethink the institutionalization of New Criticism as the work of both liberal intellectuals and pragmatic neoconservatives for whom both traditional liberalism and right-wing ideology were part of the…

Asserts that, contrary to the opinion of some, there is a Black American literary tradition. Examines definitions and issues fundamental to understanding that tradition, possible reasons for previous failures to identify a Black American tradition, and elements that scholars need to analyze as they try to describe the common characteristics of…

Presents a brief review of the portrayals of adolescents in children's books written from 1776 to the present. Excerpts are used freely and several trends in the literary characterizations of adolescents are identified. (JMB)

In this essay, the first of a two-part series, the poet explores the literary heritage of the Midwest. He exhausts both the land and its people for a universal theme, yet is able only to find in the Midwest unparalleled diversity. (68 references) (Author/SJ)

By bringing his own life into works of American literature, F. O. Matthiessen clarified as well as intensified their meaning. Here, his life and work as a teacher are reviewed. (Author/RK)

Argues that the way out of worn out analogies of Canadian literature is found not only by acquiring knowledge of other cultures, but also by abandoning the deceptive parallelisms that overcome differences only by hiding them. (RAE)

Presents an overview of the language and literature of California, and particularly of Los Angeles. Describes the social context and work of the following writers: Bret Harte, Henry Dana Jr., Jack London, Ambrose Bierce, Gertrude Atherton, Helen Hunt Jackson, Frank Norris, John Steinbeck, Mary Austin, and others. Also discusses minority literature…

The Anglo-American Imagist movement, begun in England by Ezra Pound in 1909 and flourishing through 1918, claimed to have drawn inspiration from Chinese and Japanese poetic forms. The promoters of Imagism, which included Hilda Doolittle, John Gould Fletcher, Richard Aldington, and later, Amy Lowell and William Carlos Williams, were attempting to…

The southern frontier has yet to produce a body of literature worthy either of its heritage or its victims. (AB)

Describes an exhibition at the Library of Congress called "From Sea to Shining Sea: An American Sampler" that contains a sampling of children's books that are representative of American life and show how children's literature has evolved over the centuries. Illustrations from several of the books are included. (LRW)

The present expansion in the American literary canon has largely overlooked one of the richest sources for new material: authors who were known and respected in their own time but have been unjustly neglected or forgotten, and important literary material which is either unknown or forgotten because it exists only in back issues of unexplored…

Identifies historical factors crucial to the evolution of Black literature in America and the Caribbean, including the triangular trade that displaced and destroyed many Africans, the literary movements of Negritude and the Harlem Renaissance, and the literary collaboration between American and African writers. (DMM)

Published bimonthly by the National Endowment for the Humanities, this edition of "Humanities" focuses on issues in American literature. Articles and their authors consist of: (1) "Conversations about Literature" (an interview with Cleanth Brooks and Willie Morris about writing and writers in America); (2) "The Spine of…