American Literature In The Colonial And National Periods Scholars Choice Edition PDF Download

Excerpt from History of American Literature It is now an accepted doctrine among teachers of English that the study of the history of literature should take a comparatively small part of the high-school student's time and that the first-hand study of the literature itself should receive his largest effort. But in order to approach intelligently the actual literature of any period or country and to gain a clear grasp of its progress as a whole, the young student will need at least a brief handbook to set before him in organized form the essential facts of the literary history of that period or country. American literature, particularly in the two earlier periods, is but an interpretation of the political, social, and industrial life of the growing nation. In a brief survey of these early periods it will only be necessary to refresh the high-school students memory regarding the historical backgrounds and to list for him the chief writers of the peculiar kinds of literature produced during these periods, giving an occasional quotation from the more important literary monuments in order to satisfy the students antiquarian interest and intellectual curiosity as to the sorts of material which our ancestors produced in these periods. In the later period, beginning about 1800 and extending down to the present, the student will need a somewhat fuller treatment of the artistic or permanent literature, mainly because the aim of the teacher here will be to lead the student to read more deeply in this literature, both because of its nearness to him and because of its greater artistic importance. The plan of this "History of American Literature," then, is to treat briefly the Colonial and Revolutionary periods, giving the essential facts of the literary history, together with a few illustrative quotations from such of the authors as may be of most interest to young students; and to treat in more detail the important literary movements and figures of the nineteenth century, bringing the record down through practically the first two decades of the twentieth century. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.