As early as the turn of the nineteenth century, writers and critics were asking, What is American literature? Having brought the English language to the New World, were Americans burdened with the traditions of English literature, or were they free to develop their own literary traditions? We ask you to consider what makes American literature distinctly American, how that label has changed over the years, and what, exactly, it means to call a work a piece of American literature. The following nine selections will help you give that subject some thought.

Sources

Walt Whitman, from Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1856)

Emma Lazarus, American Literature (1881)

John Macy, from The Spirit of American Literature (1913)

Sherwood Anderson, from An Apology for Crudity (1917)

Amy Lowell, from On “New Poetry” (1917)

Bliss Perry, from The American Spirit in Literature (1920)

D. H. Lawrence, from The Spirit of Place (1923)

Tom Wolfe, from Why They Aren’t Writing the Great American Novel Anymore (1972)

Margaret Atwood, Hello, Martians. Let Moby-Dick Explain (2012)