LITERATURE of the USA on the Web

A long list of author links, listed chronologically, recent additions. Maintained since 1996.

Designed as a companion to the Anthology of Modern American Poetry (811.008 A) published by the Oxford University Press, this site provides historical background, analyses of the poems and excerpts from critical and historical books written about American poetry for over 161 poets, including Ai, Sandra Cisneros, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Hayden, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Mina Loy, James Merrill, Ezra Pound, Adrienne Rich, Genevieve Taggard, Mona van Duyn, and 150 more. It also includes a handy page of links to publishers, submitted syllabi. Edited and maintained by Cary Nelson, Department of English, University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana.

The home page of The Academy of American Poets. Founded in 1934 to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry, it is the largest organization in the country dedicated specifically to the art of poetry.

From the University of Michigan, this collection Most of the archive is made up of 19th century poetry, although a few 18th century and early 20th century texts are included. A hyper-bibliography is in progress, but this seems to be still a primary repository, a place to quickly find the poems of Longfellow, Poe, Robinson and Emma Lazarus

The RSAP is an interdisciplinary organization of scholars interested in American magazines and newspapers. It publishes the journal American Periodicals and the RSAP Newsletter, sponsors panels at the annual meeting of the American Literature Association, and has a free moderated discussion List.

from Paul P. Reuben, Ph.D., Professor of English at California State University Stanislaus. This is a quick and convenient reference to the major movements and various authors in American Literature. It is divided into ten specific chapters, along with a set of appendixes, which can best be categorized as major perspectives and traditionally identified literary movements. Chronologically ordered, each chapter includes a selected bibliography and an introduction, then contains information on major and minor authors. The individual author pages within each chapter tend to include photographs or portraits, primary works of the writer and a selected bibliography of those works, commentary on the author's achievements and contributions, and a set of study questions. The appendixes include discussions of Useful Resources for Research, Minorities and Women Studies, Various Comments on the American Novel, Writing Assignments, The Theme of Alienation and Initiation, Elements of Poetry, Elements of Fiction, Elements of Drama, The MLA Style, Research Topics, American Literary History & Theory, The Frontier in American Literature, Film Criticism and American Literature, and The Gothic and American Literature. The three Elements appendixes include literary terms and definitions.

An instructional Web site focusing on the lives and works of North American women writers of color. The Voices project is made possible through an ongoing collaborative effort between faculty and students in the Department of English and the Program in American Studies at the University of Minnesota. In addition, this site relies upon students and scholars from around the world to contribute author "home pages" for women writers of color. Each author page presents biographical, critical and bibliographical information about the writer as well as images and quotes pertinent to her life and works. Each page includes, in addition, links to other resources on the World Wide Web which contain significant information about that writer. Author pages are organized along a set of four indices: by name, place of birth, significant dates, and ethnic/racial identity.

African American Women Writers of the 19th Century is a digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers. A part of the Digital Schomburg, this collection provides access to the thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920. A selection of published works of fiction, poetry, biography and autobiography, essays. Keyword searching within each work or throughout the collection.; with or without frames; machine-readable transcription. Works featured include Phillis Wheatly, Poems; Narrative of Sojourner Truth; Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

Materials accessible here are The University of Michigan and Cornell University's contributions to Making of America (MOA), a digital library of primary sources, both books and journals, in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. This site provides access to digitized pages of 267 monographs and over 100,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints. This system allows you to view scanned images of the actual pages of the 19th century texts. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) has been performed on the images to enhance searching and accessing the Making of America. MOA is best viewed with a frames-capable browser. Browse, or search simple word or phrases. Advanced (boolean, proximity, frequency) searching is available, as is a full bibliography and large index. The index is by name and title, but to find concepts and subjects takes a bit of manipulation by advanced searching. Nonetheless, it is a large and fascinating treasure trove of 19th century America, mostly from 1850-1877, with much literature in it.

Part of the "Library of Southern Literature" which documents the riches and diversity of southern experience as presented in one hundred of its most important literary works. The bibliography was compiled by the late Professor Robert Bain, based on suggestions from colleagues in Southern studies around the country. The texts for this project come primarily from the Academic Affairs Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Editorial Board for Documenting the American South guides its development. The goal of the "Library of Southern Literature" is to make one hundred of the most important works of Southern literature available world-wide for teaching and research. Currently the project includes over fifty titles that were digitized with special funding from the Chancellor of the University and the Academic Affairs Library. Subject, author and title indexes, and introductory essays, with links, about the Antebellum Era, Biography, Black Literature, Civil War, Folklore, Humor, Local Color Era, and Regionalism, from the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris. Copyright ©1989 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher.

JB 7-19-01