Contents introduction 3 philosophy of literary criticism

2. Literature of the USA at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries
At the beginning, I would like to make a small excursion into the history of the United States of the period we are interested in, because without knowledge of the main historical events, it is impossible to understand literary processes and analyze texts.
The United States of America is one of the youngest states. The development of the continent by Europeans began in the XVI century; before their appearance, the territory of the future world power was inhabited by Indian tribes. By the XVIII century, the entire North American continent was colonized by Europeans. In 1774, 13 English colonies began military operations in the struggle for independence. The result of their victory on July 4, 1776 was the formation of a new sovereign state.
During the XIX century, the territory of the United States increased due to the acquisition of Louisiana from the French, Florida from the Spaniards and the conquest of other lands. The seizure of local states was accompanied either by the forced eviction of the Indian people on the reservation, or by the complete destruction of the population.
In 1861, disagreements arose between the southern and northern states related to economic and cultural issues, as a result of which a Confederation of 11 southern states emerged, which announced its secession. At the beginning of the civil war, the southerners won several victories, but in the end it ended with the victory of the northern states and the preservation of the federation.
The end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century is marked by a grandiose economic recovery of the United States due to the influx of immigrants from other continents. On April 4, 1917, America entered the First World War. Until that time, the state preferred to take a neutral position in relation to events in Europe. At that moment, the United States was engaged in creating zones of influence in the countries of the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean and Central America. After the war in 1929, a sharp jump in the country's economy was replaced by a terrible crisis. During the Great Depression, production decreased significantly and unemployment increased. On December 7, 1941, as a result of the bombing of the American base in Pearl Harbor by Japanese fighters, the US Army entered World War II with Japan. After December 11, 1941, America entered into a military conflict with Italy and Germany. The Americans deployed all their military operations mainly in the Pacific territory. After the Tehran Conference on June 6, 1944, the US army figured in the defeat of the German army on the Atlantic coast of France. The military operations against Japan were successfully carried out in Southeast Asia and on the Pacific islands. August 6 , 1945 The Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and on August 9 the bomb was dropped on another Japanese city - Nagasaki. On September 2, 1945, Emperor Hirohito of Japan signed an act of surrender. 9
2.1 Literature of the USA of the late XIX century
The end of the XIX century is called by literary scholars the late American Romanticism. During this period, there was a sharp division in the literary space of the country caused by the Civil War between the North and the South. On the one hand, the literature of abolitionism stands out, which, within the framework of romantic aesthetics, protests against slavery from ethical and general humanistic positions. On the other hand, the literature of the South, idealizing the traditions of the slave-owning system, stands up for the historically doomed and reactionary way of life.
The motives of opposition to anti-humanistic laws occupy an essential place in the works of such writers as Longfellow, Emerson, Thoreau, etc. We can observe the same motives in the works of G. Beecher Stowe, D. G. Whittier, R. Hildreth, etc. A complex fusion of romantic and realistic elements is the work of the greatest American poet Walt Whitman. Dickinson's work is imbued with a romantic attitude - already beyond the chronological framework of Romanticism. Romantic motives are organically included in F. 's creative method . Bret Garth, M. Twain, A. Bierce, D. London and other writers of the USA of the late XIX - early XX century. 10
It should be noted that American Romanticism differs significantly from European Romanticism. The assertion of national identity and independence, the search for a "national idea" run through all the art of American Romanticism. The culture of the USA did not have the centuries-old experience that Europe had at that time - by the end of the XIX century, the new nation had not yet managed to "acquire" objects and realities for which romantic associations could be fixed (such as Dutch tulips and Italian roses). But gradually, in the books of Irving and Cooper, Longfellow and Melville, Hawthorne and Thoreau, the phenomena and facts of American nature, history, geography acquire a romantic flavor.
No less significant for American Romanticism was the theme of Indians. Indians in America from the very beginning are a factor associated with a very complex psychological complex - admiration and fear, hostility and guilt. The image of the "noble savage", Indian life, its freedom, naturalness, proximity to nature could become a romantic alternative to capitalist civilization in the books of Irving and Cooper, Thoreau and Longfellow. In the works of these authors we see evidence that the conflict of the two races was not fatally inevitable, but the cruelty and greed of the white settlers were guilty of it. The works of American romantics make the life and culture of Indians an important component of the national literature of the United States, conveying its special imagery and flavor. The same applies to the perception of another ethnic minority - black Americans of the southern states. 3
In American Romanticism, within the framework of a single creative method, there were noticeable regional differences. The main literary regions are New England (northeastern states), the Middle States, and the South.
The atmosphere of the American South is conveyed by the works of D. P. Kennedy and W. G. Simms. It is worth noting that the authors could not completely get rid of the stereotypes of glorifying the virtues of "southern democracy" and the advantages of slave-owning orders. With all these features of limitation, "southern" Romanticism prepares the ground for the formation of a complex, multidimensional, but undoubtedly fruitful "southern tradition" in US literature, which in the XX century is represented by the names of W. Faulkner, R. P. Warren, W. Styron, K. McCullers, S. E. Grau, etc. Southern writers often sharply and fairly criticize the evils of capitalist development in America, the dehumanizing consequences of bourgeois progress, but they do it from a politically reactionary position, claiming that "happily, without knowing worries, a slave lives on a plantation."
From the very beginning, the Middle States are distinguished by great ethnic and religious diversity and tolerance. American bourgeois democracy is being laid here and capitalist relations are developing especially rapidly. The Middle States are associated with the work of Irving, Cooper, Paulding, and later Melville. The main themes in the work of the romantics of the Middle states are the search for a national hero, interest in social issues, reflections on the path traveled by the country, comparison of the past and present of America.
The Romanticism of New England (Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Bryant, etc.) is characterized primarily by the desire for a philosophical understanding of the American experience, for the analysis of the national past, its ideological and artistic heritage. This literature is characterized by the study of complex ethical problems; an important place is occupied by the revision of the Puritan complex of religious and moral ideas of the Puritan colonists of the XVII-XVIII centuries, with which a deep continuity is preserved. New England Romanticism has a strong tradition of moral and philosophical prose, rooted in the puritanical colonial past of America. After the end of the Civil War in the literature of the United States, a realistic direction in literature is developing. A new generation of writers is connected with a new region: it relies on the democratic spirit of the American West, on the element of folk oral folklore and addresses its works to the widest, mass reader. From the point of view of the new aesthetics, romanticism has ceased to meet the requirements of the time. Sharply criticized the romantic "impulses" of M. Twain, F. Bret Garth and other young realist writers. Their contradictions with the Romantics are caused, first of all, by a different understanding of the truth of life and the ways of its expression in artistic creativity. American realists of the second half of the XIX century strive for maximum historical, social and everyday concreteness, they are not satisfied with the language of romantic allegories and symbols.
I must say that this denial is purely dialectical in nature. In the literature of the USA of the XX century there are romantic motives and they are usually associated with the search for lost high ideals and genuine spirituality, the unity of man and nature, with the moral utopia of extra-bourgeois human relations, with a protest against the transformation of the individual into a cog of the state machine. These motifs are clearly visible in the works of the greatest American artists of the word of our century - E. Hemingway and W. Faulkner, T. Wilder, etc. Steinbeck, F. S. Fitzgerald and D. D. Salinger. The writers of the USA of the last decades continue to address them.3
2.2 Literature of the USA at the beginning of the XX century
The beginning of the twentieth century was marked by significant artistic achievements of American literature, which received wide recognition throughout the world. This was largely facilitated by the influx of immigrants from Europe and strong economic development. At the beginning of the century, the conflict between mass literature, petty-bourgeois fiction and pseudo-romantic prose in the style of "refined tradition", on the one hand, and literature seeking to convey life in its dynamics and contradictions, on the other, became more noticeable. Of great importance for the development of literature during this period was the growth of social movements: first - anti-war, then - antimonopoly. Already in the first decades of the twentieth century, three new trends in American literature were identified: critical realism, experimental and socialist literature. 3
An important stage in the literary life of America was Dreiser's novel "Genius". This work shows the conflict between the true creative principle and external circumstances that prevent it from being realized. Dreiser believed that the romance of profit prevails in American society, the minds are possessed by the belief that the existing system is the best. In his opinion, Hollywood has captured not only cinematography, but also literature: heroes in American literature have stopped working, poverty has become a myth, and difficulties are solved with the help of various intrigues.
The growing force of realistic literature was represented by such authors as Mark Twain, E. Sinclair, J. London, etc. Many of them supported the movement of the so- called "mud rakers". This group of writers became the founders of the American sociological novel, combining journalistic research with artistic understanding in their work. 3
In April 1917, the United States announced its entry into the First World War. America has never fought on its own territory, but its literature was also shaken by the theme of the "lost generation". The problems associated with the war were included not only in the books of those writers who fought on the fronts of Europe, such as E. Hemingway. The war, intertwined with other semantic lines in different works, touches on problems specific to America - big money and the collapse of the American dream - helps to see and see the true value of things, lies and self-serving artificiality of official slogans. The economic crisis of the 20-30s pulled all the contradictions into a single knot, exacerbating social conflicts: farms were ruined in the South and West, fierce clashes unfolded in the North and Northeast at mines and factories. T. Dreiser writes about the disasters of the Garlan miners, Steinbeck told the whole world about the tragedy of farmers in California and the Far West. The turbulent 30s find their most truthful and profound reflection in the works of E. Hemingway, W. Faulkner, J. Steinbeck, A. Miller, S., Fitzgerald.
The beginning of the century was also marked by new trends in the development of ethnic cultures. Interest in the work of Native American writers is growing, the number of publications of works by black Americans is increasing, among which William Dubois, P.L. Dunbar, C.W. Chesnut are singled out. They capture a wide American audience. The influx of immigrants to the United States gave rise to a kind of literature, both in English and in the languages of immigrants from different countries who came to America. 3 This phenomenon gave impetus to a new stage in the development of not only US literature, but also culture in general.
A characteristic feature of American realists was that, borrowing some formal features of the modernist novel, they retain the aesthetic principles of critical realism: the ability to create types of enormous social significance, to show deeply typical circumstances of provincial and metropolitan life for American reality; the ability to portray life as a contradictory process, as a constant struggle and action, in contrast to the decadent novel, which replaces the image of social contradictions with a departure into the inner world of the hero.
The masters of American prose of the early twentieth century deliberately created simple plots, depriving them of the elements of entertainment inherent in the novels of the XIX century. In their opinion, such an approach to creativity is better able to emphasize the tragedy of the main character's position. Traditional autobiography continued to fuel realistic elements of American literature, such as factography and documentalism. The authors believed that in the twentieth century, the aesthetics of reading should become more intense, so they do not seek, like their predecessors, to report everything basic about their heroes in the exhibition; an additional effort is required from the reader to assimilate and comprehend the components of the novel's complex composition.
The beginning of the twentieth century in the USA not only revealed great names to the world community, but also became a difficult transition period for the country from the state of "arrogant youth" to a more mature understanding of things. The "Great Depression" of the 30s was officially overcome in 1933, but its presence in literature goes far beyond the designated limits. The experience of these difficult years has forever remained in Americans as an immunity against complacency, carelessness and spiritual indifference. It formed the basis for the further development of the national formula of success, helped to strengthen the moral foundation of American business, reflected in the literature. 2