Dept. of State: International Information Programs: Publications - Outline of American Literature

Key Sites on American Literature

American Literature - General
Colonial and 19th Century American Literature and Poetry
Modern and Contemporary American Literature and Poetry

AMERICAN LITERATURE - GENERAL

African American Literature

Maintained at the University of Southern California, provides links to resources on African-American literature, literary criticism, articles, dissertations, and general reference materials, as well as links to specific genres of literature -- poetry, drama, novels, and short fiction.

African American Literature and History

Includes a brief history of African-American literature, online e-texts from the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center, full text poetry for several African-American poets, and online resource documents on literature by and about blacks.

African American Writers: Online E-texts

Includes biographical information on as well as the writings of a host of African-American writers, ranging over time from Jupiter Hammon in the 1700s to contemporary writers.

American Authors on the Web

A very comprehensive site from Nagoya University that presents a chronological listing of almost 800 American authors and includes biographical authors and/or writing samples for the majority of them.

American Collection: Educators Site

A Web site posted in connection with a U.S. Public Broadcasting Service television series on nine American authors. Designed for educators, the site contains teaching resources, lesson plans, background information, and author profiles. The site also includes an "American Writing Gateway" that links to Web sites focused on some 50 of America's most prominent authors.

American Literature Anthology Writers' Index

One of the most comprehensive sites on the Web, this Sam Houston State University anthology provides access to information about the writings of more than 350 Americans from the 16th and 17th centuries to the 20th. Also includes photos or illustrations of most the writers, as well as a list of all Pultizer Prize winners in letters (fiction, drama, poetry, biography, and history) from 1917 to the present.

American Literary Classics: A Chapter A Day Library

Contains the complete texts of some 25 popular American literary classics, along with a handful of British works, each arranged in a large-type chapter-by-chapter format. Among the selections are "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "Main Street," "Moby-Dick," "The Red Badge of Courage," and "The House of Seven Gables."

American Literature, Keele

Includes three virtual libraries that contain, respectively, electronic texts and resources for 18th and 19th century American literature, electronic texts and resources for 20th century American literature, and literature by and on black Americans. Also includes links to other American and global literature Web sites, as well as an electronic archives for teaching American literature.

American Literature Resource Guides

From Tulane University, a resource guide that covers primary sources, guides and encyclopedias, surveys and chronologies, biographical dictionaries, and criticism, among other categories.

American Plays and Playwrights: Intro to Drama

An on-line bibliography maintained by the Thomas Byrne Library at Spring Hill College that directs the reader to printed titles about American plays and playwrights, including biography, bibliographies and guides to criticism, and theater and drama journals.

A Brief Chronology of African American Literature

From San Antonio College, a listing and several links to the foremost African-American writers and their works, from the mid-1700s to the present day.

Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events Pre-1620 to 1920

A comprehensive timeline that matches the political and social history of the United States with the literature of the time, by decade for the early years and by year after the year 1800.

A Celebration of Women Writers

A comprehensive site that lists upwards of 900 American women writers from the country's beginning until the present time and includes links to information on and the works of many of them. Also includes links to women writers in some 90 other countries. A product of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University.

C-Span American Writers: A Journey Through History

An on-line companion to a spring 2002 American history series that looks at the lives and works of selected American writers who have been influential in the course of the nation. The series currently covers eight time periods, beginning with the founding of America and continuing through the Vietnam era, and features 45 writers and their works.

Electronic Archives for Teaching the American Literatures

Contains essays, syllabi, bibliographies, and other resources for teaching the multiple literatures of the United States; created and maintained by the Center for Electronic Projects in American Culture Studies at Georgetown University.

Electronic Poetry Center

From Kathy Acker to Louis Zukofsky, a site at the State University of New York at Buffalo that contains information on and the writings of more than 150 American poets.

Glossary of Poetic Terms

Contain a list of terms, arranged alphabetically, related to poetry; provides the phonetic pronunciation of each term, its definition, and examples of its use, as well as poetic quotations.

History of American Literature

Course material for an American-produced lecture survey on American literature for presentation at Yasuda Women's University in Hiroshima, Japan.

Index of Native American Book Resources

Includes extensive links to organizations, online and printed journals, and presses specializing in Native American literature, as well as links to books with Native American content, home pages for Native American authors, and much more.

Internet Public Library Online Literary Criticism Collection

A literary metasite containing annotations of sites and articles devoted to literary criticism and information on authors. In addition to 200 American and British authors, more than 50 international authors are featured. The collection indexes over 2,500 resources.

Internet Sites Related to Electronic Literature, Choice Magazine

Includes information on publishers of electronic literature, library sites, Web-accessible Gopher lists, lists of electronic literature resources, and resources by period or nationality. Choice is a publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association.

Literary Calendar

Developed by P. Timothy Ervin at the Yasuda Women's University in Heroshama, Japan, this Web site features literary events that occurred on a particular day in history. It features a calendar of the current month, each day a hypertext link. One can click on a particular date to view a chronological list of entries on writers, literary works, and literary movements -- most of them linking to other useful sites with a wealth of information.

Literary Resources -- American

Includes links to home pages covering various aspects of American literature, as well as home pages dedicated to more than 50 individual writers and poets. Maintained by Jack Lynch, a doctoral candidate in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Mississippi Writers Page: The Internet Guide to Mississippi Writers

Presented by the University of Mississippi, the site contains information on some 270 writers of drama, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry who have called the state of Mississippi their home. Biographies of the writers, information about their books and other publications, and bibliographies of other information sources (including literary criticism) are featured.

Norton Websource to American Literature

An online companion to The Norton Anthnology of American Literature (fifth edition) covering 120 American writers. The site provides for each writer a brief biography, "an exploration" in which one of the writer's works is examined, and a list of other sites to consult. The site also groups this information by "topic clusters," permitting comparison of works of the same genr� or time period.

Oingo Meaning-Based Search: Literature

Contains information on American writers in four categories -- early American, 19th century, 20th century, and Native American literature. Also includes links to on-line documents discussing these categories.

PAL: Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide

Encompasses American literature in various time periods; includes special sections on American drama and African-American writers. Maintained by Paul P. Reuben of the Department of English, California State University.

Poets.Org

Maintained by the Academy of American Poets, this site includes biographies, photos, and other information on more than 200 hundred poets and some 600 poems. The site features a unique "listening booth" in which the Web reader can also hear 80 poets, predominantly American, read their own works.

San Antonio College LitWeb, 1865 - Present

Features a page for each of more than 60 of America's most prominent writers; each page contains listings of and subsequent links to each writer's major works, as well as information about him or her.

A Small Anthology of Poems

A considerable sampling of English-language poetry in which the work of American poets is well represented; maintained by Seamus Cooney of Western Michigan University, the site also links to what Cooney identifies as "my collection of really bad poetry."

Voces Americanas/American Voices

A highly graphic page based on an exhibit sponsored by the Texas Humanities Resource Center; images from the title pages of numerous literary works representing Latino heritage through the years are interspersed with descriptions of their contents.

Voices From the Gaps: Women Writers of Color

A project from the University of Minnesota that focuses on the lives and works of women writers of color in North America. Designed primarily to serve as an active learning component in the literature classroom, the site relies upon students and scholars from around the world to contribute author "home pages" for women writers of color.

Writing Black

Links to literature and history written by and on African Americans.

COLONIAL AND 19TH CENTURY AMERICAN
LITERATURE AND POETRY

African American Women Writers of the 19th Century

A collection of 52 published works by black women writers that provides access to the perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920.

American Literature to 1860

From California Polytechnic Institute, nontraditional links to information on some 30 of America's earliest writers, including Anne Bradstreet, Thomas Jefferson, Cotton Mather, Philip Freneau, Phillis Wheatley, and Oludah Equinano.

Early American Literature 1600-1900

Links to Internet resources aimed mainly at elementary and secondary school students and covering history and criticism, movements, study and teaching, online text collections, and writers of America's earliest days.

Giacobazzi's Earlier American Literature Links

Includes information on and the writings of a number of America's Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, James Madison, and John Adams. Also, the works of poets Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, William Cullen Bryant, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

San Antonio College LitWeb, From Earliest Times to 1865

Links to the authors and their works from the period of exploration and colonization in the United States to the early 19th century.

A Student's History of American Literature

From Bibliomania, descriptive information on the various periods in American literature from early colonial times (1607-1700) to "modern literature," which ends for this offering in the very early 20th century. Includes an extensive alphabetical index of authors and their works.

Voice of the Shuttle: English Literature, American (Colonial/19th Century)

One of several pages developed by Alan Liu, a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Covers, for 18th and 19th century American literature, general resources; authors, works, and projects; teaching resources; and journals.

Wright American Fiction (1851-1875)

A collection of American fiction that attempts to include every novel published in the United States from 1851 to 1875. It features works by well-known writers such as Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville, along with a great many forgotten authors whose works may have been very popular in their own time. The collection, which is hosted by the Indiana University Digital Library, currently has 1,752 texts by 845 authors.

MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN
LITERATURE AND POETRY

American Cultural History: The Twentieth Century

A series of Web guides for the 20th century, the guide for each decade include brief facts about the decade and events defining it, as well as links to the notable "Books & Literature" of the time.

American Dramatists

A brief page that contains biographical information for three noted American playwrights -- Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Lorraine Hansberry -- along with the dialogue from playwright Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes."

Americano Literature

An essay from the May 1999 issue of Hispanic magazine that explores and long and rich history of Hispanic literature in the United States; contains a link to well-regarded Latino books.

Asian and Pacific Island American History and Literature for K-12 Teachers

A meta-site for librarians, teachers, parents, and students comprising links to sites dealing with Asian-American literature, notably including reviews of books by Asian-American authors, Asian-American poetry, and anthologies of Asian-American literature.

Jewish American Literature Research Home Page

A fledgling site devoted to contemporary Jewish-American authors Stanley Elkin, Cynthia Ozick, Philip Roth, Woody Allen, E.M. Broner, Art Spiegelman, Joseph Heller, Grace Paley, and E.L. Doctorow; contains a biography and list of critical works for each, and links to a bibliography of texts on Jewish-American literature.

Modern & Contemporary American Poetry

Links to course materials for a American poetry virtual reality environment. Maintained by Alan Filreis, a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.

Native American Authors

Provides information on Native North American authors with bibliographies of their published works, biographical information, and links to online resources including interviews, online texts, and tribal websites.

Storytellers: Native American Authors Online

Includes links to official and unofficial home pages of Native American authors, as well as some full-text publications, reviews, and information on upcoming events.

The Poetry and Prose of the Harlem Renaissance

Provides biographical information on many talented African-American writers of the 1920s, along with numerous examples of their work.

Twentieth-century Poetry in English

From professor Eiichi Hishikawa at Kobe University, a site containing links to the works of more than 140 poets writing in English and "poet pages" for 11 of these, including T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, and William Carolos Williams.

Voice of the Shuttle: English Literature, Modern,
Voice of the Shuttle: English Literature, Contemporary

Two of several pages developed by Alan Liu, a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Cover, for modern and contemporary American literature, respectively. Includes general resources; authors, works, and projects; teaching resources; and journals.

Voice of the Shuttle: English Literature, Minority Literatures

One of several pages developed by Alan Liu, a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Links to sites featuring the work of African-American, Asian-American, Chicano/Latino, Jewish, and Native American writers. Includes general resources; authors, works, and projects; teaching resources; and journals.

Last Updated April 2002

Outline of American Literature: Contents

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