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with a pre-planned plot, and hisplays are fresh and lifelike. His surrealisticflair and experimentalismlink him with Edward Albee, but hisplays are earthier and funnier, andhis characters are drawn more realistically.They convey a bold WestCoast consciousness and makecomments on America in their useof landscape motifs and specificsettings and contexts.David Mamet (1947- )Equally important is DavidMamet, raised in Chicago, whosewriting was influenced by theStanislavsky method of acting thatrevealed to him the way “the languagewe use...determines the waywe behave, more than the other wayaround.” His emphasis on languagenot as communication but as aweapon, evasion, and manipulationof reality give Mamet a contemporary,postmodern sensibility.Mamet’s hard-hitting playsinclude American Buffalo (l975), atwo-act play of increasingly violentlanguage involving a drug addict, ajunk store, and an attempted theft;and Speed-the-Plow (1987). Theacclaimed and frequently anthologizedGlengarry Glen Ross (l982),about real estate salesmen, wasmade into an outstanding 1992movie with an all-star cast. Thisplay, like most of Mamet’s work,reveals his intense engagementwith some of America’s unresolvedissues — here, as if in an update ofArthur Miller’s Death of aSalesman, one sees the need fordignity and job security, especiallyPhoto: Sara Krulwich /The New York TimesSAM SHEPARDDAVID MAMETPhoto © Robin Holland /CORBIS OUTLINEfor older workers; competitionbetween older and younger generationsin the workplace; intensefocus on profits at the expense ofthe welfare of workers; and —enveloping all — the corrosiveatmosphere of competition carriedto abusive lengths.Mamet’s Oleanna (l991) effectivelydissects sexual harassmentin a university setting. TheCryptogram (1994) imagines achild’s horrific vision of family life.Recent plays include The OldNeighborhood (1991) and BostonMarriage (1999).David Rabe (1940- )Another noted dramatist is DavidRabe, a Vietnam veteran who wasone of the first to explore thatwar’s upheaval and violence in TheBasic Training of Pavlo Hummel(l971) and Sticks and Bones (l969).Subsequent plays include TheOrphan (l973), based onAeschylus’s Oresteia; In the BoomBoom Room (1973), about the rapeof a dancer; and Hurlyburly (1984)and Those the River Keeps (l990),both about Hollywood disillusionment.Rabe’s recent works includeThe Crossing Guard (l994) andCorners (1998), about the conceptof honor in the Mafia.August Wilson (1945-2005)The distinguished African-American dramatist August Wilson,born Frederick August Kittel, wasthe son of a German immigrant whodid not concern himself with hisfamily. Wilson endured poverty and119
acism and adopted the surname ofhis African-American mother as ateenager. Influenced by the blackarts movement of the late 1960s,Wilson co-founded Pittsburgh'sBlack Horizons Theater.Wilson’s plays explore African-American experience, organized bydecades. Ma Rainey's BlackBottom (l984), set in 1927 Chicago,depicts the famous blues singer.His acclaimed play Fences (1985),set in the 1950s, dramatizes theconflict between a father and a son,touching on the all-Americanthemes of baseball and theAmerican dream of success. JoeTurner's Come and Gone (1986)concerns boarding-house residentsin 1911. The Piano Lesson (1987),set in the 1930s, crystallizes a family’sdynamic by focusing on the heirloompiano. Two Trains Running(1990) takes place in a coffeehousein the 1960s, while Seven Guitars(1995) explores the 1940s. ■AUGUST WILSONPhoto © Cori Wells Braun /CORBIS OUTLINE120
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special songs for children’s game
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Painting courtesy Smithsonian Insti
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he accepted his lifelong job as a m
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solo trip in 1704 from Boston to Ne
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mon, “Sinners in the Hands of an
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CHAPTER2DEMOCRATIC ORIGINSAND REVOL
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should look out for themselves.Bad
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of a Horse the Rider was lost, bein
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translate Homer. Dwight’s epic wa
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Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810)A
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ness, and they became legends inthe
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CHAPTER3THE ROMANTIC PERIOD,1820-18
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physical self-discovery. For the Ro
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great detail, is a concrete metapho
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Whitman’s voice electrifies evenm
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anti-slavery poems such as“Ichabo
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CHAPTER4THE ROMANTIC PERIOD,1820-18
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cratic families: “The truth is, t
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emanates from the Book of Genesis i
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of ratiocination, or reasoning. The
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has become legendary:I have ploughe
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looked until recently. The same can
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the weak or vulnerable individual.S
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falling tree, and every lick makes
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Edel calls James’s first, or “i
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who had lived a century earlier. Pr
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the quiet poverty, loneliness, and
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TWO WOMENREGIONAL NOVELISTSNovelist
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CHAPTER6MODERNISM ANDEXPERIMENTATIO
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more technological, and more mechan
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erary and social traditions for the
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(1935), and Parts of a World (1942)
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Page 71 and 72: F. Scott Fitzgerald(1896-1940)Franc
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Page 75 and 76: John Steinbeck (1902-1968)Like Sinc
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Page 81 and 82: TRADITIONALISMTraditional writers i
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Page 85 and 86: John Berryman (1914-1972)John Berry
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Page 93 and 94: Acoma, New Mexico.A central text in
Page 95 and 96: Americans, from Harper (a collegepr
Page 97 and 98: At the opposite end of the theoreti
Page 99 and 100: Robert Penn Warren(1905-1989)Robert
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Page 119: paths of life in his early years,fl
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Page 127 and 128: moments of spiritual insight rescue
Page 129 and 130: the city in which I love you.And I
Page 131 and 132: loads up steep hills on the Greekis
Page 133 and 134: Billy Collins (1941- )The most infl
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Page 137 and 138: CHAPTER10CONTEMPORARYAMERICANLITERA
Page 139 and 140: with private lives.Influenced by Th
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Page 145 and 146: Coast. Cotton and the plantationcul
Page 147 and 148: tle, open-ended fiction; recent vol
Page 149 and 150: nature essayist Rick Bass (1958- ),
Page 151 and 152: AMY TANPhoto: Associated Press /Gra
Page 153 and 154: Sherman Alexie (1966- ), aSpokane/C
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Page 159 and 160: GLOSSARYFaust: A literary character
Page 161 and 162: GLOSSARYPoet Laureate: An individua
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Page 165 and 166: INDEXBabbitt (Sinclair Lewis) 60, 7
Page 167 and 168: INDEXCummings, Edward Estlin (e.e.
Page 169 and 170: INDEXGolden Apples, The (Eudora Wel
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INDEXKumin, Maxine 90, 130Kushner,
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INDEX“Negro Speaks of Rivers, The
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INDEXSeascape (Edward Albee) 117Sea
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INDEXWaiting (Ha Jin) 155Waiting fo
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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE /BUREAU OF
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