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American Literature: From Colonialism To Term Paper

Writers such as Poe, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne became known as the key figures in the Dark Romantic sub-genre that emerged out of Transcendentalism. American literature also found its voice through poetry during the 19th century, particularly in the works of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. The two poets produced remarkably dissimilar bodies of work. Whitman rose to prominence during the American Civil War with his free verse extolling the virtues of democracy and the

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Realism, a style of fiction writing that intended to capture the way people in America actually spoke and lived. Mark Twain was one of the key figures in this movement. His literary style was in many ways influenced by the direct speech of journalism, and he helped capture a distinctly American vernacular through such famous works as the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Henry James was another major American realist. Although he spent most of his life in Europe, he wrote about Americans like him who were either traveling or living in Europe, and attempted to explore their psychological states in a realistic fashion.

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