1 The First Americans:American Literature During the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods

Imagining Eden

Writing of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods

2 Inventing Americas:The Making of American Literature 1800-1865

Making a Nation

The Making of American Myths

The Making of American Selves

The Making of Many Americas

The Making of an American Fiction and Poetry

3 Reconstructing the Past,Reimagining the Future:The Development of American Literature 1865-1900

Rebuilding a Nation

The Development of Literary Regionalisms

The Development of Literary Realism and Naturalism

The Development of Women's Writing

The Development of Many Americas

4 Making It New:The Emergence of Modern American Literature 1900-1945

Changing National Identities

Between Victorianism and Modernism

The Inventions of Modernism

Traditionalism,Politics,and Prophecy

Community and Identity

Mass Culture and the Writer

5 Negotiating the American Century:American Literature Since 1945

Towards a Transnational Nation

Formalists and Confessionals

Public and Private Histories

Beats,Prophets,and Aesthetes

The Art and Politics of Race

Realism and Its Discontents

Language and Genre

Creating New Americas

Index