Part 1 Early American Literature:Colonial Period to 1815
Chapter 1 The Literature of the New World 3
Chapter 2 The Literature of Colonial America:1620—1763 13
Chapter 3 Literature and the American Revolution:1764—1815 40
Part 2 American Romanticism:1815— 1865
Chapter 4 The Age of American Romanticism 67
Chapter 5 Early Romanticism 71
Chapter 6 Transcendentalism and Symbolic Representation 89
Chapter 7 Hawthorne,Melville and Poe 104
Chapter 8 Whitman and Dickinson 122
Chapter 9 A House Divided:Writing Against Slavery 134
Part 3 American Realism:1865— 1914
Chapter 10 The Age of Realism 143
Chapter 11 Regional and Local Color Writings 147
Chapter 12 Henry James and William Dean Howells 157
Chapter 13 Literary Naturalism 166
Chapter 14 Women Writing on the"Woman Question" 175
Part 4 American Modernism:1914— 1945
Chapter 15 Modernism in the American Grain 185
Chapter 16 The Evolution of Modernism 200
Chapter 17 American Modernism in Europe 215
Chapter 18 Modern Fiction Between the Wars 228
Chapter 19 Modern American Poetry 252
Chapter 20 African American Literature and Modernism 265
Part 5 American Literature Diversified:1945 to the New MillenniumChapter 21 Literature Diversified Under New Conditions 275
Chapter 22 American Theater:Three Major Playwrights 286
Chapter 23 Major Fiction Writers:1945 till the 1960s 298
Chapter 24 Poetic Tendencies Since 1945 320
Chapter 25 Fictional Inclinations Since the 1960s 331
Chapter 26 Contemporary Multi-ethnic Literature and Fiction 341
Chapter 27 Globalization of American Literature:Diasporic Writers 362
Appendix 1 Questions for Discussion ＆ Writing Assignment and Research Resources 391
Appendix 2 Chronology of Historical Events 441
Index 457
Selected Bibliography 465