A History of American Literature: A Study of the Essence of the American Way of Life. American novella of the 19th – 20th centuries

In the 20th century, the problems of American literature are determined by a fact of enormous significance: the richest, most powerful capitalist country, which, it would seem, can solve all the problems of the world, gives birth to the most gloomy and bitter literature of our time.

Writers acquired a new quality: they became characterized by a sense of tragedy and doom of this strange world.

In the second half of the 20th century. The short story will no longer play such an important role in American literature as in the 19th century; it is being replaced by the realistic novel. But still, novelists continue to pay significant attention to the short story, and a number of outstanding American prose writers devote themselves primarily or exclusively to this genre.

One of them is O. Henry (William Sidney Porter), who made an attempt to chart a different path to the American short story, “bypassing” the already defined critical-realist direction. O. Henry was, if you can call him that, the founder of the American happy ending (which was present in the vast majority of his stories). This would subsequently be used very successfully in American popular fiction.

After World War II, there was a certain decline in the development of literature, but this did not apply to poetry and drama, where the work of poets Robert Lowell and Alan Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, playwrights Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee gained worldwide fame.

In the post-war years, the anti-racist theme so characteristic of black literature deepened. This is evidenced by the poetry and prose of Langston Hughes, the novels of John Killens ("Young Blood", "And Then We Heard Thunder"), the fiery journalism of James Baldwin, and the dramaturgy of Lorraine Hansberry. One of the brightest representatives of black creativity was Richard Wright (“Son of America”).

Increasingly, literature is created “to order” from the ruling circles of America. The novels of L. Nyson, L. Stalling and others, which depicted the actions of American troops during World War I and other “good” of America in a heroic aura, are being released onto the book market in huge quantities.

During World War II, the ruling circles of the United States managed to subjugate many writers. And for the first time, on the same scale, US literature was put into the service of government propaganda. As many critics of the time noted, this process marked a disastrous backward movement in the development of US literature, which was clearly confirmed in the post-war history of the country.

The so-called mass fiction, which sets itself the goal of transporting the reader to a pleasant and rosy world, is becoming widespread in the United States. The book market was filled with novels by Kathleen Norris, Temple Bailey, Fenny Gerst and other purveyors of “literature for women” who produced lightweight novels tailored from certain templates, with an indispensable happy ending.

In addition to books on a love theme, popular literature was represented by detective stories. Also popular were pseudo-historical works that combined entertainment with an apology for American statehood (Kenneth Roberts).

In the 60-70s of the USA, taking into account the mass black and anti-war movement in the country, there was an obvious turn of many writers towards significant social issues, an increase in social-critical sentiments in their work, and a return to the traditions of realistic creativity.

The role of John Cheever as the leader of US prose is becoming increasingly significant. Another representative of the literature of that time, Saul Bellow, was awarded the Nobel Prize and won wide recognition both in America and abroad.

Among modernist writers, the leading role belongs to the “black humorists” Barthelme, Barthes, Pynchon, in whose work irony often hides the lack of their own vision of the world and who, most likely, are characterized by a tragic feeling and misunderstanding of life rather than its rejection.

IN last decades many writers entered literature directly from universities. And therefore, the main themes of their works became memories of childhood, youth and university years, and if the themes were exhausted, the writers faced difficulties. To a certain extent, this also applies to such wonderful writers as John Updike and Philip Roth. But not all of these writers remained in their perception of America only at the level of university impressions. By the way, F. Roth and J. Updike in their latest works go far beyond the boundaries of their previous works.

Among the middle generation of American writers, the most popular and important are Kurt Vonnegut, Joyce Carol Oates and John Gardner. The future belongs to these writers, although they have already spoken a separate and original word in American literature. Needless to say, as for the concepts, they all express different varieties of modern bourgeois trends in American literary criticism.

But it is clear that modern US literature, already time-tested, will be learned, appreciated and comprehended, perhaps from other positions, only over a certain amount of time - as will most likely be the case from the point of view of the development of American literature as a whole.

Speaking about the present day of American literature, one cannot fail to mention, first of all, the postmodern critical school that turned out to be the most popular in the United States - deconstructionism, the adherents of which, grouped around Yale University, published a collection of their articles.

One of the brightest stars in the firmament of American literature was Harold Bloom.

Bloom is an influential and controversial figure. As a cultural theorist, he conducted excursions into its different time and geographical layers - from Christian to Judaic. An extremely active participant in the literary process, he began and successfully implemented a large number of reprints of American classics with his own prefaces, evaluating and reevaluating based on his own theories.

Bloom's study that became most famous in the 1980s was "The Fear of Influence." His main thesis, simplifying as much as possible, can be formulated as follows: all poetry is born of the desire creative personality resist their famous and significant predecessors. Therefore, he considers all poetry outside the specifics of time, space and the specific personalities of the masters as a kind of “family novel”, declaring: “my subject is only the poet in the poet or the original poetic “I”. The vocabulary that Bloom uses is “struggle”, “victory”, “defeat” (“The War of American Poets against Influence...”, etc.) - that is, the entire “militaristic” arsenal, which is based on binary oppositions, so uncharacteristic of postmodernism of any “subsequent” poet. reveals an inspired desire to “rewrite” his predecessor, pushing away from him under the great fear of his influence, which does not allow him to open up to his own “I”.

Therefore, every reading is a “failure to convey the meaning,” and in principle, “there are no interpretations except misinterpretations, and therefore all criticism is prosaic poetry.”

Francis Fergusson devotes a large part of his summary work, The Romantic Studios, to a critical analysis of Bloom's theory and comes to the fair conclusion that in his execution "the history of poetry looks like the history of decline."

In the literature, ideas of the struggle for peace, ideas of humanism, and interest in psychoanalysis continue to be heard (J. Salinger, J. Steinbeck, W. Faulkner, G. Green, E. Caldwell, and others). American literature continues to be interested in the problems of the meaning of human existence, the role of the artist in society, and the possibilities of human self-realization in a technocratic and militarized world.

Lecture 23. AMERICAN LITERATURE OF THE XX CENTURY.

1. Periodization of American literature. Turn of the century realism.
2. The Development of the American Novel. Dreiser and Faulkner.
3. Beat literature.

The history of the United States before the outbreak of World War II was determined by the following events: victory in the Spanish-American War (1899) and participation in the First World War, industrial revolt: industrialization (the appearance of the tram, Ford factories, the Panama Canal), the final settlement of territories (Alaska and California), the growth cities, "Great Depression" 1929 crisis of overproduction), Roosevelt's New Economic Deal, as a result of which the United States became the leading world power at the beginning of World War II.

At the turn of the century, America's dominant social reference point was the myth of equal opportunity. One cannot discount the traditional puritanical morality of the settlers and the influence of non-traditional sets of ideas (Marxism, Freudianism) and new art (Cubist painting, cinematographic techniques).

The beginning of the 20th century in American literature is associated with the birth of social realistic literature, because it is a much younger literature that developed at an accelerated pace for 2 centuries. What was in European literature in the mid-19th century, that is, the social-realistic novel (Balzac, Dickens and his company), was not in American literature either at that time or later.

Poe, Melville, Hawthorne - American romantics.

American literature of the twentieth century. divided into the following stages:

1) 1900s – the dominance of positivism (O. Comte), the strong influence of late romanticism (Whitman).

2) From the late 1910s to the 1930s. American literature deals with the issue of individual mastery, and the romantic conflict between culture and civilization is widespread. the formation of American national drama (Eugene O'Neill)

3) 1930s – the lyrical and epic (naturalistic technique and the romantic idea of ​​a new type of individualism) are reconciled. There is a politicization of literature due to the economic crisis, civil wars, and the threat of fascism.

The 1930s were marked by a stormy labor movement. Under the influence of these events, American writers intensified their criticism of capitalist orders. Among them are Thomas Wolfe and John Steinbeck.

4) WWII period (late 30s - until 1945). During WW2, many American writers joined the fight against Hitlerism. Hemingway, Sinclair and others performed anti-fascist works.

5) Post-war years(after 1945):

A) The post-war period is characterized by the Cold War period. This includes the works of Alexander Saxton, Shirley Graham, Lloyd Brown, William Saroyan, and William Faulkner.

B) 50s In the 50s, the United States was experiencing rampant McCarthyism (Senator McCarthy). In literature, cinema, and on TV, protective, conformist tendencies are intensifying (Mickey Spillane, Herman Wouk, Alain Drury). In 50, a number of books appeared that were a direct response to the regime of political persecution and to the reactionary activities of Senator McCarthy. Among them are Jay Dice “The Washington Story”, Felix Jackson “So help me God”.

B) In post-war America. literature appeared the works of the so-called “beatniks” - young Americans, representatives of the post-war broken generation. The beatniks rebel against the ugliness of bourgeois civilization and condemn bourgeois morality. Representatives: Norman Mailer, Son Bellow, James Baldwin.

6) 60s In the 60s, anti-war sentiments intensified, and the fight against aggression in Vietnam intensified. The second half of 60 was marked by an intensification of the movement among young people, many new bright books about American reality appeared - Truman Capote, John Updike, Harper Lee.

7) 70-90s. XX centuries (T. Williams, T. Morrison, etc.)

When characterizing the literary process in the USA, it should first of all be noted that in American literature there was no “end of the century” situation (decadent moods, symbolism). Realists bring world fame to the American novel. Naturalism became firmly established in American literature of the 20th century. At the same time, there is a certain romanticization of it (in Dreiser). Since the mid-1910s. realism moves away from social orientation and heads towards painting the exact word.

Modernism declares itself to be a school of imagists, represented mainly by the work of Ezra Pound, whose works give every reason to talk about the European school of American modernism.

1920s –

The search for new paths in literature followed different paths:

1. In an in-depth study of the human psyche (Fitzgerald)

2. At the level of formal experiment

3. In the study of the laws of a new society (Faulkner)

4. Outside America, in man's flight from civilization (Hemingway)

Turn-of-the-century realism in American literature.The most prominent names of this period are Mark Twain and O'Henry.

Mark Twain(1835 - 1910), real name Samuel Clemens, was a satirist who reshaped American literature, pioneered Romanticism, and paved the way for realism. Born into the family of a shopkeeper, he was early inclined to work as a typographic typesetter (the work involved traveling).

The first try of the pen was in 1863 under the pseudonym Mark Twain (in the jargon of pilots, “double measure” is a distance sufficient for the passage of a ship). IN early works the writer tries on the mask of a simpleton, which allowed him to evaluate the phenomena “from the outside - (“How I was elected governor”). In his work, he polemicized and fought against “gentle,” “pink” realism and was friends with its founder for 40 years. Nostalgia for the morning of America was embodied in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1876), “A Hymn in Prose,” as the author called it. The book is imbued with light lyricism, despite the problem posed (traditional for American literature) - the confrontation between naturalness and social conventions.

The novels “The Prince and the Pauper” (1882) and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” - the book from which all American literature emerged” (E. Hemingway) are imbued with real tragedy. Here the contradictions of human impulses and social institutions are insoluble. Evil satire permeates everything later creativity M. Twain. A Yankee in King Arthur's Court turns the Knights of the Round Table into businessmen; there is a man who has seduced the whole city, populated by decent citizens. Having created a special style of storytelling, M. Twain remained in the history of literature as the “American Voltaire.”

O.Henry- pseudonym of William Sidney Porter (1862-1910), a pharmacist by training, he had to work as a cashier. The discovered embezzlement forced the future writer to flee to Latin America, where he obtained material for his future book"Kings and cabbage." Upon his return, he faced trial and a prison sentence.

At this time, the theme of the fate of a stumbled person appears in his short stories (“The Appeal of Jimmy Valentine”). After his release, he moved to New York, where he worked as a journalist, gaining fame after the publication of the collection of short stories “Four Million”. O'Henry perfects the short story genre (using the experience of W. Irving, E. Poe, M. Twain).

Distinctive features of O'Henry's novella:

Captivating plot and kaleidoscopic plots

Brevity

Good humor

The principle of the “double plot spring”, triggered in the finale: the real solution is quietly prepared from the very beginning, but is hidden by the substitution of a false ending.

Jack London- pseudonym of John Griffith London (1876 - 1916), a writer whose eventful life served as a source of creativity. Issues of social justice began to concern him early. His passion for socialist ideas was natural. London showed interest in Nietzsche's philosophy, although the attitude towards him was ambiguous.

All free time London devoted itself to reading and self-education. Efficiency and perseverance did their job: in 1900 the first collection of stories “Son of the Wolf” was published and in 1901. – collection “The God of His Fathers” At the age of 24, success, fame and material well-being come to London.

The popularity of the writer's short stories is partly explained by the literary situation. In American literature at the turn of the century, the position of realism was strengthening, and the influence of the “tradition of sophistication” was clearly weakening. In addition to social criticism, new realistic works depicted a hero-victim social conditions. These are somewhat exceptional heroes - real and at the same time upbeat.

D. London was not a supporter of “mundane” realism based on everyday verisimilitude, but of poetic realism, animated by romance, elevating the reader above everyday life (B. Gilenson). London in his stories gives a different type of hero - this is an active person who asserted himself thanks to energy, resourcefulness and courage.

D. London's poetic realism does not at all prevent the writer from exploring life. In 1902, the Writer went on a business trip to London, which resulted in the book “People of the Abyss.” In 1904, London went to the Russo-Japanese War as a correspondent. Takes a lot of time social activity writer and member of the Socialist Party. Rebellious sentiments were expressed in the utopian novel, the warning novel “The Iron Heel” (1907).

In the same year, London goes on a trip on his own yacht, built according to his drawings. The main result of the trip is the novel “Martin Eden” (1909). Autobiography, revelation of the writer's psychology, pessimism - these are, in brief, the main characteristics of the novel. The book became prophetic in many ways. Outwardly it was an example of prosperity, but the writer was in a deep crisis. This personal and creative crisis was largely associated with the new time of shattered ideals, in which the writer never found himself and in 1916 committed suicide by taking a large dose of morphine.

In any preface you will read about the romanticism of Jack London. Nothing could be more wrong. A man who stormed Alaska with Spencer and Nietzsche under his arm cannot be a romantic. But the romance of events, the local color of Alaska, as in all the works of Jack London, is present. And his “Northern Stories” are based on the idea natural selection. The strongest always survive. For London, the strongest is not the physically strongest, but the strongest in spirit and character. And only in “Martin Eden” do these ideas fade into the background, and Jack London’s ability to see the world in its socio-historical categories, as a system of social relations, appears, although the biological factor also plays a certain role.

The anti-fascist movement of 30-40, led by communists, played an important role in the development of American literature. Sinclair Lewis, Michael Gold, and Richard Wright sharply criticized fascism.

S. Lewis(1885–1951) was the most caustic writer of everyday life in the American province. Having chosen his hometown as the target of his brilliant satire in the novel Main Street (1920), he became a merciless critic of the American middle class. With a mixture of contempt and sympathy, the portrait of the hero of his novel “Babbitt” (1922), whose name became a household name, and whose image became an impressive personification, was painted. little man", idolizing success and a soulless industrial society. "Arrowsmith" (1925) - the story of a young doctor who painfully chooses between spiritual and material values; Elmer Gantry (1927) is a merciless satire of a Midwestern evangelist. Lewis sought the purity of the American ideal, but everywhere he saw only dirt and the worship of money. In 1930, he became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Development of the American Novel due to the popularity of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in America (in the 10-20s), as well as the need to comprehend the gap between the “American dream” and the reality of social contrasts.

The novel developed in two directions:

1) realistic, oriented towards naturalism (T. Dreiser, early D. Steinbeck);

2) synthetic, incorporating all novel traditions, including modernist ones.

John Steinbeck(1902, Salinas, California - 1968, New York), American writer. Studied at the Faculty of Biology at Stanford University. In his youth he changed a number of professions.

IN early work shared romantic illusions about the possibility of escaping from bourgeois society (the novel “The Chalice of God,” 1929), and gravitated toward depicting bizarre types of provincial and rural America (the story cycles “Paradise Pastures,” 1932, “Red Pony,” 1933).

In the 30s developed as a writer of acute social issues (the novel “In a Fight with a Questionable Outcome,” 1936, the story “Of Mice and Men,” 1937, Russian translation, 1963).

S.'s heroes are tragic in their deprivation and lack of understanding of the causes of the life ruins that haunt them.

The pinnacle of S.'s creativity is the novel "The Grapes of Wrath" (1939, Russian translation, 1940), in the center of which is the fate of farmers driven off the land, wandering around the country in search of work. Through difficult trials, the heroes come to the realization that they are part of a suffering and struggling people.

In the 40s retreated from the traditions of proletarian and revolutionary literature (novels "Cannery Row", 1945; "The Lost Bus", 1947; "East of Paradise", 1952). S.’s creativity experienced a new takeoff in the early 60s. The novel “The Winter of Our Anxiety” (1961, Russian translation, 1962) and the book of essays “Journey with Charlie in Search of America” (1962, Russian translation, 1965) alarmingly told about the destruction of personality in the world of petty-bourgeois standards, in an atmosphere of deceptive prosperity . During the Vietnam War, he defended US aggression. Nobel Prize (1962).

The realistic novel is primarily represented by romance Theodore Dreiser(1871 - 1945) - publicist, reporter, creator of the American novel. Dreiser considered himself a member of the “muckrakers,” a group of journalists who opposed the traditions of decency in literature. The creator of the great American novel came from a family of immigrants and learned early on the life of the bottom.

The main method is critical realism. In his early work he was strongly influenced by O. de Balzac (although there is an opinion that Dreiser is the “second Zola”). Thus, Dreiser used the basic Balzac principle of “seeing the historical meaning of minor changes,” and also used the type young man standing on the threshold of life and challenging it.

THEODORE DREISERnot only quickly gained fame, but to a certain extent even outlived his fame. He very quickly turned into a living classic, a monument to himself, and at the moment when his works were established in American literature, the next generation, who wrote completely differently, had already begun their creative activity. And Dreiser already looked archaic in the 20s. No wonder Faulkner, considered the best writer of the 20th century in America, said quite clearly: “Dreiser’s tread was heavy. But just as all Russian Literature came out of Gogol’s “The Overcoat,” we all came out of Dreiser’s novels.” We are all him, and Faulkner, and Fitzgerald, Hemingway...

What did Dreiser do, if we talk about his works as a whole? They are generally extremely simple. These are biographical novels according to their model, all (from the first to the last) smoothly developing into epic novels about the same character, where the central figure and her fate are always presented in close interaction with the outside world. Almost every biographical novel of his is a study of the interactions between a person and the society around him.

In the very first novel, “Sister Carrie” (1901), again, naturalistic tendencies are extremely strong. There, Dreiser, like London at this time, explains the reasons why the life of his heroine Caroline turned out the way it did, because she has a psychophysiological potential that drags her up the river of life.

But starting with the second novel, Jenny Gerhard (1912), the study of social relations and how they determine human life begins. And from this point of view, all of Dreiser’s novels are exactly the same in terms of the principle of construction and the objects of study. Only different environments, since the heroes belong to different social strata, do different things, say, “Genius” - a conversation about the fate of the artist not in general in bourgeois society, but in the world of emerging American capitalism. "Trilogy of Desires" ("Financier", "Titan", "Stoic"). "Financier" - there is an anatomy of the grab of American capitalists new formation, those who will create the capitalist society of the 20th century.

Dreiser's language is quite clothy and ponderous; German English, as he comes from a family of German immigrants and spoke German at home. He writes in English measuredly, but sometimes very vivid images, very bright pages.

Since Dreiser has a great sense of this new America taking shape before his eyes at the beginning of the 20th century. This is capitalist America. Until the end of the 19th century, the United States was an agricultural country. Midwest only - area around the Great Lakes, Chicago, etc. at the turn of the century at the beginning of the 20th century - industry begins to develop there, and the United States very quickly gains industrial potential, a capitalist industrial appearance, which is greatly helped by the successive 2 world wars in Europe, in which the United States takes a specific part.

And Dreiser becomes the first artist to capture and reflect the features of the new America on the pages of his narrative. And along with these traits, he talks about new people of a new era, who are building this era and enjoying its fruits.

And hence the meaningful result of Dreiser’s novels - a story about time, about society, an era in the simplest form of biographical novels.

"Sister Carrie" Critics condemned Sister Carrie for her behavior, and Dreiser because he, in turn, did not condemn the heroine. But Dreiser’s creative method of that time was naturalism - a method that recognizes not the concepts of bad/good, but the concept that exists in nature. Carrie goes upstairs, it seems, with the help of a man, but in fact, thanks to her inner energy. Carrie achieves prosperity and breaks up with her two men. But the second and last man (Hurstwood) does not have the same energy. The divergence of these people begins. Carrie is capable of doing anything to survive, but Hurstwood has broken down, his psycho-physiological potential has dried up, while Carrie’s is enormous. There is no one to blame here except the very essence of life. That's why D. doesn't condemn Carrie.

After “Sister Carrie,” an eleven-year break followed in D.’s work due to fierce criticism.

1912 – "Jenny Gerhard" - many plot parallels with "Sister Carrie". In J.G., however, it is no longer psychophysiology that is important, but how these relationships are interpreted by the surrounding society. Both men are loved by Jenny, but both of them were higher on the social ladder, i.e. the meaning of the conflicts was social. A millionaire from a family of millionaires - Lester. He is given a choice: abandon Jenny (a former hotel maid) and be a full member of the clan, or not engage in business. Lester loves his job, but chooses Jenny. After some time, she herself returns him home, since he cannot live without his business. But even there he is unhappy.

The country abolished class prejudices, but erected material barriers. The story of a girl organizing her life is repeated, but shown from the other side - explored social side life of society. Dreiser explores the new America emerging before his eyes at the beginning of the twentieth century.

"Trilogy of Desires" : novels “The Financier” (1912), “Titan” (1914) and “The Stoic” (1945) - a chronicle of America. This trilogy is a biography. Published posthumously in 1947. This is the life story of Frank Cowperwood and the history of America from the turn of the 1860s to the 1870s. until the Great Depression - late 1920s. The action takes place in Philadelphia ("The Financier"), Chicago ("Titan"), London ("The Stoic").

Dreiser always wrote biographical novels, and the story about the hero’s life in them was combined with characteristics of the era and the life of society at one time or another. It was Dreiser who became the first poet of the new industrial America, the America of skyscrapers (the aesthetically significant reality of the twentieth century). Dreiser conducts analysis inner life society, reveals the laws of its development.

"American tragedy" (1925). The name is an opposition to the concept of the “American Dream” - the path to the top, in which society gives everyone equal opportunities. This is a very old complex (the American dream), a lot was explained by one of the founders of this complex - Benjamin Franklin, the author of the saying “Time is money”: every moment of life should be devoted to specific productive activity, then you can achieve high results and realize the “American dream”.

At the center of the novel is the story of a man who dreamed of becoming a rich and respected member of society - Clyde Griffiths.

Reasons for failure:

1) Features of the hero’s psychology: Griffiths is a weak and mediocre person. Clyde ends up with a rich uncle who gives him a chance to make a career. But Clyde failed to take advantage of this chance. He has a grudge against his uncle, who gave him a small position, and Clyde expected from him the direct realization of his dream (a car, elite etc.).

Clyde decides to marry advantageously, but it doesn't work out. The tragedy is not that he cannot adequately assess the situation. Dreiser questions the validity of the “American Dream” principle.

Clyde decides to kill the girl with whom he was having an affair so that she could not interfere with his marriage to Sondra. The decision to kill Roberta stems from a weakness of character.

2) A personality exists in a certain social and ideological context, but does not have the ability to assert itself in this life, as the context dictates.

3) The American dream becomes an incentive not to work, but to kill.

Dreiser repeats the situation three times:

Clyde himself; Roberta (killed by Clyde) wants to go up through Clyde: Clyde is the nephew of the owner of the factory where she works. At the same time, Dreiser does not simplify the situation: Clyde loves Sondra, at the same time, marriage for him is a means to get to the top. Roberta, who loves Clyde, finds herself in the same situation.

The story of the prosecutor - Prosecutor Mason. Mason knows how hard it is to climb to the top. He wants to get Clyde convicted as a representative of the Griffiths clan. Thus, he wants to take revenge on those who once humiliated him and at the same time get a chance to run for the position of state prosecutor.

Clyde did not deal Roberta the fatal blow, so there is no decisive evidence. Then the prosecutor allows his assistant to falsify this evidence.

"An American: A Tragedy" (1925) is a novel about the death of two lovers, which was a consequence of their desire to achieve the "American Dream". In the 1830s. anti-fascist journalism becomes his weapon. Until the end of his days he continued his spiritual search and to this day remains in literature “an unshakable giant of realism” (T Bulf).

Thus, Dreiser introduces the theme of the author of social literature. Dreiser considered himself obligated to take part in public life. He is the author of many essays.

William Faulkner(1897 - 1962) - Nobel laureate, worked in the genre of synthetic novel. The main themes of creativity are the duality of the human soul; the problem of crime and punishment; way of the cross a man with ideals. A complex writer: Russian critics call him a realist, while at the same time recognizing the writer’s distinct inclination towards modernism (especially in the novel “The Sound and the Fury”).

This is the author of one of the most unique creative models in American and world literature. Faulkner had a real and profound influence on American and world literature. He is considered to be a difficult writer, but he is not the most difficult writer in this world.

The figure of Faulkner is interesting because when assessing his life and work, one gets the feeling that he was walking on his own. He did not have a university education, he did not study anything at all. In fact, he is self-taught in the full sense of the word, he read a lot, including Joyce, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy. This feature of his is also visible in the theme, since all of Faulkner’s works are dedicated to something. What is not at the forefront of human history. For example. Hemingway writes about world wars. About different countries and people. Faulkner wrote all of his works about Yoknapatawpha County (a Native American word). This district is located in the state of Mississippi, in the USA, Earth, Galaxy, Universe. This is a piece of the American south, hence the specificity and difficulties of the reader.

The specificity is that all the features, particulars of that life and genres that Faulkner takes, for the reader absorb what for Faulkner was part of humanity. This is what popularity and authority rest on. This feature is based on the fact that American literature consisted of different literatures, different cultural traditions, the people themselves came from different places to America, so the states are very different, in addition, for Americans it is the law of the state that is important, not the state.

The history of America is a history of constant convergence of regions. First, the war for independence and the disintegration into separate states, then they united, then the war between the North and the South, and again the division into two regions. And here a very important thing happens: after the victory of Server, the South was forcibly returned to the fold of the state, and its fundamental reconstruction began. This led to the fact that the natural development of the South was forcibly interrupted; its position is still that of a second-class region. In principle, this is an agricultural piece of the United States. The Americans, having destroyed the plantation economy by introducing elements of industry, are in no hurry to develop industrial relations here or to equalize its social and material situation with that of the North. This is a deep province with many racial problems. The south is a rather poor region. When natural development is interrupted, much is destroyed very quickly, even in the memory of even one generation. History turns into myth.

These plantations had everything: light and dark, nobility, tragedy, meanness, and oppression. Memory is passed on from generation to generation. The southern myth is a very tenacious thing, it is the same ennobled, transformed, romanticized memory of the pre-war south. This myth is still alive. Literature is connected with it by very strong chains. This myth leads to a rather complex result; it helps the southerners, who were most brutally dragged into the union, to maintain their independence to a greater extent, even if not administrative and legislative, but a sense of their own specialness, albeit spiritual, gender still separate from everyone else U.S.A.

Faulkner very colorfully and accurately captures the essence of this myth, the myth of southern life. History is what happens in the past, this past lives in myth, this myth is always relevant. The past, which is experienced as the present, is part of human psychology and the subject of depiction in literature. He writes about seemingly very special things, southerners live with myth in their souls, specific manifestations of myth in the soul of a southerner are specific manifestations of the laws of psychology.

Faulkner is a talented writer. He found himself and found themes that he pursued throughout his life. Much of his work is devoted to the life of the small fictional county of Yoknapatawpha. There are no Indians left there; whites and blacks live there. The fictional county embedded in Mississippi (his home state) gave him a special touch... The small town of Oxford, where he spent most of his life, is now a museum in his home. And when you walk on this small town, as if you find yourself in Jefferson Town, you see a monument to a Confederate soldier, which stands opposite the court in the central square. All these details are from reality. Faulkner is not limited to the South, otherwise he would not be so popular.

But the specific characters, the situations of the inhabitants - all of this in Faulkner is obtained in the projection of the universal laws of life phenomena, therefore, in this combination of the peculiar and the universal - this is what Faulkner’s world consists of. His style is difficult, not a typically English style. Very long, flowing phrases, very attractive, which seem to draw you in. On the other hand, Faulkner begins, as it were, from the middle of a sentence, a half-word, the middle of a situation.

The first pages of any work are a mystery. Faulkner does this deliberately, putting the reader in a situation similar to life. Let's say you come to some city and you need to settle down for a while, and here you are standing in the middle of the street, people are walking past you, they are strangers to you. But gradually you enter this life; whether you like it or not, you must begin to understand people's relationships, get to know them

Most of Faulkner's works are pieces, sketches of a larger canvas of life, and as a result, the pieces create a larger picture in the human mind. And hence the opportunity to speak as if from the middle. This is only as if, because in fact Faulkner gives enough information to understand, but at the same time, each subsequent work is easier for the reader, because it is already something that complements the first work. A wide range of characters, there are heroes who appear once, and there are a number of heroes who move from story to story. This gives Faulkner the opportunity to continue the story, as if it were going on forever.

In the 20th century, a fashion for the Faulknerian principle of depiction began in world literature, because this principle of a mosaic of pieces allows one to complete the picture endlessly.

"Faulkner's Principle of the Inexhaustibility of the Universe" ". A separate piece is finished, but this is not the last, you can always add something. And many writers have used this principle.

Faulkner, on the one hand, combined a description of southern peculiarities and the position of southerners.

Like Balzac, he divided novels into cycles, and also used division by family (Snopes, Sartoris).

The principle of understatement is used, which allows the reader to create his own impression.

Innovation of form: lack of genre definition; the writer complicates the syntax (strives to express the whole in one phrase); uses the multiple narrator technique (Faulknerian polyphonism); repeated repetition of events, violation of chronology, time shifts. Uses specific means of individualizing characters (southern eloquence, slang, oral storytelling, peculiar humor).

The main motives are the motive of fate, sin, rejection of history or ancestors, attracting dire consequences; biblical allusions. Faulkner's achievements include the use of regional mythology (the American South), a tragicomic understanding of history, and romantic-symbolic thinking.

The influence of symbolism: the elevation of the particular, local (Yoknapatawpha) into the general, universal. From modernism in the works of Faulkner, the image of the dark sides of human consciousness, the collapse of a sick society. But the general image of life, according to the writer himself, is contrasted with despair and hopelessness: “I believe in man. I would like to fight modernism on its territory.”

1st novel (1926) "Soldier's Award"- not very successful. Faulkner took on the theme of the soldier's mood, although he himself did not know this topic.

1929 - the story was published "Sartoris"(very revealing - the lost generation of youth) and the novel "The Sound and the Fury" (were published within a few months of each other).

The hero of the story "Sartoris", young Sartoris, returns from the World War, was a pilot. Johnny died, but his twin brother Boyard survived and returned. Boyard feels bad, he is restless in this world, and cannot begin a normal life. The work is typical at first, like all works about lost time. Boyard is tormented by the problem of existence; he does not care about preserving his own spiritual and physical self. He and the people around him have an excellent attitude towards death. This is not a painful reflection on the fact that death is a transition from non-existence to being, but about worthy and unworthy death. Aunt Boyarda says: "People are born, live and die." Boyard is tormented by the fact that all the Sartoris, and this is an old plantation family, all the men served in the army and were famous for their bravery, and Boyard remembered Johnny when he was dying - he laughed, and Boyard felt fear, he was scared in the war, that's what he was tormented. And Boyard’s entire post-war life is an attempt to overcome this fear and prove to himself that he is not afraid of this death.

This is a typically Faulknerian technique. It’s as if everything is familiar, but in fact it’s in a different vein, in the traditions of the South. But Faulkner does not stop there; he begins to study these principles, the covenants of the southerners. Boyard compares his inner feelings with the behavior of his twin brother. He verifies his feelings with endless memories of the courage of his ancestors. Sometimes absolute courage borders on stupidity, when one of the Sartoris was a platoon commander, he led his soldiers on reconnaissance, they were hungry, they had nothing to eat, he raided the northerners’ camp, got porridge, but it was stupid, since there were much more northerners and it could turn out that no one would need the porridge.

Any story is an interpretation, because not all Sartoris were brave men, they embellished their stories. The broken life of young Boyard is all a derivative of the fact that he measured his life against a myth, against a legend. He related his own self to what was offered to him. It is not known what Johnny honored deep down, but he behaved in accordance with the myth, the accepted rules. And here is the trap that Boyard falls into, which Faulkner wants to convey to the southerners. When we correlate reality with some legends, we drive ourselves into a trap and try to build our lives according to them. This problem is not just a problem specific to Southerners, it is a Faulknerian attitude toward myth. Many similar examples can be found in modern literature.

"The Sound and the Fury"(1929) is also about this, most of the Cobson family also lives with their heads turned backwards. One of the heroes simply commits suicide. The Cobson family is also an old plantation family, which lost everything during the Civil War and reconstruction, and now they only have memories of their former splendor, greatness, and this is what they live with.

The idea is aesthetic, used here as the basis of the form, because the novel “The Sound and the Fury” was translated late; it was believed that Faulkner was a realist, but in a difficult moment in his life he went and wrote a modernist novel. This novel consists of 4 parts, 3 of which are recordings of streams of consciousness of 3 family members. This is a technique of modernism that Faulkner uses, but this does not mean at all that this novel is modernist, because these 3 streams of consciousness tell in the most direct way about this very phenomenon, about the state, the quality of psychology, when there is no “was”, but only “is” is a phenomenon, a psychological characteristic of a person, for Faulkner it is a product of certain socio-historical conditions. That is, Faulkner draws forms and techniques from everywhere, including from the modernists, but reincarnates and uses them in order to create the most generalized, most metaphorical picture of certain socio-historical conditions. He takes an aesthetic thesis and makes it in a beautiful phrase, showing the hero’s experiences, but in fact the collisions of reality. This is Faulkner's appeal to both readers and writers.

Quentin Cobson commits suicide at the beginning of the 20th century because he cannot reconcile the reality in which he exists and the demands of myth. And a duality is born in his psyche. He owns Faulkner's famous words: "There is no 'was,' but only 'is,' and if 'was' existed," then suffering and grief would disappear." This is an excellent characteristic, the law of our life. "The morning is wiser than the evening."

In the morning you get up and begin to calmly figure out what happened yesterday, and you can move on with your life, but for Quentin this “was” and “is” are merged together. He perceives everything as his personal tragedy. Everything becomes a drama for him when he finds out that his sister had an affair, got pregnant, then this man leaves her, she marries someone else to hide everything, but everything turns out and the family falls apart. This is drama.

But what's dramatic about Quentin is that he's in these new life circumstances cannot defend his sister's honor, that he cannot behave like a gentleman, and the burden of the myth is killing him.

At the same time, Faulkner considers the other side of the myth, another option for action. Quentin and Caddy's brother Jason belongs to those people who consider it necessary to forget about the past, these are chains on their feet, the family is declining, but lives in the shadow of this past. But Faulkner would not be a Southerner if he accepted this idea.

Jason is one of the most rude, cruel characters. This is what distinguishes Faulkner in general. Americans are generally tuned to the present and the future, the past - let the dead bury their dead. Jefferson says the Constitution should be revised every 20 years. The generation is changing. This focus on the future is part of the American dream. What matters is what YOU build in this life, how YOU live.

For Faulkner, this is such a disregard for the past and reliance on the present, the future is not close. In Faulkner's time this was a significant difference. For him, forgetting the past leads to regression. You stop understanding an essential part of yourself. Knowledge of the past will answer your question: “Who are you? Where did you come from?”

Hero of the novel (one of the famous ones) "Light in August"(1934) Joe Christmas is a foundling, he does not know who his parents are, and for him this is the source of a colossal tragedy. He doesn't know who he is, and therefore he is NOBODY. Can't take a seat in social structure, he is viewed as an outcast in Jefferson. Where is he from, from the white trash, from the gentlemen? - after all, everyone has their own attitude. And what about blood purity? And at some point he is ready to admit that his father is colored, this is not good for a white man, but at least it will give him the opportunity to answer the question “Who is he?” Everything is intertwined, social, purely southern historical problems. A person must know history, but history, not myth. Myth is sublime, but it is a myth.

The most powerful and darkest novel" Absalom, Absalom!"(1936). The time of action is the beginning and middle of the 19th century, the beginning of the Civil War. The history of the plantation family is shown. Faulkner shows their life not at all as beautifully as, for example, in " Gone with the wind". Here is the difference between great literature and mass literature. Mr. O'Hara, also an alien, is introduced into the environment of the planters and receives a respectable wife, becomes a member of society. And Faulkner shows that such introductions actually happened often; they are associated with ambition, with a thirst for wealth.

Thomas Sapiens belongs to the so-called. "White trash" There were slaves, traders, etc. and white trash is a white person who does not have his own property, they were hired as farm laborers. Thomas Sapiens planned to get out of this white trash. And how much he did to get out of it. These are people who stood even lower than blacks on the social ladder, because every self-respecting black belonged to some master, that is, he had a “place in the sun” (that is, in the social structure), while “white trash” did not . And so Thomas Sapiens decided to get out of this “white trash” and, moreover, become a planter. And how much he committed - meanness, cruelty, crimes - before he became a full member of the community, a participant in life, only this happened. And then there is a rather gloomy story. It was as if he were being pursued by fate.

But everything seems to be fine: Thomas is a respected member of the planter community, his son Henry is among respectable youth. And then a civil war begins, which threatens to destroy everything they have created. Then trouble comes from a completely different direction: a young man appears on the horizon, on the estate, who turns out to be Thomas’s son from his first marriage in Haiti. The wife was the daughter of a planter (land, money...), but Thomas abandoned her as soon as he found out that she had a drop of black blood in her (on the Caribbean islands there are slightly different attitudes towards Creoles, mestizos, etc.). He leaves her without regret, believing that this marriage did not exist at all, because this marriage in no way fits in, will not contribute to his dream of becoming a plantation owner. How can a planter have official wife color?

But then a son appears from his first marriage, and he also begins an affair with Thomas’ daughter from another marriage. They don't know that they are brother and sister.

And Thomas, having learned about this, tells his son from his second marriage, Henry. Henry is outraged and kills Charles, his half-brother, avenging his sister's honor, avenging the sin of incest; but in fact, both Thomas and Henry know very clearly why they act this way.

Thomas tells his son, clearly realizing to himself that Henry will kill Charles not because of sinfulness, but primarily because he has black blood flowing in him, and therefore his sister got involved with a colored man, which, naturally, can damage his honor Houses.

This novel shows very well, on the one hand, in terms of content, that you must know your history, the real one: and on the other hand, this novel very well demonstrates the specifics of the technique that Faulkner uses.

The problem that is being studied is a problem of a socio-historical nature, and the form in which it is presented (the murder of a brother by a brother, provoking a murder) is all “The Sound and the Fury” from Shakespeare, Absalom, the son of David.

All titles contain some clues, often quotes. The gloominess of the novel stems from this Old Testament saturation with something dark, hidden, bloody, but the presence of these mythologies in the text written in the late 30s suggests that Faulkner (who pretended to be a “plow guy” all his life) is from the category , knowing nothing and writing randomly) worked a lot on his style.

This is all the use of modernisms, developed ideas of creation work of art with the help of universal human culture, just as modernists do (using mythological structures). But in Faulkner, unlike Joyce or Eliot, these mythologems are always, on the one hand, structure-forming, and on the other hand, they are metaphors, they are only images for the embodiment of some socio-historical approach.

If there is a socio-historical approach, then this realistic work. If there is any version of the universal approach (metaphysical) - this is the literature of the modernists. There is no “was”, and there is only “is”. What is this philosophically? This metaphor describes the Proust-Bergsonian the idea of ​​spontaneous memory. When a person is able to experience the past, living it again as the present.

But this is not all of Faulkner's works. This trilogy is a continuation of the conversation about the matters of the South, about indigenous southerners: and on the other hand, a conversation about the prospects for life in the South in a changing world. The outlook could get pretty bleak if what's described in this trilogy happens. One fine day, first in the village of Frantsuzova Balka, then in Jefferson, out of nowhere, a certain young man Flem Snobs (a stranger, from somewhere completely from the bottom) appeared, and the conquest of the village and ascension to power takes place.

Faulkner is also a master of detail, which is super colorful and super informative. Here is one single phrase: In Bill Warner's shop, which is not a boutique, but just a shop, here Flem Snobs saw paper money for the first time in his life; before that he had never seen more than an iron dollar. Some time passes, and all this French Balka, and Bill Warner's shop, the rest of the houses and lands, Bill Warner's daughter - everything becomes the property of Snobs, and he is already cramped in Balka, and he moves to Jefferson, founds a company, banks appear his numerous relatives from all corners.

This is a forecast of changes in the lives of southerners if they are not on their guard. That the South could not remain so separate from the rest of America, agrarian, was absolutely clear to Faulkner.

The question is, how will this integration go? Will she follow a reasonable path, or will the strangers and newcomers destroy this old South?

Faulkner is a southerner, which is why he was so sensitive to this problem. If the Southerners are not on their guard, they will find themselves captives of Snobs like these. But in general, this is it again special case the colossal problem that the 20th century is a process of changing the culture of civilizations.

Civilization is what we create in material terms, everyday life, state and social development. Culture is a personal and spiritual principle. And we replace one with the other.

No more scary hero in Faulkner's novels than Flem Snobs. His name has become a household name. Faulkner condenses the image itself with its negative properties. Flem is impotent and has no potency. According to Freud, libido determines our personality, emotions, and absence determines the absence of emotions. Flem is scary for us because he is a machine, neither happy nor sad. But this is an impeccable machine, before which normal people are powerless. A normal person is subject to joy, sadness, he suffers and hates, and all this can make a person vulnerable. The machine - Flem has no feelings, you can’t stop him, you can’t defeat him - he’s stronger than everyone else. Each of normal people weaker, but we must win, otherwise such people will defeat us.

In the 30s, 40s, and 50s, much more of Faulkner’s works were drawn to socio-historical conflicts.

In the early works, the problem of the South is presented; in the later works, the scale expands - major problems of human life. Faulkner noted that how smart he is, he created the Nation before Hitler, because one of his characters, Percy Grim (novel "Light in August"), is an ideology of fascism.

The atmosphere of the 30s makes writers immerse themselves in social life. It is not modernism that comes to the fore, but the open, ideologically biased art of realistic literature; and if not realistic, then still charged with relevance, perhaps not momentary, but belonging to the decade of the 30s. An association of writers in defense of democracy was created, a congress in defense of democratic literature (1935), and engaged, politicized art appeared. Journalistic books, essay books.

Great influence on American literature of the 50-70s. years was influenced by the philosophy of existentialism. The problem of human alienation formed the basis of the ideology and aesthetics of the so-called “beatnik” generation. In the 50s In San Francisco, a group of young intellectuals formed who called themselves the “broken generation” - the beatniks. The beatniks took to heart such phenomena as the post-war depression, the Cold War, and the threat of nuclear disaster. The beatniks recorded the state of alienation of the human personality from their contemporary society, and this, naturally, resulted in a form of protest. Representatives of this youth movement made them feel that their American contemporaries were living on the ruins of civilization. Rebellion against the establishment became for them a unique form of interpersonal communication, and this related their ideology to the existentialism of Camus and Sartre.

Semantic center – black music, alcohol, drugs, homosexuality. The range of values ​​includes Sartre’s freedom, the strength and intensity of emotional experiences, and readiness for pleasure. Vivid manifestation, counterculture. Security for them is boredom, and therefore illness: live fast and die young. But in reality everything was more vulgar and rude. The beatniks glorified hipsters and gave them social significance. Writers lived this life, but they were not marginalized. The beatniks were not literary exponents, they only created a cultural myth, the image of a romantic rebel, a holy madman, a new sign system. They managed to instill in society the style and tastes of the marginalized.

He became an iconic figure among beat writers Jack Kerouac. His creative credo is contained directly in artistic texts. Kerouac wrote ten novels.

His novel became the manifesto of the beat writers "Town and City". Kerouac compared all his prose works with Proust's epic In Search of Lost Time.

The “spontaneous” method invented by the writer - the writer writes down thoughts in the order in which they come to his mind - contributes, according to the author, to achieving maximum psychological truthfulness and reducing the distance between life and art. The “spontaneous” method makes Kerouac similar to Proust.

In most of Kerouac's works, the hero appears in the guise of a tramp, running away from society, violating the laws of this society. Kerouac’s beatnik journey is a kind of “knight’s quest” in American style, a “pilgrimage to the Holy Grail”, in fact, a journey to the depths of one’s own self. For Kerouac, loneliness is the main feeling that takes a person away from the real world. It is from the depths of your loneliness that you should evaluate the world around you.

Almost nothing happens in Kerouac's works, although the characters are in constant motion. The hero-narrator is a person identical to the author. But in Kerouac’s novels there is almost always a second hero, whom the narrator observes.

D. Copeland "Generation X"

Copeland's characters do not strive for fame, do not make a career, do not arrange their family life- In fact, they don’t even start romances. They do not look for recipes for happiness in foreign religions and traditions. They just talk and look at the sky. They don’t admire the sky, but just look. And even if they admire it unconsciously, they will never say it out loud.

Copeland's characters have a special relationship with the material world in general and consumer goods in particular. Every object is firmly sealed for them into a specific chunk of time.

This is the era of colonization, the dominance of Puritan ideals, patriarchal pious morals. Theological interests predominated in literature. The collection “Bay Psalm Book” () was published; poems and poems were written for various occasions, mainly of a patriotic nature (“The tenth muse, lately sprung up in America” by Anne Bradstreet, an elegy on the death of N. Bacon, poems by W. Wood, J. Norton, Urian Oka, national songs “Lovewells. fight”, “The song of Bradoec men”, etc.).

Prose literature of that time was devoted mainly to descriptions of travel and the history of the development of colonial life. The most prominent theological writers were Hooker, Cotton, Roger Williams, Bayles, J. Wise, Jonathan Edwards. At the end of the 18th century, agitation for the liberation of blacks began. The champions of this movement in literature were J. Woolmans, author of “Some considerations on the Keeping of Negroes” (), and Ant. Benezet, author of “A caution to Great Britain and its colonies relative to enslaved negroes” (). The transition to the next era was the works of B. Franklin - “The Path to Plenty” (eng. The Way to Wealth), “The speech of Father Abraham”, etc.; He founded Poor Richard's Almanac. Poor Richards Almanack).

Age of Revolution

The second period of North American literature, from before 1790, embraces the era of revolution and is distinguished by the development of journalism and political literature. Major writers on political matters: Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, J. Matheson, Alexander Hamilton, J. Stray, Thomas Paine. Historians: Thomas Getchinson, supporter of the British, Jeremiah Belknap, Dove. Ramsay and William Henry Drayton, adherents of the Revolution; then J. Marshall, Rob. Proud, Abiel Golmez. Theologians and moralists: Samuel Hopkins, William White, J. Murray.

19th century

The third period covers all of 19th century North American literature. The preparatory era was the first quarter of the century, when the prose style was developed. " Sketch-book"Washington Irving () marked the beginning of semi-philosophical, semi-journalistic literature, sometimes humorous, sometimes instructive-moralistic essays. Particularly striking here are national traits Americans - their practicality, utilitarian morality and naive, cheerful humor, very different from the sarcastic, gloomy humor of the British.

Edgar Allan Poe (−) and Walt Whitman (−) stand completely apart from the others.

Edgar Allan Poe is a deep mystic, a poet of refined nervous moods, who loved everything mysterious and enigmatic, and at the same time a great virtuoso of verse. He is not at all American by nature; he does not have American sobriety and efficiency. His work bears a sharply individual imprint.

Walt Whitman is the embodiment of American democracy. His " grass leaves"(English) Leaves of Grass) sing of freedom and strength, joy and fullness of life. His free verse revolutionized modern versification.

In the prose literature of America, novelists, as well as essayists, are in the foreground - then Washington Irving, Oliver Holmes, Ralph Emerson, James Lowell. The novelists portray the energetic, enterprising natures of both the former settlers, who lived amidst danger and hard work, and the modern, more cultured Yankees.

Emigrants played a major role in American literature of the twentieth century: it is difficult to underestimate the scandal that Lolita caused; a very prominent niche is American Jewish literature, often humorous: Singer, Bellow, Roth, Malamud, Allen; one of the most famous black writers was Baldwin; Recently, the Greek Eugenides and the Chinese Amy Tan have gained fame. The five most significant Chinese-American writers include Edith Maude Eaton, Diana Chang, Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, and Gish Jen. Chinese-American literature is represented by Louis Chu, author of the satirical novel Eat a Bowl of Tea (1961), and playwrights Frank Chin and David Henry Hwang. Saul Bellow won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976. The work of Italian-American authors (Mario Puzo, John Fante, Don DeLillo) enjoys great success. Openness has increased not only in the national-religious field: the famous poet Elizabeth Bishop did not hide her love for women; Other writers include Capote and Cunningham.

J. Salinger's novel "The Catcher in the Rye" occupies a special place in the literature of the 50s. This work, published in 1951, has become (especially among young people) a cult favorite. In American dramaturgy of the 50s, the plays of A. Miller and T. Williams stand out. In the 60s, the plays of E. Albee became famous ("An Incident at the Zoo", "The Death of Bessie Smith", "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", "The Whole Garden"). At the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, a number of novels by Mitchell Wilson were published , related to the topic of science (“Live with Lightning”, “My Brother, My Enemy”). These books became widely known (especially in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 70s).

The diversity of American literature never allows one movement to completely displace others; after the beatniks of the 50-60s (J. Kerouac, L. Ferlinghetti, G. Corso, A. Ginsberg), the most noticeable trend became - and continues to be - postmodernism (for example, Paul Auster, Thomas Pynchon). books by postmodernist writer Don DeLillo (b. 1936). One of the famous researchers of American literature of the 20th century is the translator and literary critic A.M. Zverev (1939-2003).

In the United States, science fiction and horror literature became widespread, and in the second half of the 20th century, fantasy. The first wave of American sci-fi, which included Edgar Rice Burroughs, Murray Leinster, Edmond Hamilton, was primarily entertaining and gave rise to the "space opera" subgenre. By the mid-20th century, more complex fiction began to dominate in the United States. Among the world-famous American science fiction writers are Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Andre Norton, Clifford Simak. In the USA, a subgenre of science fiction called cyberpunk arose (Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling). By the 21st century, America remains one of the main centers of science fiction, thanks to authors such as Dan Simmons, Lois Bujold, David Weber, Scott Westerfeld, and others.

Majority popular authors in the horror genres of the 20th century - Americans. A classic of horror literature of the first half of the century was Howard Lovecraft, creator of the Cthulhu Mythos. In the second half of the century, Stephen King and Dean Koontz worked in the USA. American fantasy began in the 1930s with Robert E. Howard, author of Conan, and was subsequently developed by authors such as Roger Zelazny, Paul William Anderson, Ursula Le Guin. One of the most popular fantasy authors in the 21st century is the American George R. R. Martin, creator of Game of Thrones.

Literary genres

• American fiction
• American detective
• American novella
• American novel

Literature

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see also

Links

USA in topics

The twentieth anniversary between the two world wars is truly the “golden age” of US literature. At this time, she declared herself as one of the leading literatures in the world. Her achievements are significant in almost all genres, especially prose. These years are the time for creativity to flourish

E. Hemingway, W. Faulkner, J. Steinbeck, T. Wolfe, F.S. Fitzgerald, S. Lewis, I. Tank, S. Anderson, G. Miller and many others. This is also the rise of G.S.'s poetry. Eliot, R. Frost, I. Sandburg; these are the dramatic peaks of the S. O'Nila. Among the named authors are seven Nobel laureates. The American novel has become a worldwide factor.

In the interwar twenty years, two periods clearly stand out, each of which is marked by its own artistic climate: the 1920s and 1930s.

The 1920s are called great decade. This is one of the most fruitful eras in the entire history of American literature. This decade and, more broadly, the entire interwar era are marked by a variety of artistic and aesthetic schools, enrichment of themes, and searches for new forms. During these years, it asserts its positions new prose(at its origins stands Sherwood Anderson), announces itself new drama(the founder of which was Eugene O'Neill) is flourishing new poetry, born of the Poetic Renaissance. The achievements of artistic documentary and journalistic and essay genres are remarkable.

People 1920s: lost generation. At this time, comes to the forefront new generation talented writers who are called people of the 1920s, or representatives lost generation: Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos. The early work of these wonderful, but, of course, very different masters has a lot in common. Having gone through the bitter taste of the First World War, coming into contact with its tragic reality, realizing it as a senseless massacre, they expressed the worldview of an entire generation in their early works. Their heroes, young people, like their peers in Germany and England, went to the front, filled with noble, patriotic feelings, but found themselves deceived by militaristic jingoistic propaganda and experienced severe disappointment. They returned from overseas to their homeland, often not only physically crippled, but, most importantly, morally devastated. Their experience received deep artistic interpretation (in Hemingway, Dos Passos, Faulkner).

Problems and artistic quests of the 1920s. In the literature of the first post-war decade, in general, social-critical motives, negative perception of many aspects of the “dollar civilization,” narrow pragmatism and flat proprietary priorities sharply and definitely deepened. The publication of a collective collection of articles was a landmark "Civilization in the United States"(1922) edited by Harold Stearns. Its authors, writers, journalists, sociologists, relying on documentary and cultural research, confirmed the depressing state of affairs in various spheres of the country’s spiritual life, which was so noticeable against the backdrop of undeniable material and technical achievements. The rejection of the merchant spirit, hostile to artistic creativity, caused the “exodus” from the United States of a significant group of young American writers who became voluntary expatriates, who settled in Paris (.9, Hemingway, F. S. Fitzgerald, J. Dos Paevoe, G. Miller, M. Cowley, E. E. Cummings, E. Pound, G. Stein).

In the early 1920s. the capital of France was a recognized center of artistic life and a generator of fresh aesthetic ideas; the largest US composer of the 20th century. century George Gershwin I even wrote a musical poem "An American in Paris."

The 1920s were the time of the creative rise of writers of the older generation, who began their journey even before the First World War. One of the first signs of the new literary era was the collection Sherwood Anderson « Winesburg, Ohio" (1919).

Creative activity continues unabated E. Sinclair(1878-1968), who in our country during these years was the leader in the circulation of his works. His novel "Jimmy Higgins"(1919) - the first artistic response to revolutionary events in Russia. His novels, rich in documentary sociological material, contained quite straightforward attacks on the evils of the capitalist system. The writer came to the attention of such phenomena as the introduction of provocateurs into the ranks of the labor movement ("100%", 1921); speculation in the extraction of “black gold” ("Oil", 1924); judicial arbitrariness during the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti ("Boston", 1928).

A new generation of writers who appeared immediately after the war is making itself known. Fitzgerald creates his best novel "The Great Gatsby" (1925). Dreiser gains worldwide fame" An American tragedy." Release of the novel " Soldier's Award"(1925) will be the beginning of rapid creative growth W. Faulkner. The star will light up E. Hemingway-, for collections of short stories “In our time”, “Men without women”"and novel "And the sun rises"his masterpiece will follow" A Farewell to Arms"(1929), undoubtedly best example literature lost generation. The post-war decade is the most fruitful period in creativity Y. O'Neill,"father of American drama."

Modernist movements. They played an important role in the 1920s, having declared themselves on the eve of the First World War, during the poetic renaissance, in particular, in such an artistic phenomenon as imagism, in creativity

Ezra Pound And T. S. Eliot. In the 1920s he created a key work for modernist poetics and artistic methodology - the poem "The Waste Land"(1922). In it, T. S. Eliot, in his own way, expressed the mood of devastation and decline that gripped part of the creative intelligentsia in the post-war era.

A theorist of modernism, a kind of generator of ideas, in particular in the field of narrative technique, was Gertrude Stein(1874-1946), prose writer, playwright, critic. Coming from a wealthy Jewish family, she received an excellent education, studied with a leading psychologist and philosopher William James(brother of the writer Henry James), practiced medicine. This stimulated her interest in the problem unconscious in artistic creativity, to the relationship between sound and color. From 1903 Stein lived in Paris, where she opened an art salon, which was visited by artists II. Picasso, A. Matisse, J. Braque, writers E. Hemingway, F. S. Fitzgerald, E. Pound etc. It is she who owns the catchphrase: “You are all a lost generation,” which Hemingway used as an epigraph to the novel “The Sun Also Rises.”

Her aesthetic theory was based on philosophical ideas W. James And A. Bergson. Stein argued that the purpose of verbal art is to abandon the chronological principle and reproduce a “fully actual present,” including both past and future. The technique of prose itself turns out to be close to the techniques of cinema. None of the film frames can repeat the other, so the “continuing present” is constantly revealed to the eye. Stein emphasized the repetition of individual words, hence her oft-quoted: “A rose is a rose, there is a rose, there is a rose.” In her experiment, Stein was inclined to transfer principles into literature cubism. Her style is characterized by a slow pace of narration, violation of punctuation, and rejection of the traditional plot. Some of her formal techniques adopted E. Hemingway And S. Anderson.

The main work of G. Stein is a novel "The Making of Americans"(1925) - an attempt to present the process of the birth of a nation. The text is deliberately complicated as a result of the author's passion for formalistic experimentation. Some of Stein's discoveries in the field of dramatic technique later influenced theater of the absurd.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States became the richest country in the capitalist world. The peculiarities of the historical development of America, the presence of “free lands” in the West, and military supplies during the First World War were the reasons why the United States became the center of the capitalist world.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the literature of decadence dominated in America; realistic literature was at the stage of formation.

Dreiser believed that the romance of profit is strong in society, the belief that the existing system is the best prevails, Hollywood has a stranglehold on not only cinematography, but also literature; in American literature no one ever works, there is no poverty, and difficulties are resolved through various intrigues. A number of major magazines (Success, American Magazine, Saturday Post) glorify the American way of life, private enterprise, “America is a country of equal opportunity for all,” and the best American government system in the world.

Widespread in the literature of the 10s. XX century received a political adventure novel, the hero of which is an enterprising businessman, diplomat, intelligence officer, in some cases this novel was transformed into a detective-spy story, which was characterized by an anti-Soviet orientation.

Decadent art was supported by representatives of the “Boston school”, which was headed by the editors of many major newspapers and magazines; they promoted “pure art”.

Nevertheless, realistic literature existed: Mark Twain, E. Sinclair, J. London, etc.

The United States announced its entry into the First World War in April 1917, and took part in hostilities several months before the signing of the armistice. America did not fight on its territory, but its literature did not pass by the “lost generation.” Problems associated with the war, the pathos of the war, its heroes were included not only in the books of those writers who fought on the fronts of Europe, like E. Hemingway, but also affected a wide range of writers and works, intertwined with other problems specific to America, with the theme big money in America in the 20s and the collapse American Dream. The war caused bitterness and anger, helped to see the light and see the true price of things, the lies and fabrication of official slogans.

Economic crisis of the 20-30s. pulled all the contradictions into a single knot, exacerbating social conflicts; farms were ruined en masse in the South and West; violent social clashes broke out in mines and factories in the North and Northeast.

T. Dreiser writes about the disasters of the miners of Garlan, Steinbeck told the whole world about the tragedy of the farmers of California and the Far West.

The stormy 30s are their most truthful and profound reflection. found in the works of E. Hemingway, W. Faulkner, J. Steinbeck, A. Miller, S. Fitzgerald.

A characteristic feature of the American realists was that, while borrowing some formal features of the modernist novel, they preserved the aesthetic principles of critical realism: the ability to create types of enormous social significance, to show the circumstances of provincial and metropolitan life that were deeply typical of American reality; the ability to depict life as a contradictory process, as a constant struggle and action, in contrast to the decadent novel, which replaces the depiction of social contradictions with a retreat into the inner world of the hero, into the region of the subconscious.

The masters of American prose deliberately abandoned the complex technique of the richly developed, sharp and entertaining plot of the 19th century novel; in their opinion, a simple plot, devoid of entertaining elements, was better able to emphasize the tragedy of the protagonist’s situation. They believed that in the twentieth century the aesthetics of reading should become more intense than in the last century, so they do not strive, like their predecessors, to convey in the exhibition everything basic about their heroes; It requires extra effort from the reader to assimilate and comprehend the components of the novel's complex composition.

The first half of the twentieth century turned out to be fruitful for the development of all directions in American literature, revealing the names of T. Wolfe, W. Faulkner, J. O'Neill, E. Hemingway, F. S. Fitzgerald, D. Steinbeck. Their works strengthened European fame and the worldwide authority of US literature.

The work of John Reed received great resonance with the publication in 1919 of his book “Ten Days That Shook the World.” This book brought to America the living breath of the revolution in Russia. The prestige of the workers' and peasants' state increased enormously after 1929, when, as a result of the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange, the “Great Depression” came to America and demonstrations of the unemployed took to the streets, at which the army opened fire. During this period, more than 100 thousand applications were written in the United States with a request to move to Russia.

The thirties went down in American history as the “Red Thirties.” In terms of the severity of the social, political and economic crisis, they have no analogues in the entire two-hundred-year history of the United States. And although the “Great Depression” was officially overcome in 1933, its presence in literature goes beyond these limits. The experience of those difficult years remained forever in the Americans as an immunity against complacency, carelessness and spiritual indifference.

It formed the basis for the further development of the national formula for success and contributed to strengthening the moral foundation of American business. This experience gave a “second wind” to the school of critical realists, leading the tradition from the “muckrakers.” Using new literature material, they began to carefully investigate the American tragedy, which has deep roots in the national consciousness.

The theme of the American Dream and the American Tragedy logically entails the emergence of the problem of pathological praise by patriots of everything American and the feeling of fear and depression of the inhabitants of small towns, forced to bear the burden of “healthy Americanism”.