LITERATURA

NORTE-AMERICANA

autor
HÉLCIO DE PÁDUA LANZONI

1ª edição
SESES
rio de janeiro  2016
Conselho editorial  luis claudio dallier, roberto paes e paola gil de almeida

Autor do original  hélcio de pádua lanzoni

Projeto editorial  roberto paes

Coordenação de produção  paola gil de almeida, paula r. de a. machado e aline

karina rabello

Projeto gráfico  paulo vitor bastos

Diagramação  bfs media

Revisão linguística  marianna la vega

Revisão de conteúdo  cláudia freitas

Imagem de capa  morenovel | shutterstock.com

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qualquer sistema ou banco de dados sem permissão escrita da Editora. Copyright seses, 2016.

Dados Internacionais de Catalogação na Publicação (cip)

L297l Lanzoni, Hélcio de Pádua

Literatura norte-americana / Hélcio de Pádua Lanzoni.
Rio de Janeiro: SESES, 2016.
104 p: il.

isbn: 978-85-5548-360-8

1. Literatura norte americana. I. SESES. II. Estácio.

cdd 810.72

Diretoria de Ensino — Fábrica de Conhecimento

Rua do Bispo, 83, bloco F, Campus João Uchôa
Rio Comprido — Rio de Janeiro — rj — cep 20261-063
Sumário

Prefácio 5

1. O despertar de uma literatura 7

1.1  The beginning of the American literature 8
1.2  Settlement in America 9
1.2.1  The Puritans 10
1.2.2  The Puritanism and Capitalism 11
1.2.3  John Smith (1580 – 1631) 12
1.2.4  Anne Bradstreet (1612 – 1672) 13
1.3 Enlightenment 15
1.3.1  Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 1758) 16
1.3.2  Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790) 17
1.3.3  Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809) 19

2. O Romantismo 25

2.1  The romantic movement 27

2.1.1  Romanticism in North American Literature 28
2.2 Transcendentalism 29
2.2.1  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) 30
2.2.3  Walt Whitman (1819-1892) 32
2.2.5  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) 34
2.3  Gothic literature 36
2.3.1  Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) 37

3. Do Romantismo ao Realismo 43

3.1  Other american romantic authors 45

3.1.1  Herman Melville (1819-1891) 46
 3.1.2  Emily Dickinson 48
3.2  The rise of realism 51
3.2.1  Mark Twain (1835-1910) 52
3.2.2  Stephen Crane (1871 – 1900) 54
3.2.3  Ambrose Bierce (1843-1913/1914) 55
3.2.4  Jack London (1876 – 1916) 57
3.2.5  Brooker T. Washington (1856-1915) 59

4. Modernismo e experimentação 65

4.1  The rise of modernism 67

4.1.1  Robert Frost (1874-1963) 68
4.1.2  F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940) 70
4.1.3  William Faulkner (1897-1962) 72
4.1.4  John Steinbeck (1902-1968) 74
4.1.5  Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) 77

5. Pós-modernismo e literatura contemporânea 83

5.1  Post-war literature 85

5.1.1  Shirley Hardie Jackson (1916 - 1965) 85
5.1.2  J. D. Salinger (1919 - 2010) 86
5.1.3  Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) 88
5.1.4  Arthur Miller (1915-2005) 90
5.2  Beat generation 91
5.2.1  Jack Kerouac (1922 - 1969) 93
5.2.2  Allen Ginsberg (1926 - 1997) 94
5.3  Contemporary writers 95
5.3.1  Anne Rice (1941) 96
5.3.2  Stephen King (1947) 97
5.3.4  Khaled Hosseini (1965) 99
Prefácio
Prezados(as) alunos(as),

Pode ser chamada de Literatura Americana toda literatura escrita ou pro-

duzida em território americano ou em suas antigas colônias. Durante os pri-
mórdios de sua história, a “América” era uma série de colônias britânicas na
costa leste do que hoje são os Estados Unidos. Portanto, sua tradição literária
tem início com forte influência da literatura inglesa. No entanto, com o tempo,
as características particulares da América e os temas de sua produção literária
levaram à consolidação de um estilo diferenciado e específico.
Os textos escritos em território americano tiveram início com aventureiros e
colonos ingleses que vieram ao Novo Mundo, e os primeiros textos tinham o ob-
jetivo explícito de agradar os compatriotas que ficaram na Inglaterra. O primei-
ro livro publicado nas colônias formadas pelos Puritanos foi Bay Psalm Book, de
1640, e tinha o objetivo de divulgar e promover um Estado religioso por meio de
histórias passionais que enfatizavam o destino grandioso daquele povo.
O período após a Independência e já com a aproximação da Revolução Ame-
ricana – a Guerra da Secessão – foi uma época de grande atividade intelectual
e mudança social. Entre os homens que estavam à frente do novo país havia
vários escritores, como Thomas Jefferson. Assim, as crescentes tensões entre o
Norte e o Sul que culminaram na Guerra Civil refletiram na literatura regional.
Enquanto a Guerra Civil tomava seu inexorável curso, a proposta de reunifica-
ção foi colocada à frente pelo presidente Abraham Lincoln no texto mais puro e
exato dos ideais políticos americanos, o Gettysburg Address. Após o término do
conflito, a literatura gradualmente voltou a ganhar uma identidade nacional,
expandindo sua popularidade – como os textos dos autores regionais, que pas-
saram a encontrar grande audiência.
Este livro fornece, assim, uma introdução geral à literatura americana, des-
de suas origens até os dias de hoje. É necessário enfatizar, no entanto, que a
literatura de um país é influenciada pelos acontecimentos históricos, pelas
condições políticas e econômicas, pelo contexto cultural, pelas expectativas e
temores de seu povo. Deste modo, conhecer a trajetória da história do país é
parte fundamental do estudo de sua literatura.

Bons estudos!

5
 1
O despertar de uma
literatura
1.  O despertar de uma literatura
A história da literatura americana começa muito antes da existência de um país
chamado Estados Unidos da América. Além da literatura oral dos povos nativos
americanos, os primeiros escritores foram exploradores, como o capitão John
Smith (1580 – 1631), que escreveu sobre suas experiências no Novo Mundo.
Os primeiros colonos permanentes, os Puritanos, eram muito interessados
em educação e cultura, que eram a raiz do seu projeto de dar início a uma
sociedade teocrática. A Universidade de Harvard foi fundada em 1636, e a
primeira gráfica começou a operar em 1638. Portanto, o Novo Mundo viu
emergir uma literatura que era, em sua maioria, composta de sermões,
histórias, autobiografias e poemas – todos escritos com finalidades religiosas.
O estudo da fase inicial da literatura americana examina, portanto, as
literaturas que surgiram desde o período colonial, passa pela independência
do país e pelo amadurecimento da nova nação.

OBJETIVOS
A leitura deste capítulo tem como objetivo fornecer conhecimento sobre a formação do novo
país e os temas centrais de sua história inicial. É importante conhecer as questões históricas
do período de colonização e formação dos primeiros assentamentos permanentes, que
levaram à formação de uma identidade local própria, que gradativamente foi se diferenciando
da literatura de origem inglesa.

1.1  The beginning of the American literature

The American Literature begins with the oral transmission of myths, legends,
tales and song lyrics from Indian cultures. The oral tradition of the American
Indian is quite diversified. The Indian stories make a brilliant reference to
nature as a spiritual as well as physical mother.
For them, nature is alive and in possession of spiritual forces. Their main
characters could be animals or plants, or even a totem.

8• capítulo 1
 The American Indian’s contribution to the United States culture is greater
than most people think. Hundreds of Indian words are used every day in the
American English. Among these words we can mention “canoe”, “tobacco”,
“potato”, “moccasin”, “moose”, “persimmon”, “raccoon”, “tomahawk” and
“totem”.
©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 1.1  –  Colonists arrive in the New World.

There is also an extensive contemporary literary production, which

contains very beautiful texts. Nevertheless, the first European register about
the exploration of America was originally written in a Scandinavian dialect. The
book focus on the adventurous Leif Eriksson and a bunch of stray Norwegians
settled for a brief period on the Northeast coast of the American continent –
probably in today’s New Scotia, in Canada, in the first decade of the 11th Century.

1.2  Settlement in America

The first known and certified contact between the Americans and the rest of
the world began with the famous voyage of an Italian explorer, Christopher
Columbus, funded by the queen of Spain, Isabel. The Columbus diary, printed
in 1493, tells the details of his journey to the unknown.

capítulo 1 •9
 The first attempts of the English to colonize the New World were disastrous.
The first colony was founded in 1585 in Roanoke, in today’s North Carolina coast.
All of its settlers disappeared. The second settlement lasted longer: Jamestown,
founded in 1607. It resisted hunger, brutality and precarious governments.
Nevertheless, the literature of this period paints America in bright colors, as a land
of plenty and opportunity. Stories about the settlers became famous worldwide.
In the 17th century, pirates, explorers and all sorts of people looking for
adventure formed a second wave of permanent settlers, who brought along their
wives, children, tools and agricultural experience. The first literary productions
of the time consisted of diaries, letters, travel logs and reports to those who
funded the explorers. Once the North American colonies were England’s
possessions, colonial literature was heavily influenced by English literature.

1.2.1  The Puritans

In the world history, there has probably never been other settlers as
intellectualized as the Puritans, most of whom of English and Dutch origin.
Between 1630 and 1690, there were as many scholars in the northeast region of
the United States (New England) as in England. The Puritans always prevailed
due to their own efforts, and viewed education as a means to realize God’s wish
and found their colonies throughout New England.
©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 1.2  –  19th-century painting depicting Puritan pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in
1620.

10 • capítulo 1
 The literary style of the Puritans was varied – ranging from complex
metaphysical poetry to domestic diaries, including religious history with strong
notes of pedantism.
Regardless of the style, certain themes were a commonplace. Life was seen
as a test: failure leads to eternal damnation and to the fire of hell. On the other
hand, success leads to eternal happiness. This world was an arena in which God
and the Devil (a terrible enemy with many disguises) were always struggling.

1.2.2  The Puritanism and Capitalism

Scholars have frequently emphasized the link between Puritanism and

Capitalism: both are based on ambition, hard work and continuous struggle
towards success. In strictly theological terms, once the Puritans believed that
they had their access to Heaven guaranteed, they viewed earthly success as a
sign that they were the chosen ones.
They sought wealth and status not only for themselves, but as an always
welcome guarantee of spiritual health and promises of eternal life. Besides,
their administrative concepts stimulated success. The Puritans believed that,
as they increased their profits and the well-being of their communities, they
were also promoting God’s plans.
The greatest model of literature, faith and behavior was the Bible, in
an authorized English version. The great antiquity of the Bible assured its
authority, in the Puritan way of seeing the world.
In the end of the 17th century and beginning of the 18th, the religious
dogmatism diminished gradually, despite the great sporadic efforts of the
Puritans in halting the wave of tolerance. The spirit of tolerance and religious
freedom that grew little by little in the American colonies was initially planted
in Rhode Island and in Pennsylvania, land of the Quakers.
The human very tolerant Quakers (or “friends”, as they were known) believed
in the sacred character of individual consciousness as the origin of social order
and morality. The fundamental belief of the Quakers in universal love and
fraternity made them extremely democratic and contrary to dogmatic religious
authority. Expelled from the rigid state of Massachusetts, which feared their
influence, the Quakers settled a very successful colony in Pennsylvania, under
the leadership of William Penn, in 1681.

capítulo 1 • 11
1.2.3  John Smith (1580 – 1631)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 1.3  – 

According to the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Americas were supposed to be

shared between Portugal and Spain, but Queen Elizabeth I, of England, ignored
the treaty and sent expeditions to colonize the Northern section of America.
John Smith arrived in the new world in 1607, in Jamestown, located in today’s
state of Virginia. During his stay, he met Pocahontas (1595 – 1617), the daughter
of an Indian chief. He allegedly lived a love story with her. Nevertheless, the
story could never be proved. The texts that he wrote, True Relation of Virginia
(1608) and Descriptions of New England (1616) had the intention of persuading
people from England to come to the colony.

12 • capítulo 1
©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 1.4  –  Pocahontas throws herself over Smith to rescue him - 1870 depiction.

In 1609, he had to return to England and soon after Pocahontas was also
taken to England, with a delegation of eleven other members of her tribe as a
“proof” that Indians could be “domesticated”. Once the English Court refused
to meet Pocahontas with the due respect, John Smith wrote a letter to Queen
Anna telling how Pocahontas had saved him in Jamestown. Pocahontas got sick
and died in England when she was about to return to America.

1.2.4  Anne Bradstreet (1612 – 1672)

The poet Anne Dudley was born in Northampton, England, but she is considered
an American author. Her father had participated in the Reformation movement
and, therefore, became unpopular due to his religious convictions. The family
was put under the supervision of the son of a Puritan priest, Simon Bradstreet,
assistant of the new-founded Massachusetts Bay Company, with whom Anne
got married at the age of sixteen, changing her name to Anne Bradstreet.
In 1630, she migrated with her family to the New World, aboard the Arbella,
the legendary ship that was one of the first to serve the Puritan exodus. They
arrived in New England after a journey that lasted three months, and Anne’s

capítulo 1 • 13
father was nominated Boston’s vice-governor. Her husband became the
Principal Administrator of the city.

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 1.5  –  Anne Bradstreet.

Nevertheless, Anne did not have the same luck to settle in the new city. Besides
the extremely harsh boat journey, she did not adapt well to the climate and living
conditions. Then, after other minor diseases, she acquired a progressive paralysis
that affected her articulations, which was not an obstacle to bear eight children.
Restricted to the household and domestic chores, she tried to alleviate the
long and frequent absences of her husband, who was always dealing with State
affairs and settlement of newcomers, by reading and writing verses.
In 1649, one of his brothers took with him a manuscript containing her
poems, which he published under the title The Tenth Muse. The book would
be reedited the following year as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America
(1650), this time in Boston. Based on the everyday lives of British colonists in
America, the texts of Bradstreet were forgotten due to its abundance of common-
places and Puritan aesthetics, which was considered an imitation of the poetry
of her days. Nevertheless, she was rediscovered by the 20th century feminists,
who claimed to have found in her poems significant artistic qualities.
Her already weak health conditions got worse when she contracted
tuberculosis, which caused her death on September 16, 1672, in Andover,
Massachusetts.

14 • capítulo 1
1.3  Enlightenment

Enlightenment is a period in Western Europe that stretches from the 1650s

until the 1780s, affecting intellectual and cultural forces. The American
Enlightenment stretched from 1714 until 1818. The Enlightenment was mainly
promoted by philosophers and local thinkers that met in places like the urban
coffee houses, salons, and places alike.
By the end of the 18th century, the French Revolution not only triggered a
transformation in the political structures of the nation, but also emphasized
the ideals that were the basis of the struggle against the old regimen. The
political, social and cultural agenda in Europe would never be the same. Under
such circumstances, the Enlightenment should be understood as the most
important set of ideas to be employed on these unprecedented requests.
Not limited to Europe, Enlightenment ideals spread by the French
Revolution reached the American continent, where the fights for autonomy
breached the chains of colonial pacts. Although the search for equality and
freedom were a common expectation, we cannot simplistically assume that
the American population was basically copying a foreign set of ideals. Above
all, the political and social agents in America were quite different from those
in Europe.

CONNECTION
History is full of details that are not commonly mentioned, but that are worth checking.
Access the link below to know 10 very interesting facts concerning the Enlightenment:
<http://infactcollaborative.com/history/10-interesting-facts-about-the-enlightenment.html>.

In the Americas, a type of contradiction becomes very visible, once the

creation of a privileged elite and the exploration of labor are typical features of
the colonial mindset.
In fact, the members of elite were the ones that first embraced the political
emancipation movements in America, defending the ideals of freedom of the
Enlightenment, but the main focus was the reinforcement of their economic
bonds with the capitalist powers.

capítulo 1 • 15
Figura 1.6  –  The Declaration of (American) Independence – John Trumbull.

The Enlightenment was paramount to the American independence, once it

brought innovative ideals to the New World and its leaders. First, the common
man did not question – he would simply keep going with his simple life. After
the Enlightenment, many concepts changed.
In the British colonies that would become The United States of America,
the Enlightenment ideals were first brought from the metropolis, but were
redefined with more radical political and religious contours. Enlightenment
ideals exerted a great influence on the thoughts and political practices of the
founding fathers of the new nation.

1.3.1  Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 1758)

Considered one of the greatest

American philosophers, John Edwards
was a congregational preacher,
Calvinist theologian, and American
Indian missionary.
Edwards’ theological work is quite
broad, including his defense of the
reformed theology, the metaphysics
of theological determinism, and the
Puritan heritage. Edwards played a
Figura 1.7  –  central role in the formation of the

16 • capítulo 1
First Great Awakening and his sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is
considered a classic of the early American literature.
Edwards is well-known for his many books, among them Concerning the
End for which God Created the World; The Religious Affections; Freedom of
the Will. His books inspired thousands of missionaries throughout the 19th
century and they are read until the present days.
Jonathan Edwards died due to a smallpox inoculation, soon after the
beginning of his term as a president of New Jersey College, which later would
become Princeton University.

Quando jovem, Jonathan Edwards não conseguia aceitar o conceito calvinista de

soberania de Deus. Certa vez, ele escreveu: "Desde a minha infância, minha mente
tem se mantido cheia de objeções contra a doutrina de soberania de Deus... Para mim,
esta era uma doutrina terrível."
No entanto, em 1721, ele estava lendo a Bíblia e meditando quando lhe ocorreu o
seguinte pensamento: “Conforme eu lia as palavras, entrou na minha alma, como se
fosse algo difuso, um sentimento de glorificação do Ser divino; uma nova sensação,
muito diferente de tudo o que eu já havia experimentado anteriormente (...).” Daquele
ponto em diante, Edwards aceitou a soberania de Deus e, posteriormente, reconheceu
esta experiência como sua conversão para Cristo.

1.3.2  Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

A man of several talents, Benjamin

Franklin was born in Boston and in
his long life he was journalist, editor,
author, philanthropist, abolitionist,
public servant, scientist, diplomat and
inventor, especially in his experiments
with electricity. He was also one of the
leaders of the American Revolution.

Figura 1.8  – 

capítulo 1 • 17
 Franklin was a very religious man, Calvinist, and, at the same time, a
representative figure of the Enlightenment. His father, Josiah Franklin, was
a wax candle merchant and married twice. Franklin was the fifteenth child of
twenty, from both marriages.
He left his formal education at the age of ten and at twelve started working
as an apprentice with his brother, a printer that published a journal called
New England Courant. He started contributing with this publication and, for
some time, was its editor. The brothers had an argument and Benjamin fled to
Philadelphia in October 1723.
He worked in several typographies, moving from city to city until a merchant
called Thomas Denham made him return to Philadelphia, giving him a job in
his business.
In 1732, he started to publish the famous Poor Richard’s Almanac, from
which he gained most of his popularity in the US. Some proverbs that first
appeared in his almanac are very popular until today, like “Never leave for
tomorrow what you can do today”.
Franklin and several other members of the Philosophic Association gathered
their resources in 1731 and opened the first public library in Philadelphia. The
success of this initiative encouraged the creation of many other libraries in
different American cities.
In 1758, he printed the sermon Father Abraham, considered today the most
famous literary text produced in colonial times.
©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG
In a time span of few years, he
made discoveries about electricity that
brought him international reputation.
Franklin identified the positive and
negative charges and demonstrated
that lightning is a phenomenon of
electrical nature. He turned this theory
unforgettable because of the extremely
dangerous experiment in which he
flew a kite during a lightning storm in
October 1752. In his appointments,
Franklin demonstrated that he was
aware of the dangers and the alternative
ways to demonstrate that thunder was Figura 1.9  –  Benjamin Franklin Drawing
an electrical phenomenon. Electricity from the Sky..

18 • capítulo 1
 His many inventions include the lightning rod, the Franklin stove (a wood
heater that became very popular), and the bifocal lenses.
Nevertheless, Benjamin Franklin was getting more and more concerned
with public matters. He founded New York University and the American
Philosophical Society, which had the purpose of fomenting the divulgation of
new findings among men of science.
After several trips throughout England and Europe, he came back to
Philadelphia in 1785, where he was greeted as a hero and elected the President
of Pennsylvania. He was one of the delegates of the convention that wrote the
American Constitution and tried, in vain, to abolish slavery. He wrote numerous
essays, articles and pamphlets, but his most famous book was Autobiography,
published posthumously (1791). He died in Philadelphia and he was honored
with his face printed in the one-hundred-dollar bill.

CONNECTION
Have you ever heard of “The electrical Ben Franklin”? Well, this is a tender nickname Benjamin
Frankin got from his fans. As you read, he invented several items that are common until today.
Click on the link below and find ou more about in amazing man.
<http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/info/inventions.htm>.

1.3.3  Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809)

Thomas Paine was a British thinker that participated in the immense

transformations the world went through during his lifetime. After trying to
make a living in different professions in England and an unsuccessful marriage,
Paine decided to go to the United States in search of new opportunities. On his
arrival in the prosperous region of the Thirteen Colonies, he started to advocate
for the independence of the United States.

capítulo 1 • 19
 ©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 1.10  –  Thomas Paine.

In the New World, he started writing a text called Common Sense, in which
he directed attacks towards the British control of the colonies. The book was an
immediate success and sold 100,000 copies in the year of 1776. Not satisfied with
the power of his own words, Thomas Paine participated in the Independence
War, side by side with George Washington and La Fayette.
In the end of 1789, Paine went to Paris for the purpose of patenting one of his
inventions. Nevertheless, the French capital was facing a tremendous turmoil
due to the crisis of the monarchic power. The fascination of that moment of
political transformation that led to the French Revolution motivated him to
write The Rights of Man. Once again, he was not content enough with his own
words and participated on the creation of the French Republic Constitution.
Before his return to the US, he published a short book which title was
Agrarian Justice. In this book he establishes an idea in which, like in political
rights, the right of property should be universalized to men. According to him,
the process of land exclusion should be corrected through a tributary system
called “natural right”. According to this kind of taxation, every farmer should
provide a certain amount of money, which would be equally transferred to all
citizens. Every person older than 21 should receive a monthly income of 15
pounds from the government as a compensation for his right to the land.
The economic thoughts of Paine had a singular meaning by proposing
a kind of social policy that moved away from the revolution or a miraculous
solution. This theory, known as “universal dividends”, still inspires left wing
groups and present-day ultraliberals. Even though his economic principles

20 • capítulo 1
were very simplistic, the theory of universal dividends is still able to inspire
contemporary economists.
The acclaimed Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize in economy in 1972, defended
the creation of a “negative tax”, which was supposed to end the social security
programs and complement the income of those who had low salaries. After
World War II, the Welfare State tried to institute ways through which citizens
would have a minimal wage guaranteed by the State.
Paine’s theory was, to a certain extent, able to please both liberals and
socialists, once it was able to sustain a dialogue between principles that
valued simultaneously equality and individuality. This way, Thomas Paine
sought rationally a simplified way to socially protect the individuals without
putting freedom and personal interests as obstacles for the construction of a
fairer society.

ATIVIDADE
O Puritanismo foi um movimento em prol da reforma completa da Igreja da Inglaterra que
teve início no reinado de Elizabete I (1558) e continuou por mais de um século como uma
grande força religiosa na Inglaterra e também nos Estados Unidos. “Uma versão militante da
fé reformada” (Dewey D. Wallace, Jr.).
Pesquise sobre o assunto e descubra o sentido real do termo “Puritano”.

REFLEXÃO
A literatura americana começa com mitos, lendas e contos transmitidos oralmente pelas
culturas indígenas. Não há literatura escrita nas mais de 500 diferentes línguas indígenas
que existiam na América do Norte antes da chegada dos primeiros europeus.
Os primeiros textos americanos surgiram com os relatos de aventureiros e colonos
ingleses no Novo Mundo, para informação dos leitores na Inglaterra. Alguns destes trabalhos
iniciais chegaram a alcançar a denominação de literatura, como por exemplo, o relato
detalhado de suas aventuras feito pelo Capitão John Smith.
No início, no entanto, a literatura da Nova Inglaterra era também direcionada à edificação
e instrução dos próprios colonos, com o objetivo de encaminhá-los na direção de Deus.
Os textos da era colonial americana têm tanta importância como história quanto como
literatura. Afinal, os primeiros colonos ficaram cara a cara com o estranho, o selvagem, os

capítulo 1 • 21
índios, animais e plantas diferentes. Tudo isso encontrava na Europa leitores ávidos pelas
fantásticas narrativas dos bravos colonos daquela terra selvagem.
Assim, da mesma forma como ocorre com o surgimento de literaturas nacionais, a
literatura americana foi moldada pela história do país que a produziu. Por quase um século e
meio, a América era apenas um grupo de colônias espalhadas pela costa leste do continente
norte-americano. Apenas depois de uma rebelião contra a Inglaterra uma nova nação emergiu.

LEITURA
Conhecer a vida de Benjamin Franklin é um mergulho na formação dos Estados Unidos
e no espírito empreendedor americano. O livro “Benjamin Franklin - Uma Vida Americana”
(Walter Isaacson - Companhia Das Letras) mostra este importante personagem da história
americana. Veja esta definição do livro:
“Um dos chamados Pais Fundadores dos Estados Unidos, Benjamin Franklin está entre
as figuras mais influentes de sua época, cujas descobertas científicas e ideias filosóficas
e de negócios reverberam mundo afora. É também um homem de carne e osso que foi
fundamental no desenvolvimento do que é hoje a nação mais poderosa do mundo.
Nessas páginas, Walter Isaacson — autor do best-seller Steve Jobs: A biografia — narra
a tumultuada trajetória deste escritor, cientista, inventor, diplomata e jornalista. Isaacson
mostra como essa vida inacreditável ultrapassa o seu próprio tempo e como a colaboração
de Franklin em documentos como a Declaração de Independência Americana ajudou a
moldar o mundo moderno.” Disponível em: <http://www.saraiva.com.br/benjamin-franklin-
uma-vida-americana-9128171.html>.

REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
ALVES, Julia Falivene. A Invasão cultural Norte-Americana. Brasil: Editora Moderna, 2004.
Anglo Saxon Literature. Disponível em: <http://anglosaxonliterature.wikispaces.com/Anglo-
Saxon+Christianity>. Acesso em 13 fev. 2016.
BESSA, Maria Cristina. Panorama da Literatura Norte Americana. Brasil: Alexa Cultural, 2008.
Brasil Escola. Disponível em: <http://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historia-da-america/o-iluminismo-nas-
americas.htm>. Acesso em: 17 fev. 2016.
Embaixada Americana. Disponível em: <http://www.embaixada-americana.org.br/HTML/
literatureinbrief/chapter01.htm>. Acesso em: 15 fev. 2016.

22 • capítulo 1
FLETCHER, H. Robert. A History of English Literature for Students. Boston: Richard G. Badger,
2010.
Historia a do Mundo. Disponível em: <http://historiadomundo.uol.com.br/inglesa/thomas-paine.
htm>. Acesso em: 12 fev. 2016.
KARNAL, Leandro. Estados Unidos – A Formação da Nação. Brasil: Contexto, 2001.
Infopedia. Disponível em: <http://www.infopedia.pt/anne-bradstreet>. Acesso em: 10 fev. 2016.

capítulo 1 • 23
24 • capítulo 1
 2
O Romantismo
2.  O Romantismo
O Movimento Romântico, que originou-se na Alemanha, mas rapidamente se
espalhou pela Inglaterra, França e além, alcançou a América por volta do ano de
1820, cerca de 20 anos depois de William Wordsworth Samuel Taylor Coleridge
terem revolucionado a poesia inglesa ao publicarem Lyrical Ballads.
Tanto na América quanto na Europa, esta nova visão do mundo
entusiasmou os círculos artísticos e intelectuais.
De qualquer modo, havia uma diferença importante: o Romantismo na
América coincidia com o período de expansão nacional e a descoberta de
uma voz americana própria. A solidificação de uma identidade nacional e o
crescente idealismo e paixão do romantismo incentivaram as obras de arte da
“renascença americana”.
O romantismo era apropriado para a maioria dos poetas americanos e
ensaístas criativos. As montanhas, desertos e trópicos da América do Norte
davam corpo ao sublime. O espírito Romântico parecia particularmente
adequado à democracia americana, pois enfatizava o individualismo,
afirmava os valores da pessoa comum e olhava para a imaginação inspirada
por valores estéticos e éticos.
Certamente, os Transcendentalistas da Nova Inglaterra – Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Henry David Thoreau e outros – tiveram inspiração na nova
afirmação otimista do movimento romântico. Assim, na Nova Inglaterra o
romantismo encontrou terreno fértil.

OBJETIVOS
Neste capítulo você vai conhecer o Movimento Romântico, que surgiu na Europa, mas logo
aportou em terras americanas, desencadeando o romantismo norte-americano. Esta fase
da literatura traz uma série de características que devem ser observadas para compreender
os movimentos literários posteriores. Serão abordados também os principais nomes do
movimento romântico norte-americano.

26 • capítulo 2
2.1  The romantic movement

The literary movement called Romanticism occurred in the end of the 18th century
and lasted until most of the 19th century. Several sectors of the society were affected
by this manifestation that included artistic, literary, political and social aspects.
Romanticism brought along several points of view concerning
Neoclassicism, which values were based on rationalism – thoughts based
on logic. And, contrary to the objective thinking and logical reasoning, the
Romantic Generation focused on subjectivity and emotions in general.
There were basically three romantic generations. The first one focused on
subjectivity and the search for uncommon things, dreams, and emotions – all
were away from material reality. The first Romantics also valued nationalism
and utopian thoughts. The women described in romantic texts or poems were
desired, but could not be reached by their admirers.
The second Romantic generation had a taste for bad things. They were
known as Byronic Generation or Ultra-romantic. Pessimism was the center of
their thoughts, as was the obsession for death. Even though in this generation
the loved one was accessible, their members felt no joy, and this generation
frequently led unhealthy or even destructive lifestyles.
©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 2.1  –  George Gordon Byron.

capítulo 2 • 27
 The poet George Gordon Byron, best known as Lord Byron, was one of the
precursors of this tendency, which influenced the lives of the second-generation
romantics. A new term was coined: “Byronism”, a movement that emulated
Byron’s lifestyle. He cultivated several vices, both in his characters and in his
personal life.
The third Romantic generation is closer to another literary movement,
called Realism, in which the desired woman could be reached and things that
were considered wrong in society were exposed with irony.
Nevertheless, one of the characteristics that were common to all Romantic
generations was “exaggeration”, along with egocentrism, when “me” is in the
center of everything.

A obra de Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Os Sofrimentos do Jovem Werther, caracteriza

a ideologia Romântica em quase todos os aspectos. Em quase toda carta que o
personagem Wether escreve, ele menciona seu coração.
Werther segue seu coração, não sua cabeça. Sua obsessão por uma mulher
inatingível e o foco na natureza fazem parte do ideário Romântico. Em uma de
suas cartas, o jovem Werther descreve suas experiências com a natureza que o
rodeia. Ele afirma que, quando está na natureza, ele “consegue sentir a presença do
Todo-Poderoso”.
De acordo com os Românticos, Deus está na natureza e a natureza está em Deus.
Werther demonstra sua crença de que a melhor forma de contatar Deus é através da
natureza. Ele não está ali para analisar como um cientista – ele está ali para sentir.
Esta obra de Goethe expressa com muita precisão os pensamentos e valores
Românticos, e a leitura de Os sofrimentos do Jovem Werther é uma ótima maneira de
compreender melhor este movimento artístico e literário.

2.1.1  Romanticism in North American Literature

As mentioned previously, the Romantic Movement was born in Germany and

spread throughout Europe. It landed in North-American territory around 1820.
The development of the “self” became the central focus, and the self-
consciousness was the most important method. If, according to Romantic
theory, the “self” and nature was one sole thing, the self-consciousness was not

28 • capítulo 2
a selfish path, with no way out. On the contrary, it was a form of knowledge that
expanded the universe.
The “self” vibrated in harmony with the universe, the individual had the
obligation of reversing social inequalities and relieving human suffering. The
concept of “self” that prior generations viewed as selfishness was redefined.
New compound words, with positive meanings, were coined: auto-realization,
auto-expression, self-sufficiency, etc.
As the “self” gained importance in literature, the same occurred in the
psychology field. Techniques and exceptional artistic effects were created to
evocate elevated psychological states. The “sublime” – the effect of beauty in a
grand scenery, like the view from the top of a mountain – produced moments of
respectful awe, reverence, a force beyond human comprehension.
Romanticism was affirmative and appropriate for most poets and creative
American essayists. The great mountains, the deserts and the tropics of the USA
represented the sublime. The Romantic spirit seemed especially appropriate
for American democracy, once it emphasized individualism, reinforced the
value of the common man, and sought, through inspired imagination, its
ethical and aesthetic values.

CONEXÃO
Visite o site Study.com e veja o conteúdo em inglês sobre o Período Romântico da literatura
americana. Há vídeos muito didáticos e interessantes sobre este período literário.
Disponível em: <http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-romantic-period-in-american-
literature-and-art.html>.

2.2  Transcendentalism

The Transcendentalist movement, represented by the essayists Ralph Waldo

Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, was a reaction against the rationalism of
the 18th century and was intimately connected to the Romantic Movement.
This movement is usually associated to Concord, state of Massachusetts, a city
near Boston, where Emerson, Thoreau and a group of other writers lived.
In general, Transcendentalism was a liberal philosophy that privileged
nature instead of the formal religious structure, individual perception instead

capítulo 2 • 29
of dogma, and human instinct instead of social convention. The Romantic
Transcendentalists of the United States took radical individualism to its limit.
The American writers – of that time and those who came later – viewed
themselves as lone explorers, out of society and conventions. The American hero
- like Ahab, of Herman Melville, or Huck Finn, of Mark Twain – typically faced
risks or even certain destruction in search for metaphysical self-understanding.
For the American Romantic writer, nothing was given. The literary and
social conventions, far from being useful, were dangerous. There was great
pressure to find an authentic literary path, voice and content. Walt Whitman
(1819-1892) gave the first steps toward this flourishing literature, and Edgar
Allan Poe (1809-1849) created a style that uses short texts full of fantasy and
psychological depth, which paved the way to modern mystery novels.
Nevertheless, the real breach that really creates a gap between the New
World and Europe only came a little later, with Henry James (1843-1916), and
Mark Twain (1835-1910), who was the first to have a “real American” as the
main character of a story.
These are probably the first American writers, the ones who gave their
contribution to the literature of their country and that were the cornerstone for
all those who would come later. They were not, however, the only 19th century
writers who are considered the main writers of that country. Some of them will
be presented in this chapter.

2.2.1  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 2.2  –  Emerson in 1857.

30 • capítulo 2
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, an eminent figure of his time, had a touch of
religious mission in his writings. Although many had accused him of subverting
Christianism, he explained that, for him, “it was necessary to leave the Church
to become a good pastor”.
The speech that he gave in 1838 in the Faculty of Religious Studies, in
Harvard, turned him an unwelcome person in this university for 30 years. In that
speech, Emerson accused the Church of emphasizing dogma while suffocating
the spirit.
Emerson is extraordinarily consistent on his appeal for the birth of American
individualism inspired by nature.

The essay “The Nature” (1836) was Emerson’s first publication. Here is the beginning
of the text:
“Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchers of the fathers. It writes biographies,
histories, criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face;
we [merely] through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to
the universe? Why should not we have a poetry of insight and not of tradition, and
a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs. Embosomed for a season
in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the
powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among
the dry bones of the past ...?”

2.2.2  Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 2.3  –  Thoreau in 1856.

capítulo 2 • 31
 Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord and lived there all his life.
Originally from a poor family, just like Emerson, he found his way into Harvard.
His masterpiece Walden or Life in the Woods (1854) is the result of two years,
two months and two days (from 1845 to 1847) that he spent in a wooden cabin
that he built by Lake Walden, near Concord. This long poetic text challenges
the author to look into his own life and live it in an authentic manner.
The text Civil Disobedience, with its theory of passive resistance – based on
the need of the just individual of disobeying unjust laws – became an inspiration
for the Mahatma Gandhi’s movement for independence of India, and for Martin
Luther King’s fight for the civil rights of the black Americans in the 20th century.

2.2.3  Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 2.4  – 

Born in Huntington, New York, Walt Whitman’s brilliant and innovative

literary work reflected the democratic spirit of the American people. He was a
revolutionary in the form and content of his poetry. He defended the abolition
of slavery, women’s rights, free love and technological development.
In 1823, he moves with his family to New York City and studies in a public
school in Brooklyn. Whitman works as a typographer and journalist. After the
American Civil War, he gets a job at the Interior Ministry, but he is fired soon
after because his boss feels offended by his collection of poems Leaves of Grass.

32 • capítulo 2
 His masterpiece Leaves of Grass (first published in 1855), which he rewrote
and revised throughout his life, contains Song of Myself, one of the most
original poems ever written by an American. The innovative form, with blank
verse, the frank celebration of sexuality, the vibrant democratic sensibility, and
the romantic declaration altered forever the course of American poetry.
In 1871, he exposes his political points of view in his Democratic Vistas, which
obtains great repercussion. In 1873, a vascular disease let him partially paralyzed. In
the end of 1891, he publishes the last version of Leaves of Grass and dies soon after.

CONEXÃO
Walt Whitman é considerado um dos maiores poetas da literatura americana, pois escreveu
diversos poemas famosos e uma obra-prima, a coletânea de poemas Leaves of Grass (Folhas
de Relva). Acesse o link abaixo para conhecer mais fatos interessantes sobre Walt Whitman,
também conhecido como “o poeta da democracia”.
<https://learnodo-newtonic.com/walt-whitman-facts>.

2.2.4  Margaret Fuller (1810 – 1850)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 2.5  – 

capítulo 2 • 33
 American feminist journalist, Margaret Fuller was influenced by the philosophy
of Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793), a famous French feminist who published texts
of women’s rights during the French revolutionary period. Because of her ideas, de
Gouges faced trial, was found guilty and sentenced to death by guillotine.
Fuller was one of the first to publish women’s journalistic manifestations in
the USA. She was considered by some of her contemporaries a woman of privileged
intellect, who even learned classic Latin as a child. Fluent in several languages and
with great knowledge of universal literature, she had problems in her school years
once the institutions of higher education did not accept women at that time.
Nevertheless, she found ways to apply her powerful intelligence by teaching
private classes in her own house. Besides that, she also developed a series of public
conferences which were attended by wealthy men and women from Boston.
Invited by Emerson Thoreau and other important philosophers, she became
the editor of Dial, a quarterly publication about transcendentalist philosophy.
This publication was recognized as the first literary journal in the USA.
Fuller later changed to Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, in which she
became the first revision editor of professional books in the country. During
this job, her focus moved more and more towards women’s problems, until
she wrote her most classical feminist text, Women in the Nineteenth Century
(1845), in which she questions the limited capacity of the human being of
defining everything with a focus on sex, leaving women in a secondary position.
Margaret Fuller had a tragic death in a ship wreak when she was returning
from a trip to Europe.

2.2.5  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 2.6  – 

34 • capítulo 2
 Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne was raised in a
traditional puritan family. Hawthorne was the second son of Nathaniel
Hathorne, a sea captain, and Elizabeth Clarke Manning Hathorne. He was a
descendent of William Hathorne, who came to New England in 1603, along
with the first generation of puritan settlers.
Among his ancestors was also John Hathorne, who participated in the
witch trials of 1692. A curse was put on John, which impressed Hawthorne and
inspired a great part of his texts.
In 1808, Hawthorne’s father passed away, leaving behind a widow and three
children. The following year, he moved to the Manning’s residence, along with
his mother and sisters.
After his graduation, in 1825, Hawthorne went back to his mother’s
house, in Salem, where he stayed for the next 12 years, in complete isolation,
deepening his readings and writings. In 1828 he published, anonymously
and on his own expenses, his first novel, Fanshawe: a Tale. It was inspired on
the author’s experiences in Bowdoin. Later on, Hawthorne destroyed all the
remaining copies of that novel. At this point, the writer had already added a “w”
to his family name.
In the following years, he published anonymously several tales in
periodicals. Many of these tales became part of the book Twice-Told Tales,
published in 1837. Although it was not a success, the book establishes a
reputation for the author.
The first Hawthorne’s tales were allegoric and symbolic narratives, inspired
in the colonial history of New England, and reflected the concerns of the author
regarding human imperfections and the original sin.
His most known novel, The Scarlet Letter, was published in 1850. It was a
symbolic novel inspired on New England’s puritan past. The story takes place
in the city of Boston in the 17th century, and the main theme is the occurrence
of an adultery that happens among the three main characters. In this novel,
and basically in all his texts, Hawthorne focused on the puritan morals and the
related human and theological concerns.
The Scarlet Letter was praised by the public at his time and is today
considered a classic of the American literature. With this novel began the most
productive phase of Hawthorne’s career. The following year he published The
House of the Seven Gables, The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales, and
True Stories from History and Biography (1851).

capítulo 2 • 35
 Despite the symbolic tone of his prose, Hawthorne style reveals with clarity
the complexities and motivations of the human soul. His conception about
human behavior, strongly entrenched on puritan traditions, moves away from
this heritage due to the perspective of viewing the sin as a way of learning. This
detour in relation to the concept of predestination valued Hawthorne’s writings
for the modern critics.

2.3  Gothic literature

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 2.7  –  The picturesque and evocative ruin is a common theme in Gothic literature.

Gothic is a genre of novels that was more significantly cultivated in England

and the United States during the 18th and 19th centuries. In this genre,
the presence of supernatural elements and grotesque creatures create an
atmosphere of mystery and terror.
Frequently associated with tales that focus on the fantastic, which literary
paradigm is the German writer E. T. A. Hoffmann, the Gothic novel embraces
other elements that connect it to a Romantic movement, once a commonplace
is the oneiric environment full of psychological tension.
The protagonist of the story becomes basically an anti-hero, internally
fragmented and alienated from the reality that surrounds him, a person who
sometimes seeks into the supernatural an explanation and a meaning for his
existence. Among the exponents of the gothic novel are Charles Brockden
Brown and Edgar Allan Poe.

36 • capítulo 2
2.3.1 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 2.8 – Edgar Allan Poe in 1849.

Second child of David Poe and Elizabeth Arnold, both actors, Edgar Poe
became an orphan when he was still a child and was adopted by a wealthy
couple from Richmond, Virginia, John Allan and Frances Kelling Allan. This
allowed him to have a quality education, as well as make a long trip through
England, Scotland and Ireland with his adoptive parents.
He returned to the USA in 1922 and continued his studies under the
supervision of the best teachers. Two years later, he entered the University of
Charlottesville, getting distinguished both by his intelligence and his restless
temper, which ended up causing his expulsion from the university.
Right after these events, there is a period in Poe’s life, still not totally clarified,
during which he made some trips outside the US. In 1829, he went back to his
country and expressed the desire to follow a military career. He was admitted
at the prestigious West Point Academy, but ended up ousted few months later
because of indiscipline.
With the death of his stepmother, his stepfather, John Allan, married again
with a much younger woman, who bore two children. This prevented Poe from
becoming the heir of his father’s fortune and then he moved away from his
stepfather’s house and left Richmond.
After a period of relative difficulties, he got a certain prosperity when he
won simultaneously two tale and poetry contests promoted by the magazine

capítulo 2 • 37
"Southern Literary Messenger". The founder of this publication, Thomas
White, invited him to run the magazine. For two years, Poe headed this periodic,
in which he was able to exhibit his talent, which manifested in a new style, in
tales, poetry, and his articles of literary criticism, which reveled his rigor and
aesthetic sensibility.
As a successful writer, Poe married Virginia Clemm. Nevertheless, after the
two years, Thomas White cut relations with Poe, who had already developed
alcoholism. Poe started producing as a freelancer, in great quantities, but not
making enough to keep a dignified and healthy life, which led him to move
deeper into his alcoholism.
The death of his wife aggravated the problem. The writer started drinking
more and more and already manifested the first delirium tremens attacks.
During a trip to New York on business, Poe stopped in Baltimore and lodged
in a tavern, where he spent hours drinking with friends. It was the evening of
October 6, 1849. Edgar Allan Poe died early in the morning of the next day,
October 7, at the age of 40.
Poe was the most Romantic of the main American writers. In his works he
was not worried about approaching the problems between good and evil, let
alone providing behavior lessons. He believed that if he were able to create
beauty and touch the sensibility of his readers, he would have accomplished
his goals.
Poe’s most famous poems are The Raven and The Bells, even though some
critics prefer To Helen and Annabel Lee. The poet believed that nothing would
be more romantic than a poem about the death of a beautiful woman. Many of
his works deal with the suffering caused by the death of the loved one. Another
characteristic of his poetry is the musicality, which gives the impression that
the sound is more important than the meaning.
Allan Poe is credited for “creating” the detective story genre, but his
principal merit resided in his ability to organize his stories. He planned them
as an architect plans a building, involving the reader in such a way that he is
carried “hypnotically” towards the closing of the story.
This reveals the dualism of his art and personality. On the one hand, a
“visionary and idealist”, deepened in sad poems and horror and detective
narratives. A troubled man, dominated by addiction to alcohol and opium. On
the other hand, he was a “demanding artesian”, a writer who was proud of his
technique and the rationalism to create his stories. This duality makes him one
of the masters of world literature.

38 • capítulo 2
 Below are some of Edgar Allan Poe’s most important works:
Poetry Collections

•  Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827)

•  Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829)
•  Lenore (1843)
•  The Raven and Other Poems (1845)
•  Ulalume (1847)
•  Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848)
•  Annabel Lee (1849)
Fiction

•  Berenice (1835)
•  The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)
•  Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1939)
•  Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)
•  The Masque of the Red Death (1842)
•  The Pit and the Pendulum (1842)
•  The Black Cat (1843)
•  The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)
•  The Purloined Letter (1845)
•  The Cask of Amontillado (1846)

ATIVIDADES
Leia as perguntas abaixo e busque as respostas para elas. Você vai encontrar neste capítulo
as respostas para a maioria das perguntas, mas uma consulta externa será de muita ajuda
para conhecer os detalhes sendo abordados aqui nestes exercícios.

01. What is the correct date of the American Romanticism era?

02. What was Ralph Waldo Emerson's occupation before becoming a writer?

03. What caused Emerson to question his faith?

04. What formed the core of transcendentalist thought?

capítulo 2 • 39
05. Who was the spokesperson for the transcendentalist movement?

06. What caused Emerson to stop writing?

07. What opportunity did Margaret Fuller have that most women didn't?

08. What occupation did Henry David Thoreau hold before becoming a writer?

09. Who is known to be the father of mysteries and science fiction?

REFLEXÃO
Frequentemente considerado o primeiro período da criatividade americana, o período
Romântico está posicionado dentro do contexto histórico da expansão para o oeste, a
crescente e acalorada discussão sobre a questão da escravidão, e as complicadas relações
entre desejos opostos de reforma ou secessão entre o norte e o sul do país.
Historicamente, este período de tensão resultou na Guerra Civil Americana. Já na área
da literatura, estas visões opostas sobre o país coexistiram de forma relativamente pacífica.
O Romantismo é tipicamente definido como “teoria literária e filosófica que tende a ver o
indivíduo como o centro da vida, colocando este mesmo indivíduo, portanto, no centro da arte,
tornando a literatura valiosa como uma expressão única de sentimentos e atitudes específicas.
O Romantismo tende a ver a natureza como uma revelação da verdade, e um objeto
mais adequado à expressão artística que os aspectos da vida cheios de artificialidade. De
uma forma simplista, podemos afirmar que o Romantismo foi um movimento cujos artistas
reagiam às amarras do Realismo e se dirigiram na direção do indivíduo como um ser criativo.
Com muita frequência, a linguagem deste período é menos formal que em períodos
anteriores, uma vez que a natureza é um reflexo do homem, e simplicidade é valorizada
em relação às convenções do passado. Um movimento dentro deste movimento é o
Transcendentalismo, que enfatizava a importância da natureza e a “dignidade do trabalho
braçal”. Como vimos neste capítulo, um dos nomes mais importantes do Transcendentalismo
foi Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Outro subproduto do Movimento Romântico foi o estilo gótico, tipicamente caracterizado
por palavras como “medieval” e “primitivo”, mas a fascinação pelo gótico está além do
interesse por uma época anterior à presente.

40 • capítulo 2
 Elementos góticos tradicionalmente incluem ambientação medieval e o sobrenatural.
Cenários típicos incluem castelos escuros com corredores assombrados, habitados por
donzelas em perigo e homens maus que cercam estas jovens moças indefesas com seu poder.
Este movimento em direção ao reino do sobrenatural coloca o controle da criatividade
firmemente nas mãos do autor, e ele não fica preso às tradicionais convenções artísticas.

LEITURA
A leitura recomendada deste capítulo é The Northon Anthology of American Literature.
Trata-se de um livro de referência na área de Literatura Norte-Americana, trazendo uma
grande e equilibrada variedade de obras e autores. A oitava edição passou a incluir mais
obras completas e novos autores. É um material muito utilizado em cursos de Literatura
Norte-Americana.

The Northon Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed.

Nina Baym (ed.) et al.
W.W. Norton & Company

Read by more than 2.5 million students over 30 years, The Norton Anthology
of American Literature sets the standard and remains an unmatched value.

The Eighth Edition features a diverse and balanced variety of works and thorough but
judicious editorial apparatus throughout. The new edition also includes more complete
works, much-requested new authors, 170 in-text images, new and re-thought
contextual clusters, and other tools that help instructors teach the course they want
to teach.
The Norton Anthology of American Literature is now available as an interactive ebook,
at just a fraction of the print price.

capítulo 2 • 41
 REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
ALVES, Julia Falivene. A Invasão cultural Norte-Americana. Brasil: Editora Moderna, 2004.
Anglo Saxon Literature. Disponível em: <http://anglosaxonliterature.wikispaces.com/Anglo-
Saxon+Christianity>. Acesso em 13 fev. 2016.
BESSA, Maria Cristina. Panorama da Literatura Norte Americana. Brasil: Alexa Cultural, 2008.
Embaixada Americana. Disponível em: <http://www.embaixada-americana.org.br/HTML/
literatureinbrief/chapter03.htm>. Acesso em: 24 fev, 2016.
FLETCHER, H. Robert. A History of English Literature for Students. Boston: Richard G. Badger,
2010.
Infopedia. Disponível em: <http://www.infopedia.pt/$nathaniel-hawthorne>. Acesso em: 25 fev.
2016.
North Carolina State University. Disponível em: <http://www4.ncsu.edu/~wdlloyd/romantic_period_
in_american_lite.htm>. Acesso em: 02 mar. 2016.
Shmoop. Disponível em: <http://www.shmoop.com/poe/major-works.html>. Acesso em: 25 fev.
2016.
Study.com. Disponível em: <http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-romantic-period-in-american-
literature-and-art.html>. Acesso em: 02 mar. 2016.

42 • capítulo 2
 3
Do Romantismo ao
Realismo
3.  Do Romantismo ao Realismo
Realismo é uma técnica literária praticada por diversas escolas de escritores.
Apesar de ser uma técnica, representa também um determinado tipo de
assunto, especialmente a representação da vida da classe média. Uma reação
contra o Romantismo, um interesse no método científico, a sistematização do
estudo da história documental e a influência da filosofia racional são elementos
que afetaram o surgimento do Realismo.
Enquanto os Românticos transcendem o real para encontrar o ideal, os
Realistas centram sua atenção marcadamente no imediato, no aqui e agora, na
ação específica e sua consequência verificável.
Alguns críticos sugerem que não há uma distinção clara entre Realismo
e o movimento do final do século XIX, o Naturalismo. O termo “Realismo”
propriamente dito é difícil de definir, uma vez que é usado de forma diversa em
contextos europeus em comparação com contextos norte-americanos
Na literatura norte-americana, o termo “Realismo” engloba o período da
Guerra Civil Americana até a virada do século, período em que diversos autores
de ficção focaram em representações precisas que exploraram a vida dos
americanos em vários contextos.
Conforme os Estados Unidos cresciam rapidamente após a Guerra
Civil, as taxas crescentes de letramento e democracia, o crescimento rápido
da industrialização e urbanização, uma população em expansão devido à
imigração, e um aumento relativo da classe média forneceram terreno fértil
para leitores interessados nestas mudanças culturais rápidas. Alguns críticos
consideravam o Realismo uma estratégia para imaginar e lidar com as ameaças
das mudanças sociais.
O Realismo foi um movimento que envolveu praticamente todo o país,
principalmente o centro-oeste e o sul, muito embora muitos dos escritores e
críticos associados ao Realismo vivessem em New England, no noroeste do país.
Conforme o século XIX avançava, a população de imigrantes e trabalhadores
urbanos cresceu, uma vez que as mudanças nas indústrias contribuíam para
esta alteração. Máquinas eram construídas, e a manufatura tornou-se mais
fácil, trazendo a expansão da área urbana. As cidades tornaram-se, portanto, o
centro da ação.

44 • capítulo 3
 Neste novo mundo, aumentou a linha divisória entre o rico e o pobre e, pela
primeira vez na história, havia uma maior população da classe trabalhadora
alfabetizada. Havia, portanto, a necessidade de uma literatura que refletisse
suas vidas. Suas vidas reais.

OBJETIVOS
Neste capítulo você vai acompanhar a transição do Movimento Romântico, com sua distorção
da realidade, para o Movimento Realista, com suas representações da vida real.
Para marcar esta transição, serão discutidos dois outros autores relacionados ao
Movimento Romântico e, em seguida, os autores categorizados como Realistas.

3.1  Other american romantic authors

Walt Whitman, Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson – along with their
contemporary writers Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, represent the
first important American literary generation.
Concerning the fiction writers, the Romantic view tended to be expressed
in a way that Hawthorne called “romance”, a sophisticated, emotional and
symbolic form of fictional narrative. According to his definition, the “romances”
were not love stories, but serious fictional literature that resourced to special
techniques to communicate complex and subtle meanings.
Instead of carefully defining the characters in a realistic way, through
detailed descriptions, as would do most English or Continental novelists,
Hawthorne, Melville and Poe created heroic characters who were bigger than
life, impregnated of mythical meanings.
The typical protagonists of the so called American novel are troubled and
isolated people. Arthur Dimmersdale or Hester Prynne, from Hawthorne’s The
Scarlet Letter, Ahab, from Melvilles’s Moby Dick, and many of the segregates
and obsessed characters of Poe’s tales are solitary protagonist, thrown into a
somber and impenetrable destiny. The symbolic plots reveal hidden actions
from a tormented soul.

capítulo 3 • 45
3.1.1  Herman Melville (1819-1891)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 3.1  –  Painting of Herman Melville.

Herman Melville descended from a traditional and wealthy family which

suddenly fell into poverty with the death of his father. Despite the way he was
raised, his family traditions, and hard work, Melville did not go to a university.
At the age of 19, he became a sailor. His interest for the life of seamen was
a natural consequence of his own experiences – his first novels were mostly
inspired in his journeys. His first book, Taipi, was based on the time he spent
among the Taipi people, in Marquesas islands, South Pacific.
Moby Dick, Melville’s masterpiece, is an epic about the whaler Pequod
and his captain, Ahab, whose obsessive quest for the white whale Moby Dick
leads his ship and men towards destruction. This book, an apparently realistic
adventure novel, contains a series of reflections on the human condition.
The hunt for whales, which occurs throughout the book, is a great metaphor
of the search for knowledge. Although the Ahab’s quest is philosophical, it is
also tragic. Despite his heroism, Ahab is condemned and maybe even cursed in
the end. Besides its beauty, nature is mysterious and potentially fatal.

46 • capítulo 3
 In Moby Dick, Melville defies the optimistic idea of Emerson, for whom
human beings can understand nature. Moby Dick, the great white whale,
represents the cosmic and impenetrable that dominates the novel, as it
obsesses Ahab. Behind the myriad of facts described by Melville is a mystical
view – but it is not clear whether this view is good or evil, human or inhuman.
Some literary references are present in Moby Dick. Ahab, whose name
comes from a king from the Old Testament, wants the absolute and divine
knowledge. Like Sophocles’ Oedipus, who pays tragically for his acts, Ahab its
tinted by blindness before he gets killed in the end.

CONEXÃO
“Saber envelhecer é a obra-prima da sabedoria e um dos capítulos mais difíceis na grande
arte de viver.”
Esta e outras frases de Herman Melvilles podem ser encontradas no site abaixo. Vale a
pena conferir os pensamentos deste grande escritor americano.
<http://www.citador.pt/frases/citacoes/a/hermann-melville>.

The name of the Ahab’s boat, Pequod, refers to an extinct Indian tribe
from New England. Therefore, the name suggests that the boat is doomed
to destruction. Whaling was a very important industry in the United States,
especially in New England, once it provided whale oil as an energy source,
especially for lamps. Therefore, the whale literally “illuminates” the universe.
The book has also historical resonance. Whaling was inherently expansionist
and related to the historic idea of a “manifested destiny” for the Americans
once it was necessary to sail around the world in search for whales (the present-
day state of Hawaii fell into American control because the islands were used as
an important base for refueling the ships that were hunting whales.
The crew at the Pequod represents several races and religions, suggesting the
ideal of a “United States” as a universal melting pot. Finally, Ahab incorporates
the tragic version of the American democratic individualism.

capítulo 3 • 47
3.1.2 Emily Dickinson

© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 3.2 – Photograph of Emily Dickinson at the age of 16.

Emily Dickinson is, in a certain way, a link between her time and the literary
sensibilities of the 20th century. A radical individualist, she was born and spent
her entire life in Amherst, a small town in the state of Massachusetts. She never
married and she led an unconventional life, without external events, but full in
intensity within.
She loved nature, and she found deep inspiration in birds, animals, plants,
and in the changes of seasons in rural New England. Emily Dickinson lived the
last part of her life in reclusion due to her extreme sensibility and possibly to
find time to write.
Her concise style is even more modern and innovative than that of Walt
Whitman. On occasions, she presents her existential conscience. Her clean,
clear and well organized poetry brings some of the most fascinating and defying
poems of American Literature.
Little known during her 56 years, spent almost entirely in Amherst,
Dickinson was revealed as a poet to the world after her death. In her desk,
inside her room, which she rarely left, were found 1775 poems, tied with strings
in little packs. Written by hand, many of which looking like drafts waiting for a
review, those poems did not have titles, which forced them to be identified by
the first line or by numbers.

48 • capítulo 3
 In 1890, posthumously, the first volume of a series of three is published and,
in 1894, her letters are published. Since then, Emily Dickinson became one of
the greatest poets in American literature.
Her mysterious life has defied biographers, who get lost in the lack of proof
for countless suppositions What is know is that after a normal childhood and
adolescence, during which she participated in most common activities of the
age, around 1860 she started her reclusion and withdrew from social activities.
Dressed in white and going outdoors just to take care of the flowers in her
garden, at that time began the literary effervescence that would lead her to
write so many poems. Among several themes of her poetry are Life, Death, Love,
Immortality, and Nature.
©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 3.3  –  Dickinson's handwritten manuscript of her poem "Wild Nights – Wild Nights!"

Nature was a frequent presence in Dickinson’s poetry. Even when it is

not treated in depth as the main theme, nature may be mentioned briefly as
complement of the scenery or representing death in the many allusions she
makes about winter, snow, and cold, or even symbolizing changes of character
through the cycle of seasons.

capítulo 3 • 49
 Even though there are affinities between Dickinson’s nature-related poetry
and that of transcendentalist poets, especially Emerson and Thoreau, Emily
Dickinson cannot be precisely fit in any movement or style because of the very
personal characteristics of her writings.
Even though she sometimes was irreverent towards religion and even God,
she kept a very reverent attitude towards nature, as if it were more representative
of a divine manifestation than churches and creeds. The sun, the snow, even
lightning fascinated her. In one of her poems, “An Altered Look about the
Hills”, she catalogued the beauties of spring and the splendor of the landscape.
The “creatures of nature” were also the focus of her attention, no matter
how insignificant they looked. Therefore bees, butterflies, birdies, rats were all
mentioned. A serpent appears in a dramatized way in “A Narrow Fellow in the
Grass” and, despite her sharp observation and description, one can infer that
there lies a psychological threat.
The proximity of autumn and the natural beauty of the end of summer
impress Emily Dickinson, who registers with sensitivity the sounds and views
of the landscape, changing from observer to participant in the scene she
describes in “The Morns Are Meeker Than They Were”. In “These Are The Days
When Birds Come Back”, the same topic is approached: the transition period
between summer and autumn.

A principal crença de Emily Dickinson era mesmo a natureza e, portanto, considera-se que
ela não acreditava em “Deus”, pelo menos não da forma como as religiões O retratam.
Dickinson cresceu durante o Iluminismo Americano, uma era em que muitos dos
pensadores progressistas da época, como Emerson, estavam descontentes com a religião
organizada e buscavam Deus por meio de novos estiulos de pensamento espiritual.
Mas a jovem Emily, de 17 anos, estava um pouco mais descontente. Cursando a
escola Mount Holyoke naquela época, ela encontrou consolo estudando as ciências
e se considerava “pagã”. Quando durante uma aula perguntaram aos alunos quem
buscava salvação, Emily se recusou a mentir.

50 • capítulo 3
3.2  The rise of realism

The American Civil War (1861-1865) between the industrialized North and
the agrarian and slaver South was a main divide in the history of the United
States. Before the war, the idealists defended the human rights, especially the
abolition of slavery; after the war, Americans began to idealize more and more
the progress and the “self-made man”, as they call those who can succeed in life
through their own effort.
That was an era of industry men and millionaire speculators, when Darwin’s
theory on the “survival of the fittest” among species was applied to society and
seemed like a sanction to occasional lack of ethics in the methods employed by
successful magnates.
Business was thriving fast after the war. The new intercontinental railway,
inaugurated in 1869, and the transcontinental telegraph provided the factories
access to resources, markets and communication. The continuous influx of
immigrants provided an apparently endless supply of cheap labor. More than
23 million foreigners – Germans, Scandinavians, and Irish in the first years
and, later on, more and more immigrants from Central Europe and the South –
entered the United States between 1860 and 1910.
In 1960, most Americans lived in farms or little towns, but by 1919 half of
the population was concentrated in about twelve cities. Because of that, new
problems arose: overcrowded slums, lack of sanitation, low salaries (the term
“paid slaves” was coined), and difficult work conditions. The Unions grew and
strikes alerted the nation about the poor conditions of the working people.
From 1860 to 1914, the United States moved from an agrarian ex-colony to
an immense modern industrial nation. The nation full of debts of 1860 had
become a rich country, a world power by 1914.
Due to all these severe changes in the country, a new type of literature
emerged. A literature that reflected the realistic transformations and their
effects on people in general. This new literary movement was called Realism.

capítulo 3 • 51
3.2.1  Mark Twain (1835-1910)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 3.4  –  Mark Twain, February 7, 1871.

Samuel Clemens, known by the pseudonym of Mark Twain, grew up by

the Mississippi river, in the border town of Hannibal, in Missouri. Ernest
Hemingway said once that all American literature comes from one great book:
Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
In the beginning of the 19th century, American writers tended to be extremely
mannered, sentimental and pompous. It happened partly because they were still
trying to prove that they could write as elegantly as the English. Mark Twain’s
style, based on the vigorous, realistic, and colloquial speech of the Americans,
provided to the American writers a new value to the national voice. Twain
was the first important author that came from the up-country and, therefore,
captured the peculiar and humorous slangs and the iconoclastic spirit.
For Twain, as for other American Writers from the end of the 19th century,
Realism was not only a literary technique: it was a way to speak the truth and
blow out old conventions. Therefore, it provided a profound freedom. The most
known example is the story of Huck Finn, the poor boy who decides to follow the

52 • capítulo 3
voice of his conscience and help a black slave to flee to freedom, even though he
believed that this act would condemn him to hell, once he was breaking the law.
Twain’s masterpiece, published in 1884, uses as background the little village
of St. Petersburg, located by the Mississippi river. The son of an alcoholic and
lazy man, Huck had just been adopted by a respectable family when his father,
completely out of his mind because of alcohol, gives him a death threat. Fearing
for his life, Huck escapes, pretending he was dead.

Twain tinha uma fascinação por ciência e questionamentos científicos. Ele

desenvolveu uma amizade forte e duradoura com Nikola Tesla, o “inventor” da corrente
alternada, e ambos passaram muito tempo juntos no laboratório de Tesla.
Twain fez uma grande fortuna por meio de seus livros, mas ele perdeu boa parte
devido a novas invenções e tecnologia, particularmente um novo sistema de
impressão, que era uma maravilha da engenharia que espantava as pessoas quando
funcionava, mas era propenso a quebras.
Twain gastou US$ 300.000,00 (o equivalente hoje a cerca de US$ 8.200.000,00)
nesta máquina entre 1880 e 1884, mas antes que ela pudesse estar realmente
pronta, ficou obsoleta graças ao linotipo. Ele perdeu não apenas o grosso do lucro por
seus livros, mas também uma quantia substancial da herança de sua esposa.

During this escape, he joins another fugitive, the slave Jim. Huck and Jim
go down the majestic Mississippi river in a canoe, but it is hit by a steamer and
sinks; the two fugitives separate but meet again later. They go through many
comic and dangerous adventures along the banks of the Mississippi, showing
the variety, generosity and, sometimes the cruel irrationality of the society.
In the end Jim is freed and a respectable family is taking care of the rebel
Huck. But he can’t adapt to the civilized society and plan to escape to “the
territories” – Indian lands. This end presents the reader with another version of
the myth of American “purity”: the open road leading to untouched lands, far
from the morally corrupt influences of “civilization”.

capítulo 3 • 53
3.2.2  Stephen Crane (1871 – 1900)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 3.5  –  Formal portrait of Stephen Crane taken in Washington, D.C., about March 1896.

Novelist, poet and journalist, he was born in Newark, New Jersey. He was the
14th child of a Methodist pastor and started writing at the age of eight. After the
death of his mother, he moves to New York, where he works as freelancer. His
first work, Maggie – A Girls of the Streets (1893), constitutes the first moment of
the American Naturalist Movement.
The plot of this book came from his journalistic experience in the many
incursions through the miserable streets of Bowery and disreputable areas
of New York, where he met all sorts of criminals. His intention was to write a
deep study on the decadence of a young innocent girl, who is abused, becomes
a prostitute and ends up killing herself. This book is a real landmark of the
Naturalist Movement.
Crane’s most famous work is Red Badge of Courage (1895), an extraordinary
document about the American Civil War, that occurred between 1861 and 1865,
even though he did not have any battle experience. This novel was published
when the author was only 24 years old.
Considered one of the first modern classics of the American Literature,
Crane’s book was a pioneer in depicting the conflict in a realistic and
unromantic manner, from the point of view of a young and inexperienced
soldier, Henry Fleming.

54 • capítulo 3
 In the story, the main character enlisted in the Army because he believes he
will return in glory, after great feats and acts of courage. Nevertheless, at the
heat of the battle he loses courage and runs away from the enemy. Lost in the
battlefield, an ample forest, he struggles to survive war’s nightmare, but ends
up becoming a hero by chance.
Contemporary and admirer of the English writer H. G. Wells (1866 – 1946)
and friend of Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Crane was a journalist who lived
intensely his profession in his brief 29 years of life. Besides writing fiction, he
traveled the world as a reporter, going to Cuba and Greece. He died in Germany,
from tuberculosis.
His prose, fortunately, was not limited to his anti-war novel (The Red Badge
of Courage). The book The Monster and Other Stories (1899) was published one
year before the death of the author. The book contains three long stories that
confirm the undeniable talent of the author and his social concerns – which
influenced authors like John Reed (1887-1920).

3.2.3  Ambrose Bierce (1843-1913/1914)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 3.6  –  Bierce around 1866.

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was born in Meigs County, Ohio. He was a critic,
writer, and journalist, particularly known because of his book The Devil’s
Dictionary (1911). He was considered the “blackest of all black humorists” and
used to say that to be alone was to be in bad company. Bierce made the cynicism

capítulo 3 • 55
and black humor his trademark. Family, nation, human race – nothing was
protected from his attacks – are used until the present days in the United States.
Bierce was a solitary man, able to kick a dog that crossed his path just
because he hated its barking, its smell, and its vulgarity. On the other hand, he
was touched by small defenseless creatures, protecting birds that could not fly
and even sick mice.
In the journal, he used to keep on his desk a human skull and a box of cigars.
When asked about those objects, he said that the skull was what was left of an
old friend, while in the box he kept the ashes of a rival critic. And he said that
without laughing. In San Francisco he was known as “the bitter Bierce”, and
among his many enemies were people like Henry James and Jack London.
A war veteran, Bierce’s war stories are important contributions to the
American Literature. His awful experiences during the American Civil War were
reproduced in books like "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", "The Boarded
Window", "Killed at Resaca", and "Chickamauga". An excellent storyteller, his
texts are a commonplace in any anthology of American tales.
In 1913, at the age of 71, Bierce went South to visit the battlefield where
he had fought during the war and them went to Mexico, where the joined the
army of Pancho Villa as an observer. He disappeared without traces. The most
popular theory states that he was shot by Villa’s army. The place and exact date
of his death are, therefore, unknown until the present.

CONEXÃO
Já são mais de cem anos que Ambrose Bierce desapareceu. Uma série de investigações
foram feitas e, mesmo com as modernas técnicas de DNA, jamais foi descoberto qualquer
indício de seu corpo.
Visite o link abaixo e leia um texto muito interessante, chamado “Personagem de si
mesmo: o mistério de Ambrose Bierce”.
<http://heloisaseixas.com.br/textos-diversos/personagem-de-si-mesmo-o-
misterio-de-ambrose-bierce/>.

56 • capítulo 3
3.2.4  Jack London (1876 – 1916)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 3.7  –  Jack London in 1903.

Jack London was the pseudonym of John Griffth Chaney, an American

author, journalist, and social activist. He pioneered in new world of commercial
fiction magazines and became one of the first novelists to become a celebrity
because of his stories, besides getting a great fortune.
Among his most known books are The Call of the Wild, Before Adam, White
Fang, and The Sea Wolf. On July 12, 1897, 21-year-old London and his brother-
in-law James Shepard went to Alaska to join the gold rush at Klondike, which
was to become the scenery of his first successful stories.
Nevertheless, the time he spent in Klondike caused health problems. Like
many men that ate at the gold fields, London developed scurvy. His gums
swelled, which made him lose his four front teeth. He felt an agonizing pain
in his hips, and the muscles of his legs and face got marks that would always
remind him of his struggle in Klondike. The priest William Judge, “the saint
of Dawson”, had a lodge in Dawson, where he provided shelter, food, and all
medicines he could find to London and others. His efforts inspired London to
write the text that many consider his best: How to Build A Fire.
On January 26, 1903, Jack London handed the final manuscript of The Call
of the Wild to the Saturday Evening Post. On February 12, the editor agreed to
buy the story if London cut up to five thousand words and gave his price. London
agreed and set a price of US$ 0,03 per word. On March 13, ho got a check of US$
750,00. Two days later, Macmillan Publishers bought the rights of the book for
US$ 2.000,00, promising to organize extensive publicity.

capítulo 3 • 57
 ©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 3.8  –  Poster of the 2009 movie Call of the Wild, based on Jack London’s novel.

At the time it seemed like an adequate deal. London’s previous books never
reached the best-selling books and neither him nor MacMillan’s editor in New
York were able to predict whether Call of the Wild would do any better. If at that
time London knew that his book would become an American classic, which
royalties would make him rich, the bargain would have been quite different.
Anyway, without the extensive promotional program, that could have been
just another book about dogs. We can never know, but London never regreted
his decision to accept MacMillan’s deal, once the extra promotion of the
publishing company was a fundamental factor for his success.
Jack London was a very robust man, but the time he spent at the Klondike
weakened his health. By the time of his death, he was suffering from diarrhea
and uremia. Most biographers agree that Jack London died of uremia,
aggravated by an accidental dose of morphine.

58 • capítulo 3
3.2.5  Brooker T. Washington (1856-1915)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 3.9  –  Brooker T. Washington in 1905.

Brooker T. Washington did more than anyone to help American

blacks to rise from slavery. He founded an important institution (today Tuskegee
University) that helped thousands of people to acquire the qualifications
they needed. The University has already graduated people from Africa, Cuba,
Jamaica, Puerto Rico and other countries, besides the United States.
The influence of Washington as an educator goes beyond Tuskegee. He
directed a private campaign that led to the construction of thousands of primary
schools for blacks. As a member of the administrative council of the Howard
University and Fisk University, the two main institutions for higher education
for black people, he gathered millions of dollars.
Washington’s inspiring autobiography, Up from Slavery, was translated
into several languages and can be found in bookstores until the present days.
In spite of the fact that he was born a slave, Washington had good education
and found his vocation. Then, he was able to help other black people to improve
their lives, despite the discriminatory laws.
He believed that personal responsibility and entrepreneur spirit were
crucial. Here is how he expressed his long-term view: “Intellect, property, and
character for blacks will solve the problems of civil rights.”

capítulo 3 • 59
 ATIVIDADES
Leia as questões abaixo e assinale a alternativa que traz a resposta correta.

01. A good definition of American Realism is:

a) An examination of life as it actually is.
b) A romantic portrayal of life.
c) An examination of the countryside versus the city.
d) A sad and depressing view of reality.
e) A type of writing that examines nothing but death.

02. The American Renaissance overlapped the ____________ time period, in which American
writers were trying to ______________.
a) Postmodern; end slavery.
b) Colonial; end patriotism for England.
c) Modernism; end individualism.
d) Renaissance; end sexism.
e) Romanticism; define themselves and their writing style as independent from England.

03. During the Colonial Time Period, the writing was influenced most by what
religious persuasion?
a) The Puritans
b) The Catholics
c) The Pilgrims
d) The Anglo Saxons
e) Pagan Rituals

04. During the Revolutionary time period, what great document was written?
a) The first Romance Novel.
b) The Declaration of Independence.
c) Confessional Poetry.
d) The Heiner Papers
e) The great American Novel.

60 • capítulo 3
05. Writers in the Romantic time period were concerned with:
a) Nature as a source of secular and spiritual knowledge, emotion as truth, and exploration
of the self.
b) Scientific exploration.
c) Love and romance.
d) The philosophy of how to run a new country.
e) The future.

REFLEXÃO
A revolução industrial que ocorreu no final do século XIX mudou os Estados Unidos de
diversas maneiras. As pessoas deixavam suas casas nas áreas rurais em busca de
oportunidades nas cidades. Com o desenvolvimento de novas máquinas e equipamentos,
a economia americana focou prioritariamente em produção industrial, e os americanos não
precisavam mais depender do cultivo agrícola para alimentar suas famílias.
Ao mesmo tempo, imigrantes do mundo todo chegavam em busca de oportunidades
urbanas. Enfim, as grandes mudanças políticas, sociais e econômicas que ocorreram na vida
americana no pós-guerra permitiram a prevalência do Movimento Realista Americano. Em
resumo, estas são as principais mudanças que levaram ao Realismo:
•  As raízes do realismo estão calcadas na Guerra Civil americana;
•  O rápido crescimento industrial nos Estados Unidos pós-Guerra Civil e as melhorias nos
transportes que levaram à expansão territorial;
•  Mudança de uma vida agrária para uma vida urbana;
•  A urbanização trouxe problemas, como cortiços, lutas de classes, etc.;
•  Aumento da diversidade da população;
•  A realidade após a Guerra Civil impactou a visão das pessoas, levando a uma maior
incerteza em relação ao futuro.
Dentro deste cenário, os Realistas acreditavam que a liberdade de escolha da humanidade
estava limitada pelo poder de forças externas. Tanto Mark Twain quanto Stephen Crane
escreveram dentro de uma tradição Realista típica do final do século XIX e muito diferente
da literatura Romântica, uma vez que busca descrever a vida com precisão.
A literatura Romântica é baseada na convicção de que a intuição, a emoção e a imaginação
são superiores à razão. Por outro lado, o Realismo, como o próprio nome indica, está baseado
na realidade. A literatura Realista geralmente vai em uma de duas direções: na direção
de Mark Twain, que satiriza o comportamento humano e as mazelas sociais, e na direção

capítulo 3 • 61
Naturalista, que considera a inter-relação entre homem e natureza, com a humanidade vista
como insignificante diante do universo.
Os personagens agem devido a forças internas (hereditárias) e ao ambiente, sendo
sujeitos a leis naturais além de seu controle
Naturalistas argumentam que as pessoas têm pouco ou nenhuma escolha ou livre-arbítrio,
porque a vida das pessoas é controlada pela hereditariedade e pelo ambiente externo.

LEITURA
O livro American Naturalistic and Realistic Novelists, de E. C. Applegate, traz mais de 120
escritores Realistas e Naturalistas agrupados em ordem alfabética. Cada item traz informação
biográfica e uma apresentação sobre o histórico educacional, carreira profissional e trabalhos
publicados de cada um deles.
American Naturalistic and Realistic Novelists – a Biographical Dictionary.
E. C. Applegate
Greenwood Press

REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
Bergen Community College. Disponível em: <http://www.northbergen.k12.nj.us/cms/lib05/
NJ01000984/Centricity/Domain/590/American_Realism_Notes10.pdf>. Acesso em: 03 mar. 2016.
Biography.com. Disponível em: <http://www.biography.com/news/emily-dickinson-biography-facts.
Acesso em: 08 mar. 2016>.
Biography.com. Disponível em: <http://www.biography.com/people/booker-t-
washington-9524663>. Acesso em: 05 mar. 2016.
Embaixada Americana - Literatura. Disponível em: <http://www.embaixada-americana.org.br/
HTML/literatureinbrief/chapter05.htm>. Acesso em: 05 mar. 2016.
FLETCHER, H. Robert. A History of English Literature for Students. Boston: Richard G. Badger,
2010.
North Carolina State University. Disponível em: <http://www4.ncsu.edu/~wdlloyd/romantic_period_
in_american_lite.htm>. Acesso em: 02 mar. 2016.
ProProfs. Disponível em: <http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/quizshow.php?title=american-
literature-time-periods-quiz&q=5&next=n>. Acesso em: 05 mar. 2016.

62 • capítulo 3
Study.com. Disponível em: <http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-romantic-period-in-american-
literature-and-art.html>. Acesso em: 02 mar. 2016.
Study. com. Disponível em: <http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-literary-realism-movement-a-
response-to-romanticism.html>. Acesso em: 05 mar. 2016.

capítulo 3 • 63
64 • capítulo 3
 4
Modernismo e
experimentação
4.  Modernismo e experimentação
A grande onda do Modernismo, que gradualmente emergiu nos primeiros anos do
século XX na Europa e outros países, expressava um sentido de vida moderna tendo a arte
como uma ruptura abrupta com o passado e com as tradições clássicas. A vida moderna
parecia radicalmente diferente da vida tradicional – mais científica, mais tecnológica,
mais rápida e mais mecanizada. O Modernismo levou estas mudanças em consideração.
A inovação tecnológica em um mundo de fábricas e máquinas inspirou
uma renovada atenção à técnica nas artes. Podemos citar como exemplo a
luz, particularmente luz elétrica, que fascinou artistas e escritores modernos.
Pôsteres e anúncios da época eram repletos de imagens de edifícios inundados
pela luz, e raios de luz eram lançados dos faróis dos automóveis.
Visão e ponto de vista tornaram-se um aspecto essencial no romance
moderno. Não era mais suficiente escrever uma narrativa linear na terceira
pessoa ou, pior ainda, um narrador intruso. Assim, o modo como a história era
contada tornou-se tão importante quanto a história em si.
Vários escritores americanos, como William Faulkner, fizeram experimentos
com pontos de vista ficcionais. Por exemplo, restringir a informação no romance
a aquilo que determinado personagem deveria saber. No romance de Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury (O Som e a Fúria), de 1929, ele divide a narrativa em
quatro seções, cada uma trazendo o ponto de vista de um personagem diferente,
incluindo um rapaz deficiente mental.
Para analisar a novidade modernista em romances e poesia, surgiu nos
Estados Unidos uma nova escola de “nova crítica”, com um novo vocabulário.
As principais características eram um senso de desilusão e perda de fé no “sonho
americano”, com a ideia de que só o indivíduo independente e autoconfiante triunfaria,
uma ênfase na experimentação de estilos e formas que fugissem do tradicional, e um
interesse no que ocorria dentro da mente humana (fluxo de consciência).

OBJETIVOS
Neste capítulo você vai aprender as principais características do Modernismo e do período de
Experimentação nos Estados Unidos. Neste início do século XX, escritores e artistas buscavam
a inovação e o rompimento com estilos tradicionais de escrever e fazer arte de modo geral.
Você vai conhecer também alguns dos principais escritores deste período e suas obras
marcantes, que se tornaram clássicos da literatura norte-americana.

66 • capítulo 4
4.1  The rise of modernism

Many historians characterize the period between the two World Wars as
“maturing” of the country’s trauma, although the direct involvement of the
Americans was relatively short (1917 – 1918) and with much fewer casualties
than their allies and enemies. Shocked and transformed, the American soldiers
returned to their home country, but they could never recover their innocence.
The same happened to the soldiers who came from rural areas of the country,
who could not accept easily their roots: after seeing the world, many of them
now longed for modern and urban lives.
In the period after World War I, businesses flourished and successful
people prospered much more than they could ever imagine. For the first time,
many Americans started higher education – in the 1920’s, the registrations in
the the universities more than doubled. Middle class prospered and Americans
enjoyed the highest average national income of the world at that time.
©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 4.1  –  The 1920’s was an age of dramatic change in the USA..

The Americans of the “Roaring 20’s” fell in love with modern entertainment.
Most people would go to the movies once a week. Although in 1919 was
beggining of the Prohibition, during which alcoholic beverages could not be
sold throughout the country, and illegal bars, known as “speakeasies”, and

capítulo 4 • 67
night clubs flourished, offering jazz, drinks and daring ways of dressing and
dancing.
American women particularly felt the freedom of those years. They cut their
hair short, wore very short dresses, and enjoyed the right to vote, guaranteed
by 19th Amendment in the Constitution, approved in 1920. They would speak
out their thoughts and started to occupy different kinds of jobs that were men’s
occupations in a recent past.
Despite this prosperity, the western youth in the cultural “vanguard” was in
a state of intellectual rebellion, angered and disillusioned with the irrational
war and the older generation, whom they blamed for it. Ironically, the difficult
economic situation in post-war Europe allowed wealthy Americans – like the
writers F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pond
– to live in Europe comfortably with little money and to absorb the post-war
disillusion and other characteristics of the European intellectuals – particularly
Freudian psychology and, in lesser scale, Marxism.
Several novels of that period evoke the extravagance and disillusion of the “lost
generation” of the 20’s. In a long and influent poem of T. S. Eliot, western civilization
is symbolized by a desolated desert, desperately in need of rain (spiritual renovation).

4.1.1  Robert Frost (1874-1963)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 4.2  – 

68 • capítulo 4
 Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco, California. He was one of the
most significant American poets in the 20th century, able to get the Pulitzer
Prize four times.
His parents represented two opposite sides in his childhood. While his father
was an irremediable alcoholic, with a very extravagant and choleric personality,
his mother was religious and informed, responsible for the introduction of the
boy into the literary universe. After the death of his father, in 1885, Frost moves
to New England with his family.
The poet adopts that region as if it was his homeland, and always mentions
the city in his poems. The year of 1890 is set as the beginning of his literary
career with the release of his first poem. At the same time, he starts teaching
and, to complement his income, works for some time in farms and mills.

Robert Frost foi um conhecido dramaturgo e poeta, famoso por suas descrições
realistas da vida rural. Seu trabalho focava principalmente na compreensão dos
complicados temas sociais e filosóficos da vida rural da Nova Inglaterra. Durante sua
vida, Frost foi admirado e aclamado como um dos grandes poetas americanos.
Sua vida pessoal foi, no entanto, repleta de pesar, dor e perda. Doenças mentais
eram comuns em sua família. Sua filha cometeu suicídio, sua irmã Jeanie e a filha
Irma foram internadas em um sanatório, e tanto sua mãe quanto sua esposa tinham
depressão. O próprio Robert Frost sofreu com a depressão em alguns momentos de
sua vida.

Frost’s existential style affects profoundly his writing. As is his own life,
he links his texts to the popular culture and the modernist style, - the regional
and the universal. In 1895, Frost marries Eleanor White and the couple has six
children. Worried about the means to maintain the family, the poet devotes a
great amount of his time working in the fields. In 1901 he reaches the status of
a prosperous farmer. From then on, he begins to write solely at night, alone in
his kitchen.
From 1906 on, Frost devotes himself exclusively to teaching full time at
Pinkerton Academy, focusing on the literary field, speeches and conferences.
Along his life, Robert Frost went through many regions, living some time in
Michigan and Florida. From 1912 until 1915, he established in England, where
he published A Boy’s Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914).

capítulo 4 • 69
 ©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG
His writings were well accepted by
the critics in Europe. There, Frost had
the opportunity to meet other famous
writers, like Ezra Pond, Ford Madox
Ford and W. B. Yeats. He returns to
the USA in 1915. In 1938, Frost loses
his wife and, in 1940, he gets another
terrible blow: his daughter’s suicide.
These tragic events affect profoundly
his psyche. He moves to Cambridge,
where he lives for the rest of his life.

Figura 4.3  –  U.S stamp, 1974.

Frost travels on business to Brazil, giving speeches in Rio and São Paulo
in 1954. In the late 50’s, he goes back to Europe and meets writers like W. H.
Auden, E. M. Forster, Graham Greene, among others. The poet dies in the city
of Boston in 1963.

4.1.2  F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 4.4  –  Scott Fitzgerald in 1921.

70 • capítulo 4
 Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born in an Irish and Catholic middle-class
family in St. Paul, Minnesota. He attended the University of Princeton, but did
not graduate. There, he met and became a friend of the future critic and writer
Edmund Wilson (1895-1972).
In that period, he began to have contact with wealthy families, whose
lifestyle would obsess him for the rest of his life. Fitzgerald was recruited when
the USA entered the World War I, but he ended up not serving in Europe. While
still in the Army, he met the beautiful Zelda Sayre, from a high class family from
Arizona. After some time together, Zelda broke their engagement believing he
was not able to maintain her financially.
In 1920, Fitzgerald published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, which
was immediately successful. In the same year he married Zelda and, in the
following year, their only daughter, Frances Scott Fitzgerald, was born. Zelda
and Scott shared a taste for a life full of parties, glamour, and drinks. They
divided their time between the USA and chic cities in Europe. Their lifestyle
made them as famous as the books Scott wrote. He once said: “I am not certain
whether I and Zelda really exist; we are characters of one of my novels.”
©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 4.5  –  Zelda Sayre in 1917.

Later on he wrote The Beautiful and the Damned (1922), and The Great
Gatsby (1925). This book is considered by critics and by Scott himself his best
work. Most of his writing was done at that period and published in periodics like
Saturday Evening Post, Esquire e Collier’s, which helped the couple maintain
an extravagant and elegant lifestyle, despite the frequent financial difficulties.

capítulo 4 • 71
 In 1930, Zelda started to demonstrate symptoms of mental disturbs and, in
1932, was hospitalized in a clinic. The novel Tender is the Night (1934) is about
Dick Diver and Nicole, his schizophrenic wife, which represent the difficulties
the real couple was going through. The book was not well received in the USA.
Although Fitzgerald found the cinema a degradable art, he accepted to work
as a screenplayer for Hollywood studios in the last three years of his life. In this
period he wrote autobiographical essays that were published posthumously
under the title of Crack-up and the unfinished novel The Last Tycoon, edited
and published by his friend Edmund Wilson. Fitzgerald died in 1940 due to a
cardiac arrest.

CONEXÃO
Visite o site abaixo e conheça um timeline dos principais eventos da vida de F. Scott Fitzgerald
e Zelda Sayre. Os eventos descritos mostram como viviam os membros da “geração perdida”
dos loucos anos 20.
<http://www.shmoop.com/f-scott-fitzgerald/timeline.html>.

4.1.3  William Faulkner (1897-1962)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 4.6  –  William Faulkner in 1954.

72 • capítulo 4
 William Faulkner got a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. The first 30 years
of his life were marked by defeats and instabilities. In 1915, he left high school
and in 1918 he joined the Canadian Air Force. He interrupted his literature
studies and started to accept all kinds of eventual work, some of them in
journalism. His friendship with writer Sherwood Anderson stimulated him to
write his first novel, Soldier’s Pay (1926). With the family saga Sartoris, which
began in 1929, he gets a tremendous success.
The saga takes place in Jefferson,

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG
a imaginary place, located in the
imaginary state of Yoknapatawpha,
and describes the decadence of the
noble dynasties of landlords Compson
and Sartori, along with the rise of the
corrupt family Snopes – a family with
no scruples. His depiction of
psychopaths in the novel Sanctuary
(1931) became famous. Influenced
by James Joyce, Faulkner adopted
the technique of “stream of
consciousness”, which is the direct
reproduction of the flow of his
characters’ consciousness. He also
became even more radical than Joyce
in renouncing to a chronological
narrative and the perspective of the Figura 4.7  –  Cover of the first edition of the
narrator – techniques that became book (1929).
obvious in The Sound and the Fury
(1929).

In terms of style, Faulkner’s literature is characterized by complex writing,

with long paragraphs containing long sentences with irregular or even
inexistent punctuation, followed by parentheses or dashes that bring other
long sentences. This way of writing is typical of the “stream of consciousness”
mentioned before, created by Proust and perfected by Joyce, Woolf and other
modernist writers. It forces the reader to be a partaker and to have an acute

capítulo 4 • 73
ability to concentrate. Therefore, it is advisable that the first contacts with
Faulkner be through some of his tales or more accessible novels, like Sanctuary.
William Faulkner died due to cardiac complications on July 6, 1962.

A obra de William Faulkner continua importante nos dias de hoje e influencia áreas
fora do mundo literário. Um exemplo dessa influência é o website “snopes.com”, que
escolheu este nome em homenagem aos Snopes, uma família desagradável presente
na obra de Faulkner.
A família Snopes, uma dinastia corrupta que inclui um pedófilo, um pornógrafo e
um ladrão. Talvez devido à associação entra a família ficcional corrupta criada por
Faulkner e a corrupção de fatos que inunda as lendas urbanas, quando o site snopes.
com foi lançado, em 1995, os fundadores buscaram na obra de Faulkner a inspiração
para o nome.

4.1.4  John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 4.8  –  Steinbeck in Sweden during his trip to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1962.

John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, in a family without means,

but not really poor. He observed the life of the workers in the city of Salinas
and in the fertile vale of Salinas, agricultural centers just 20 kilometers from

74 • capítulo 4
the Pacific Ocean. Because of that, both the vale and the city of Salinas were the
background of a great portion of his literary production.
In 1919, he went to Stanford University, where he attended English and Literature
classes, until he dropped out in 1925, before he could get his diploma. He decided,
then, to start a freelance writer career in New York. In this beginning of his career,
he had lots of jobs, like janitor in the Tahoe Lake, laboratory technician, a brick
layer during the construction of the Madison Square Garden, and daily reporter for
a magazine in New York. During his stay in New York, he wrote his first novel, Cup of
Gold (1929).
Steinbeck returned to California in the end of the 1930’s, but continued to
write. He married Carol Henning, and moved to the city of Pacific Grove, in
Monterey area, where Steinbeck’s family had a property. Then, he moved to Los
Angeles and then back to Monterey area again.
In the beginning of the troubled 1930’s, he published two fiction works that take
place in California: the Pastures of Heaven (1932) and To a God Unknown (1933),
besides working on the tales later collected in the volume The Long Valley (1938).
His first three novels were published by three different publishers, which felt
a hard blow with the economic depression in the USA after the crash of the stock
market. All three editors bankrupted and Steinberg found himself without an editor.
©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 4.9  –  First edition cover.

Success and financial security only came in 1935, when he published the novel
Tortilla Flat. The humorous stories about the life of the paisanos - a mixture of Spanish,
Mexicans, Indians and Caucasians who lived in the so-called ‘Tortilla Flatlands”,

capítulo 4 • 75
near the Mexican border - were a relief for the Americans who were oppressed by the
crisis. During the Depression, literature and cinema were a means to escape poverty,
worries, unemployment, and the lack of money to pay the rent or the grocery store.
A tireless experimenter, Steinbeck changed the ways of his literature several
times. Nevertheless, even in his first texts the characteristics of most of his books:
realistic social observation of the lower classes workers, sometimes miserable, kept
in the limbo of the economic system. But Steinbeck’s main literary concerns focused
mainly towards groups of workers from certain regions of the United States.
Still in the 1930’s, but already a famous author, Steinbeck wrote other books
that confirmed his successful beginning: In Dubious Battle (1936), about fruit
pickers in California, Of Mice and Men (1937), considered his best novel, The
Grapes of Wrath (1939), about farm workers from the state of Oklahoma that
could not make a living from their land and move to California, working for
other people’s farms. This novel got the important Pulitzer Prize for Literature.
In the 40’s he wrote several other successful books and in 1952 he wrote
the monumental East of Eden, a saga of a family in the Salinas Valley with
autobiographical touches.
©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 4.10  –  Film poster of "East of Eden (film)" – based on a Steinbeck novel.

He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 and, in spite of this great
feat, several of his books became movies, like John Houston’s The Grapes of
Wrath, produced in 1940, and Of Mice and Men, filmed first in 1939 and then
in 1992, staring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich.

76 • capítulo 4
 Steinbeck’s social concerns went beyond the choice of the subjects for his
fictions. In the dialogues of his characters he registered the peculiarities of the
language of several groups of workers that he depicted.
John Steinbeck died in New York in 1968 due to heart problems.

CONEXÃO
Visite o site abaixo para ler um resumo e comentários sobre a obra clássica de John
Steinbeck, Homens e Ratos (Of Mice and Men). É a estória de dois homens, trabalhadores
rurais na década de 30: George Milton, pequeno e inteligente, e Lennie Small, grande e
idiota. Eles vão de fazenda em fazenda para procurar trabalho.
<http://zinecultural.blogspot.com.br/2006/06/ratos-e-homens-resumo-e-
comentrios-da_08.html>.

4.1.5  Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 4.11  –  Hemingway in 1939.

Ernest Hemingway was a journalist, war correspondent, close friend of the

Fitzgerald couple, the writer Gertrud Stein, the painter Pablo Picasso, and lived
in Paris during the Golden 20’s. These and many other personal facts of his life
became well-known by the public and also influenced a great part of his books.

capítulo 4 • 77
 It is difficult to make a connection between an author’s personal life and
his books but, concerning Hemingway, his novels have a confessional tone. In
Farewell to Arms (1929) for example, the protagonist Frederic Henry enlists in
the Italian Army as an ambulance driver. After he is seriously wounded in the
battlefield, he is sent to a hospital in Milan for treatment. This is basically the
same situation that occurred with Hemingway, who participated in the World
War I as a Red Cross ambulance driver. Wounded in combat, in 1918, he was sent
to a hospital in Milan, where he met Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse, for whom he
fell in love. The story does not have a happy end, once she refuses to marry him.
Nevertheless, in his novel, Hemingway uses his poetic freedom to find
another end for the couple. In the plot of Farewell to Arms, the passion of
Frederic Henry towards nurse Catherine Barkley is corresponded, which shows
the ability of the writer in creating romantic moments in the middle of fierce
battles. As the reader proceeds, it is possible to realize that the couple in love
believes that they can be protected in their love, setting themselves apart from
the conflict. But the reader and the characters learn that there is no paradise
that is able to neutralize the hell brought by the war.
©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 4.12  –  Hemingway (left) in Germany, 1944, during the fighting in Hürtgenwald, after
which he became ill with pneumonia.

The book For Whom the Bell Tolls, published in 1940, is another story created
by Hemingway related to armed conflicts, this time during the Spanish Civil
War and inspired by his own experience. In 1937, Hemingway went to Spain to
cover the Civil War as a journalist, which caused a conflict in his marriage. His

78 • capítulo 4
wife at the time, Pauline Pffeifer, was for the government (Franco), following
a family tradition, while the writer defended the rebels. Besides, he had met
another war correspondent, with whom he was having an affair. These facts led
the couple to divorce.
In Hemingway’s books it is common to find the “iceberg” concept, in which
the part that is underwater (the invisible part) is much larger and dense that
what is seen on the surface. This concept is common in For Whom the Bell
Tolls, once the text exposes not only the dehumanization of the war but also a
tendency to expose what is hidden within it.
The main character, Robert Jordan, is a North American that fights alongside
with the republican government during the Spanish Civil War, in the 1930’s. He
receives the mission to dynamite a very important bridge, which would result in
an offensive of the Republican forces. The mission is extremely risky and there
is a great possibility that he loses his life. This is the point in which the drama
of the character begins: the more the time to execute the mission approaches,
the more his humanist conscience makes he feel the deaths around as losses.
The novel develops another variant from the typical “Hemingway’s hero”,
present in almost all of his writing: the lone and courageous individual,
destined to failure, but determined to extract some meaning from a life in a
chaotic world.
In The old Man and the Sea, one of Hemingway’s most well-known books,
the similarities between fiction and the author’s life once again are present.
Some critics point out that the main character, Santiago, was inspired in
Gregorio Fuentes, the captain in Heminway’s boat in the many years he lived in
Cuba. Hemingway hired the fisherman to work for him as a cook and captain of
his boat “Pilar”. Other critics affirm that Santiago has features strongly inspired
in the author himself.

Não há nada melhor que aprender que dois escritores contemporâneos foram
melhores amigos, como foi o caso do poeta e escritor irlandês James Joyce e Ernest
Hemingway. Os dois geralmente saiam para beber juntos em Paris, onde Joyce
frequentemente começava brigas nos bares.
Como estas brigas começavam era um mistério, pois Joyce era bastante frágil e com
péssima visão – a ponto dele não enxergar bem com quem estava brigando. Para a
sorte dele, era amigo de um peso-pesado físico e literário, já que Hemingway adorava
boxe.

capítulo 4 • 79
 Quando Joyce começava uma briga, tudo o que ele tinha a fazer era gritar “Deal with
him, Hemingway”. Hemingway chegava e acabava com o oponente de Joyce sem
grandes problemas, fazendo de Joyce e Hemingway a primeira e única dupla de
boxeadores literários da história.

This book, published in 1952, gave Hemingway a Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and
the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. The Old Man and the Sea tells the story
of a man that deals with the loneliness of the ocean, immersed in his dreams
and thoughts and fighting for survival. Following the structure of a typical
Hemingway’s hero, this book brings a narrative of resistance and overcoming of
limits, which expose the reality of the common man, the everyday anonymous
hero and his symbols. In very few pages, the author reaches the maximum effect
with the minimum resources.
Along his life, the theme “suicide” appears in several of his writings, letters
and conversations. His father committed suicide in 1929 because of health
and financial problems. His mother, owner of a very dominating personality,
mailed him the pistol with which his father had killed himself. Hemingway,
astonished, did not understand whether she wanted him to do the same thing
his father did or she wanted him to keep that “souvenir”.
At the age of 61, Hemingway was suffering with hypertension, diabetes,
depression and loss of memory. In the morning of July 2, 1961, in Ketchum,
Idaho, he grabbed his hunting rifle and shot himself.

ATIVIDADE
Nos primeiros anos do século XX, Paris foi a cidade que reuniu mais intelectuais e artistas.
Bastava caminhar pelas ruas, bares e restaurantes da cidade para deparar com um artista
ou escritor famoso.
No filme dirigido pelo grande diretor americano Woody Allen, “Meia-Noite em Paris”,
O protagonista Gil consegue voltar para os anos 20 e conviver com os grandes nomes que
viveram naquela época.
Um roteirista de cinema bastante desanimado com seu trabalho, Gil se imagina naquela
época dourada, com a oportunidade de encontrar seus grandes ídolos literários. Pois seu
sonho se realiza e ele misteriosamente é transportado de volta ao glamour e agitação da
fervilhante Paris dos anos 20.

80 • capítulo 4
 Neste exercício você deve assistir (de novo, se for o caso) ao filme e relembrar quem são
os grandes personagens literários que Gil encontra em suas viagens no tempo.

REFLEXÃO
Os anos 20 foram uma época de dramáticas mudanças sociais e políticas. Pela primeira vez,
mais americanos viviam em cidades do que em fazendas. A riqueza total do país mais que
dobrou entre 1920 e 1929, e este crescimento econômico levou muitos americanos para a
sociedade de consumo.
De costa a costa, as pessoas compravam as mesmas mercadorias (graças aos comerciais
nacionais e o surgimento de redes de lojas), ouviam as mesmas músicas, dançavam da
mesma forma e até usavam as mesmas gírias. Muitos americanos, no entanto, sentiam-se
desconfortáveis com esta nova “cultura de massa”.
Em temos literários, foi uma época de grande explosão de criatividade trazida pelo
modernismo e pelas mudanças sociais. Diversos escritores tornavam-se celebridades tão
conhecidas quanto suas obras, como Ernest Hemingway e F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Durante os anos 20, muitos americanos tinham dinheiro para gastar e o gastavam em
produtos de consumo, roupas prontas e eletrodomésticos, como refrigeradores elétricos. Um
item em particular foi o preferido para consumo: rádios. A primeira estação de radio comercial
nos Estados Unidos, Pittsburgh’s KDKA, foi ao ar em 1920. Três anos depois havia mais de
500 estações no país.

LEITURA
Para conhecer bem os loucos anos 20, nada como ler F. Scott Fitzgerald. No livro “24
contos de F. Scott Fitzgerald” é possível ter uma amostra significativa deste grande escritor.
Leia abaixo a descrição do livro.

“Famoso por romances como O grande Gatsby, Suave é a noite e Este lado do paraíso,
F. Scott Fitzgerald merece igualmente constar entre os grandes contistas do século XX.
Ambientados em Nova York ou Paris, na Suíça ou na Riviera, os 24 contos que Ruy
Castro reuniu neste volume acompanham a juventude dourada americana dos anos 20, no
seu vaivém entre o Velho e o Novo Mundo; adentram a década seguinte, marcada pelo crash

capítulo 4 • 81
de 1929; e terminam na Califórnia, pouco antes da Segunda Guerra, onde o autor, falido e
decadente, tentava a sorte em Hollywood.
Homens bonitos e frágeis, moças petulantes de cabelo à la garçonne, milionários
chucros cometendo gafes em Paris, bêbados e ingênuos de todo tipo povoam as festas,
hotéis, praias e mansões dos contos de Fitzgerald. Mas ele não escrevia apenas para
registrar e celebrar a vida efervescente a seu redor: procurava transformar em arte seus
longos anos de migração, excesso e sofrimento ao lado da esposa, Zelda.
A atmosfera luminosa de despreocupação e opulência de tantos dos contos de Fitzgerald
serve como pano de fundo para histórias de perda: da beleza, do dinheiro, da dignidade e,
pior que tudo, da juventude.”
Disponível em: http://www.saraiva.com.br/24-contos-de-f-scott-
fitzgerald-6556619.html

24 contos de F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Companhia das Letras (Edição Digital)

REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
ALVES, Julia Falivene. A Invasão cultural Norte-Americana. Brasil: Editora Moderna, 2004.
BESSA, Maria Cristina. Panorama da Literatura Norte Americana. Brasil: Alexa Cultural, 2008.
Embaixada Americana - Literatura. Disponível em: http://www.embaixada-americana.org.br/HTML/
literatureinbrief/chapter05.htm. Acesso em: 05 mar. 2016.

FLETCHER, H. Robert. A History of English Literature for Students. Boston: Richard G. Badger,
2010.
Infoescola. Disponível em: http://www.infoescola.com/biografias/robert-frost/. Acesso em: 12 mar.
2016.
Listverse. Disponível em: <http://listverse.com/2014/05/31/10-incredible-facts-about-ernest-
hemingway/>. Acesso em: 09 mar. 2016.
Portal da literatura. Disponível em: <http://www.portaldaliteratura.com/autores.php?autor=874>.
Acesso em: 12 mar. 2016.
Tiro de Letra. Disponível em: <http://www.tirodeletra.com.br/biografia/WilliamFaulkner.htm>. Acesso
em: 05 mar. 2016.

82 • capítulo 4
 5
Pós-modernismo
e literatura
contemporânea
5.  Pós-modernismo e literatura
contemporânea

“Pós-Moderno” é um daqueles termos que encontraram larga aceitação no

nosso vocabulário cotidiano. Pense em quantas vezes você já ouviu que um
determinado livro ou filme é “pós-moderno”. De artistas pop como Andy Warhol
a filmes muito populares como Moulin Rouge e Pulp Fiction, não há como negar:
o pós-modernismo tornou-se parte de nossas vidas e nosso entretenimento.
Já a literatura pós-moderna pode ser definida como uma forma de literatura
marcada, tanto no estilo quanto na ideologia, por convenções literárias como
fragmentação, paradoxo, narradores não confiáveis, enredos por vezes irreais
ou até impossíveis, paródia, paranoia, humor negro, dentre outros. Os autores
pós-modernos tendem a rejeitar sentidos diretos em seus romances, histórias
ou poemas. Pelo contrário, enfatizam a possibilidade de diversos significados,
ou até mesmo a completa ausência de significado, em um mesmo livro.
Diversos críticos e estudiosos preferem definir a literatura pós-moderna
comparando-a ao estilo literário que a antecedeu, o Modernismo. De diversas
maneiras, os estilos literários e ideais pós-modernos têm a finalidade de
competir, reverter, ironizar ou até rejeitar os princípios da literatura moderna.
E o que dizer sobre a literatura “contemporânea”? Antes de mais nada, é
importante esclarecer que a literatura contemporânea tem como referência a
época em que foi escrita e, portanto, contém referências a assuntos, pessoas,
eventos, etc., contemporâneos. Assim, este tipo de literatura traz referências a
coisas acontecendo agora e é direcionada às pessoas vivendo agora. Um livro ou
estória contemporânea pode citar quem é o presidente neste momento, qual
guerra está ocorrendo agora e quais artistas estão fazendo sucesso agora.
Uma história “contemporânea” escrita entre os anos 1980 e 1984 pode
citar que o presidente americano no momento era Ronald Reagan. Da mesma
forma, séries de TV como Miami Vice eram contemporâneas na época e hoje são
datadas. Assim, podemos considerar uma literatura “contemporânea” quando
ainda nos identificamos com o universo descrito, os costumes, a tecnologia,
etc. Uma estória escrita nos anos 90 não citaria smartphones, por exemplo, mas
sim telefones celulares convencionais, o que não chega a tornar o texto datado.

84 • capítulo 5
 OBJETIVOS
Neste capítulo você vai conhecer uma fase da literatura americana que começa a partir da
Segunda Guerra Mundial, engloba características do pós-modernismo e chega aos dias
atuais, com o que podemos classificar como literatura contemporânea. Como não é possível
falar de todos os autores relevantes, você irá conhecer uma amostra significativa que grandes
nomes que ilustram muito bem esta fase da literatura norte-americana.

5.1  Post-war literature

An interesting starting point to the understanding of American fictional prose

of the second half of the 20th century is the year of 1945, the end of a disastrous
war that caused unprecedented violence and horror.
In terms of culture, the atomic bombs that turned into ashes two Japanese
cities became a symbol of the fatal dissonance between the technological power
and human wisdom. In the end of the 1970’s, novelist Kurt Vonnegut became a
spokesperson of a whole literary generation by confessing his disenchantment
in face of the destructive power of the technological war.
In the past he had believed that science and the scientists (among them his
own brother, a physicist at General Electric) would soon understand how life
worked and contribute to the advent of a more humanized and lucky society.
As we all know, the reality has been quite different from that utopist view.
Therefore, the literary prose that stretches from the end of World War II until
approximately mid-70’s is marked by a mix of fear, distrust, and alienation.

5.1.1  Shirley Hardie Jackson (1916 - 1965)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 5.1  – 

capítulo 5 • 85
 Shirley Jackson is considered one of the most influential American writers.
She is an heir of the great tradition of American Gothic, which started with
Edgar Allan Poe. She had a brief life, similarly to other writers of her generation,
but she was a prolific writer.
Jackson got immediate success and fame with the publication, in 1948, of
the tale The Lottery, which divided opinions at the time and brought up heated
discussions. Her first novel was The Road Through the Wall (1948), and in
order to promote the book, her husband claimed that the author had practiced
sorcery, which Jackson said years later that it was not true.
On the whole, she wrote 55 tales, which were organized in various volumes,
the last of them posthumous: Come Along With Me (1968). She also wrote
family chronicles, like Life among the Savages (1953) and Raising Demons
(1957), besides her novels, like The Sundial (1958) and The Haunting of Hill
House (1959), which became a movie. Jackson’s books got several distinctions
and prizes and were translated into several languages.
The Haunting of Hill House has been considered by authors like Stephen
King one of the most important horror stories of the 20th century. Her novel We
Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) was adapted for the theater in the sixties,
and The Lottery has been also adapted to television, cinema, and radio.

5.1.2  J. D. Salinger (1919 - 2010)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 5.2  –  Salinger in 1950.

86 • capítulo 5
 J. D. Salinger had been left aside by the media until the news broke on January
27, 2010. The writer, a recluse for decades, had just died at the age of 91. Then,
a great literature myth was back to newspapers and television, bring along old
stories related to his name, like that of the man who killed John Lennon after
reading the author’s masterpiece, Catcher in the Rye, or his ex-wives and her
books on his personal life and his social aversion.
By the time of his death, Salinger lived in Cornish, a little town with less
than one thousand inhabitants in New Hampshire. Nevertheless, the writer was
born in a much more populated city, New York. When he came to this world, in
1919, Jerome David Salinger was the son of a Polish Jew and a half Irish, half
Scotch woman. In high school he began to write and published several tales in
the first half of the 40’s.
After serving his country in the Second World War, he published a tale named
A Perfect Day for Bananafish in 1948. Acclaimed by critics for this publication,
Salinger begins his first novel, Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951, which
became a best-seller and was acclaimed by the critics. In the book he describes
the alienation and the loss of innocence of the main character, Holden
Caulfield, one of the most influential protagonists of American literature.

Mark David Chapman (nascido em 1955) está em uma prisão americana por ter
assassinado John Lennon em 8 de dezembro de 1980. Chapman atirou em Lennon
do lado de fora do edifício Dakota, em Nova York. Chapman atirou cinco vezes,
atingindo Lennon quatro vezes nas costas.
Após os disparos, ele permaneceu na cena do crime lendo o livro mais famoso de J.
D. Salinger “O Apanhador no Campo de Centeio” (The Catcher in the Rye) que ele
trazia consigo. Até a polícia chegar e o prender, Chapman repetidamente dizia que o
romance de Salinger o inspirou.

Salinger’s life was mysterious. According to some sources, he married a

German woman in the 50’s. Five years later, he married Claire Douglas, the
mother of his children, Matthew and Margaret, but in 1967 they divorced.
Among the many women that he had in his life, there was an eighteen-year-old
girl named Joyce Maynard, whom he met at the age of 50. This relationship led
to a book written by Maynard in the 90’s, in which she exposes Salinger’s life.

capítulo 5 • 87
Another book that reveals details concerning Salinger’s life was published in
2000, when his daughter presented the book Dream Catcher – a Memoir.
After the overwhelming success of Catcher in the Rye, he published Nine
Stories, a collection of nine stories published originally in The New Yorker, and
other books. His last work was Hapworth 16, 1924 (1965), also published in The
New Yorker.
Before his reclusion and death, Salinger’s last public contact was in 1974, in
an interview to The New York Times when he said that “publishing is a terrible
invasion of my privacy”.

5.1.3  Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 5.3  –  Tennessee Williams (age 54) in 1965.

One of the most important playwrights of the 20th century in the United
States, Thomas Lanier Williams, known as Tennessee Williams, was born in
the city of Columbus, in Mississippi. His father, Cornelius Coffin, was a door to
door shoe salesman, and his mother, Edwina Dakin Williams, the daughter of
a pastor.
Williams was born in the middle of a troubled family, which provided him
with inspiration for his literary work. In his childhood, he had diphtheria,
which allowed him to be absent from school for a year and let him focus on
reading books. He went to the Missouri University in 1929 and started working
for a shoe company in 1931.

88 • capítulo 5
 CONEXÃO
A peça de Tennessee Williams Um Bonde Chamado Desejo (A Streetcar Named Desire)
rendeu produções cinematográficas, inclusive uma estrelada por Marlon Brando. Uma
personagem emblemática do enredo é Blanche Dubois. Acesse o link abaixo e conheça um
pouco mais sobre esta personagem inesquecível.
<http://cinemaclassico.com/index.php/entertainment/item/210-
sobre-blanche-dubois>.

His first tale was published in a magazine when he was still in High School.
His first play was Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay, a farce about two sailors, played
in a theater in Memphis, Tennessee. Some years later, in 1938, he won a
100-dollar prize in a theater contest in California. This allowed him to move
to New York and, later, he spent some time in Hollywood, producing scripts
for MGM Studios, but he is not successful. The drama The Glass Menagerie,
one of his most important works, was released in 1944 in Chicago, right before
Christmas, and it became a great success. He also won two prizes for this text.
William’s writing style stems from the merging between fantasy and reality,
describing the everyday lives of solitary people. He writes in a concrete way, well
contextualized, reflecting the American mind. He also questions themes like
sexual, racial and social oppression in the USA, going deep into these topics,
and revealing in his text such violence and crudity that it is impossible not to
feel the negativism of his plots.
Tennessee William’s stories take place, usually, in the South of the USA, in a
troubled environment, full of socially displaced psychopaths. He was the most
inspiring playwright of the port-war period.
The next play that became a huge success was A Streetcar Named Desire,
which opened in 1947 and made him immortal after earning a Pulitzer Prize
for this play. Another successful text was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, from 1955.Both
plays inspired movie productions
One of his important characteristics is the use of musical elements, light,
and colors, which had the purpose of symbolizing the mood of the characters.
Other important works, also marked by psychological realism, were Orpheus
Descending (1957), and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959).

capítulo 5 • 89
 Tennessee Williams had problems with alcoholism and prescription drugs
throughout his life. He was found dead on February 25, 1983, in a hotel in New
York, at the age of 71.

5.1.4  Arthur Miller (1915-2005)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 5.4  –  < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Miller>.

Arthur Miller was an important American playwright, author of the Death of

a Salesman and The Crucible. He was born in New York from Jewish and Polish
immigrants. He studied journalism in Michigan University. In 1940, he marries
Mary Slattery, his girlfriend since high school.
In 1936, Miller earns the Hopwood Prize with his first play, Honors at Dawn,
played at Michigan University. In 1949, he earns the Pulitzer Prize and three Tony
Prizes with the play Death of a Salesman. In 1953 he presents the play The Crucible.
In his texts, Millers criticizes the society of his country. He also protests
against the lack of freedom of expression and the persecution of communists
during the McCarthyism. Due to investigations about subversive activities
promotes by the USA government, in 1956 Arthur Miller is requested to testify
in the Anti-American Committee and refuses to denounce intellectuals who
participated in Communist meetings.
Millers divorces Mary and, in June of 1956, marries actress Marilyn Monroe.
In 1960, he writes for Marilyn the screenplay of the movie The Misfits. In 1961,
he divorces Marilyn and, in the next year, marries photographer Inge Morath. In
May 2002, Miller earns the Spanish prize Prince of Asturias for Letters.

90 • capítulo 5
 A peça de Arthur Miller The Crucible (traduzido no Brasil como As Bruxas de Salem)
se passa na cidade de Salem, Massachussets, em 1692, onde ocorrem acusações de
bruxaria a partir de uma adolescente. Os críticos enxergaram que ao lançar a peça em
1953, Arthur Miller estava fazendo uma analogia com a “caça às bruxas” promovida
pelo senador McCarthy e o Comitê de Atividades Antiamericanas, em sua cruzada
para prender simpatizantes do comunismo em território americano. Apesar das óbvias
críticas políticas contidas na peça, a maioria dos críticos veem “As Bruxas de Salem”
como uma peça sobre um período terrível da história americana.

5.2  Beat generation

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 5.5  –  Book cover of “Beat, Beat, Beat”, by William F. Brown.

The term Beat Movement or Beat Generation was given to a group of young
American intellectuals (writers, poets, playwrights, and bohemians in general)
who, after WWII, were tired of the monotonous and ordered suburban life
in America. In an environment full of jazz, drugs, free sex, and the concept of
“on the road” (the physical exploration of American Territory), they decided to
make their own cultural revolution through literature.

capítulo 5 • 91
 According to literary critics, the name of the new and controversial literary
movement was a direct reference to jazz, the main source of slangs and new
terms that fed the counter-culture of the time. From that influence, the term
“beatnik” was coined: the expression “beat” with the suffix “nik”, a reference to
the pioneer Russian satellite Sputnik, launched in 1957.
The term “Beatnik” started to identify every writer that had independent
and bold perspective, who was focused in conceiving a literature with an
entirely different language. The Beatniks had a goal of constituting a literature
that could be closer to reality, an urban poetry, and an exclusive writing style,
different from any other created before.
The main authors of this movement were Allen Ginsberg (Howl, 1956, and
Kaddish, 1960); Jack Kerouac (On the Road, 1957); William Burroughs (Junkie,
1953, and The Naked Lunch, 1959); Gregory Corso (Marriage, 1960), and Gary
Snyder (Riprap, 1959).
The landmark of the Beat Movement is considered to be a free recital that
took place at Six Gallery, located near the ghettos of the city of San Francisco,
California. Among the public were blacks, immigrants and Latinos. The
poems were very political and criticized the current events of the time, like the
communist paranoia. This event led to the occurrence of several others later on.

A Geração Beat começou como uma resposta ao que estava acontecendo após
a Segunda Guerra Mundial. As pessoas que se juntaram ao Movimento Beat
frequentemente questionavam a sociedade e se as pessoas deveriam seguir um estilo
de vida convencional. As pessoas mais influentes do movimento foram Gary Snider, o
poeta radical Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs e Jack Kerouac.
O livro “Na estrada” (On the Road), de Jack Kerouac, foi uma das obras de maior
influência na época e gerou muita controvérsia. Além daqueles que se expressaram
pela literatura, músicos como Bob Dylan e Os Beatles foram influenciados pelo
movimento.
Os Beats queriam algo diferente para eles, uma vez que a guerra havia terminado.
Este movimento tem influenciado a sociedade até os dias de hoje, pois nos permite
pensar abertamente e questionar as decisões que são tomadas. O Movimento Beat
teve também papel fundamental nos movimentos antiguerra e hippie, que o sucedeu
nos anos 60.

92 • capítulo 5
5.2.1 Jack Kerouac (1922 - 1969)

© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 5.6 – Kerouac in 1956.

Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg formed the triad
that inaugurated a new era in literature – and not only literature, once they
influenced the culture of a whole generation. The Beat or Beatnik Generation
had the main characteristic of being against everything considered “common”.
Along with Neal Cassidy, Kerouac had a coast-to-coast journey in the USA
through rides, freight trains, or any cheap way of transportation. Based on this
experience he wrote the book On the Road, which was refused by publishers
for seven years, until it was finally released in 1957. It became one of the best-
sellers of the time.
On the Road was a Beat explosion. Written hectically in three weeks and
seasoned by Benzedrine, coffee, and jazz, On the Road meant spontaneity and
new, bold ideas on the stuck formalism that was imposed by the New Criticism.
Before On the Road, Kerouac had released another book, The Town and
the City, that was published in 1950, without great success. Except for the
book Visions of Cody (1972), considered by many and by Kerouac himself his
masterpiece, none of his other books achieved the success of On the Road.
But Kerouac was not prepared to the sudden success after years of constant
rejections. The furious attacks of the critics hurt him badly. Soon after he was

capítulo 5 • 93
addicted to alcohol and decided to isolate himself from the world, believing it
would improve his writing. Kerouac starts living with his mother in Long Island.
In his first forty years of life, Kerouac had never had a long term relationship,
although he had married twice, but divorced a few months later. Then he
marries a childhood friend, Stella Sampas, with whom he stayed until his death,
in 1969.
Other works of Jack Kerouac: “The Dharma Burns” and “The Subterraneans”
(1958), “Book of Dreams”, “Lonesome Traveler” and “The Scripture of
the Golden Eternity” (1960), “Big Sur” (1962), “Visions of Gerard” (1963),
“Desolation Angels” (1965), “Satori in Paris” (1966), “Vanity of Duluoz” (1968).

5.2.2  Allen Ginsberg (1926 - 1997)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 5.7  –  Allen Ginsberg in 1979. Available at: < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_

Ginsberg#/media/File:Allen_Ginsberg_1979_-_cropped.jpg>.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Irwin Allen Ginsberg was a Beat poet. His most
acclaimed book was Howl, released in 1956. Along with the other great names of
the Beat Generation, among them Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, began
a revolution on the values, customs, and language of the American literature in

94 • capítulo 5
the 50’s. The work of the Beat Poets echoed into the youth rebellions of the 60’s
and 70’s.
Ginsberg had a very complicated childhood, once he was timid and constantly
overwhelmed by his mother’s paranoia, who believed that there was a world
conspiracy against her. He discovered poetry in school, but in the Columbia
University he met several delinquent artists, who were obsessed by drugs, sex,
and literature, a combination that would define most Beatnik authors.
Ginsberg was very helpful with friends and enjoyed assisting them on the
development of their literary talents. At this time he started going to gay bars in
Greenwich Village, in New York. From then on he adopted a very bizarre way of
living, which forced him to look for psychiatric help. The amount of poetry he
had written at the age of 29 was very extensive, but nothing had been published
yet. But in 1955 he published Howl, a huge success.
A celebrity among the young rebels of the 60’s, Ginsberg became more and
more popular. He joined Timothy Leary, the LSD guru, the spread the news
about this new psychedelic synthetic drug. He also begins to participate in
several events, including those aiming at bringing back the American soldiers
fighting in the Vietnam War.

5.3  Contemporary writers

The 1970’s was an age of consolidation, once the Vietnam War had ended, and
the United States had celebrated their bicentennial anniversary. In the 1980’s,
the “me/myself” decade, individuals began to focus personal issues, rather
than more ample social ones.
In literature, old trend were still active, but the power of experimenting
had diminished. New authors, like John Gardner, Alice Walker, Paul Theroux,
William Kennedy or John Irving emerged with stylistically brilliant novels,
which depicted touching human dramas. The interest for scenery, characters
and themes related to Realism was back, along with a renewed interest on
History.

capítulo 5 • 95
5.3.1  Anne Rice (1941)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 5.8  –  Anne Rice in 2006.

Howard Allen O'Brien was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1941. She
adopted the name “Anne” when she went to school. In 1956, she lost her mother,
Katherine, and her father married again. Two years later, the family moved to
Richardson, Texas, where Anne met her future husband, the poet and painter
Stan rice. After their marriage, in 1961, she adopted her husband’s surname
and became Anne Rice. She graduated in Creative Writing by the University of
San Francisco.
She has written about 19 books, and her first one became a best-seller:
Interview with a Vampire (1976), which was the first of a series of novels about
vampires called The Vampire Chronicles.
Her main focus has been an incursion towards fantasy. In general, the
supernatural characters she creates seek their identities in a kind of “vampire
sub-culture” that merges death and sexuality. This way, she includes in the
plots topics related to atheism, homosexuality, immortality, vanity, and the
eternal relation good x evil.
Concerning Interview with a Vampire, Ann said that she wrote the book in one
week, after the death of her daughter due to leukemia. This daughter is represented

96 • capítulo 5
in the book by the character Claudia. This novel became a successful movie, and
Anne herself wrote the screenplay and followed very closely the project. At the time,
she got a deception when she learned that Tom Cruise had been chosen to be the
character Lestat – she considered him “just a pretty face” and her first choice was
the actor Rutger Hauer. After the movie was ready, she changed her mind.

5.3.2  Stephen King (1947)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 5.9  –  Stephen King in 2007.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine. After the divorce of his
parents, he and his brother David were raised by their mother. King went to the
University of Maine, where he kept a weekly column in the school journal. He was
a very active student, collaborating with political issues and serving as a member
of the Student Senate. He graduated in 1970 and got a qualification to teach.
The writer married Tabitha Spruce in 1971 – they had met in the university
library when they were students yet. While He sold short stories to some
magazines, King wrote his first professional tale, The Glass Floor for Startling
Mystery Stories in 1967. Many of these tales were compiled later in the volume
Night Shift or in other later anthologies.
In 1973, the publishing house Doubleday& Co. accepted the novel Carrie.
From this point on, King is able to stop teaching and he dedicates full time to
writing. In the same year he gets his second acceptance with the book Salem’s
Lot. During this period, King’s mother dies of cancer at the age of 59.

capítulo 5 • 97
 King moves with his family to Colorado, where they live for approximately
one year. During this time he writes The Shinning, which became a movie under
the direction of Stanley Kubrick in 1980. Then, King and his family return to
Maine, where he finishes writing The Stand.
In 2003, Stephen King received a distinction from The National Book
Foundation for his contributions to American Literature.

CONEXÃO
Uma das grandes obras de Stephen king foi O Iluminado (The Shining), transformado em
filme pelo brilhante diretor Stanley Kubrick. Acesse o link abaixo e leia algumas curiosidades
sobre o filme e sobre as diferenças entre a versão literária e a versão cinematográfica.
<http://www.cantodosclassicos.com/curiosidades-sobre-o-iluminado/>.

5.3.3  Dan Brown (1964)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 5.10  –  Dan Brown in 2015.

Dan Brown is the author of successful thrillers, including the “mega-seller”

The Da Vinci Code (2003), which sold more than 81 million books. Brown was
born in Exeter and studied at Phillips Exeter Academy. He went to Amherst
College in 1982. He was a member of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity and joined a
tour to Europe in his freshman year to study History of Arts at Seville University,
in Spain.

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 Dan Brown is married with the painter and art historian Blythe, who
collaborates with the research for Brown’s books, which includes secret
organizations, historical cities, medieval symbols, renaissance paintings,
hidden codes and conspiracies, all wrapped up in a movie-like narrative that
holds the attention of the reader from beginning to end.
Brown’s novels were translated in 54 languages. His first book was Digital
Fortress (1998). The others were Angels and Demons (2000), Deception Point
(2001), The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol (2009), and Inferno (2013).
The movies The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons have already become
Hollywood productions, both starred by Tom Hanks.

5.3.4  Khaled Hosseini (1965)

©© WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Figura 5.11  –  Khaled Hosseini at the White House.

The physician and writer Khaled Hosseini was born in the capital of
Afghanistan, Kabul. He is the son of a high school teacher and a civil servant at
the Ministry of Exterior. After spending some time in Iraq due to his father’s job,
the Hosseinis return to Kabul in 1973. In the night of the birth of his younger
brother, there is a coup, but without violence. Three years later, the family was
sent to Paris on business, but they could not return to their homeland, once the
Communists had taken the power in Afghanistan after a violent insurrection.
Then, the family gets political asylum in the USA, and their new home
address now is in San Jose, California. Once all their possessions remained in
Afghanistan, the Hosseinis had to accept, for some time, financial help from
the American government. Khaled studied Biology at the University of Santa
Clara and graduated in 1988.

capítulo 5 • 99
 Hosseini now lives in California with his wife, Roya, and two children. He
wrote his best seller book The Kite Runner in 2003 – a great success in terms of
public and critic. In his novel he describes the adventures of two Afghan boys
in the late 70’s, with end of the monarchic system, the arrival of the Soviets, the
decline of Communism and the rise of the fundamentalist regimen Taliban. In
2007, the novel got a movie version.
Hosseini published other novels: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007), And
the Mountains Echoed (2013)

A obra O Caçador de Pipas (The Kite Runner), publicada em 2003, é o livro mais
famoso de Khaled Hosseini. A narrativa da história é feita pelo protagonista Amir
quatro dias após os eventos finais da jornada que atravessa décadas. O narrador fala
na primeira pessoa, descrevendo principalmente os eventos que aconteceram meses
ou anos atrás. O narrador descreve tais eventos de uma forma subjetiva, explicado a
forma como os vivenciou e as sensações trazidas por esses eventos.
O tom do livro é confessional, com uma profunda expressão de remorso por toda a
história, que começa em 1975 e se estende até 2001. O conflito principal foca na
sua incapacidade de impedir o estupro de seu amigo Hassan, fato que o enche de
remorso e o atormenta por anos. Para tentar aliviar sua culpa, Amir retorna a Cabul e
encontra um país que ele não reconhece mais.

ATIVIDADES
Desde o surpreendente sucesso do filme “Carrie, a Estranha”, em 1976, Stephen King
tornou-se um dos “queridinhos” de Hollywood e muitos de seus livros transformaram-se em
filmes de sucesso variado. Teste seus conhecimentos sobre a obra deste grande mestre do
terror e suspense.

01. Which was Stephen King's first book?

a) It c) The Green Mile
b) Carrie d) Misery

02. Which book was about aliens?

a) Cujo c) Pet Sematary
b) Tommy knockers d) Gerald’s Game

100 • capítulo 5
03. The “Overlook Hotel” is basically a character in a certain book. What is the name of this
book?
a) Carrie c) The Shining
b) Under the Dome d) Pet Sematary

04. What Stephen King’s book is about a clown?

a) Tommy knockers c) The Green Mile
b) Under the Dome d) It

05. Which book is about a dog?

a) Cujo c) Bag of Bones
b) Pet Semetery d) Needful Things

06. Which book is about a writer?

a) The Shining c) Eyes of the Dragon
b) Under the Dome d) The Mist

REFLEXÃO
No início dos anos 20, quando o conceito de que Deus estava morto foi introduzido pela
primeira vez na cultura popular, isso causou uma angústia infinita e uma grande sensação de
perda. Artistas, escritores e as pessoas em geral passaram a questionar o sentido da vida e
concluíram que ela é inerentemente sem sentido. A maior parte da literatura escrita antes da
2ª Guerra Mundial lidava com a questão de como as pessoas conseguiam continuar vivendo
depois de perceberem tudo isto.
Depois das atrocidades da 2ª Guerra Mundial, já não era tão difícil aceitar que não havia
um Deus benevolente tomando conta de cada ser vivo. Mesmo durante a alegria e alívio pelo
fim da guerra, a atitude predominante ainda era de desilusão: “e agora”?
Os escritores do pós-guerra buscavam modos de lidar com um mundo em que a única
constante era a mudança. Conforme o mundo mudava cada vez mais depressa, a literatura
mudava com ele. A literatura contemporânea é difícil de caracterizar, pois ela reflete a vida e
cultura contemporâneas, as quais mudam rapidamente e são cheias de contradições.
De um modo bem genérico, podemos afirmar que a literatura contemporânea não é mais
“inocente”, mas sim irônica, pois reflete uma certa desilusão com a política, a sociedade e
com nós mesmos. Muitos autores passaram a acreditar que a inovação já não é possível,

capítulo 5 • 101
pois todas as ideias e combinações de ideias já foram usadas, e o que nos resta é imitar, da
melhor forma possível, o que o passado criou.
Outra característica da literatura contemporânea é um certo cinismo com relação ao
papel da arte e da própria literatura. Para as gerações anteriores, literatura e outras artes
tendiam a repudiar e subverter valores e tradições estabelecidos. De certo modo, os
autores contemporâneos compartilham também desta visão. Podemos observar, portanto,
que as tendências literárias podem voltar a fases anteriores, reciclando-as, dando-lhes
nova roupagem e até novas denominações. O que temos de “inovador” hoje pode ser uma
reciclagem de estilos já utilizados. E o futuro da literatura pode fazer o mesmo em relação ao
nosso passado e presente. Quem viver verá.

LEITURA
O grande clássico de Tennessee Williams é Um Bonde Chamado Desejo (A Streetcar
Named Desire). A leitura desta importante obra permitirá uma maior compreensão sobre a
literatura do pós-guerra.
Um Bonde Chamado Desejo
Autor: Tennessee Williams
Editora: L&PM
Edição: Setembro de 2008

REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
Folha de São Paulo. Disponível em: <http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/ilustrad/fq2901201026.htm>.
Acesso em: 18 mar. 2016.
Netsaber. Disponível em: <http://www.netsaber.com.br/biografias/ver_biografia_c_1176.html>.
Acesso em: 20 mar. 2016.
ALVES, Julia Falivene. A Invasão cultural Norte-Americana. Brasil: Editora Moderna, 2004.
BESSA, Maria Cristina. Panorama da Literatura Norte Americana. Brasil: Alexa Cultural, 2008.
FLETCHER, H. Robert. A History of English Literature for Students. Boston: Richard G. Badger,
2010.
Portal da literatura. Disponível em: <http://www.portaldaliteratura.com/autores.php?autor=874>.
Acesso em: 12 mar. 2016.

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Study.com. Disponível em: <http://study.com/academy/lesson/contemporary-american-literature-
authors-and-major-works.html>. Acesso em: 21 mar. 2016.

GABARITO
Capítulo 1

01. Sugestão de resposta:

O sentido positivo/negativo original do termo “puritano” e o sentido pejorativo atual (rigidez,
moralismo, intolerância). A imagem distorcida dos puritanos na história. H. L. Mencken: “O
puritanismo é o temor persistente de que alguém, em algum lugar, possa ser feliz”.
Ênfase principal: preocupação com a pureza e integridade da igreja, do indivíduo e da
sociedade. Movimento muito influente na Inglaterra; principal tradição religiosa na história
dos Estados Unidos.

Capítulo 2

01. 1800-1860
02. Romanticism
03. A Minister
04. His wife died.
05. Optimism, Self-Reliance, Intuition, and Idealism
06. Ralph Waldo Emerson
07. He had dementia.
08. She was allowed an education.
09. A teacher.
10. Edgar Allan Poe

Capítulo 3

01. A
02. E
03. A
04. B
05. A

capítulo 5 • 103
Capítulo 4

01. No filme, o personagem Gil tem a oportunidade de encontrar-se com grandes nomes da
literatura modernista norte-americana. Um deles é o poeta e dramaturgo T.S. Eliot, conside-
rado o maior poeta de língua inglesa do século XX. Outro personagem é o norte-americano
Ernest Hemingway, que antes de se mudar para Cuba, onde viveria até morrer, passou alguns
anos em Paris. F. Scott Fitzgerald, sempre acompanhado de sua mulher, Zelda, é outro gran-
de escritor dos EUA a dar as caras.

Capítulo 5

01. B
02. B
03. C
04. D
05. A
06. A

104 • capítulo 5