From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature a book by Richard Ruland and Malcolm Bradbury

From Modernist/Postmodernist perspective, leading critics Richard Ruland (American) and Malcolm Bradbury (British) address questions of literary and cultural nationalism. They demonstrate that since the seventeenth century, American writing has reflected the political and historical climate of its time and helped define America's cultural and social parameters. Above all, they argue that American literature has always been essentially "modern," illustrating this with a broad range of texts: from Poe and Melville to Fitzgerald and Pound, to Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Thomas Pynchon. From Puritanism to Postmodernism pays homage to the luxuriance of American writing by tracing the creation of a national literature that retained its deep roots in European culture while striving to achieve cultural independence.

Review

"Rarely has the national literature been made to cohere so convincingly: Ruland and Bradbury proceed smoothly from writer to writer, at every turn drawing illuminating connections…An elegant book."The Washington Post

"Highly informative…a map of American literature that puts every writer in place."The New York Times

"This is an excellent and readable survey of nearly 300 years of American writing and literary criticism in a flowing style that shows no signs of the tremendous concentration of information. Sure to become a classic; for general and special literature collections."Library Journal

"…a sound, balanced account of how American writers created works that reflected a new nation with new experience, a new science and a new politics on a new continent,…this is a comprehensive, often vibrant history of how American writers declared independence from older European forms before making their own unique contributions to world literature."Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Malcolm Bradbury (1932-2000) was Professor of Literature and American Studies first at the University of Birmingham (1961-65) and then at the University of East Anglia from 1970 until his retirement in 1995. Bradbury became a Commander of the British Empire in 1991 for services to literature and was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours 2000, again for services to literature.

Richard Ruland is Professor Emeritus of English, American, and Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. After teaching in the English and American Studies programs at Yale University for several years, he has been a member of the English Department faculty at Washington University from 1967 until his recent retirement.