American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States. Therefore, its literary tradition begins as linked to the broader tradition of English literature. However, unique American characteristics and the breadth of its production usually now cause it to be considered a separate path and tradition.
Read more about American Literature: Colonial Literature, Post-independence, First American Novels, Unique American Style, Early American Poetry, Realism, Twain and James, Beginning of The 20th Century, The Rise of American Drama, Depression-era Literature, Contemporary American Literature, Minority Literatures, Nobel Prize in Literature Winners (American Authors), American Literary Awards, Literary Theory and Criticism
Famous quotes containing the words american and/or literature:
“The establishment of democracy on the American continent was scarcely as radical a break with the past as was the necessity, which Americans faced, of broadening this concept to include black men.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)