American literature

OF THE END OF THE XIX^th С -

THE BEGINNING OF THE XX^th С

At the end of the century it is not quite easy to achieve a really deep understanding of works by the authors belonging to the dawn of the century.

Since we are concerned here with the history of American literature we might try to follow its course of development in connection with historical forces, economic background, the nature of society and the intellectual currents that prevailed. Art is closely connected with sociology, philosophy and politics for it is a sort of superstructure over the economic basis. But it is also a means of cognition, for it helps, in a very special way, to make a study of surrounding reality.

At the close of the XIX^th century philosophers and some New England writers were inclined to see man as weak and helpless in the face of indifferent and impersonal Nature. And this Nature could not be identified with the increasingly hostile and seemingly impersonal monster of mass production, machine technology and finance capitalism. The ordinary man found himself the victim of sweatshops, starvation wages, cut­throat competition. He found himself depended on the unprincipled, avaricious and dollar-crazy robber of an industrialist for his bread and butter, for his happiness, for his children's future while it was blissful freedom that he was supposed to enjoy in "the Land of the free and the Home of brave", the statue of Liberty promised, as the patriotic songs went.

As for economic development, by the end of the end of the XIX^th century the United States was already a highly developed industrial country and the dawn of the XX^th с found it in a state of capitalist prosperity. [75]

The rapid rise of the industrial order (based on the system of private ownership and individual enterprise) had resulted in many economic situations that were sure to lead the country into disaster. In fact this was proved by the financial panics of 1869 and 1873 and as time went on an increasing number of people found themselves victims of economic circumstances.

The growth of big business had created great numbers of proletarians. Those were people deprived of any chance of education, ignorant and often unskilled workers dependent for their livelihood on the fluctuations of industry. Clerks, office workers and even fanners depended on bank credit, transportation and machinery. So then, in the frequently depressed economic conditions of the period, the ordinary man began to feel the effects of the ups and downs of business.

The foreign policy of the United States was a policy of aggressive tactics of domination and annexation of lands to which the United States had no legal title and with which they had no cultural affinity. Mark Twain in his pamphlet "We are Americanizing Europe"(1906) wrote: "For good or for evil we continue to educate Europe. We have had the post of instructor for more than a century and a quarter now. We were not elected to it, we merely took it. We are of the Anglo-Saxon race. And when the Anglo-Saxon wants a thing he just takes it."