American Writers
Whitman, Walt, 1819-92, one of the greatest American poets; b. West Hills, N.Y. Early in his life he worked as a printer, teacher, newspaper editor, and carpenter. In 1855 he published the volume that was to make his reputation, Leaves of Grass (containing the emblematic "Song of Myself"), which the poet continued to enlarge and revise through a number of editions until his death. Innovative in its use of rhythmical free verse and its celebration of sexuality, the book in time proved the single most influential volume of poems in American literary history. In its own day, however, only a few, notably EMERSON, recognized its genius. Whitman worked as a Civil War nurse (1862-65), publishing war poetry in Drum-Taps (1865) and Sequel to Drum-Taps (1865-66). His later works include the prose collections Democratic Vistas (1871). A semi-invalid after a stroke in 1873, he lived in Camden, N.J. Whitman, who inspired later poets to experimentation in both prosody and subject matter, was the preeminent celebrator of individual freedom and dignity, democracy, and human brotherhood.
Wigglesworth, Michael, 1631-1705, American poet; b. England; came to New England, 1638. A Puritan clergyman, he wrote didactic verse, e.g., Day of Doom (1662), that reflects his dedication to his austere faith.
Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-49, one of the most brilliant and original writers in American literature; b. Boston. Orphaned in 1811, he was raised by Mr. and Mrs. John Allan of Richmond, Va. He attended the Univ. of Virginia and West Point briefly but was forced to leave both because of infractions. After publishing three volumes of poems (1827, 1829, 1831) Poe was an editor, critic, and short-story writer for magazines and newspapers in Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York City. His compelling short stories, such as "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Fall of the House of Usher," create a universe that is beautiful and grotesque, real and fantastic. Poe is also considered the father of the modern detective story, e.g., "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841). His poems (including "The Bells," "The Raven," and "Annabel Lee") are rich with musical phrases and sensuous images. Poe was an intelligent and witty critic who often theorized about the art of writing, as in his essay "The Poetic Principle." His most important works include The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), and The Raven and Other Poems (1845). A complex, tormented figure, Poe died of alcoholism.
Anderson, Sherwood, 1876-1941, American writer; b. Camden, Ohio. He was a strongly American writer, experimental and poetic, whose greatest novel, Winesburg, Ohio (1919), explores the loneliness and frustration of small-town lives. His other novels include Poor White (1920) and Dark Laughter (1925). Some of his finest work is in his compassionate and penetrating short stories, e.g., the collections The Triumph of the Egg (1921) and Death in the Woods (1933).
Lewis, Sinclair, 1885-1951, American novelist; b. Sauk Centre, Minn. A brilliant satirist, he offered a devastating picture of middle-class American life. He achieved notice with Main Street (1920), a satire on small-town midwestern life. Babbitt (1922), a portrait of an average American destroyed by conformity, is considered his greatest book. Lewis satirized the medical profession in Arrowsmith (1925; Pulitzer) and attacked hypocritical religiosity in Elmer Gantry (1927). Among his 22 novels are Dodsworth (1929), It Can't Happen Here (1935), and Cass Timberlane (1945). In 1930 he became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in literature.
Rand, Ayn, 1905-82, Russian-American novelist; b. Saint Petersburg, Russia. After coming (1926) to the U.S., she worked as a screenwriter. Her novels espouse a philosophy of rational self-interest that opposes the altruistic tendencies of the modern welfare state. Her best-known novels include The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957).
Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-62, one of the most influential figures in American thought and literature; b. Concord, Mass. An advocate of TRANSCENDENTALISM, he was a close friend of EMERSON, with whom he edited the transcendentalist magazine The Dial. Thoreau built a cabin at Walden Pond, near Concord, in 1845 and remained there for more than two years. There he lived out his philosophy of individualism, observing nature, reading, and expanding on his ideas and activities in a journal that he later distilled into his most famous work, Walden (1854). The journal was also the source of his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), as well as of several posthumously published works, e.g., Excursions (1863), Cape Cod (1865). Thoreau was also a significant naturalist and a powerful social critic. His essay "Civil Disobedience" (1849) has had far-reaching influence on various movements and on such leaders as GANDHI and Martin Luther KING.
Eliot, T(homas) S(tearns), 1888-1965, English poet, one of the most influential literary figures of the 20th cent.; b. St. Louis. Living in London from 1914, he became a British subject in 1927, the same year he espoused Anglo-Catholicism. He was associated with the periodicals The Egoist (1917-30) and his own Criterion (1922-39), and he had an active career in publishing. Eliot's early poems-Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), Poems (1920), and The Wasteland (1922)-express the anguish and barrenness of modern life. Breaking completely with the 19th-cent. poetic tradition, they drew on the 17th-cent. METAPHYSICAL POETS, along with DANTE, Jacobean drama, and the French SYMBOLISTS. Eliot's later, more hopeful, poetry includes Ash Wednesday (1930) and Four Quartets (1935-42). He was also an important critic. His plays, attempts to revitalize the verse drama, include Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1950). He was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in literature.
Twain, Mark pseud. of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910, one of the masters of American literature; b. Florida, Mo. After a boyhood in Hannibal, Mo., and work as a printer, he became a Mississippi River pilot (1857). In 1862 he moved west and began writing for newspapers, first in Virginia City, Nev., then in San Francisco, taking as a pseudonym a term from his river pilot days, "Mark Twain." He first won fame with his comic tale "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (1865). After a trip to Hawaii (1866), he became a successful humorous lecturer and, after a journey to the Holy Land, he published The Innocents Abroad (1869). In 1870 he married and settled in Hartford, Conn., where he wrote some of his best work: The Gilded Age (1873), a satirical novel written with Charles Dudley WARNER; The Prince and the Pauper (1882), a children's novel; the nonfictional Life on the Mississippi (1883); the satire A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889); and the two famous evocations of his youth, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). In Huckleberry Finn, widely considered his masterpiece, Twain created one of the most memorable characters in American fiction, painted a realistic picture of 19th-cent. life, and revolutionized the language of fiction through his use of vernacular speech. In 1893, plunged into debt, he lectured his way around the world, recording his experiences in Following the Equator (1897). His later years were saddened by the deaths of two daughters and his wife, and his later works, e.g., The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg (1899), What Is Man? (1905), The Mysterious Stranger (1916), are somber, pessimistic, and misanthropic.
Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr., 1922-, American novelist; b. Indianapolis, Ind. With wry charm, dark humor, and plots that sometimes resemble science fiction he protests the horrors of the 20th cent. Vonnegut's novels include Player Piano (1951), Slaughterhouse Five (1969), Deadeye Dick (1982), and Hocus Pocus (1990).
Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961, one of the great American writers of the 20th cent.; b. Oak Park, Ill. With the publication of his novel The Sun Also Rises (1926), he was recognized as a leading spokesman of the "lost generation" of American expatriates in post-World War I Paris. Writing in a direct, terse style, Hemingway focused on courageous people living essential, dangerous lives. His other major novels include A Farewell to Arms (1929), a tragic wartime love story, and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), based on an incident in the SPANISH CIVIL WAR, in which he was a correspondent. He is also famous for his vigorous short stories, e.g., "The Killers" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." In 1945 he settled in Cuba, where he wrote the novella The Old Man and the Sea (1952; Pulitzer). His other writings include the nonfiction works Death in the Afternoon (1932) and Green Hills of Africa (1935). In 1954 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. He later moved to Idaho, where, plagued by illness, he committed suicide.
Faulkner, William, 1897-1962, American novelist; b. New Albany, Miss. One of the great American writers of the 20th cent., he explored the loss of traditional values and the decay and anguish of the post-Civil War South, using the imaginary Yoknapatawpha county as a microcosm of Southern life. A brilliant literary technician, Faulkner was master of a rhetorical, highly symbolic style. He was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in literature. His best-known novels include The Sound and the Fury (1929), The Hamlet (1940), A Fable (1954; Pulitzer), and The Reivers (1962; Pulitzer). He also published short stories, essays, and poems.
Wharton, Edith (Newbold Jones), 1862-1937, American author; b. N.Y.C.; settled in France, 1913. Her works range widely, but she is particularly known for her subtle, ironic, and superbly crafted fictional studies of turn-of-the-century New York society, as in her best and most characteristic novels, The House of Mirth (1905) and The Age of Innocence (1920; Pulitzer). Wharton's many other novels include The Valley of Decision (1902), The Custom of the Country (1913), and Hudson River Bracketed (1929). Least characteristic, but most successful, of her works is the starkly tragic novella of New England, Ethan Frome (1911). Among Wharton's short-story collections are Crucial Instances (1901), Certain People (1930), and Ghosts (1937). She also wrote travel books, literary criticism, and poetry.
Bellamy, Edward, 1850-98, American author; b. Chicopee Falls, Mass. He became famous with the influential Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888), a utopian romance of the future under state socialism. His other works include short stories and the novels Miss Ludington's Sister (1884) and Equality (1897), a sequel to Looking Backward.
Taylor, Edward, c.1642-1729, considered America's foremost colonial poet; b. England. He came to America in 1668. A Congregational minister and ardent Puritan, he wrote verse similar to that of England's METAPHYSICAL POETS. His poetry was first published in 1939.
Melville, Herman, 1819-91, one of the greatest American writers; b. N.Y.C. His experiences on a whaler (1841-42) and ashore in the Marquesas (where he was captured by cannibals) and other South Sea islands led to the writing of Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), and other widely popular romances. Melville's masterpiece, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851), the tale of a whaling captain's obsessive search for the white whale that had ripped off his leg, is at once an exciting sea story, a heavily symbolic inquiry into good and evil, and one of the greatest novels ever written. Both Moby-Dick and the psychological novel Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (1852) were misunderstood at the time of their publication and badly received. Although disheartened by his failure to win an audience, by ill health, and by debts, Melville continued to produce such important works as The Piazza Tales (1856), a collection including the stories "Benito Cereno" and "Bartleby the Scrivener," The Confidence Man (1857), and the novella Billy Budd, Foretopman (1924). After holding the position of customs inspector in New York City for 19 years, Melville died in poverty and obscurity. Neglected for many years, his work was rediscovered c.1920.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-82, one of America's most influential authors and thinkers; b. Boston. A Unitarian minister, he left his only pastorate, Boston's Old North Church (1829-32), because of doctrinal disputes. On a trip to Europe Emerson met Thomas CARLYLE, S.T. COLERIDGE, and WORDSWORTH, whose ideas, along with those of PLATO, the Neoplatonists, Asian mystics, and SWEDENBORG, strongly influenced his philosophy. Returning home (1835), he settled in Concord, Mass., which he, Margaret FULLER, THOREAU, and others made a center of TRANSCENDENTALISM. He stated the movement's main principles in Nature (1836), stressing the mystical unity of nature. A noted lecturer, Emerson called for American intellectual independence from Europe in his Phi Beta Kappa address at Harvard ("The American Scholar," 1837). In an address at the Harvard divinity school (1838), he asserted that redemption could be found only in one's own soul and intuition. Emerson developed transcendentalist themes in his famous Journal (kept since his student days at Harvard), in the magazine The Dial, and in his series of Essays (1841, 1844). Among the best known of his essays are "The Over-Soul," "Compensation," and "Self-Reliance." He is also noted for his poems, e.g., "Threnody," "Brahma," and "The Problem." His later works include Representative Men (1850), English Traits (1856), and The Conduct of Life (1870).
O'Connor, (Mary) Flannery, 1925-64, American author; b. Savannah, Ga. In the novels Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960), and the short stories in A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955) and Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965), she portrays contemporary Southern life as a grotesque and gothic combination of brutal comedy and violent tragedy.
Sandburg, Carl, 1878-1967, major American poet; b. Galesburg, Ill. His experiences as a laborer, soldier, socialist political worker, and journalist informed his poetry. Drawing his inspiration from America's past and present, influenced by Walt WHITMAN, Sandburg wrote vigorous, impressionistic free verse that celebrated ordinary people and things. Collections of his poems include Chicago Poems (1916), Cornhuskers (1918; Pulitzer), The People, Yes (1936), Complete Poems (1950; Pulitzer), and Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960). Sandburg also collected folk ballads and songs in The American Songbag (1927) and wrote an epic biography of Lincoln (6 vol., 1926-39; vol. 3-6 Pulitzer); children's books, e.g., Rootabaga Stories (1922); and the autobiographical Always the Young Strangers (1953).
Frost, Robert, 1874-1963, one of the most popular American poets of the 20th cent.; b. San Francisco; moved to Lawrence, Mass., 1885. He went to England in 1912 and won his first acclaim there. After publishing A Boy's Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914), he returned to the U.S. and settled in New Hampshire. While Frost wrote movingly of the people and landscape of New England, his lyrical, dramatic, and often deeply symbolic verse goes far beyond regional poetry. His volumes of poetry include New Hampshire (1923), A Witness Tree (1942), Steeple Bush (1947), and In the Clearing (1962). Frost was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1924, 1931, 1937, and 1943, and in 1961 he read his poem "The Gift Outright" at Pres. Kennedy's inauguration. His complete poems were published in 1967.