What Is American Literature

American Literature is literature that deals with the Americas. As literature has evolved, it has changed in many ways. This type of literature involves religion, music, and people.

American Literature starts with everything being about religion and God. Most all of the books, poems, or stories written or heard were about religion and or God. People were very religion oriented in this time and surrounded themselves with beliefs and traditions. The very first book written was the Bible. Along with that it was said that it was wrong for women to write any kind of publication. If they did so they had to use a pin name. Over time that has changed; literature is open and many women like to write their own stories and opinions and form them into books, poems, epics and even music.

American literature also has to do with music. Many songs written have a story behind them. If one listens to the lyrics they can hear the story trying to be told. The music over the generations has changed and evolved. From the old 40s gospel, folk and blues to the 80s pop and disco. All music is a form of literature, the songwriter has to know how to write a song don't they? They can't just make up some random words and jumble them together. There has to rhythm and sense to it.

The people play a very large role in American Literature. There are so many people from different time periods that make the literature what it is today. For example, Edgar Allen Poe was very misunderstood and wrote very deep, dark poems. Some were very romantic or some were sad and tragic. His style of writing came from his past experience. His wife died and he was a very lonely, depressed man after that and so he took his emotions out in his writing. Emily Dickenson wrote her books based around what we would call "male bashing". She was hurt by a man and decided to take her anger and frustration in her stories. There are so many other authors who have different unique styles of writing as well, which makes American literature so intriguing.

American literature has many aspects to it. There are many forms of literature and they have all changed over time. Though they may have changed they still have the same concepts; religion, music and people.