The Romantic movement led to some of the greatest works of 19th-century American literature. Written expressly for students, this book offers succinct introductions to 10 of the most important works of American Romanticism, many of which reflect the social, political, and historical concerns of the era. Included are chapters on Emerson's essays, Poe's The Raven and selected stories, Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, and several other major texts or collections. Each chapter provides biographical information, a review of the author's critical reception, and a discussion of characters, plot, themes, language, and other topics. The volume closes with a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. Romanticism significantly influenced American literature in the 19th century and led to what has sometimes been called the American Renaissance. The Romantic movement and the period roughly contemporaneous with the Civil War gave birth to some of the most creative and enduring poems, novels, short fiction, and essays. These works are among the most imaginative and challenging pieces of American literature and hold a central place in the curriculum. In addition to their value as literary works, they chronicle the enormous social, political, and historical changes taking place in America. Written expressly for high school students, this book conveniently introduces the major works of American Romanticism.

This familiar guide to information resources in the humanities and the arts, organized by subjects and emphasizing electronic resources, enables librarians, teachers, and students to quickly find the best resources for their diverse needs. Authoritative, trusted, and timely, Information Resources in the Humanities and the Arts: Sixth Edition introduces new librarians to the breadth of humanities collections, experienced librarians to the nature of humanities scholarship, and the scholars themselves to a wealth of information they might otherwise have missed. This new version of a classic resource—the first update in over a decade—has been refreshed to account for the myriad of digital resources that have rewritten the rules of the reference and research world, and been expanded to include significantly increased coverage of world literature and languages. This book is invaluable for a wide variety of users: librarians in academic, public, school, and special library settings; researchers in religion, philosophy, literature, and the performing and visual arts; graduate students in library and information science; and teachers and students in humanities, the arts, and interdisciplinary degree programs.

Edith Wharton was one of America's most popular and prolific writers, becoming the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1921. In a publishing career spanning seven decades, Wharton lived and wrote through a period of tremendous social, cultural and historical change. Bringing together a team of international scholars, this volume provides the first substantial text dedicated to the various contexts that frame Wharton's remarkable career. Each essay offers a clearly argued and lucid assessment of Wharton's work as it relates to seven key areas: life and works, critical receptions, book and publishing history, arts and aesthetics, social designs, time and place, and literary milieux. These sections provide a broad and accessible resource for students coming to Wharton for the first time while offering scholars new critical insights.

American Anarchism by Steve J. Shone is a work of political theory and history that focuses on nineteenth century American Anarchism, together with two European anarchists who influenced some of the Americans. The nine thinkers discussed are Alexander Berkman, Voltairine de Cleyre, Samuel Fielden, Luigi Galleani, Peter Kropotkin, Lucy Parsons, Max Stirner, William Graham Sumner, and Benjamin Tucker. Shone emphasizes the value of using ideas from nineteenth century American Anarchism to solve contemporary political problems.

This annotated edition of The Scarlet Letter enhances student and reader comprehension of a standard work studied in literature classes, exploring names, places, objects, and allusions.

The writers of the Beat Generation wrote during a particularly chaotic period in modern history. They responded to the threat of the nuclear age, the anti-Communist hysteria that gripped America, and the cultural pressure to conform to social conventions. Written for students and general readers, this book examines 7 masterpieces of Beat literature. Periods of cultural conflict often give birth to remarkably creative literary works. The writers of the Beat Generation wrote during a particularly chaotic time in modern American history, as they confronted the threat of a nuclear war, the rise of anti-Communist hysteria, and the growing pressure to conform to social conventions. They drew upon the works of jazz musicians, anarchist poets, and others to create an enormously influential and popular body of writing. This book is a guide to their achievement.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,5, University of Hamburg (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Nathaniel Hawthorne, 17 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) is perhaps the best-known American Romantic who worked in the so-called Gothic mode. His poems and stories explore the darker side of the Romantic imagination, dealing with the Grotesque, the supernatural, and the horrifying. Poe also rejected the rational and the intellectual in favour of the intuitive and the emotional, a dominant characteristic of the Romantic Movement. For Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) literature also seemed to depend on the possibility of the Gothic. Hence, of particular interest to Hawthorne was the nature of evil. Like his contemporary Poe, Hawthorne also made extensive use of symbols. One of Hawthorne's and Poe's distinctive concerns is also that of separating head and heart, intellect and soul. Hawthorne explored these Romantic ideas and the themes of obsession, loss and the impossibility of perfection extensively in his short stories "The Artist of the Beautiful" and "The Birthmark". However, in Poe's life and works and thus also in "Ligeia" and "Morella", the stories to be treated in this analysis, love, death and loss, are indissolubly entwined, and serve as the apotheosis of his science and the springboard for his horror. Some critics think that Poe was only a marketer of Gothic horror borrowed from the German models popular during his time. Hence, the pertinent issue in Poe becomes the origins for the terror of the soul. In the following, it will be analyzed which aspects of American Romanticism are treated in Poe' short stories "Ligeia" and "Morella" and in Hawthorne's "The Artist of the Beautiful" and "The Birthmark". For this reason, it is necessary to take a closer look at American Romanticism as a literary movement first.