What do you think?
Rate this book
From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature
From Modernist/Postmodernist perspective, leading critics Richard Ruland (American) and Malcolm Bradbury (British) address questions of literary and cultural nationalism. They demonstrate that since the seventeenth century, American writing has reflected the political and historical climate of its time and helped define America's cultural and social parameters. Above all, they argue that American literature has always been essentially "modern," illustrating this with a broad range of texts: from Poe and Melville to Fitzgerald and Pound, to Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Thomas Pynchon.
From Puritanism to Postmodernism pays homage to the luxuriance of American writing by tracing the creation of a national literature that retained its deep roots in European culture while striving to achieve cultural independence.
From Puritanism to Postmodernism pays homage to the luxuriance of American writing by tracing the creation of a national literature that retained its deep roots in European culture while striving to achieve cultural independence.
456 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
August 2, 2026
Richard Rulan and Malcolm Bradbury did a superb job at detailing the origins, evolution, and comparative analysis of American literature. They wrote how it evolved from Puritan fire and brimstone to the Postmodernist artistic expression.
The earliest writings were Calvinist messages from ministers and religious figures. Names like Cotton Mather and Michael Wigglesworth invoked Satan's looming presence among the early settlers. Critics throughout American history have blamed the Puritan heritage for much that seemed to limit American writing: its heavily allegorizing disposition, its failure to open out to experience or the ambiguity of the symbol, its lack of inclusiveness, its dull response to the world of nature, its rigorous moralism and its Anglo-Saxonism.
The Colonial-era of the 1700s still reflected western European roots and collective thinking until the American Revolutionary, which brought a more secular and political style of writing. The revolution and independence had forged new conditions for American culture.
American literature would start its blossoming with Romanticism, insisting that the arts were born from the spirit of the people, the power of their traditions, their distinctive institutions, their folk and popular past. After the War of 1812,
America had begun to change and become more mature, and affirming its rightful heritage in the whole expanse of art and culture. It was the American equivalent of an Elizabethan age, when artistic, intellectual, and political energy generated a fresh and still commanding time of expression. Hence, the term serves us, though what we are observing is actually the American Naissance. For today's reader, here is the time of the distinctive emergence in America of the poem, the essay, the questing travel tale, the novel, and the modern short story. Transcendentalism spoke of the value of inward spiritual promptings and the need for a private relation between the self and the universe.
The Civil War was fought for a complex of reasons, but chiefly Abraham Lincoln's need to maintain a union as a whole against southern claims to the right of secession. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, and other authors such as Henry James, Mark Twain, and William Dean Howell shaped the era of American literature during the time of secession, loyalty, and Reconstruction-era values and politics.
The transformation from the 1890s up to WWI, reflected the change in American intellectual life and cultural, as it seemed the genteel tradition went on, idealistic, polite, cultured America surviving despite both the changing directions of Western thought and the commercialism, materialism, and vulgarity of its age. Upton Sinclair, Frank Norris, Charles Walcott, and Kate Chopin were all art writers that reflected America's ever-changing and questioning moral values, dominant social assumptions, social and political power in the limits of its literary form.
In the early 20th-century, the thought wave stirring artistic innovation across Europe, that would prove so important to American writers, artists, and intellectuals were both potent and yet still remote. Mostly, the American writing up to this second decade of the century was both practical and popular, or populist, though it carried the sense that it was an age of revolutionary ideas. These new movements multiplied, and they awarded themselves abstract and aggressive names: cubism and post-impressionism, expressionism and futurism, acmeism and constructivism, imagism and vorticism, pg 240.
Writing in the Rooseveltian era of rugged individualism about the laws of the pack and the tribe, the life of the wilderness, the sea and the jungle, identity versus the victim brought about questions like "If a man is the product of conditions, circumstances, and accident, is he to blame for the crime with which he is charged?"
The Modernist writing first started after WWI with presidents Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge, writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner brought evolved American storytelling
This era saw famous modern works such as Joseph Heller's Catch 22, Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny, James Jones's From Pure to Eternity, J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man and Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest—all addressing social issues of gallow's-humor, perceptions of the government as a totalitarian madhouse, and looking back to WWII
This was published in 1991 so it stops in the 1980s. I think this is a great reference book for this subject and really highlights the concepts and key features of each period in American literary history. This reinforced my like for American culture and reflective literature, especially Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Faulkner. Highly recommend! Thanks!
The earliest writings were Calvinist messages from ministers and religious figures. Names like Cotton Mather and Michael Wigglesworth invoked Satan's looming presence among the early settlers. Critics throughout American history have blamed the Puritan heritage for much that seemed to limit American writing: its heavily allegorizing disposition, its failure to open out to experience or the ambiguity of the symbol, its lack of inclusiveness, its dull response to the world of nature, its rigorous moralism and its Anglo-Saxonism.
The Colonial-era of the 1700s still reflected western European roots and collective thinking until the American Revolutionary, which brought a more secular and political style of writing. The revolution and independence had forged new conditions for American culture.
American literature would start its blossoming with Romanticism, insisting that the arts were born from the spirit of the people, the power of their traditions, their distinctive institutions, their folk and popular past. After the War of 1812,
Europe was the past, the poetic, the timeless, the mythical...America was the present, rushing, potential, time-bound, political. pgs 91-2This period reflected early values, ideas, and an evolving culture by Washington Irving (iRip Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) and James Fenimore Cooper (The Last of the Mohicans). They put a set of references that would relate the European Romantic past to a fresh American present, providing an imaginative geography that would shape much later American writing.
America had begun to change and become more mature, and affirming its rightful heritage in the whole expanse of art and culture. It was the American equivalent of an Elizabethan age, when artistic, intellectual, and political energy generated a fresh and still commanding time of expression. Hence, the term serves us, though what we are observing is actually the American Naissance. For today's reader, here is the time of the distinctive emergence in America of the poem, the essay, the questing travel tale, the novel, and the modern short story. Transcendentalism spoke of the value of inward spiritual promptings and the need for a private relation between the self and the universe.
Emerson—despite his insistence that the world was real and not the shadow of ideas—remained closest to philosophical idealism and the spirit of [Immanuel] Kant. Thoreau expressed a far more direct contact with the natural world, and his best writing holds on to it with the transcendentalist's characteristic bifocal vision. Whitman always retained a transcendentalist mysticism and a belief in nature as force and source, but the mysterious value of life lay finally in what he directly felt and saw. pg 129The pre-Civil War decades were an age of the prophet and an age of the poet, and often the two seemed indistinguishable. Essential to its appeal was that it spoke of breaking with the past, beginning anew, reaching to the future, and the age of untried possibilities, and that discovering sense of self and the new sense of the possible fit perfectly with the expanding territory and aspiration abroad in the nation. Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlett Letter, The House of the Seven Gables) and Herman Melville (Moby Dick, Billy Budd) laid the blueprint for the modern novelist; Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson solidified the idea of the modern poet.
The Civil War was fought for a complex of reasons, but chiefly Abraham Lincoln's need to maintain a union as a whole against southern claims to the right of secession. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, and other authors such as Henry James, Mark Twain, and William Dean Howell shaped the era of American literature during the time of secession, loyalty, and Reconstruction-era values and politics.
The transformation from the 1890s up to WWI, reflected the change in American intellectual life and cultural, as it seemed the genteel tradition went on, idealistic, polite, cultured America surviving despite both the changing directions of Western thought and the commercialism, materialism, and vulgarity of its age. Upton Sinclair, Frank Norris, Charles Walcott, and Kate Chopin were all art writers that reflected America's ever-changing and questioning moral values, dominant social assumptions, social and political power in the limits of its literary form.
In the early 20th-century, the thought wave stirring artistic innovation across Europe, that would prove so important to American writers, artists, and intellectuals were both potent and yet still remote. Mostly, the American writing up to this second decade of the century was both practical and popular, or populist, though it carried the sense that it was an age of revolutionary ideas. These new movements multiplied, and they awarded themselves abstract and aggressive names: cubism and post-impressionism, expressionism and futurism, acmeism and constructivism, imagism and vorticism, pg 240.
Writing in the Rooseveltian era of rugged individualism about the laws of the pack and the tribe, the life of the wilderness, the sea and the jungle, identity versus the victim brought about questions like "If a man is the product of conditions, circumstances, and accident, is he to blame for the crime with which he is charged?"
The Modernist writing first started after WWI with presidents Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge, writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner brought evolved American storytelling
Fitzgerald's bright yet also embittered and terrible social vision, Hemingway's existential sense of tragedy, Faulkner's Gothic perspective, without which the work of successors like Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, and Flannery O'Connor seems scarcely possible. Their impact continues; their expression of a modern America persists right into the novel of the late 20th century. If American poetry had found a new way to utter the meaning of the nation. So too had the American novel. pg 314-5Far away now from the experimental excitements of the 1920s and the dismayed, radical self-analysis of the 1930s, late 1940s America entered an era of post-war, post-atomic, and Postmodern culture.
This era saw famous modern works such as Joseph Heller's Catch 22, Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny, James Jones's From Pure to Eternity, J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man and Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest—all addressing social issues of gallow's-humor, perceptions of the government as a totalitarian madhouse, and looking back to WWII
Postmodernism now looks like a stylistic phase that ran from the 1960s to the 1980s and left the intellectual landscape looking very different—partly reshaped in the anxious, self-doubting liberalism of the 1950s, partly by the indeterminate, radical spirit of the 1960s, which encouraged expressionist art, aleatory music, performance theater, the happening, the random street event. Today, more conservative styles return to fashion intellectually and artistically. pg 393The next generation of American storytelling is on the scene, and at present in a state of its own becoming, as it too tries to deal with the present and rewrite the meanings of the recent past.
This was published in 1991 so it stops in the 1980s. I think this is a great reference book for this subject and really highlights the concepts and key features of each period in American literary history. This reinforced my like for American culture and reflective literature, especially Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Faulkner. Highly recommend! Thanks!
January 11, 2014
This is a good overview or survey of American literature from the Puritans up to about Pynchon/Gaddis. Out of necessity, it being a survey, there were some writers who were glossed over quickly who probably deserved another paragraph or two. At times the writing became overly list-like. Some writers, like Robert Frost, were nicely and intelligently covered over several pages. Is Frost a rural sentimentalist? No, argued Lionel Trilling, he's actually a bleak modernist. The book could have been just a little more tightly edited, especially given that there were two authors at work. Sometimes it seemed we were going over the same material two or three (or even four) times, as the same writers popped up again and again, or similar references to Sacco and Vanzetti.
Read
April 8, 2023The subject of the history of American Literature is an attractive one. Depending upon one's position, it spans roughly four hundred years, making it more palatable than, say, European or Asian literary history; and it develops rather frenetically within those four centuries, thus making its study relentlessly engaging. The trouble, however, is where to start. As Hector St. Jean de Crèvecoeur wrote in 1782, "What is an American?" Can we rightly group John Smith (who wrote the first romance on American soil) or even Thomas Paine (whose pamphlet Common Sense was the death knell for American independence) in with the annals of American literature? Or does truly American literature start much later with the phenomenal autobiography of Boston-born polymath Benjamin Franklin? The answer probably depends on national sentiment, and this is where a history co-authored on opposing sides of the Atlantic stands out from the pile. Indeed, the preface and first section, "The Literature of British America," assure the reader that the authors are well aware of the difficulties of circumscribing the borders of such a history and proceed to pinpoint the figures and texts crucial to the development of America's national literature. While the prose is more shrewd than colloquial, the authors exhibit a fine command of their subject as they move from Puritanism (with its travelogues, letters, tracts, commonplace books, and sermons) to the Indian-capture narratives that dazzled so many Europeans intrigued with the mysteries of the New World's indigenous people (i.e. real Americans, whose lore will be explored later in the text) to the political writings that stirred the dust of revolution and on through postbellum and postmodern literature. A perusal of the index reveals all of the expected names and movements up to the 1980s (the book was published in 1991), and the ratio of material from half-century to half-century is well-balanced. And though this is more of a survey than a critical text, it is not devoid of critical commentary. Readers who are looking to reinforce knowledge, get an introduction to the history of American literature, or compile lists of authors and books they might have missed will find this book to fit the bill.
October 7, 2010
Reasonably well written, pretty good attempt to be neutral (when they're critical, it comes in the form of 'while [e.g., Ashberry] cannot be accused of solipsism, his/her followers have often descended into it,' which is presumably a nice way of saying, for instance, Ashberry is a naval-gazing nincompoop, but we're too well mannered to shock you by saying that. Quite comprehensive, too, although a lot has happened in the last 20 years, so it's slightly out of date, both re: literature (no Asian Am, no Chican/Latino-a) and history. It's cute that they think cryogenics has really done major things to our civilization.
Two major flaws: the chapters have uninformative titles, and are divided only by roman numerals, although the sections are usually quite coherent- post-war poetry, for instance, gets a section, but it's numbered rather than being called post-war poetry. Makes it tough to find things sometimes. More irritatingly, there are no references- none. And no bibliography. Thanks to the wonders of the world wide inter-google, you can usually track down the references, but it's really annoying when you're just sitting on the couch reading.
Two major flaws: the chapters have uninformative titles, and are divided only by roman numerals, although the sections are usually quite coherent- post-war poetry, for instance, gets a section, but it's numbered rather than being called post-war poetry. Makes it tough to find things sometimes. More irritatingly, there are no references- none. And no bibliography. Thanks to the wonders of the world wide inter-google, you can usually track down the references, but it's really annoying when you're just sitting on the couch reading.
May 30, 2009
I read the couple of reviews of this book with great interest, and I'm not sure I understand them. If there's anybody reading this that has some similar (read: better) suggestions for this book, please let me know. I'd like to read it. Or them.
I enjoyed reading this book because I've been working with American Literature for a very long time, and I found this to be very comprehensive. It is not all-encompassing, but there is a lot to sift through, and I immediately seized on this as an excellent resource for companion texts for what we read in class. Now, I've studied Puritanism, so I know a bit about it, and I did learn some things that I did not know. From what I do know, I think this book moves well through the time period, and other periods in history, dancing through the time periods and genres in a good fashion.
My rating, of 5 stars, comes from my opinion that you could use this book as an excellent map through which to navigate American Literature, and by extension, American History. If you'd like to get a feel for what to read, and about "when", this book gets you there, providing nuggets about that work's places in the time period.
It's certainly not perfect; an example is the way that Michael Wigglesworth is considered in the book. He's treated quite a bit more kind than he likely has a reason to be, especially since he could easily be argued to have been a pedophile, as evidenced by his writings and drawings. In fact, all of this might even help make him a better Puritan example, but it's hardly touched upon, and if the full depth of his depravity were to be examined, greater significances come to light.
I suspect there are more concerns like with Wigglesworth above, but they don't diminish this book's value to educators, even if you'd like to argue with it. After all, someone's got to make an argument in the first place in order to be proven wrong, don't they?
I enjoyed reading this book because I've been working with American Literature for a very long time, and I found this to be very comprehensive. It is not all-encompassing, but there is a lot to sift through, and I immediately seized on this as an excellent resource for companion texts for what we read in class. Now, I've studied Puritanism, so I know a bit about it, and I did learn some things that I did not know. From what I do know, I think this book moves well through the time period, and other periods in history, dancing through the time periods and genres in a good fashion.
My rating, of 5 stars, comes from my opinion that you could use this book as an excellent map through which to navigate American Literature, and by extension, American History. If you'd like to get a feel for what to read, and about "when", this book gets you there, providing nuggets about that work's places in the time period.
It's certainly not perfect; an example is the way that Michael Wigglesworth is considered in the book. He's treated quite a bit more kind than he likely has a reason to be, especially since he could easily be argued to have been a pedophile, as evidenced by his writings and drawings. In fact, all of this might even help make him a better Puritan example, but it's hardly touched upon, and if the full depth of his depravity were to be examined, greater significances come to light.
I suspect there are more concerns like with Wigglesworth above, but they don't diminish this book's value to educators, even if you'd like to argue with it. After all, someone's got to make an argument in the first place in order to be proven wrong, don't they?
June 9, 2019
The first half is a decent overview. But Part 4, on the twentieth century, is disorganized and slapdash.
November 20, 2022
Useful for the areas I know almost nothing about, but generally a fairly mediocre book. Way, way too many adjectives!
August 27, 2012
From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature shows a wealth of knowledge about American literature that ranges, as one would imagine from the title, from the earliest days of the Puritans to the more recent years where novels have taken on any number of forms and guises. Richard Ruland, a professor of English and American literature at Washington University in St. Louis, and Malcolm Bradbury, a professor of American studies at the University of East Anglia among other things, cover an extensive amount of terrain. While the authors are critical of many works, they still emanate a love of reading that easily rubs off on the reader. The work is so exhaustive that it might make more sense to read one section on a certain period of American literature and some of its concomitant writings before moving on to the next section of the book. Otherwise, there is too much information to take in at once.
While the book contains many different views on literature and criticism, the main focus is on defining and locating American literature. What is it that makes it great, and what is it that makes it American and, thus, distinct from the literature of any other country? The answers to these questions are not clear and have been contentious issues dating back to the eighteenth century. For a long time, American writing was closely linked with that of the British. Many writers of the nascent country held close to the neoclassicist tradition of Alexander Pope and William Congreve. Before that, the Puritans and other Europeans projected their notions, myths, and religious beliefs onto the country: that it was a beacon for God’s chosen people to shine and create their perfect theocracy or a new beginning for a utopian society much like Sir Thomas More anticipated. While the Puritans and various explorers produced some of the first American writing, they were still forcing European ideas upon the New World.
The nineteenth century may have seen some American originality with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendentalism opening the door to now famous works by Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Walt Whitman, but even so it wasn’t until the early twentieth century that many critics believed a true American literature had emerged. They believed the Modernist writers like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway had finally produced something separate from European culture. However, even then, in no small part due to their expatriation, there were still many critics who believed the Modernists’ art maintained a substantial European influence.
I often find myself wanting to have a neat little layout of the literary views and movements that have come and gone in America. I want each one to have ended abruptly as the new one began, creating a solid foundation for anything I might read in the future. Ruland and Bradbury’s book quickly reminds me that it is nowhere near that simple. Not only can critics and scholars not agree as to what is American or canonical, they can’t even agree on what function art should have or how it should be criticized. Should it adhere to Edgar Allan Poe and Henry James’ notion of “art for art’s sake,” or should it attempt to produce social change? Should each work only have one true meaning as the New Critics suggest, or does each text combined with each reader produce a different meaning? Whatever the case may be, this book will certainly make for a handy reference to these issues well into the future.
While the book contains many different views on literature and criticism, the main focus is on defining and locating American literature. What is it that makes it great, and what is it that makes it American and, thus, distinct from the literature of any other country? The answers to these questions are not clear and have been contentious issues dating back to the eighteenth century. For a long time, American writing was closely linked with that of the British. Many writers of the nascent country held close to the neoclassicist tradition of Alexander Pope and William Congreve. Before that, the Puritans and other Europeans projected their notions, myths, and religious beliefs onto the country: that it was a beacon for God’s chosen people to shine and create their perfect theocracy or a new beginning for a utopian society much like Sir Thomas More anticipated. While the Puritans and various explorers produced some of the first American writing, they were still forcing European ideas upon the New World.
The nineteenth century may have seen some American originality with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendentalism opening the door to now famous works by Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Walt Whitman, but even so it wasn’t until the early twentieth century that many critics believed a true American literature had emerged. They believed the Modernist writers like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway had finally produced something separate from European culture. However, even then, in no small part due to their expatriation, there were still many critics who believed the Modernists’ art maintained a substantial European influence.
I often find myself wanting to have a neat little layout of the literary views and movements that have come and gone in America. I want each one to have ended abruptly as the new one began, creating a solid foundation for anything I might read in the future. Ruland and Bradbury’s book quickly reminds me that it is nowhere near that simple. Not only can critics and scholars not agree as to what is American or canonical, they can’t even agree on what function art should have or how it should be criticized. Should it adhere to Edgar Allan Poe and Henry James’ notion of “art for art’s sake,” or should it attempt to produce social change? Should each work only have one true meaning as the New Critics suggest, or does each text combined with each reader produce a different meaning? Whatever the case may be, this book will certainly make for a handy reference to these issues well into the future.
Read
December 11, 2012I picked up this book with great interest, hoping to become more well versed in literary movements and then...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...oh, sorry. Though this book did have a lot of interesting information, it got fairly tedious at times. Major authors are well represented and, all in all, it is a useful reference when necessary but not an enthralling page turner. And you could get a more succinct explanation online.
May 27, 2008
This is the most readable history of the history of American literature that I've encountered yet. Its emphasis is on understanding the "master-narrative" of American lit -- American writers' quest for a distinctly "American" literature, with stories and characters who couldn't exist elsewhere written in language that is unique to this country.
July 1, 2016
TL;DR: Caveat emptor. If you know what you’re getting, this is a useful tome. If not, there is a lot to be desired.
I want to begin my review of this literary history in an unusual place. I want to start by looking at the index. Let me bring to your attention two entries:
Franklin, Benjamin (1706-90), 24, 28, 41-47, 52-54, 65, 119, 168, 352, 256; The Autobiography, 18, 42-46; A Dissertation of Liberty and Necessity, 41; Do-good Papers, 46-47; “Information for Those who Would Remove to America,” 42; Poor Richard’s Almanack, 42
Now compare this entry to Frederick Douglass:
Douglass, Frederick (1817-61), 400; The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, 184, 234.
When I began to cast around to find a way to express my chief complaint about this book, I kept thinking ‘You’ll be able to say it, but it might just sound like you’re being PC or something.’ Being accused of being ‘too PC’ seems to be the usual response to commenters in mass media who suggest that minorities have not been given their fair share of space in some enterprise. This lack of fair representation in the book is, after all, my biggest complaint about Ruland and Bradbury’s work. As writers, their chief project seems to be to tell the story of white male writers. Had the book been titled From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of White Men Writing in America then this would have been no issue. Unfortunately it is not called this. The chosen title indicates some amount of inclusion, a facet that is not found in the meat of the book.
Before I go further, let me address one possible protest to this statement. It could be argued that in the history of the country and in the enactment of literature in America, Franklin is more important than Douglass. I think there is some small merit to this argument since Franklin was intimately involved in both the foundation of the United States government and was also a prolific author throughout most of his life. In contrast, and taken only at facile face value, Douglass’s work was the chronicle of a slave rising beyond his circumstances to achieve greater things with his life than what had been augured by the fact of his birth. However, I find this argument to be weakened by several facts. First, like Franklin Douglass also rose to public prominence and moved among the powers of his day, specifically at the side of Abraham Lincoln. Second, Douglass was also a prolific author, though his topic was much more specific—he wrote antislavery tracts that addressed the chief complaint of his day (which is arguably similar to what Franklin accomplished). Third, Douglass had a broad, intelligent mind, just as did Franklin. Franklin was able to exercise his full talents based on his birth; Douglass first had to exercise his capabilities to earn his freedom. I believe thus that both men are analogous in many talents and in the importance they have for certain aspects of the American story in total. If you look at the space in Ruland and Bradbury’s book dedicated to a discussion of each man (at least six full pages to Franklin, from 41-47; essentially one paragraph to Douglass on page 400), then this omission is inexcusable. Thus, the above protest has no validity.
Before moving to the next issue, I want to fully drive home my point with a few more facts. As you think through these, please keep in mind that the main text of the book occupies 429 pages: The Harlem Renaissance is given brief mention on six pages; Countee Cullen is mentioned three times; Langston Hughes receives four individual pages, none of which are connected; the classic text The New Negro: An Interpretation is missing altogether; Harriet Jacobs was mentioned in one line in the book and does not warrant an entry in the index; Jean Toomer is mentioned on four separate occasions. I could give more, but I think this makes my point clear.
With this complaint fully explained, let me move to the next: This book lacks organization and it suffers immensely for this fault.
I have seen other reviewers cite this as an issue. Some of them have said something along the lines of ‘The book comes across as a list at some points.’ This is certainly fair, as there are parts in the modernist section wherein the authors devolve into simply stating a fact and then listing four or five books that underline that fact. While this is the most egregious example of this listing fault, other sections of the book do it too.
But simply listing books is not the only issue. In another section, the authors begin a discussion of Fitzgerald, comparing his work to Drieser’s. This is a fair comparison, and it is educational (I cannot complain that the authors do not know their topic), but the authors then move into a lengthy discussion of Pound and his influence before jumping back into Fitzgerald fifty pages later. As a reader, I thought at this moment, “Wait—what? Shouldn’t you have just finished this point earlier in the book and then moved forward?” In other words, the authors seem to have no sense of how they wished to present the information. The closest compliment that I can pay them in this section (which is a fairly lengthy discussion of modernist authors) is that they wished to emulate modernism in how they presented their ideas; this is to say they wished to fragment the work and make the reader do the necessary digging required to understand the information. Since this is a book about the history of literature, and since history should be a lucid exploration of a topic, not a fragmented mess, I think it is justifiable to count this against the authors as well.
You might think at this point: Why then have you awarded the book two stars? I gave two stars because in spite of the aforementioned flaws, there are some valuable bits of information in the book. I imagine that an English literature professor is out there right now reading these reviews in hopes of finding out whether this book would still make a good text for a class (since it was published in the 90s, it is on the cusp of going stale). The answer to the question is: Yes, this would make a good text…but only if you (the professor) are willing to put in the effort to solve the shortcomings I have noted. This book does connect many dots, though it leaves many others out. In short, and as I noted at the beginning: caveat emptor.
I want to begin my review of this literary history in an unusual place. I want to start by looking at the index. Let me bring to your attention two entries:
Franklin, Benjamin (1706-90), 24, 28, 41-47, 52-54, 65, 119, 168, 352, 256; The Autobiography, 18, 42-46; A Dissertation of Liberty and Necessity, 41; Do-good Papers, 46-47; “Information for Those who Would Remove to America,” 42; Poor Richard’s Almanack, 42
Now compare this entry to Frederick Douglass:
Douglass, Frederick (1817-61), 400; The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, 184, 234.
When I began to cast around to find a way to express my chief complaint about this book, I kept thinking ‘You’ll be able to say it, but it might just sound like you’re being PC or something.’ Being accused of being ‘too PC’ seems to be the usual response to commenters in mass media who suggest that minorities have not been given their fair share of space in some enterprise. This lack of fair representation in the book is, after all, my biggest complaint about Ruland and Bradbury’s work. As writers, their chief project seems to be to tell the story of white male writers. Had the book been titled From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of White Men Writing in America then this would have been no issue. Unfortunately it is not called this. The chosen title indicates some amount of inclusion, a facet that is not found in the meat of the book.
Before I go further, let me address one possible protest to this statement. It could be argued that in the history of the country and in the enactment of literature in America, Franklin is more important than Douglass. I think there is some small merit to this argument since Franklin was intimately involved in both the foundation of the United States government and was also a prolific author throughout most of his life. In contrast, and taken only at facile face value, Douglass’s work was the chronicle of a slave rising beyond his circumstances to achieve greater things with his life than what had been augured by the fact of his birth. However, I find this argument to be weakened by several facts. First, like Franklin Douglass also rose to public prominence and moved among the powers of his day, specifically at the side of Abraham Lincoln. Second, Douglass was also a prolific author, though his topic was much more specific—he wrote antislavery tracts that addressed the chief complaint of his day (which is arguably similar to what Franklin accomplished). Third, Douglass had a broad, intelligent mind, just as did Franklin. Franklin was able to exercise his full talents based on his birth; Douglass first had to exercise his capabilities to earn his freedom. I believe thus that both men are analogous in many talents and in the importance they have for certain aspects of the American story in total. If you look at the space in Ruland and Bradbury’s book dedicated to a discussion of each man (at least six full pages to Franklin, from 41-47; essentially one paragraph to Douglass on page 400), then this omission is inexcusable. Thus, the above protest has no validity.
Before moving to the next issue, I want to fully drive home my point with a few more facts. As you think through these, please keep in mind that the main text of the book occupies 429 pages: The Harlem Renaissance is given brief mention on six pages; Countee Cullen is mentioned three times; Langston Hughes receives four individual pages, none of which are connected; the classic text The New Negro: An Interpretation is missing altogether; Harriet Jacobs was mentioned in one line in the book and does not warrant an entry in the index; Jean Toomer is mentioned on four separate occasions. I could give more, but I think this makes my point clear.
With this complaint fully explained, let me move to the next: This book lacks organization and it suffers immensely for this fault.
I have seen other reviewers cite this as an issue. Some of them have said something along the lines of ‘The book comes across as a list at some points.’ This is certainly fair, as there are parts in the modernist section wherein the authors devolve into simply stating a fact and then listing four or five books that underline that fact. While this is the most egregious example of this listing fault, other sections of the book do it too.
But simply listing books is not the only issue. In another section, the authors begin a discussion of Fitzgerald, comparing his work to Drieser’s. This is a fair comparison, and it is educational (I cannot complain that the authors do not know their topic), but the authors then move into a lengthy discussion of Pound and his influence before jumping back into Fitzgerald fifty pages later. As a reader, I thought at this moment, “Wait—what? Shouldn’t you have just finished this point earlier in the book and then moved forward?” In other words, the authors seem to have no sense of how they wished to present the information. The closest compliment that I can pay them in this section (which is a fairly lengthy discussion of modernist authors) is that they wished to emulate modernism in how they presented their ideas; this is to say they wished to fragment the work and make the reader do the necessary digging required to understand the information. Since this is a book about the history of literature, and since history should be a lucid exploration of a topic, not a fragmented mess, I think it is justifiable to count this against the authors as well.
You might think at this point: Why then have you awarded the book two stars? I gave two stars because in spite of the aforementioned flaws, there are some valuable bits of information in the book. I imagine that an English literature professor is out there right now reading these reviews in hopes of finding out whether this book would still make a good text for a class (since it was published in the 90s, it is on the cusp of going stale). The answer to the question is: Yes, this would make a good text…but only if you (the professor) are willing to put in the effort to solve the shortcomings I have noted. This book does connect many dots, though it leaves many others out. In short, and as I noted at the beginning: caveat emptor.
November 29, 2018
I was an English major at UMSL, and we didn't really get into the critical depths the way they did at Wash U after I graduated (to judge from the friends of mine who went there). Ruland taught at Wash U; Bradbury is English. Both were thoroughly informed about the larger trends and the specific works of American literature from the time the Puritans established colonies through the deconstruction wars of the early 90s, when this book was published. I tend to jump around in my reading, and as a result, have never been enormously familiar with the story of American literature as laid out here. And, I've spent very little time with poetry since college, so there is a ton of new information here for me. The book is 25 years old, though, and while it nods at the emerging interest in engaging works by non white male writers, it is those who get the lion's share of discussion here. Still, taken with that grain of salt, this is an enjoyable and eminently readable history of the ways Americans have told their stories in literature.
March 20, 2018
Záběr ta kniha měla hezký a autoři se snažili všechno vyložit v souvislostech, ale přesto, já se cítím jak vyprahlý člověk na poušti. Jediné, co po těhle knihách chci je jasná struktura kde je za a) kapitola (dejme tomu období) a za b) jasný nadpis autorova jména pod kterým jsou jeho informace. Jasně, můžeme odskakovat mezi těmi autory k dějiná a kontextu doby, vždyť je to důležité, ale prosím, nedělejte to, že ho třikrát zmíníte, cosi o něm zamumláte a až po čtvrté mi ho řádně představíte. Zpracovávat z takové knihy poznámky je pak jak hra na detektivku. Ještě hůř, když člověk chce najít jen pár autorů a nechce se vláčet přes celý jeden oddíl knihy.
Takže výsledek: v naučných knihách o anglické/americké literatuře vede stále kniha z dob před revolucí. Inu....pěkné.
Takže výsledek: v naučných knihách o anglické/americké literatuře vede stále kniha z dob před revolucí. Inu....pěkné.
November 6, 2020
As with most “textbook” works, this is a book filled with dense informative histories of what it’s subject was, and could, potentially, be. Keep a dictionary close by, and take it slow to absorb what you can; this is an opaque history if you allow it to rush by.
Near the end, the gas pedal is struck with reckless abandon, and some of the “modern” (postmodern, perhaps?) aspects are rushed through so quickly, you may end up as bewildered as the critics who are desperately trying to interpret the world of words strewn before them.
Regardless, a worthy read
Near the end, the gas pedal is struck with reckless abandon, and some of the “modern” (postmodern, perhaps?) aspects are rushed through so quickly, you may end up as bewildered as the critics who are desperately trying to interpret the world of words strewn before them.
Regardless, a worthy read
June 22, 2020
A completely whitewashed version of the history of American literature. A history of white men by white men. Anyone who is not a white man is, for the most part, crammed into the final few pages almost as an afterthought, giving the strange impression that women and people of colour simply didn’t contribute anything to the literature before the latter half of the 20th century.
May 13, 2018
An excellent overview of American Literature. He says the things that need to be said with an honesty that is actually refreshing. If you support the old cannon of tired white conservatives, do not read this book. All sides get exposed. All of them. And that is why I love this book.
February 27, 2018
Comprehensive & informative. Probably will use it as a resource for teaching!
May 27, 2022
Well detailed
April 24, 2026
Generally, it is a strong critical work; however, some books are analyzed in considerable depth, whereas others - arguably equally important - are only briefly mentioned. Too much space has been devoted to poetry with unnecessary analyses. Additionally, the overly theoretical and academic considerations at the end are superfluous. For a layperson, they may even be tedious, incomprehensible, and contribute little to the topic of literary history.
September 23, 2012
Overall, this book was a good overall introduction to the major themes and concerns of American literature. One of the authors is an American, but the other is British, lending the book a more global perspective than might otherwise have been the case. A chronological arrangement helps establish the changing ideals and themes even as it weaves them together, and there is a great deal of detail to absorb.
At the beginning, this book focused on the establishment of literature in America and what early Americans thought their literature should look like. Similarly, as the book traced the progress of American literature through the 18th and 19th centuries, most of the focus remained focused on what the people of the time thought literature should be and do, although there were occasional hints of the writers' own prejudices. By the twentieth century, though, those prejudices take over, and the chapters become more about literary theory's effect on literature than on literature itself. There are still examinations of major authors and their impact on the world. There are still long lists of influential poets and writers. There is some discussion of the movement of literature from the public to the academic. But: there is no cohesive examination of the characteristics of, say, writing in the 1950s, no clear delineation of movements, and less and less consideration of individual writers. Perhaps that cannot be: we are still too close in time to examine the motivations of previous generations objectively. Mostly, the decades immediately preceding the publication of the book (1991) are considered in terms of theory and experimental thought, and that is all.
Those of you who know me know my objections to literary theory (which is neither of the above), you can imagine my disappointment at the end.
At the beginning, this book focused on the establishment of literature in America and what early Americans thought their literature should look like. Similarly, as the book traced the progress of American literature through the 18th and 19th centuries, most of the focus remained focused on what the people of the time thought literature should be and do, although there were occasional hints of the writers' own prejudices. By the twentieth century, though, those prejudices take over, and the chapters become more about literary theory's effect on literature than on literature itself. There are still examinations of major authors and their impact on the world. There are still long lists of influential poets and writers. There is some discussion of the movement of literature from the public to the academic. But: there is no cohesive examination of the characteristics of, say, writing in the 1950s, no clear delineation of movements, and less and less consideration of individual writers. Perhaps that cannot be: we are still too close in time to examine the motivations of previous generations objectively. Mostly, the decades immediately preceding the publication of the book (1991) are considered in terms of theory and experimental thought, and that is all.
Those of you who know me know my objections to literary theory (which is neither of the above), you can imagine my disappointment at the end.
June 24, 2025
I am disappointed. Frankly, I expected much more from a book like this, whose co-author is Prof. Bradbury.
What I consider a brighter side of the book: first and foremost, the book serves as a blueprint to those who want to educate themselves on the subject of American literature; the book starts with the arrival of the first wave of settlers who sought refuge in a Virgin land, far away from the ongoing Reformation in England, and the book ends with the shades of Postmodernism and comments on contemporary American poetry.
At first glance, this does not sound that bad.
Some of the chapters are too lengthy; it is either that there are only a few pages dedicated to a certain author, or it is the other way around, and it feels like never-ending story (of course, I am aware that the importance of some authors is more paramount than the others, but yet again, on many occasions it felt like, with all due respect, reading an essay that requires twenty more words in order to be completed). Some of the thoughts, comparisons, and explanations were harder to grasp for me.
As I have mentioned, some of the descriptions of either authors or epochs that altered not only the course of literature, but also of American culture seemed to me a bit too convoluted, and I feel like they could have been expressed in a simpler, and therefore more comprehensible style of writing.
What I consider a brighter side of the book: first and foremost, the book serves as a blueprint to those who want to educate themselves on the subject of American literature; the book starts with the arrival of the first wave of settlers who sought refuge in a Virgin land, far away from the ongoing Reformation in England, and the book ends with the shades of Postmodernism and comments on contemporary American poetry.
At first glance, this does not sound that bad.
Some of the chapters are too lengthy; it is either that there are only a few pages dedicated to a certain author, or it is the other way around, and it feels like never-ending story (of course, I am aware that the importance of some authors is more paramount than the others, but yet again, on many occasions it felt like, with all due respect, reading an essay that requires twenty more words in order to be completed). Some of the thoughts, comparisons, and explanations were harder to grasp for me.
As I have mentioned, some of the descriptions of either authors or epochs that altered not only the course of literature, but also of American culture seemed to me a bit too convoluted, and I feel like they could have been expressed in a simpler, and therefore more comprehensible style of writing.
December 1, 2008
Must. Brush. Up.
UPDATE: I'll be working with this book throughout the rest of the school year, but I've read enough to guage its usefulness -- at least for teachers.
It's a great resource, if a little dense at times. It'd be very well served by more specific chapter subtitles, rather than Roman numerals dividing up each section. It's great for relating one literary/cultural movement to another -- very sharp causal relationships explained sensibly and with manageable editorialization. Best read with a highlighter/Post-It notes in hand.
UPDATE: I'll be working with this book throughout the rest of the school year, but I've read enough to guage its usefulness -- at least for teachers.
It's a great resource, if a little dense at times. It'd be very well served by more specific chapter subtitles, rather than Roman numerals dividing up each section. It's great for relating one literary/cultural movement to another -- very sharp causal relationships explained sensibly and with manageable editorialization. Best read with a highlighter/Post-It notes in hand.
Read
April 27, 2015New rev: Even though I still don't like the fact that it doesn't have a bibliography (come on Penguin!), it's one of the better little books for a survey on American Literary History.
I found this little book very helpful. Although I know some about American literature in its relation to the themes and periods that I work on, I can't claim to be an Americanist. Therefore, this study has been a great source of information for me. It's compact, to-the-point, well-structured and informative. It wouldn't be enough for further study, but it's definitely a good place to start.
I found this little book very helpful. Although I know some about American literature in its relation to the themes and periods that I work on, I can't claim to be an Americanist. Therefore, this study has been a great source of information for me. It's compact, to-the-point, well-structured and informative. It wouldn't be enough for further study, but it's definitely a good place to start.
November 3, 2017
A literary history less than 600 pages long could never do full justice of course, but this one does well enough to earn the very opposite of opprobrium. It's concise without being too skimpy on detail, and accessible.
December 10, 2007
The best concise history of American Literature ever.
Currently Reading
March 12, 2008So far, absolutely fascinating! I think this makes me a nerd, but what-evs! This book is one of the most interesting bits of non-fiction I've read in years.
Want to Read
December 20, 2010I'm a nerd- but this is soo good!
June 16, 2010
I read this book to study for the American Literature CLEP exam and I passed with 3 credits towards my degree!
March 31, 2011
Dedicated to Ceinwyin xDDD
July 22, 2012
This is THE book I started my (ad)venture into American Studies with in 1997.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews