The role of nature and "the wilderness" is a prevalent theme appearing time and again in many pieces of American Literature. The wilderness is a major aspect of both Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative as well as Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown." The theme the wilderness plays in these ...

Among the many comments received about the early selections collected in The Heath Anthology of American Literature, the plaintive comment, even from early Americanists, about the number of so-called new writers represented there strikes me as most honest and forthright. Indeed, more than a few coll...

Exploreres and Purtians: 17-Century Puritans Who were the English Puritans? When the 16th-century Reformation took place three distinct sectors of reformation developed: the German, the Swiss (including France) and the English. Of these three the weakest and least hopeful was the English. At fir...

Last of the Mohicans: A Dying Generation The Last of the Mohicans is one of five novels in the Leatherstocking Series, all of which were written by James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper is known to be "one of the nineteenth century's most popular story tellers" because he "presented a...

Chapters I–II Summary: Chapter I The French general Montcalm has allied himself with several of the Indian tribes native to America and is moving a large army south in an attempt to take Fort William Henry from the British. Magua, an Indian scout, intercepts the information about the impend...