A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 1950 TO THE PRESENT
Featuring works from notable authors as varied as Salinger and the Beats to Vonnegut, Capote, Morrison, Rich, Walker, Eggers, and De Lillo, A History of American Literature: 1950 to the Present offers a comprehensive analysis of the wide range of literary works produced in the United States over the last six decades and a fascinating survey of the dramatic changes during America’s transition from the innocence of the fifties to the harsh realities of the first decade of the new millennium. Author Linda Wagner-Martin – a highly acclaimed authority on all facets of modern American literature – covers major works of drama, poetry, fiction, non- fiction, memoirs, and popular genres such as science fiction and detective novels. Viewing works produced during this fertile literary period from a wide-ranging perspective, Wagner-Martin considers literature in relation to such issues as the politics of civil rights, feminism, sexual preferences, and race- and gender-based marketing. She also places a special emphasis on works produced during the twenty-first century, and writings influenced by recent historic events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and the global financial crisis. With its careful balance of scholarly precision and accessibility, A History of American Literature: 1950 to the Present provides readers of all levels with rich and revealing insights into the diversity of literary forms and influences that characterize postmodern America.
‘A monumental distillation of an enormous range of material, Wagner-Martin’s rich book should be required reading for anyone grappling with making sense of the prolific, broad-spectrum, and diverse writing in the US since 1950.’
Thadious M. Davis, University of Pennsylvania ‘Linda Wagner-Martin’s history impressively and judiciously surveys all fields of American writing over the past sixty years, taking full account of significant cultural and historical contexts and the major critical commentaries that have helped shape our understanding of developments in the second half of the last century and the dozen years following the millennium. Balanced, informative, and always highly readable there is much here for general readers, students, and specialists alike.’
Christopher Mac Gowan, the College of William and Mary
Table des matières
Illustrations ix
Preface xi
1 Locating Contemporary Literature 1
American Poetry During the 1950s 13
A. Poems of the Mind and the Body 13
B. The Farthest Edge: The Beats and the Confessional School 19
American Theater During the 1950s 25
American Fiction During the 1950s 28
A. Fiction and the War 28
B. Class and Sexuality in the Novel 32
C. The Novel, Jewish and Southern 38
2 The Sixties and the Necessities of Change 47
Theater of the 1960s 53
African American Writing in the 1960s 58
1960s Fiction, Mainstream Markers 69
Feminism 74
3 Conventions and Eruptions 79
Poetry of the Anti-War and Feminist Years 81
Feminist Fictions 90
Postmodern Fictions 101
Science Fiction and Alternative Worlds 112
The New Journalism 123
Theater During the 1970s 129
4 New Ages and Old 139
Memoir: Another New Direction 142
Crime and Detective Fiction, American Style 150
Theater During the 1980s 168
5 The 1980s, Ethnicity and Change 175
Asian American Writing 178
Native American Writing 183
Mexican American Writing (i.e., Latino/Latina) 189
African American Writing 194
Poetry in the 1980s 203
Fiction in the 1980s 214
6 The 1990s and the Sexual 225
Sexual Preferences and Social/Legal Issues 227
Theater of the 1990s 235
The Poem at the Turn into the Twenty-First Century 242
Story at the Turn into the Twenty-First Century 250
Southern Literature at the Turn into the Twenty-First Century 260
7 The Twenty-First Century 277
The Story of 9/11 and Its Aftermath 286
Theater 2000-2010 307
Poetry 2000-2010 311
Memoir and Life-Writing 2000-2010 319
Fiction 2000-2010 326
References 353
Index 365
A propos de l’auteur
Linda Wagner-Martin is Frank Borden Hanes Professor of
English and Comparative Literature at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. She is the recipient of Guggenheim,
Rockefeller, Bunting Institute, and other fellowships, as well as
holding the Hubbell Medal for American Literature. She writes
widely on twentieth-century American literature, biography, women’s
writing, and pedagogy. Her publications include ‘Favored
Strangers’: Gertrude Stein and Her Family (1995), The Oxford
Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States and its
anthology(1995), Sylvia Plath: A Literary Life
(1999/2003), Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald (2004), Emily
Dickinson, A Literary Life (2013) Barbara Kingsolver’s
World: Nature, Art and the 21st Century (2014) and Toni
Morrison and the Maternal, from the Bluest Eye to Home, 2014.
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