目录

  • 1 American Literature - Learning Sources
    • 1.1 American Passage: A Literary Survey
    • 1.2 American Literature- NYU
    • 1.3 TTC Classics of American Literature
    • 1.4 American Novel Since 1945-Yale
    • 1.5 Heath Anthology of American Literature
    • 1.6 PAL:Perspectives in American Literature
    • 1.7 TGC Literature&Life
    • 1.8 Introduction to Literature and Life- Yale
    • 1.9 Music Videos
  • 2 Native American Literature
    • 2.1 Overview
    • 2.2 Oral Tradition-Navajo Songs
    • 2.3 Native American Renaissance
    • 2.4 Native Voices -Timeline
    • 2.5 References
  • 3 Puritan Literature(1620-1763)
    • 3.1 Overview
    • 3.2 Puritanism in American Life
    • 3.3 Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)
    • 3.4 Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
  • 4 Enlightenment Literature (1764-1815)
    • 4.1 Overview
    • 4.2 Benjamin Franklin(1706-1790)
    • 4.3 Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
    • 4.4 Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
    • 4.5 Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804)
  • 5 American Romanticism (1815-1865)
    • 5.1 Overview
    • 5.2 American Romanticism vs. British Romanticism
    • 5.3 Washington Irving(1783-1859)
    • 5.4 James Fenimore Cooper
    • 5.5 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
      • 5.5.1 The Cask of Amontillado
      • 5.5.2 Annabel Lee
      • 5.5.3 The Raven
    • 5.6 Emerson, Thoreau and Transcendentalism
      • 5.6.1 American Transcendentalism
      • 5.6.2 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
        • 5.6.2.1 Self-Reliance
      • 5.6.3 Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
    • 5.7 Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
      • 5.7.1 The Scarlet Letter
    • 5.8 Herman Melville
      • 5.8.1 Moby Dick - Chapter 41
    • 5.9 Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
      • 5.9.1 Free Verse
      • 5.9.2 Song of Myself by Whitman
      • 5.9.3 Oh Me Oh Life- Whitman in Dead Poets' Society
      • 5.9.4 I Dwell in Possibility - Dickinson
      • 5.9.5 “I Died for Beauty - but was scare” - Dickinson
    • 5.10 References
  • 6 American Realism (1865-1914)
    • 6.1 Overview
    • 6.2 William Dean Howells
    • 6.3 Local Colorism
      • 6.3.1 Mark Twain
        • 6.3.1.1 The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
        • 6.3.1.2 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    • 6.4 Henry James & Psychological realism
    • 6.5 Stephen Crane and Naturalism
    • 6.6 References
  • 7 American Modernism(1915-1945)
    • 7.1 The Imagist Movement
      • 7.1.1 Ezra Pound
      • 7.1.2 William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
    • 7.2 The Lost Generation Writers
      • 7.2.1 F.Scott Fitzgerald(1896-1940)
      • 7.2.2 Earnest Hemingway(1899-1961)
    • 7.3 William Faulkner (1897-1962)
    • 7.4 Trifles (1916) by Susan Glaspell
    • 7.5 Eugene O’Neill
    • 7.6 Tennessee Williams
    • 7.7 Arthur Miller
  • 8 American Postmodernism (1945-)
    • 8.1 Ovewview
    • 8.2 The Beat Generation
    • 8.3 Black Humor - Joseph Heller
    • 8.4 African American Literature
    • 8.5 Chinese American Literature
    • 8.6 References
Oral Tradition-Navajo Songs

Song in the Garden of the House of God

(from the Navajo corn-planting ritual)


Truly in the east
The white bean
And the great corn plant
Are tied with the white lightening.
Listen! Rain approaches!
The voice of the bluebird is heard.
Truly in the east
The white bean
And the great squash
Are tied with the rainbow.
Listen! Rain approaches!
The voice of the bluebird is heard.

From the top of the great corn-plant the water gurgles, I hear it;
Around the roots the water foams, I hear it;
Around the roots of the plants it foams, I hear it;
From their tops the water foams, I hear it.

The corn grows up. The waters of the dark clouds drop, drop.
The rain descends. The waters from the corn leaves drop, drop.
The rain descends. The waters from the plants drop, drop.
The corn grows up. The waters of the dark mists drop, drop.

Shall I cull this fruit of the great corn-plant?
Shall you break it? Shall I break it?
Shall I break it? Shall you break it?
Shall I? Shall you?

Shall I cull this fruit of the great squash vine?
Shall you pick it up? Shall I pick it up?
Shall I pick it up? Shall you pick it up?
Shall I? Shall you?


to know more about Navajo culture,please click here.