From Puritanism to postmodernism : a history of American literature / Richard Ruland and Malcolm Bradbury.

Includes index.

Preface to the Routledge Classics edition – Richard Ruland

Foreword to the Routledge Classics edition – Linda Wagner Martin

Preface

Part I The Literature of British America

1. The Puritan Legacy

2. Awakening and Enlightenment

Part II From Colonial Oppressor to Cultural Province

3. Revolution and (In)dependence

4. American Naissance

5. Yea-saying and Nay-saying

Part III Native and Cosmopolitan Crosscurrents: from Local Color to Realism and Naturalism

6. Secession and Loyalty

7. Muckrakers and Early Moderns

Part IV Modernism in the American Grain

8. Outland Darts and Homemade Worlds

9. The Second Flowering

10. Radical Reassessments
11. Strange Realities, Adequate Fictions

Epilogue - American Literary History in 1998: A Conversation with Josef Jar?b and Richard Ruland in Prague

Index

Widely acknowledged as a contemporary classic that has introduced thousands of readers to American literature, From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature brilliantly charts the fascinating story of American literature from the Puritan legacy to the advent of postmodernism. From realism and romanticism to modernism and postmodernism it examines and reflects on the work of a rich panoply of writers, including Poe, Melville, Fitzgerald, Pound, Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks and Thomas Pynchon. Characterised throughout by a vibrant and engaging style it is a superb introduction to American literature, placing it thoughtfully in its rich social, ideological and historical context.

A tour de force of both literary and historical writing, this Routledge Classics edition includes a new preface by co-author Richard Ruland, a new foreword by Linda Wagner-Martin and a fascinating interview with Richard Ruland, in which he reflects on the nature of American fiction and his collaboration with Malclolm Bradbury. It is published here for the first time.