1 The First Americans:American Literature During the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1
Imagining Eden 1
Writing of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1
2 Inventing Americas:The Making of American Literature 1800-1865 50
Making a Nation 50
The Making of American Myths 50
The Making of American Selves 63
The Making of Many Americas 76
The Making of an American Fiction and Poetry 97
3 Reconstructing the Past,Reimagining the Future:The Development of American Literature 1865-1900 124
Rebuilding a Nation 124
The Development of Literary Regionalisms 124
The Development of Literary Realism and Naturalism 140
The Development of Women's Writing 154
The Development of Many Americas 160
4 Making It New:The Emergence of Modern American Literature 1900-1945 172
Changing National Identities 172
Between Victorianism and Modernism 172
The Inventions of Modernism 191
Traditionalism,Politics,and Prophecy 229
Community and Identity 246
Mass Culture and the Writer 263
5 Negotiating the American Century:American Literature Since 1945 271
Towards a Transnational Nation 271
Formalists and Confessionals 271
Public and Private Histories 286
Beats,Prophets,and Aesthetes 306
The Art and Politics of Race 322
Realism and Its Discontents 342
Language and Genre 358
Creating New Americas 377
Index 408