《美国文学简史》试图简洁而全面地展现美国民族的想象力——以文字形式体现出来的想象力。《美国文学简史》共分五章，第一章实际上是前史，即美国文学正式诞生前的文学史，是对新大陆这一“伊甸园”的想象。第二章的主题为“美国文学的创造” ，与“创造美国”这一主题密切相关，论述美国从1800年建国后到1865年南北战争结束之间的美国文学。第三章的主题为“重现过去，重塑未来”，与“重建美国”这一主题密切相关，论述南北战争后到1900 年之间的美国文学。第四章的主题为现代美国和现代主义，论述1900年至1945年二战结束之间的美国文学。第五章的主题是“美国的世纪”，论述1945年二战结束后美国逐渐称霸时期的美国文学。
- 总序
- 《美国文学简史》导读
- 1 The First Americans: American Literature During the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods
- Imagining Eden
- Writing of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods
- 2 Inventing Americas: The Making of American Literature 1800–1865 50
- Making a Nation 50
- The Making of American Myths
- The Making of American Selves
- The Making of Many Americas
- The Making of an American Fiction and Poetry
- 3 Reconstructing the Past, Reimagining the Future: The Development of American Literature 1865–1900
- Rebuilding a Nation
- The Development of Literary Regionalisms
- The Development of Literary Realism and Naturalism
- The Development of Women’s Writing
- The Development of Many Americas
- 4 Making It New: The Emergence of Modern American Literature 1900–1945
- Changing National Identities
- Between Victorianism and Modernism
- The Inventions of Modernism
- Traditionalism, Politics, and Prophecy
- Community and Identity
- Mass Culture and the Writer
- 5 Negotiating the American Century: American Literature Since 1945
- Towards a Transnational Nation
- Formalists and Confessionals
- Public and Private Histories
- Beats, Prophets, and Aesthetes
- The Art and Politics of Race
- Realism and Its Discontents
- Language and Genre
- Creating New Americas
- Index
- 版权
