American literature
American literature means a piece of writing that has been produced in the United States. Throughout its early history America used to be a series of British colonies, situated on the eastern coast of the modern day America.
The writing tradition of American literature began its life linked to the traditions of English literature. However, due to the distinctive American traits American literature is no longer associated with English literature.
Early American literature in the form of poetry existed, there were two poets during the 19th century Walt Whitman was one of them. He was a hardworking man & also a traveller; Walt Whitman was also a nurse. He wrote through free verse in his poetry & was convinced that this was the way American literature within poetry should be written. Not restrained or restricted but free so the poem could tell its story & weave its magic, Walt Whitman always maintained that to work by guidelines & rules when writing American literature poetry would hamper the expressiveness of the writer.
The other great poet around during the 19th century was called Emily Dickinson; the two poets could not be further away from each other in character if they tried. Emily lived a very sheltered life; she never married & was a gentle soul. The poetry that she wrote was in the form of very structured American literature & extremely witty, her favourite topic concerned death. Her writing was deemed too unconventional for its time & so much of her American literature was not published. Her poems mixed death with humour & too many people thought the two should not amalgamate.
When the turn of the century arrived it saw much American literature written shaped in the form of novels. The Civil War features largely in many of the novels penned during this era. Social issues were also written about, as were political issues.
It was in the year 1909 that the first American literature fiction novel was written; in 1954 the writer Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for his amazing contributions to American Literature. He was an ambulance driver during World War 1, & witnessed much death & incredible violence.
From the early seventies the best known category has been Postmodernism, the authors were given the label of Postmodernism due to their American literature pertaining to the ways that cultures have influenced American’s experiences of the world.
Many of the authors of this particular style of American literature set the scene to their writing with mention to drugs & plastic surgery. Not always welcomed topics with many Americans.
American literature has many differences in the way words are spelt opposed to English literature. The meaning of the words remains the same but it is the spelling that has altered.
