童明教授在美国加州大学从事教学与研究多年。本书以他的学术积累为依托，专为中国读者而写。既有对美国文学发展历史的宏观叙述，又有对具体作品的细致分析，内容丰富，观点新颖，评价中肯，文笔流畅，是一部让人难以释手的文学史著作，更是一本英语专业师生不可或缺的好教材。

本书尤其深广的时空跨度，如此规模的英文版美国文学史论著是首次在国内出版。熟知美国学界的最新研究动态，又有亚洲学者的独特视角，同时兼顾史学研究和重点作品的赏析。见解独到，文笔优雅，是国内学人不可多得的一部好书。

前言

Part 1 Early American Literature: Colonial Period to 1815

1 The Literature of the New World

2 The Literature of Colonial America: 1620—1763

3 Literature and the American Revolution: 1764—1815

Part 2 American Romanticism: 1815—1865

4 The Age of American Romanticism

5 Early Romanticism

6 Transcendentalism and Symbolic Representation

7 Interrogating Innocence

8 Whitman and Dickinson

9 A House Divided: Writing against Slavery

Part 3 American Realism: 1865—1914

10 The Age of Realism

11 Regional and Local Color Writing

12 Henry James and William Dean Howells

13 Literary Naturalism

14 Women Writing on the Woman Question

Part 4 American Modernism: 1914—1945

15 Modernism in the American Grain

16 The Evolution of Modernism

17 American Modernism in Europe

18 Modern Fiction between the Wars

19 Modern American Poetry

20 African American Literature and Modernism

Part 5 American Literature Diversified: From 1945 to the 21st Century

21 Literature Diversified under New Conditions

22 American Theatre: Three Major Playwrights

23 Major Fiction Writers: 1945 till 1960s

24 Poetic Tendencies since 1945

25 Fictional Inclinations since the 1960s

26 Contemporary Multiethnic Literature

27 Globalization of American Literature: Diasporic Writers

Selected Bibliography

Chronology of Historical Events

Index