The Nature of American Literature - Report Example

The Nature of American Literature Appreciation of Literature Literature, as many believes, is an art of expression. The substance which it exploits is experience; or in simple terms, literature is the face of life. Deeds, sentiments and thoughts are the three powerful elements of life, and represent experience. Literature embarks on to signify such experience through the richness of language, and to carry it home to the sympathy of the reader. It is apparent that literature makes its requests to the individual understanding and is logical merely in terms of the individual’s ability to comprehend its language and construe the experience there entrenched. On the other hand, a good reader is an author’s greatest gift because the latter put his best efforts in worthlessness if he is not understood. Thus, the reader’s own experience is the means to understand literature. It may be actual experience, incidences and infatuations personal to him; or it may be indirect, incidences and infatuations seen in the vocation of others, or at any rate learned through accounts; yet in any instance, the ability to value indirect experience, that is, experience of another, relies on the presence of a universal human nature and on the contribution of it which the reader has previously in his existence and self-consciousness (Woodberry, 1921). Literature is the leading discipline of the humanities, of those mediums through which mankind becomes more entirely human; and in the individual this objective is advanced in proportion as he comprehends human nature in another individual under its diverse approaches and extracts forth from it in him the most prosperous of experience of its faculties. Open-mindedness to experience, or deep feeling, is the most important characteristic of a good reader; and to this the author supplements, on the dynamic or imaginative side, the power of expression made possible by language (ibid). The Changing Faces of Literature Stories or narratives can provide so much pleasure that learning them is uncomplicated. Literary academics have frequently aimed to dispel discomfort at being compensate to take pleasure on the tremors of fiction through examining literature as a kind of historical treatise or moral codes. And since the late 1960s, scholarly literature departments have attempted specifically to emphasize criticism as critique, as a catalyst of social reform. Moreover, for the decades, certainly, scholars have been hesitant to approach literature as an art, with the ingenious achievements of a work or the creative chasm of responding to it, as though to do so implies benefiting elite capabilities and supporting pleasure-seeking tendencies. Several critics have intended to sustain literary criticism deviated from the literary and in its place to accuse literature as largely an outcome of social domination, manifested in it or making available a struggle already restrained (Boyd, 2008). Moreover, literary intellectuals have also been unwilling to deal with science, apart from visualizing that they have overwhelmed and dispossessed it through sinking it to merely another narrative or to sack it with a meaningful derision as taking for granted a ridiculously immature knowledge practicality. They have not simply rejected the gratification of art and the greatness of science, but akin to others in the humanities and social sciences, they have also deprived of the wisdom that human nature subsists, persevering against the proof that tradition and principle make humans absolutely compliant (ibid). An American Heritage “What attachment can a poor European emigrant have for a country where he had nothing? The knowledge of the language, the love of a few kindred as poor as himself, were the only cords that tied him: his country is not that which gives him land, bread, protection and consequence. What then is the American, this new man? He is either a European, or the descendant of a European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. He is an American, who leaving behind him his entire ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new ranks he holds. The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas and form new opinions; from involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labor, he has passed to toils of a very different nature; rewarded by ample subsistence—this is an American” (Hutner, 1999, 7). In this literary passage, one can conclude that Americans even in their earliest existence are rich with various racial heritages. Moreover, directly related to their bloodlines, Americans were given the gift of effectively adapting to new environments and transforming the current situations into their advantages. They enthusiastically welcome changes and treat these as indispensable elements of human progress. It is no wonder that America is one of the leading nations in the modern times. Qualities of an American Literature The two great charismas of contemporary American literature are the Southern, which governed the initial half of the century and afterwards, and the Jewish, which led the second. Without these influences, American literature would be more than acceptable yet it would plunge a long way down of its status now. However, many fails to remember that American literature denotes something far more extensive (Yardley, 2006). The western is considered by art historians as the richest, the most complicated and the most lasting of all the narratives that the American society recurrently enlightens itself. As the foundation of the American nation, the western genre has been continually renewed, revolutionized and amended through an assortment of discursive forms, “from folk ballads and wood carvings to pulp novels and cigarette ads” (Hutner, 1999, 25). Its origins can be traced back from the age-old American tradition to tales of Indian captivity and colonial music, to the literary works of James Fenimore Cooper and other celebrated fiction authors, and predominantly to the popular description of the “taming” of the American West in the concluding half of the nineteenth century. Americanism in Literature Americanism in literature is becoming the purpose of the American literary community. American writers are numerous yet with extremely few exemptions, their literary works reflect the European literary style. They are, in reality, European. The authors think using the European frameworks, acquire their motivation and enthusiasm from European manuscripts, fabricate themselves to European affinities, and aim essentially to the recognition of European criticism. “This is to denationalize the American mind. This is to enslave the national heart—to place ourselves at the mercy of the foreigner, and to yield all that is individual, in our character and hope, to the paralyzing influence of his will,and frequently hostile purposes” (ibid, 27). There is a national exigency to revolutionize the very foundation of American literature to lift it from the long-established influence of European literature. Nowadays, the field called “decentering” which is done through study and translation of texts completed in America in languages other than English has been considered one of the greatest leap of the American literature in the modern times. This new movement in reforming the American literature rejected the nation’s borders as impervious lines separating ‘American’ literature from the literature of neighboring and overlying cultures (Delbanco, 2006). Thus, the distinctiveness that was promoted by literary scholars in the early stages of the development of American literature is now placed into painstaking scrutiny of the literary community. An American Writer Before America Prior to English colonization of America, some North American tribes created pictographic narratives of rituals and ceremonies, and the Maya of Mesoamerica safeguarded their revered literature in books. Most Native American literature, nevertheless, was passed on orally. The appearance of Native American writers matches whites’ invasion of Indian territories and the ensuing education of Native children in foreign-administered learning centers. Moreover, most nineteenth-century Indian writers wrote nonfiction text. They published remonstration literature, autobigraphies, and ethnohistories as a reaction to the reduction of Native American’s privileges and endeavors to dispossess Indians of their ancestral homelands. Before the Civil War, one of the furthermost threat to Indians was the execution of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which implements the conditions that tribes east of the Mississippi River should be taken away either to Indian Territory or to other regions judged to be appropriate (Wiget, 1994). Conclusion In its fundamental nature, the American literature is both historically and geographically definite; it sketches the peopling of the American West from the final days of the Civil War until the early twentienth century. Consequently, the western is more openly binded to social and historical reality than practically any other national literature. Hence, the simultaneous generality and specificity of the western genre in terms of its nature and characteristics produced three categories, namely, the historical reconstruction, the historical romance and the formulary western, which have been predominant throughout the genre’s development. The traditional western story which is characterized by a conflict that is resolved by a revolutionary and innovative protagonist necessitates a degree of romanticism so that the lackluster narration of historical events will be stimulating and inspiring (Hutner, 1999). Similarly, the most commonplace and typical formulation requires a certain degree of historical legitimacy to be classified as western. Works Cited Boyd, B. (2008). The Art of Literature and the Science of Literature. American Scholar , 77 (2). Delbanco, A. (2006). American Literature: A Vanishing Subject? Daedalus , 135 (2). Hutner, G. (1999). American Literature, American Culture. New York: Oxford University Press. Wiget, A. (1994). Dictionary of Native American Literature. New York: Garland. Woodberry, G. E. (1921). Appreciation of Literature, and America in Literature. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company. Yardley, J. (2006). American Literature, Writ Large. Washinton Post , C01. Read More

Several critics have intended to sustain literary criticism deviated from the literary and in its place to accuse literature as largely an outcome of social domination, manifested in it or making available a struggle already restrained (Boyd, 2008). Moreover, literary intellectuals have also been unwilling to deal with science, apart from visualizing that they have overwhelmed and dispossessed it through sinking it to merely another narrative or to sack it with a meaningful derision as taking for granted a ridiculously immature knowledge practicality.

They have not simply rejected the gratification of art and the greatness of science, but akin to others in the humanities and social sciences, they have also deprived of the wisdom that human nature subsists, persevering against the proof that tradition and principle make humans absolutely compliant (ibid). An American Heritage “What attachment can a poor European emigrant have for a country where he had nothing? The knowledge of the language, the love of a few kindred as poor as himself, were the only cords that tied him: his country is not that which gives him land, bread, protection and consequence.

What then is the American, this new man? He is either a European, or the descendant of a European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. He is an American, who leaving behind him his entire ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new ranks he holds. The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas and form new opinions; from involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labor, he has passed to toils of a very different nature; rewarded by ample subsistence—this is an American” (Hutner, 1999, 7).

In this literary passage, one can conclude that Americans even in their earliest existence are rich with various racial heritages. Moreover, directly related to their bloodlines, Americans were given the gift of effectively adapting to new environments and transforming the current situations into their advantages. They enthusiastically welcome changes and treat these as indispensable elements of human progress. It is no wonder that America is one of the leading nations in the modern times. Qualities of an American Literature The two great charismas of contemporary American literature are the Southern, which governed the initial half of the century and afterwards, and the Jewish, which led the second.

Without these influences, American literature would be more than acceptable yet it would plunge a long way down of its status now. However, many fails to remember that American literature denotes something far more extensive (Yardley, 2006). The western is considered by art historians as the richest, the most complicated and the most lasting of all the narratives that the American society recurrently enlightens itself. As the foundation of the American nation, the western genre has been continually renewed, revolutionized and amended through an assortment of discursive forms, “from folk ballads and wood carvings to pulp novels and cigarette ads” (Hutner, 1999, 25).

Its origins can be traced back from the age-old American tradition to tales of Indian captivity and colonial music, to the literary works of James Fenimore Cooper and other celebrated fiction authors, and predominantly to the popular description of the “taming” of the American West in the concluding half of the nineteenth century. Americanism in Literature Americanism in literature is becoming the purpose of the American literary community. American writers are numerous yet with extremely few exemptions, their literary works reflect the European literary style.

They are, in reality, European. The authors think using the European frameworks, acquire their motivation and enthusiasm from European manuscripts, fabricate themselves to European affinities, and aim essentially to the recognition of European criticism.

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