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The American Tradition in Literature, Volume 2 Book Cover
The American Tradition in Literature, Volume 2, 10/e
George Perkins, Eastern Michigan University
Barbara Perkins, University of Toledo-Toledo


Table of Contents

*- indicates selection or author is new to this edition
PREFACE
AN AGE OF EXPANSION
From Romanticism to Realism
Regionalism
The Gilded Age NEW VOICES IN POETRY WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892). Song of Myself. I Saw in Louisiana a Live-oak Growing. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking. When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer. Cavalry Crossing a Ford. When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd. To a Common Prostitute. A Noiseless Patient Spider. EMILY DICKINSON (1830-1886). 49 [I never lost as much but twice]. 67 [Success is counted sweetest]. 130 [These are the days when Birds come back -- ]. 214 [I taste a liquor never brewed -- ]. 241 [I like a look of Agony]. 249 [Wild Nights -- Wild Nights!]. 252 [I can wade Grief -- ]. 258 [There's a certain Slant of light]. 280 [I felt a Funeral, in my Brain]. 285 [The Robin's my Criterion for Tune -- ]. 288 [I'm Nobody! Who are you?]. 290 [Of Bronze -- and Blaze -- ] 303 [The Soul selects her own Society -- ]. 320 [We play at Paste -- ]. 322 [There came a Day at Summer's full]. 324 [Some keep the Sabbath going to Church]. 328 [A Bird came down the Walk -- ]. 341 [After great pain, a formal feeling comes -- ]. 376 [Of Course -- I prayed -- ]. 401 [What Soft -- Cherubic Creatures -- ] 435 [Much Madness is divinest Sense -- ]. 441 [This is my letter to the World]. 448 [This was a Poet -- It is That]. 449 [I died for Beauty -- but was scarce]. 465 [I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died -- ]. 478 [I had no time to Hate -- ] 511 [If you were coming in the Fall]. 526 [To hear an Oriole sing]. 528 [Mine -- by the Right of the White Election!]. 547 [I've seen a Dying Eye]. 556 [The Brain, within its Groove]. 569 [I reckon -- when I count at all -- ]. 579 [I had been hungry, all the Years -- ]. 581 [I found the works to every thought]. 585 [I like to see it lap the Miles -- ]. 632 [The Brain -- is wider than the Sky -- ]. 636 [The Way I read a Letter's -- this -- ]. 640 [I cannot live with You -- ]. 650 [Pain -- has a Element of Blank -- ]. 657 [I dwell in Possibility -- ]. 701 [A Thought went up my mind today -- ]. 712 [Because I could not stop for Death -- ]. 732 [She rose to His Requirement -- dropt]. 754 [My Life had stood -- a Loaded Gun -- ]. 816 [A Death blow is a Life blow to Some]. 823 [Not what We did, shall be the test]. 986 [A narrow Fellow in the Grass]. 1052 [I never saw a Moor -- ]. 1078 [The Bustle in a House]. 1082 [Revolution is the Pod]. 1100 [The last Night that She lived]. 1129 [Tell all the Truth but tell it slant -- ]. 1176 [We never know how high we are]. 1207 [He preached upon "Breadth" till it argued him narrow -- ]. 1263 [There is no Frigate like a Book]. 1304 [Not with a Club, the Heart is broken]. 1332 [Pink -- small -- and punctual -- ]. 1463 [A Route of Evanescence]. 1465 [Before you thought of Spring]. 1510 [How happy is the little Stone]. 1540 [As imperceptibly as Grief]. 1587 [He ate and drank the precious Words -- ]. 1624 [Apparently with no surprise]. 1670 [In winter in my Room]. 1732 [My life closed twice before its close -- ]. 1760 [Elysium is as far as to]. Letters. [To Recipient Unknown, about 1858]. [To Recipient Unknown, about 1861] [To Recipient Unknown, early 1862?]. [To T.W. Higginson] 15 April 1862. [To T.W. Higginson] 25 April 1862. [To T.W. Higginson] 7 June 1862. [To T.W. Higginson, July 1862] [To T.W. Higginson, August 1862]. SIDNEY LANIER (1842-1881). The Symphony. The Stirrup-Cup. The Marshes of Glynn. REALISTS AND REGIONALISTS LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1832-1888). Little Women. Playing Pilgrims A Merry Christmas The Laurence Boy MARK TWAIN (1835-1910). The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Roughing It. [When the Buffalo Climbed a Tree]. Life on the Mississippi. Frescoes from the Past. The Boys' Ambition. [A Mississippi Cub-Pilot]. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. *How to Tell a Story Letters from the Earth. Letter II: Satan to Michael and Gabriel. WILLIAM DEANS HOWELLS (1837-1920). Criticism and Fiction. Chapter II [The True Standard of the Arts]. Chapter XIII [How Can an Art Decay?]. Chapter XXI [American and Old World Novelists]. Chapter XXIV [The Prudishness of the Anglo-Saxon Novel]. Editha. HENRY JAMES (1843-1916). Daisy Miller. The Real Thing. The Beast in the Jungle. The Art of Fiction. BRET HARTE (1836-1902). The Outcasts of Poker Fat. *SARAH WINNEMUCCA HOPKINS (1844-1894). Life amoung the Piutes Chapter 1: First Meeting of Piutes and Whites AMBROSE BIERCE (1842-1914?). The Boarded Window. GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE (1844-1925). Belles Demoiselles Plantation. JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS (1848-1908). The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story. Mr. Rabbit Finds His Match at Last. THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
Spiritual Unrest
Naturalism HENRY ADAMS (1838-1918). The Dynamo and the Virgin. SARAH ORNE JEWETT (1849-1909). A White Heron. KATE CHOPIN (1851-1904). The Awakening. MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN (1852-1930). The Revolt of "Mother". CHARLES W. CHESNUTT (1858-1932). The Passing of Grandison. HAMLIN GARLAND (1860-1940). Under the Lion's Paw. CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN (1860-1935). The Yellow Wallpaper. EDITH WHARTON (1862-1937). The Muse's Tragedy. Roman Fever. *MARY AUSTIN (1868-1934). The Fakir *FRANK NORRIS (1870-1902). A Plea for Romantic Fiction. STEPHEN CRANE (1871-1900). A God in Wrath. Once I Saw Mountains Angry. A Man Saw a Ball of Gold in the Sky. God Lay Dead in Heaven. Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War Is Kind. The Wayfarer. A Man Said to the Universe. The Trees in the Garden Rained Flowers. Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. The Open Boat. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945). The Second Choice. JACK LONDON (1876-1916). To Build a Fire. LITERARY RENAISSANCE
Twentieth-Century Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance
Poetry between the Wars NEW DIRECTIONS: THE FIRST WAVE EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON (1869-1935). Luke Havergal. The House on the Hill. The Clerks. Richard Cory. Aunt Imogen. Miniver Cheevy. Leonora. Bewick Finzer. Eros Turannos. Mr. Flood's Party. The Mill. Firelight. The Tree in Pamela's Garden. New England. EDGAR LEE MASTERS (1868-1950). Petit, the Poet. Elsa Wertman. Hamilton Greene. Carl Hamblin. Lucinda Matlock. Davis Matlock. PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR (1872-1906). We Wear the Mask. A Death Song. Life's Tragedy. At the Tavern. Sympathy. WILLA CATHER (1873-1947). Neighbour Rosicky. *ELLEN GLASGOW (1873-1945). Jordan's End. GERTRUDE STEIN (1874-1946). The Gentle Lena. ROBERT FROST (1874-1946). The Tuft of Flowers. Mending Wall. Home Burial. After Apple-Picking. The Wood-Pile. The Road Not Taken. The Oven Bird. Birches. The Hill Wife. The Ax-Helve. The Grindstone. The Witch of Coös. Fire and Ice. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Two Tramps in Mud Time. Desert Places. Design. Come In. Directive. CARL SANDBURG (1878-1967). Fog. Nocturne in a Deserted Brickyard. Monotone. Gone. A Fence. Grass. Southern Pacific. Washerwoman. SHERWOOD ANDERSON (1876-1941). The Book of the Grotesque. Adventure. *SUSAN GLASPELL (1876?-1948). A Jury of Her Peers ERZA POUND (1885-1972). Portrait d'une Femme. The Seafarer. A Virginal. The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter. A Pact In a Station of the Metro. Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. The Cantos. I: [And then went down to the ship]. XIII: [Kung walked]. LXXXI: [What thou lovest well remains]. CXVI: [Came Neptunus]. T.S. ELIOT (1888-1965). Tradition and the Individual Talent. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Gerontion. The Waste Land. The Hollow Men. AMY LOWELL (1874-1925). Patterns. A Decade. Meeting-House Hill. ELINOR WYLIE (1885-1928). Wild Peaches. Sanctuary. Prophecy. Let No Charitable Hope. O Virtuous Light. H.D. (HILDA DOOLITTLE) (1886-1961). Heat. Heliodora. Lethe. Sigil. POETS OF IDEA AND ORDER WALLACE STEVENS (1879-1955). Peter Quince at the Clavier. Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock. Sunday Morning. Depression before Spring. Ploughing on Sunday. Anecdote of the Jar. The Snow Man. Bantams in Pine-Woods. A High-Toned Old Christian Woman. The Emperor of Ice-Cream. To the One of Fictive Music. The Idea of Order at Key West. A Postcard from the Volcano. Of Modern Poetry. No Possum, No Sop, No Taters. The Plain Sense of Things. Of Mere Being. WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS (1883-1963). The Young Housewife. Tract. To Mark Anthony in Heaven. Portrait of a Lady. Queen-Anne's-Lace. The Great Figure. The Bull. Spring and All. The Red Wheelbarrow. This Is Just to Say. The Yachts. A Sort of a Song. The Dance. Raleigh Was Right. The Pause. The Ivy Crown. MARIANNE MOORE (1887-1972). Poetry. In the Days of Prismatic Color. An Egyptian Pulled Glass Bottle in the Shape of a Fish. No Swan So Fine. The Frigate Pelican. The Pangolin. The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing. In Distrust of Merits. A Jelly-Fish. JOHN CROWE RANSOM (1888-1974). Winter Remembered. Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter. Blue Girls. Antique Harvesters. The Equilibrists. ALLEN TATE (1899-1979). Ode to the Confederate Dead. The Swimmers. HART CRANE (1899-1932). At Melville's Tomb. Voyages: I. Voyages: II. Royal Palm. The Bridge. To Brooklyn Bridge. Van Winkle. The River. Indiana. The Tunnel. A LITERATURE OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHALLENGE
Drama between the Wars
Primitivism
The Roaring Twenties and the Lost Generation
Depression and Totalitarian Menace EUGENE O'NEILL (1888-1953). The Hairy Ape. ROBINSON JEFFERS (1887-1962). To the Stone-Cutters. Roan Stallion. Boats in a Fog. Shine, Perishing Republic. The Purse-Seine. *CLAUDE MCKAY(1889-1948). The Harlem Dancer Harlem Shadows America Outcast ARCHIBALD MACLEISH (1892-1982). Ars Poetica. You, Andrew Marvell. Immortal Autumn. EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY (1892-1950). First Fig. I Shall Go Back Again to the Bleak Shore. What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why. She Had a Horror He Would Die at Night. Justice Denied in Massachusetts. This Beast That Rends Me in the Sight of All. Since of No Creature Living the Last Breath. Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat Nor Drink. Even in the Moment of Our Earliest Kiss. Those Hours When Happy Hours Were My Estate. I Will Put Chaos into Fourteen Lines. E.E. CUMMINGS (1894-1962). Thy Fingers Make Early Flowers Of. When God Lets My Body Be. In Just-. Buffalo Bill's. O Thou to Whom the Musical White Spring. My Sweet Old Etcetera. I Sing of Olaf Glad and Big. If There Are Any Heavens. Somewhere I Have Never Traveled, Gladly Beyond. Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town. My Father Moved through Dooms of Love. Up into the Silence the Green. Plato Told. When Serpents Bargain for the Right to Squirm. I Thank You God. JEAN TOOMER (1894-1967). Karintha. Reapers. November Cotton Flower. COUNTEE CULLEN (1903-1946). Yet Do I Marvel. Heritage. EPITAPHS: For My Grandmother. For a Lady I Know. Only the Polished Skeleton. LANGSTON HUGHES (1902-1967). The Negro Speaks of Rivers. The Weary Blues. Song for a Dark Girl. Trumpet Player. MONTAGE OF A DREAM DEFERRED: Dream Boogie. Motto. Green Memory Harlem. Feet Live Their Own Life. *CAROLINE GORDON (1895-1981) The Ice House F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940). Babylon Revisited. JOHN DOS PASSOS (1896-1970). U.S.A. The 42nd Parallel. Big Bill. Proteus. 1919. The House of Morgan. The Body of An American. The Big Money. Newsreel LXVI. The Camera Eye (50). Vag. WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897-1962). That Evening Sun. Barn Burning. ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1899-1961). Big Two-Hearted River: Part I. Big Two-Hearted River: Part II. THOMAS WOLFE (1900-1938). An Angel on the Porch. KATHERINE ANNE PORTER (1890-1980) The Jilting of Granny Weatherall. ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1891-1960). From Their Eyes Were Watching God. The Yellow Mule. JOHN STEINBECK (1902-1968). The Chrysanthemums. RICHARD WRIGHT (1908-1960). Black Boy. [A Five Dollar Fight]. THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
Postwar Drama
Postwar Poetry
Postwar Fiction
Multiculturalism DRAMA TENNESSEE WILLIAMS (1911-1983). The Glass Menagerie. ARTHUR MILLER (1915- ). Death of a Salesman. POETRY ROBERT PENN WARREN (1905-1989). History among the Rocks. Founding Fathers, Nineteenth-Century Style, Southeast U.S.A. Blow, West Wind. THEODORE ROETHKE (1908-1963). Open House. Cuttings (later). My Papa's Waltz. Night Crow. Elegy for Jane. The Waking. I Knew a Woman. The Far Field. Wish for a Young Wife. The Pike. In a Dark Time. ELIZABETH BISHOP (1911-1979). The Fish. At the Fishhouses. Questions of Travel. The Armadillo. Sestina. In the Waiting Room. The Moose. One Art. North Haven. JOHN BERRYMAN (1914-1972). THE DREAM SONGS: 1: [Huffy Henry hid the day]. 4: [Filling her compact & delicious body]. 14: [Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. 29: [There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart]. 76: [Henry's Confession. 145: [Also I love him: me he's done no wrong]. 153: [I'm cross with god who has wrecked this generation]. 384: [The marker slants, flowerless, day's almost done]. 385: [My daughter's heavier: Light leaves are flying.] WILLIAM STAFFORD (1914-1993). Before the Big Storm. Judgments. One Home. The Farm on the Great Plains. GWENDOLYN BROOKS (1917-2000). a song in the front yard. The Bean Eaters. We Real Cool. The Lovers of the Poor. Horses Graze. ROBERT LOWELL (1917-1977). In Memory of Arthur Winslow. After the Surprising Conversions. Her Dead Brother. Sailing Home from Rapallo. Waking in the Blue. Skunk Hour. The Neo-Classical Urn. For the Union Dead. For Theodore Roethke. Reading Myself. Obit. Flight. Epilogue. HOWARD NEMEROV (1920-1991). The Sanctuary. The Goose Fish. The Vacuum. Figures of Thought. RICHARD WILBUR (1921- ). The Beautiful Changes. Museum Piece. The Death of a Toad. Exeunt. Running. FICTION EUDORA WELTY (1909-2001). A Memory. JOHN CHEEVER (1912-1982). The Swimmer. RALPH ELLISON (1914- ). Invisible Man. Chapter 1 [Battle Royal]. BERNARD MALAMUD (1914-1986). The Mourners. JAMES BALDWIN (1924-1987). Sonny's Blues. FLANNERY O'CONNOR (1925-1964). Good Country People. A CENTURY ENDS AND A NEW MILLENNIUM BEGINS
Drama
Poetry
Fiction
Multiculturalism DRAMA EDWARD ALBEE (1928- ). The American Dream. SAM SHEPARD (1943- ). True West. POETRY JAMES DICKEY (1923-1997). The Lifeguard. Cherrylog Road. The Shark's Parlor. A. R. AMMONS (1926-2001). Corsons Inlet. The Wide Land. Cascadilla Falls. Poetics. Easter Morning. Extrication. I Could Not Be Here At All. ROBERT BLY (1926- ). Driving toward the Lac Qui Parle River. Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter. Watering the Horse. The Executive's Death. Looking at New-Fallen Snow from a Train. ALLEN GINSBERG (1926-1997). A Supermarket in California. Howl. America. JAMES MERRILL (1926-1995). A Timepiece. Charles on Fire. The Broken Home. Yánnina. Samos. FRANK O'HARA (1926-1966). A Step Away from Them. Why I Am Not a Painter. A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island. The Day Lady Died. Steps. Ave Maria. W. D. SNODGRASS (1926- ). April Inventory. The Examination. JOHN ASHBERY (1927- ). Some Trees. The Painter. Pyrography. Crazy Weather. As We Know. A Prison All the Same. The Desperado. At North Farm. The Ongoing Story. Down by the Station, Early in the Morning. W.S. MERWIN (1927- ). Grandmother and Grandson. The Drunk in the Furnace. The Last One. Vision. Trees. JAMES WRIGHT (1927-1980). Morning Hymn to a Dark Girl. A Note Left in Jimmy Leonard's Shack. Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio. Having Lost My Sons, I Confront the Wreckage of the Moon: Christmas, 1960. In Terror of Hospital Bills. Two Postures Beside a Fire. The Vestal in the Forum. ANNE SEXTON (1928-1974). Her Kind. The Farmer's Wife. The Truth the Dead Know. All My Pretty Ones. With Mercy for the Greedy. Letter Written on a Ferry Crossing Long Island Sound. ADRIENNE RICH (1929- ). Aunt Jennifer's Tigers. Living in Sin. The Diamond Cutters. Necessities of Life. The Trees. Face to Face. Diving into the Wreck. For the Dead. Upper Broadway. For the Record. GARY SNYDER (1930- ). The Late Snow & Lumber Strike of the Summer of Fifty-four. Riprap. this poem is for bear. Not Leaving the House. Axe Handles. SYLVIA PLATH (1932-1963). Morning Song. The Rival. The Arrival of the Bee Box. The Applicant. Daddy. Lady Lazarus. Death & Co. Child. Mystic. AMIRI BARAKA (1934- ). In Memory of Radio. An Agony. As Now. *MARY OLIVER (1935- ). In Blackwater Woods. The Ponds. Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, New York, 1957. Yes! No! Early Morning, New Hampshire. *JAY WRIGHT (1935- ). A Month in the Country. Preparing to Leave Home. BOLEROS: 10 [Here, / as we stand in the Mayan evening]. 35: Indian Pond. The Buried Barn's Own Nocturne. *SIMON J. ORTIZ (1941- ). Vision Shadows. Poems from the Veterans Hospital: 8:50am Ft. Lyons VAH. Traveling. From Sand Creek: [At the Salvation Army]. DAVE SMITH (1942- ). On a Field Trip at Fredericksburg. Cumberland Station. The Roundhouse Voices. Elegy in an Abandoned Boatyard. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. RITA DOVE (1952- ). Champagne. Ö. Dusting. Roast Possum. *LORNA DEE CERVANTES (1954- ). Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in a War Between the Races. For Virginia Chavez. Emplumadu. CATHY SONG (1955- ). Picture Bride. Beauty and Sadness. Heaven. Immaculate Lives. FICTION *NASH CANDELARIA (1928- ). El Patrón. JOHN BARTH (1930- ). Lost in the Funhouse. TONI MORRISON (1931- ). Sula: 1992. JOHN UPDIKE (1932- ). Separating. PHILIP ROTH (1933- ). The Conversion of the Jews. *ANNIE PROULX (1935- ). The Half-Skinned Deer. *DON DELILLO (1936- ). The Angel Esmeralda THOMAS PYNCHON (1937- ). Entropy. RAYMOND CARVER (1938-1988). A Small, Good Thing. JOYCE CAROL OATES (1938- ). Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? BOBBIE ANN MASON (1940- ). Shiloh. ANNE TYLER (1941- ). Average Waves in Unprotected Waters. ALICE WALKER (1944- ). Everyday Use. TIM O'BRIEN (1946- ). Going After Cacciato: Night March. ANN BEATTIE (1947- ). Janus. *CHARLES JOHNSON (1948- ). Exchange Value. LESLIE MARMON SILKO (1948- ). The Man to Send Rain Clouds. AMY TAN (1952- ). Half and Half. LOUISE ERDRICH (1954- ). The Red Convertible. *BARBARA KINGSOLVER (1955- ). Homeland THE GLOBALIZATION OF AMERICAN LITERATURE VLADIMIR NABOVKOV (1899-1977). Pnin: Chapter Five [Pnin at the Pines]. ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER (1904-1991). Gimpel the Fool. CZESLAW MILOSZ (1911- ). Campo dei Fiori. Fear. Café. In Warsaw. Ars Poetica? To Raja Rao. Gift. With Her. SAUL BELLOW (1915- ). A Silver Dish. DENISE LEVERTOV (1923- ). The Third Dimension. To the Snake. The Room. The Willows of Massachusetts. Olga Poems: i: [By the gas-fire, kneeling]. ii: [The high pitch of]. vi: [Your eyes were the brown gold of pebbles under water.]. Living. The 90th Year. CHARLES SIMIC (1938- ). Fear. Bestairy for the Fingers of My Right Hand. Fork. Euclid Avenue. Prodigy. My Weariness of Epic Proportions. JOSEPH BRODSKY (1940-1996). From Lullaby of Cape Cod. IV: [The Change of Empires Is Intimately Tied]. Belfast Tune. A Song. In Memory of My Father: Australia. At a Lecture. To My Daughter. BHARATI MUKHERJEE (1940- ). The Management of Grief. ISABEL ALLENDE (1942- ). And of Clay Are We Created. JAMAICA KINCAID (1949- ). Mariah *JHUMPA LAHIRI (1955- ). The Third and Final Continent.