American Literature
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Power of Prose Index

Power of Prose

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• Part 1: The American Voice
  Over the centuries, American authors have shaped a vast body of work, often reflecting voices that are distinctly American. From the river-raft philosophizing of a poor Mississippi Valley boy, to the "words walking without masters" filling the journey of a woman descended from slaves, to the border-tongue blends increasingly finding a place on the page, American literature speaks with many voices and variations.
• Part 2: American Debuts
  Part 2 explores the art of local color, beginning with how Herman Melville and Mark Twain pioneered the use of a new American language in their 19th -century novels.
• Part 3: Harlem Renaissance & Beyond
  Early 20th-century writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro Renaissance broke with standard American English and gave literature a rich new voice.
• Part 4: The WPA
  During the Depression, the Work Projects Administration (WPA) Writer's Project nurtured talent and collected voices coast to coast.
• Part 5: African American Women
  In the first half of the 20th century, Zora Neale Hurston's use of black dialect and folk speech drew both praise and criticism. By the end of the century Toni Morrison and Alice Walker had won the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes respectively, for their "voice" driven prose.
• Part 6: Voices of the South
  To strike effect, Southern writers drew on oral tradition and social conflict.
• Part 7: Cuban-American Voices
  Cuban Americans add new spice to Florida's bilingual literature.
• Part 8: Texas and the West
  In Texas they speak a whole 'nuther way … and it's lassoed by talented writers.
• Part 9: Voices of the American Southwest
  In the Southwest, the cadence of Native American language blends with Mexican-American dialect.
• Part 10: The Northeast
  True Yankee voices emerge in the literature of the Northeast, from Massachusetts to Maine - where submarine sandwiches are grinders and milkshakes are frappes.
• Part 11: The Urban Landscape
  Up in the Bronx, urban voices are shaped by immigrants' far-off homes - by the sounds of Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Eastern Europe and more.
• Part 12: Asian Americans
  Asian language speakers face unique linguistic and cultural challenges in America's multi-ethnic society.
• Part 13:  Native Americans
  Native American ancestry infuses modern literature with ancient sounds.
• Part 14: Arab American & South Asian Voices
  Arab Americans and South Asians are speaking up in new American writing, reflecting changing waves of immigrants.
• Part 15:  Hawaiian Islands
  The Hawaiian islands contribute language variation including Pidgin and Creole, at odds with Standard American English.
• Part 16: Border Tongue
  On the border between the United States and Mexico, bilingualism breeds a new "border tongue" that's neither English nor Spanish, but somehow both.

Sponsored by:

National Endowment for the Humanities	William and Flora Hewlett Foundation	Ford Foundation	Rosalind P. Walter	Arthur Vining Davis Foundations	Carnegie Corporation of New York