American literature

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849)

He wan an American writer, editor, and literary critic. He is called as Father of detective stories. He was born in 1809 in Boston. His father left his family, when Poe wan only two years old. His mum died at the age of 24. He remained only with his older brother and sister. What is more, brother fell in alcoholism and sister was a disabled person.
At that time, his name was Edgar poe. The middle name „Allan“ he got by his new family, who relief him from orphanage.
He didn’t get on well with his father and brother because of drugs and alcoholism at the both sides. When he wrote Raven, whole society was amazed. But then he again started to take drugs.
He was found drunk at the street and died after four days.
Works:
Raven – the poem
The Masque of the Red Death
The Pit and the Pendulum

Mark Twain
Life
- Lived in the turn of the 19th and the 20th century
- American writer, humorist, entrepreneur
- Known for his friendships with presidents, politician and european royalty
- William Faulkner said that Twain was The greatest humorist America has ever produced and the father of American literature
- He traveled a lot which inspired him to write almost all of his writing
Writing
- There is a vast range of types of literature he wrote, novels, plays, speeches, horror fiction
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both of them are novels based on travelling, Tom Sawyer was modeled on Twain as a child, The book also introduces Huckleberry Finn in a supporting role, basically about the authors youth when he travelled and experienced many adventures

• Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
 American novelist shorts story writher and journalist
 He used different style and termed the iceberg theory – which is the theory how to work with the main story- he wrote only a „skeleton“ and the rest of the meaning has the reader found himself
 He won the Nobel Prize in Literature
 He was the part of „Lost generation“ community (the writher who were influenced by the world war first)
 Writing:
o The Old Man and the Sea – novel about a man fighting with a big fish in Cuba, it has deep meaning, the author was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction
o For Whom the Bell Tolls – Spanish civil war, the soldier has to protect the bridge
o A Farewell to Arms – the main meaning of the book is warning about the war and the thinks that are connected to it( the misery, fear and death)
Francis Scott Fitzgerald
• 20th century
• Wife Zelda Fitzerald, daughter Frances Scott Fitzerald
• Jazz Age
• „Lost generation“
• Friend of Hemingway
• An alcoholic, 2 heart attacs (died at age 44)
• This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, and Tender Is the Night=novels

John Steinbeck (1902 – 1968)
• American author, novelist, short story author, war correspondent
• Nobel prize in Literature, Pullitzer prize for Fiction
• Studied English and History at Standford university
• Trying to be journalist in NYC – failed
• He was three times married
• Died of heart disease aged 66
Work:
• Of Mice and Men
- Novel
- Problems in american society: racism, economic crisis, desire for money
- Main charakters: George Milton, Lennie Small, Curley’s Wife

• The Grapes of Wrath
- Novel
- The winner of Pulitzer prize for Fiction
- Period of economic crisis

• East of Eden
- Novel
- Based on bibliotic story about Kain and Abel
- Story about family Trasks and Hamiltons
Louisa May Alcottová
Life
• Born in USA (Pennsylvania) in 1832, childhood spent in Massachusetts, died in 1888
• 4 sisters
• Influenced by germen philosophy of transcendentalism (father)
• Financial problems in family (unsuccessful project Fruitlands) – had to work (as dressmaker, writer and teacher)
• Opinion against slavery and for feminism
• During civil war worked as nurse
Writings
• Little Women
o Most significant writing
o Partly autobiography novel of her childhood in Massachusetts
• Flower Fables, Moods, Good wives, Little men

Nelle Harper Lee
Life:
• 1926 – 2016, lived in Alabama
• Descendant of Robert E. Lee (general of the south in Civil war)
• Studied law, didn’t finish it (left for literature career)
• Writer and editor (in newspaper)
• 1961 - Pulitzer Prize fir „To Kill a Mockingbird“
Writings:
• To Kill a Mockingbird (1959)
o Bestseller, relationships between „rich“ and „poor“ people during The great Deppresion (south of the USA)
• Go Set a Watchman