Great American Novel

This article is about the Great American Novel as a concept. For other uses, see Great American Novel (disambiguation).

The cover of the first edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

The "Great American Novel" is the concept of a novel that shows the culture of the United States of America at a specific time. It is presumed to be written by an American author who is knowledgeable about the state, culture, and perspective of the common American citizen. The author uses the literary work to identify and exhibit the language used by the American people of the time and to capture the unique American experience, especially as it is perceived for the time. In historical terms, it is sometimes equated as being the American response to the national epic.

History

While fiction was written in colonial America as early as the 17th century, it was not until a distinct "American" identity developed during the 18th century that what is understood to be "American literature" began. America's identity as a nation was reflected alongside the development of its literature.

The term "Great American Novel" derives from the title of an essay by American Civil War novelist John William De Forest. More broadly, however, the concept originated in American nationalism and the call for American counterparts to great British authors.

In modern usage, the term is often figurative and represents a canonical writing, a literary benchmark emblematic of what defines American literature in a given era. Aspiring writers of all ages, but especially students, are often said to be driven to write "the Great American Novel". Theoretically, such is, presumably, the greatest American book ever written, or which could ever be written. Thus, "Great American Novel" is a metaphor for identity, a Platonic ideal that is not achieved in any specific texts, but whose aim writers strive to mirror in their work.

Authors and books referred to as "Great American Novel"

At one time or another, the following works have been considered to be a Great American Novel:

19th century

• 1826: James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans
• 1850: Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
• 1851: Herman Melville's Moby-Dick
• 1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin
• 1876: Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• 1884: Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

20th century

• 1925: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
• 1925: Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy
• 1932: William Faulkner's Light in August
• 1936: William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!
• 1936: Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind
• 1938: John Dos Passos's U.S.A. trilogy
• 1939: John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
• 1940: Richard Wright's Native Son
• 1951: J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
• 1952: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
• 1953: Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March
• 1955: Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
• 1960: Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
• 1960: John Updike's Rabbit, Run and sequels
• 1973: Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow
• 1975: William Gaddis's J R
• 1985: Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West
• 1985: Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove
• 1987: Toni Morrison's Beloved
• 1996: David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
• 1997: Philip Roth's American Pastoral
• 1997: Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon

21st century

• 2000: Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
• 2004: Marilynne Robinson's Gilead
• 2009: Philipp Meyer's American Rust
• 2010: Jonathan Franzen's Freedom
• 2013: Philipp Meyer's The Son

See also

• National epic
• The American Scholar

Further reading

• Buell, Lawrence. (2014). The Dream of the Great American Novel. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674051157
• Brown, Herbert R. "The Great American Novel." American Literature 7.1 (1935): 1–14.
• Knox, George. "The Great American Novel: Final Chapter." American Quarterly 21.4 (1969): 667–682.

External links

• The American Novel | PBS