Twentieth Century American Literature

To create an awareness about the major trends and movements in American literature in the 20th century; to expose the students to the various genres of literature and the literary outputs of the writers in this period; to enable them to understand the culture and to appreciate the modern trends and their effects on literature.

Unit 1

Poetry [All Detailed]

Robert Frost: “Mending Walls”, “After Apple Picking”.
Wallace Stevens:“The Sunday Morning”. 
E.A. Robinson: “Miniver Cheevy”. 
Ezra Pound: “An Immortality”.

Unit 2

Drama

Eugene O Neil: Emperor Jones [Detailed].
Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman [Non-Detailed].

Unit 3

Fiction [All Non-detailed]

Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea. 
Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby.
Saul Bellow: Herzog.

Unit 4

Short Stories [All Non-detailed]

O Henry: “Last Leaf”. 
John Updike: “Pigeon Feathers”.

Unit 5

Prose [All Non-detailed]

Ezra Pound: “Imagism”. 
Robert Frost: “The Figure a Poem Makes”.

1. Egbert Olives. (Ed.) American Literature 1980-1965, New Delhi, Eurasia Publishing House.
2. C. Subbian. An Anthology of American Poems. Emerald Publications.
3. P. Marudhanayagam. An Anthology of American Prose. Emerald Publications.
4. For ‘Fiction’, any standard edition may be followed.
5. Online sources.

1. Brower, Reuben. The Poetry of Robert Frost: Constellations of Intensions.
2. Chase, Richard. The American Novel and Its Tradition, Kalyani Publishers, Ludhiana. C.
3. C.W.E. Bigsby. A Critical Introduction to 20th Century American Drama. Cambridge University Press. Vol I
4. A Critical Introduction to 20th Century American Drama.Cambridge University Press. Vol II
5. Ellmann, Richard and Robert O’Clair,eds. The Norton Anthrology of Modern Poetry. NewYork: Norton.
6. Gottesman, Ronald et al., eds. The Norton Anthrology of American Literature. Vol II Norton: NewYork.
7. Harold Bloom: Modern Critical Interpretation: Miller’s Death of a Salesman. NewYork. Chelesa House Publishers.