What is American Literature?

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer discusses that the more broadly, deeply, objectively and honestly one reflects on the question of what is; or is not American literature, the more complex the issue becomes. The writer then provides a definition of literature before examining the issue of American literature. The writer concludes that aspects of American life and character that often, although not always, get left out of literary works often have to do with politics and/or political processes perhaps because their bad effects, while known, are probably hard to describe in terms of tangible effects on an individual hero or life situation.

From the Paper:

"The question of what it means to be an American is an even more complex one; and it brings my cynicism to the surface. When I read Walt Whitman's gigantic, beautiful, exuberant ode to America these days that was first published in 1855, when being an American was obviously a whole different experience than it is for Americans today, I wish I could feel half as enthusiastic about being an American today as he obviously did back then. Nowadays, I think that to be an American (in general) just means to be an overly materialistic; chronically-shallow thinker; who is (therefore) gullible to bad political influences and the wrong kinds of "peer pressure" (e.g., to smoke; to drink; to deface public property with graffiti); and whose only real religion is materialism and whose main reason for even being alive is just to buy more and more material stuff, and to be entertained (mindlessly) mostly by television."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Literature. (1995). Webster's New American dictionary. New York: Merriam- Webster.
• Tocqueville, A. de. (1998). Democracy in America [online text]. Retrieved March 8,2007, from: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/html.
• Whitman, W. (1999). Leaves of grass [online text]. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved March 8, 2007, from: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1322.html.

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