American Literature Commons^™

Louisa May Alcott [From Oxford Encyclopedia Of Women In World History], Melissa J. Homestead

Department of English: Faculty Publications

American fiction writer best known as the author of the girls’ novel Little Women (1868-1869). Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, to Abigail May Alcott and the progressive educator Bronson Alcott. The March family of Little Women was an idealized version of her own family, which was far less stable and more mobile. Alcott’s father’s idealistic education, and reform ventures regularly failed, necessitating the family’s frequent moves, and she and her mother increasingly provided the family’s economic support. Her childhood and adolescence were split primarily between Concord and Boston, Massachusetts, where she was deeply influenced by members of her father’s …

Introduction To Signet Classic's The Song Of The Lark By Willa Cather (2007), Melissa J. Homestead

Department of English: Faculty Publications

In May of 1912, Willa Cather traveled to Winslow, Arizona, to visit her brother, Douglass, who worked for the railroad. The year before, she had begun a leave of absence from McClure's Magazine, where she had been an editor since 1906, so that she could focus her energies on writing fiction. Although she had been publishing short fiction regularly since 1892, her first novel-the cosmopolitan, somewhat derivative Alexander's Bridge ‒ did not appear until 1912. Feeling tired and unwell, she, like many other Americans, sought renewal in the dry air and open spaces of the desert. After six years in …

American Zeitgeist: Spontaneity In The Work Of Jackson Pollock, Charlie Parker And Jack Kerouac, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

During the decade following World War Two, a body of artistic work was created that clearly articulated for the first time, a distinctly American aesthetic, independent of European models. This is not to say that celebrated works like The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, Appalachian Spring and Roy Harris’ Third Symphony are not recognized as American masterpieces; but their American characteristics are expressed through content, rather than form or methods of production. Fitzgerald and Hemingway all furthered their apprenticeship in Europe during the 1920s while Copland and Harris studied in Paris with Boulanger. It remained for the next generation …

Chronological Bibliography Of The Works Of Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Lucinda Damon-Bach, Allison Roepsch, Melissa J. Homestead

Department of English: Faculty Publications

This two-part bibliography has been built by consulting the Bibliography of American Literature (BAL) and the bibliographies compiled by Sister Mary Michael Welsh ("Catharine Maria Sedgwick: Her Position in the Literature and Thought of Her Time up to 1860," Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1937) and Richard Ranus Gidez ("A Study of the Works of Catharine Maria Sedgwick," Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1958); library cataloging records; and the personal records of Lucinda Damon-Bach and Melissa J. Homestead. In most cases, entries have been confirmed through books, periodicals, photocopies, or microfilm received through interlibrary loan. We were not able …

Behind The Veil? Catharine Sedgwick And Anonymous Publication, Melissa J. Homestead

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Catharine Sedgwick's name appeared on the title page of only one of her books published during her lifetime, her 1835 Tales and Sketches, a volume collecting pieces that had originally appeared in the annually published "gift books" in the preceding nine years. Sedgwick is the earliest writer included in Mary Kelley's influential book on women's authorship, Private Woman, Public Stage: Literary Domesticity in Nineteenth-Century America, and Kelley claims that women writers published anonymously or pseudonymously because of the great anxiety that appearing in public through the medium of print caused them: "The literary domestics could write and, as …

In Our Very Bones: Poems By Twyla Hansen, Twyla Hansen

Nebraskiana Publications

DISTANCES

1 Midwestern Autumn, 2 Going to the Graves, 3 Memorial Day, 4 On the Screen Porch, 5 Gophers, 6 Lilac Tripping, 7 The Separator, 9 Conspiracy, 11 My Neighbor's Daughter Learning To Drive, 12 Platte River State Park, Late January, 13 Spring Equinox, 14 When You Leave, 15 My Husband Snoring, 16 Full Moon, Total Eclipse, 17 My Father's Miniatures, 18 Wind, 20 If My Father Were Still Alive

ON THE PRAIRIE

23 Song of the Pasque Flower, 24 Blue Moon, 25 Crane River, 26 Nine-Mile Prairie, 27 Late May, 29 Prairie Trout, 30 Vines, 31 Building a Bat …

Paintings And Drawings In Willa Cather's Prose: A Catalogue Raisonné, Polly P. Duryea

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Paintings and Drawings in Willa Cather's Prose: A Catalogue Raisonné considers the specific artists and their visual art that greatly influenced Willa Cather's textual compositions. The Catalogue draws upon the author's research of Cather-related art from both American and European libraries and art museums. This art includes painting, drawing, illustration, and tapestry. A detailed and alphabetized list of selected artists and paintings that Cather preferred is provided. The artists are cross-referenced with Cather's own statements about their work or style. Included is biographical data for each artist, the named work of art, and often the date executed, the location then …

How To Live In The Heartland, Twyla Hansen

Nebraskiana Publications

Foreword by William Kloefkorn -7, How to Live in the Heartland -11, Airing Out -12, Country Girl -13, January Thaw -14, Making Lard -15, Headlines: Hometown Weekly -16, Nuance -17, My Brother Randall Teaches Me to Ride a Bicycle -18, Seamstress -19, Eddie -20, Nine-Mile Prairie, Mid-May -22, The Pine Grove -23, Kissing Cousins -24, Scars -25, Trumpetcreeper Vine -26, 1964 -27, Friday Night at the Plaza -28, After the Farm Sale -30, Highway -31, Night Shift at the Old Hospital, 1968 -32, Fantasy -34, Eyewash -35, Navigating the North Platte from Lingle to Torrington -36, When the Prairie Speaks …

"Preface" To Vision And Refuge: Essays On The Literature Of The Great Plains, Frederick C. Luebke

Department of History: Faculty Publications

SEVEN OF THE EIGHT ESSAYS in this volume were prepared originally for the first and second annual symposia sponsored by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Those by Barbara Meldrum, John Milton, Paul Reigstad, and Bernice Slote were presented at the conference on "The Cultural Heritage of the Plains," held in April 1977; the essays by Chester Fontenot, Tomas Rivera, and Dorothy Burton Skardal were prepared for the symposium on "Ethnicity on the Great Plains," held a year later. The contribution by Paul Olson was written especially for this volume. Selected essays from the 1977 and 1978 …

America's First Negro Poet: The Complete Works Of Jupiter Hammon Of Long Island, Jupiter Hammon, Stanley Austin Ransom Jr, Oscar Wegelin, Vernon Loggins

Electronic Texts in American Studies

Introduction by Stanley Austin Ransom, Jr.

Biographical Sketch of Jupiter Hammon by Oscar Wegelin

Critical Analysis of the Works of Jupiter Hammon by Vernon Loggins

THE POETRY OF JUPITER HAMMON

An Evening Thought. Salvation by Christ, With Penetential Cries

An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatly

A Poem for Children, With Thoughts on Death

A Dialogue Entitled, "The Kind Master and the Dutiful Servant"

THE PROSE OF JUPITER HAMMON

A Winter Piece

An Evening's Improvement

An Address to the Negroes of the State of New York

Bibliography of the Works of Jupiter Hammon

L'Aspect Metaphysique Du Mal Dans L'Oeuvre Litteraire De Charles Baudelaire Et D' Edgar Allan Poe, Arnolds Grava

Papers from the University Studies series (University of Nebraska)

L'oeuvre litteraire de Poe et celle de Baudelaire ont ete l'objet de nombreuses recherches faites par des hommes de lettres et des critiques distingues tant en Europe qu'en Amerique depuis la seconde moitie du siecle dernier jusqu'a. nos jours. II est assez curieux de constater qU'aucune de ces oeuvres critiques n'a traite, du moins directement, Ie cote philosophique, c'est·a.-dire, les implications meta physiques de la production litteraire des deux poetes. Par-ci, par-Ia on peut trouver quelques chapitres, generalement trop courts, consacres a. l'etude plus ou moins approfondie, soit du satanisme baudelairien, soit de l'esprit de la perversite chez Poe. C'est …

Emily Dickinson's Approach To Poetry, Donald E. Thackrey

Papers from the University Studies series (University of Nebraska)

One of the most fascinating aspects of any poet is his conception of his art. Many poets have written extensively on the theory of art around which they orient their poetry. Others have clearly revealed their theories by writing criticism of other authors. Emily Dickinson, however, left no critical essays, no elucidation of her artistic principles. It is quite probable, indeed, that she did not consciously concern herself to any extent with poetic theory. She may have written, and written in her unique way, through an instinctive need which would admit of no plodding deliberation or stylistic experimentation. Still, such …

Caroling Dusk: An Anthology Of Verse By Negro Poets, Countee Cullen , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

Poets: Paul Laurence Dunbar • Joseph S. Cotter, Sr • James Weldon Johnson • William Edward Burghardt Du Bois • William Stanley Braithwaite • James Edward Mccall • Angelina Weld Grimke • Anne Spencer • Mary Effie Lee Newsome • John Frederick Matheus • Fenton Johnson • Jessie Fauset • Alice Dunbar Nelson • Georgia Douglas Johnson • Claude McKay • Jean Toomer • Joseph S. Cotter, Jr • Blanche Taylor Dickinson • Frank Horne • Lewis Alexander • Sterling A. Brown • Clarissa Scott Delany • Langston Hughes • Gwendolyn B. Bennett • Anna Bontemps • Albert Rice • …

Increase Mather: The Foremost American Puritan, Kenneth B. Murdock

Zea E-Books in American Studies

The classic biography of preeminent colonial Massachusetts minister and President of Harvard College, Increase Mather (1639-1723). This is the work that re-started Puritan studies in America.

“A book which will be indispensable to students of early American history.” —Times Literary Supplement

“It is a book to welcome and appreciate.” —American Historical Review

“The available sources have been used carefully, and the story is told with great literary skill.” —The Sewanee Review

“[Murdock’s book] opened the sluice gates to powerful streams of scholarship that in the next two decades revised our understanding of American Puritanism.” —Philip F. Gura, in A Concise …

Color, Countee Cullen

Electronic Texts in American Studies

Poet, playwright, novelist, graduate of DeWitt Clinton High, New York University, and Harvard University, Countee Cullen (1903–1946) emerged as a leading literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Color (1925), his first published book of poetry, confronts head-on what W.E.B. DuBois called “the problem of the 20th century—the problem of the color line.” The work includes 72 poems, such as the following:

Incident (For Eric Walrond)

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, …

American Bibliography By Charles Evans. Volume 3: 1751-1764, Charles Evans

Electronic Reference Materials

A Chronological Dictionary of all Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America from the Genesis of Printing in 1639 Down to and Including the Year 1820 with Bibliographical and Biographical Notes

VOLUME 3: 1751-1764

American Bibliography By Charles Evans. Volume 2: 1730-1750, Charles Evans

Electronic Reference Materials

A Chronological Dictionary of all Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America from the Genesis of Printing in 1639 Down to and Including the Year 1820 with Bibliographical and Biographical Notes

Volume 2: 1730-1750

American Bibliography By Charles Evans: Volume 1: 1639-1729, Charles Evans

Electronic Reference Materials

A Chronological Dictionary of all Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America from the Genesis of Printing in 1639 Down to and Including the Year 1820 with Bibliographical and Biographical Notes

Volume 1: 1639-1729

Liberty Further Extended: Or Free Thoughts On The Illegality Of Slave-Keeping; Wherein Those Arguments That Are Used In Its Vindication Are Plainly Confuted. Together With An Humble Address To Such As Are Concerned In The Practice., Lemuel Haynes, Paul Royster , Ed.

Electronic Texts in American Studies

This is a regularized text of a private sermon or pamphlet manuscript, authored by a 23-year-old African American who had served in the “minuteman” militia and the Continental Army, and who became an ordained minister and was pastor to white Congregational churches for more than 50 years.

Haynes’ tract is an important and revelatory addition to the early anti-slavery literature in the American colonies. Only identified and published in 1983, it is uniquely situated at the crossroads of independence, anti-­slavery, Congregationalism, and African-American identity. Brought to light by Ruth Bogin, the work is testimony to the diversity of thought and …

A Divine And Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted To The Soul By The Spirit Of God, Shown To Be Both A Scriptural, And Rational Doctrine, Jonathan Edwards, Reiner Smolinski

Electronic Texts in American Studies

The early stirrings of the Great Awakening were intensified by Edwards’ famous sermon A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God (1734). Through a fascinating process of canceling out his opponents’ positions, Edwards clearly defines the workings of God’s grace in the human soul. He distinguishes between “Common Grace” (intrinsic to virtually all unregenerate), which acts upon the mind of natural man and assists the faculties of the soul in their natural course; and “Special Grace” (intrinsic to true saints only), which acts in the human heart and unites with the mind of …

Old Mens Tears For Their Own Declensions, Mixed With Fears Of Their And Posterities Further Falling Off From New-England’S Primitive Constitution, Joshua Scottow

Zea E-Books in American Studies

This is an online edition of Scottow’s popular tract, published in Boston in 1691, based on the first edition. Later editions were published in Boston in 1715, 1733, and 1749, and in New London in 1769. It is a searchable PDF document. The characteristics of Scottow’s original text (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, italics, etc.) have been retained. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected, and a list of emendations is included at the end. Its typographic design is based on that of the original. The work decries the falling off of New England from the purity and purpose of its original founding, …

An Arrow Against Profane And Promiscuous Dancing Drawn Out Of The Quiver Of The Scriptures, Increase Mather

Electronic Texts in American Studies

When a dancing master arrived in Boston in 1685 and offered lessons and classes for both sexes during times normally reserved for church meetings, the Puritan ministers went to court to suppress the practice. Increase Mather (1639-1723) took the leading part, writing and publishing this tract, which compiles arguments and precedents for the prohibition of “Gynecandrical Dancing, [i.e.] Mixt or Promiscuous Dancing, viz. of Men and Women … together.” These justifications were certainly shared with the court, which found the dancing master guilty, fined him £100, and allowed him to skip town.

Mather’s tract on dancing is an overwhelming compendium …

Gods Promise To His Plantation, John Cotton

Zea E-Books in American Studies

The work reprinted here, in an online electronic text edition, is Cotton’s famous farewell sermon preached at the departure of the Winthrop fleet in Southampton in 1630. Gods Promise to His Plantation (1630)—courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society—is an ideological justification for engaging in such a risky venture, a promotional tract to encourage emigration, and a typological argument for possessing the wilderness. Like Winthrop’s famous A Model of Christian Charity (1630), John Cotton’s sermon is central to the Puritan experiment in the New World.

New-England Or A Briefe Enarration Of The Ayre, Earth, Water, Fish And Fowles Of That Country. With A Description Of The Natures, Orders, Habits, And Religion Of The Natives; In Latine And English Verse, William Morrell, Andrew Gaudio , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

This text, a Latin poem in dactylic hexameter with an accompanying English translation in heroic verse stands as the earliest surviving work of poetry about New England and the second oldest poem whose origins can be traced directly to the British American colonies. Only two copies of the original 1625 edition are known to survive; one is held at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and the other is housed at the British Museum. The Latin portion comprises 309 lines and praises the geographic features, flora and fauna of New England, and spends a majority of its verses describing …