American literature started in the 19. century. The American literature was delayed because first they wrote just about history and it was boring for common readers. In Europe was in 19th century was romantic and revolution-romantic movement. In Europe people fought against society but in America they were (and still are) very proud of their new state.
Washington Irving
(1783-1859)
wrote on American topics – the history of New York, essays on American life, a large biography of George Washington One of his wellknown books is The Sketch Book.
He admired Europe and was minister of foreign affairs in Spain. He wrote biography of George Washington and history of New York. Loved Europe but wrote about America.
James Fenimore Cooper
(1789-1851)
described American wilderness and wrote Indian novels of adventure (The Last of the Mohicans).
He admired English gentlemen, spent seven years in France. His children got the best European education. He hated America but returned back and started to write books about Indians. The embodied the features of English gentlemen in American Indians. He saw Indians better than they were indeed. He wrote The Last Of Mohicans.
Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
was a poet of democracy, freedom and sexual love and he made the American poetry independent on European poetry. He influenced the whole modern poetry with rhythmical free verse which was his innovation. His most famous collection is Leaves of Grass. Gras is symbol of humbleness and modesty (skromnost) because it is everywhere.
His father was carpenter and mother was illiterate (negramotná). He was only talented one from ten children. He was homosexual. He left school at the age of eleven. Started to work as journalist and later as a teacher. He established free verse in American poetry. He separated American from European poetry. He loved sexual love, freedom, democracy.
Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849)
a poet and short story writer, critical essayist, the founder of both science-fiction and the detective story. He is said to be the forerunner of modern literature and French poets Baudelaire to Valéry regarded him as a genius. His best poem is The Raven (1845) – on a stormy night a tired student who has lost his love asks if he will ever meet her again in some other world. His doubts are underlined by the raven’s repetition of „Nevermore“. Poe wrote wonderful short stories such as The Black Cat, The Golden Bug, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Murders in the Rue Morgue etc.
He is considered to be a genius especially in France. He was admired by Baudlaire and Valéry. He was a poet and founder of sci-fi and detective story. He became orphan at 2 years. He was adopted by family Allan. He moved to England and got English education. As he came back to America he studied Virginia University. He married 13 years old Virginia. She died after seven years of tuberculosis. He fell into very deep depression after her death. He was found in delirium in the street of Baltimore because he stopped writing after her wife´s death. He was 4O. The poem Raven – student lost his loved girl and asked the raven if he has possibility to meet her again in the future and the raven always repeated Never More. The poem The Pit and The Pendulum – a man is sentenced into the prison and he was bounded to the bench and over his body was moving the pendulum. Pendulum was getting closer and closer and he couldn’t move and the pendulum could cut his body every minute. Around were many rats. He could just fall down bud under him was the big pit and he would die if he had fallen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882)
was the leading philosopher in the „transcendentalist movement“. It was based on the doctrine of free will, on the individual conscience and the sense of right. Emerson believed that the history of mankind is the history of great personalities. The doctrine of self-reliance is dominating. All the transcendentalists were isolated people, even though they lived together in a „Utopian Community“ which they established at Brook Farm in Concord (Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne lived there).
He is founder of transcendentalist movement in America. It has three elements: free will, individual conscience, sense of right. Transcendentalism emphasis relationship between human beings and nature and it can transcend (přesáhnout) into divine feeling. He founded the society called Utopian Community. His main work is called Self–reliance. This community settled in Brook Farm in Concord. They ended in complete isolation and lost themselves (lost their way). Complicated writer. He thought that history of mankind was the history of the strong personalities.
Herman Melville
(1819-1891)
was the greatest symbolist; he sailed on seas for many years. His experience at sea were the basis for almost all his novels. The most famous novel is Moby Dick, the symbolic story of Captain Ahab, a free man, striving against his own fate, for which Moby Dick – the white whale – means evil. The book culminates in the tension of the three-day hunt of Moby Dick which ends in disaster – Captain Ahab, who wants fo fight Moby Dick alone, is pinned to the whale’s body by his own harpoon.
He was born in New York, his father was importer and went bankrupt (zbankrotoval) and shortly after that he died. They moved to his mother family and she could help them with the money. Herman was very desperate in fact. At the age of twenty he left the family and the reason was deep misunderstanding. He sailed as shipman to Liverpool and back. He wanted to solve the problems in family as he returned but wasn´t successful. He became shipman again. He sailed with whaler. And stayed in the southern islands in pacific and lived among cannibals. Then embarked another whaler and got to Japan. From there he returned to America, got married and adventures ended. His wife corrected his work. He wrote the Moby Dick. There are two narrators: Ismael (from the bible) who spoke in the third person and Narrator who spoke in the first person. The book consists of three parts: in the first part captain Ahab sought (hledal) his crew. Captain appeared on the boat short before the ship departed (odplouvat). He took with him a gold coin and nailed the coin the mast (stěžeň) and proclaimed: the person that will see Moby Dick first will get the coin. In the second part is explained the hunting and chasing the Moby Dick what lasted several months. In third part is explained the fight between Captain Ahab and the Moby Dick. (Captain lost his leg because of Moby and captain wanted to revenge.) In the end captain Ahab is seen on the body of Moby Dick pint (připíchnut) with his own harpoon. Boat was smashed and the crew was smashed. Just Ismael survived to tell us the story. Melville is great symbolist because Moby is symbol of the independence and freedom for readers and for Ahab is Moby symbol of evil.
Mark Twain
(1835-1910)
is one of the greatest US authors. He comes from the South and he worked as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi river. „Mark twain“ is a river-man’s phrase meaning two-pathoms-deep. His real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He became famous as a humorist and story-teller. His novel The Gilded Age gave the name to the whole period after the Civil War. This book is a bitter satire on one period of the get-rich-quick years in the second half of the 19th century. His best books are based on his own experience along the Mississippi -The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. These books describe the adventures of boyhood. Huck is a portrait of a frontier boy. Huck is a free boy and remains free till the end of the book, when he runs away because he is afraid that Aunt Sally will adopt him and civilize him. And this he would not be able to „survive“. (Twain’s other books are: The Celebrated Jumping Frog, The Innocents Abroad, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Life on the Mississippi).
He was born in the area of Missouri. His father was unsuccessful lawyer and Mark left the family as he was twelve years old. First he went to east and then he returned to the river Mississippi and became a steamboat pilot and got a lot of experiences and travelled a lot. After the marriage he stopped traveling, settled down and became a very respectable man. Mark twain was sign for the depth of the water. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck wanted to stay independent and Aunt Sally wanted to adopted him and civilize him, so he ran away. The Gilded Age – the book named the period after civil war. After civil war everything started to recover and economy was in the great progress. The period was also called “get rich quick” period.