Literature and Culture in the United States of America - Essay Example

Literature and culture in the United States of AmericaIntroduction The American culture can be explained by traditional writers who expressed their views as natives or outsiders thus creating awareness and a sense of belonging to all the groups of people living in the United States of America. The US is a multicultural land filled with people from different ethnics and places in the world. However the Native Americans have their culture which distinguishes them from outsiders. The multi-ethnic culture was formed after the civil war due to the combination of forces to form a comrade that would fight for independence.

Different authors have since then taken the responsibility of defining the American culture and placing the people on their original group in regard to their cultural practices. In this case traditional literature is used as a cultural reference. Literature portrays the transition from the old to the new culture in the United States of America. Literature in the 20th century was influenced by the skepticism and spiritual unrest in the 19th century. Realism and naturalism were introduced at this stage (Gray 72).

This brought about the introduction of symbolist poems which emerged from Canadian writers. The art of playwrights came to being with writers such as Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard and Anton Chekhov became the masters behind the invention of these literature art. Women inspired literature Women authors such as Ellen Glasgow and Edith Wharton helped in the introduction of the new art of American literature after the civil war in 1915. Ellen Glasgow influenced the transition of traditional literature to modern literature in women as she specialized in philosophy, political and social theory.

These fields of writing brought about the introduction of realism and naturalism in poetry. Her inspiration was drawn from the civil war and her love of expressing emotions through the art of poetry. Her literature inspired women to political movements thus forming suffrage movement in 1900. Norma Millay Ellis is another female writer who contributed to the introduction of the new art of American literature. Unlike Ellen whose literature based on realism, Norma Millay Ellis’s literature was more focused on symbolists’ art as she used the art of nature in her expression of emotions.

This is portrayed in her poem ‘Those Hours When Happy Hours Were My Estate’ where she compares happy links joyous emotions to the environment in which she dwells. Multicultural literature Modernism is another form another form of literature which was introduced in the beginning of the 20th century to promote the essence of multicultural practices in the US (Gray 138). After the civil war, America became globalized thus authors were inspired to transform literature into a tool that can unify the multicultural population into a single cultured society with diversity in cultural practices.

The art of modernism in writing came to being with authors such as Alain Locke composing inspiring multicultural based literatures for instance ‘The New Negro’. Harlem Renaissance came to light inspiring African American writers to contribute to the new art of literature. As a result, writers such as Wallace Stevens with his book ‘Harmonium’ and Countee Cullen’s with the book ‘Color’ came to became famous with their educative literature on the importance of living in a harmonious and multicultural environment.

Conclusion Literature can be described as an educative and unifying factor in the United States of America (Gray 10). This is because it promotes the essence of multiculturalism in the US which resulted from globalization that was inspired by the civil wars. Literature also portrays the changing of the Native American culture through the change in the art used in writing. Work CitedGray Richard. A History of American Literature: New York. John Wiley & Sons. 2011. Print