PREFACE:The present essay, is aimed to analyze some major works of the authors in American literature.First of all, I have read the works by the authors I have been assigned, and after choosing three out of the six authors I concentrated on the one I chose to emphasize. In addition, I searched for an extra author of my own choice. I decided to use both sources from the website, as well as from the library, in order to use as more information as possible. Before starting my essay, I have read the general introduction to the authors from the anthologies I have picked from the library. Specifically, the Mc Michael, Anthology of American Literature Volume I, Prentice Hall: New Jersey,1997. General introduction to Henry Longfellow, p.1523-1524, The Psalm of Life, p.1524-1525, and My Lost Youth, p.1529-1531. The second, McMichael, Anthology of American literature Volume II, Prentice Hall: New Jersey,1997. General introduction to T.S Eliot, p.1135-1137, The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, p.1137-1140, The Beast in the Jungle, p.420-449. The Hiawathas poem is picked from the website: http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=283 , and Next Please from, http://bryantmcgill.com/wiki/poetry/philip_larkin/next_please#.Uq7qN_RdXwo.Each part of the essay begins with general information, summary of the work and commentary or comparison and contrast correspondingly. The sections presented discuss the main ideas of the essays. Therefore, in section 1 the following links have been used: general introduction to Longfellow , ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/longfellow_bio.html http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/henry-wadsworth-longfellow In section 2, the following have been used: summary of the poem A Psalm of Life: http://www.preservearticles.com/201105206812/here-is-the-summary-of-the-poem-a-psalm-of-life.html http://www.shareyouressays.com/97762/summary-of-a-psalm-of-life-by-henry-wadsworth-longfellow analysis of the poem: http://voices.yahoo.com/an-analysis-longfellows-psalm-life-672303.html?cat=9 http://beamingnotes.com/2013/08/13/analysis-of-a-psalm-of-life-by-h-w-longfellow/ In section 3, the following have been used: analysis of the poem My Lost Youth: http://www.wretch.cc/blog/vitashow/26831In the section 4, the following has been used: introduction to the epic poem Hiawatha: http://www.bartleby.com/356/87.html, analysis, structure of the poem: http://salempress.com/store/samples/masterplots_2_juvenile_and_ya/masterplots_2_juvenile_and_ya_longfellow.htm, more details: http://www.enotes.com/topics/song-hiawatha/critical-essays/song-hiawatha-henry-wadsworth-longfellow In the section 5, the following has been used: general information of The LoveSong of J. Alfred Prufrock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Love_Song_of_J._Alfred_Prufrock, summary and analysis of the poem: http://ww.sparknotes.com/poetry/eliot/section1.rhtml http://www.shmoop.com/love-song-alfred-prufrock/, deep analysis of the poem: http://poetry.rapgenius.com/Ts-eliot-the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock-lyricsIn the section 6, , the following passages has been used: summary and analysis of the poem, http://whydthathappen.hubpages.com/hub/The-Meaning-of-Death-for-the-Living-In-Analysis-of-Next-Please-by-Philip-Larkin. In the section 7, the following passages has been used: a part of the text The Beast in the Jungle from, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1093/1093-h/1093-h.htm and the general information about the story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_in_the_Jungle . In the section 8, a brief summary of some periods of literature is included using the following links, the Romanticism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism, the Transcendentalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism, the Realism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_realism, the Naturalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(literature), and the Modernism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernist_literature.

I hope you will enjoy the study,Roula Spyrliadou 1103041124

SECTION 1 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOWHenry Wadsworth Longfellow, was by far the most widely known American poet of his time. Born in Portland, Main (while it was still a part of Massachusetts) , in U.S in 1807, he became a commanding figure in the cultural life of nineteenth-century America. He was a traveler, a linguist and a romantic as well as one of the first writers who used both native themes such as life and history (The Courtship of Miles Standish, Evangeline) of America and traditions of European literature and thought. By the age of three Henry was sent to school and very soon he knew he wanted to become a writer. Longfellow once said, "Every reader has his first book" implying that there is a unique book in our childhood, which can stimulate our imagination, To me, the first book was the 'Sketch Book' of Washington Irving." Although, his fathers dream was his son to become a lawyer, Henry become a professor of Modern languages at Bowdoin and Harvard college. In 1831, he married his schoolmate Mary Storer Potter with whom he lived a happy family life until her death in 1861. However, he married again, but his second wife also died in 1861. At that point, as a widower with five young children he started translating Dante into English and moved to Europe. During his stay in England he met Charles Dickens and exchanged ideas about social concerns. Longfellow achieved his greatest popular success with his first volume of poems, Voices of the night (1839), which contained A Psalm of Life, one of the nineteenth-centurys best loved poems, the appearance of Ballads (1841), the Evangeline, a tale of Acadie (1847) , The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of Wayside Inn (1863) . His poems such as "Paul Revere's Ride", Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie(1847), and "A Psalm of Life" are still subjects studied in schools. Longfellow, used to write about common issues, which appeal to everyone and therefore his poems were easily understood. As a private man, he avoided using autobiographical elements to his poetry while musicality was his key element as he says, "what a writer asks of his reader is not so much tolikeas tolisten". In addition, according to Roberto Rade There are two reasons for the popularity and significance of Longfellow's poetry. First, he had the gift of easy rhyme. He wrote poetry as a bird sings, with natural grace and melody. Read or heard once or twice, his rhyme and meters cling to the mind long after the sense may be forgotten. His poetry was translated throughout Europe and his fame went beyond that of Tennyson and Browning. Unfortunately, the great poet of the period of high Romanticism and Transcendentalism , died suddenly in 1882 due to a serious inflammation.SECTION 2 A PSALM OF LIFEA Psalm of Life, is one of the nineteenth-centurys best loved poems. The poem is part of the collection poetry Voices of the Night, published in 1839. The lyric poem, depicts the authors thoughts about life emphasizing that life is short, and gives us advices so we could make it seem more meaningful. Henry wrote the poem at a quite young age, so its more accurate for the young audience. In addition, this shows the optimistic view he had at that age encouraging young people to think positive about life.First of all the title of the poem is meaningful. A psalm is a request to people to follow the path of the righteousness. The poet states that life continues even after one dies and that the soul continues to live after the body dies, the grave is not its goal, so grave or death is not the purpose of life. The poet disagree with the pessimistic people who view life as unreal and dont enjoy it describing them as dead people in the spirit. On the other hand he expresses that life is real and earnest, and its up to us to make it better. Referring to the Bible, Dust thou art, to dust returnest, he signifies that although the body might disappear, the soul remains.The poet is narrating in the first person, speaking directly to the reader and explaining how people should live their lives expecting that each following day will be better than the previous one. He emphatically repeats, we should act in life and particularly in present as the future is far away, without focusing on physical things like joy or grief, but following our dreams. Actually, he means that life is more than a material pursuit. Using Hippocratess quote, Art is long, and time is fleeting, the poet implies that although life is short , the art of each individual exist even after his death. Life is getting shorter day by day, its not permanent and we dont have enough time for long art.The poem consists of nine stanzas of four lines each. There is a typical rhyming pattern, called crossed rhyme (ABAB). However, there isnt a normal meter which shows that life is not constant. In the passages I have commented before, the poet is explaining each sentence in his own writing style. Each word even sentence, hides its own meaning as there is a use of allusions, like the Biblical reference we mentioned, metaphor is seen in the following passage: Art is long, and Time is fleeting as well as alliteration is commonly used, And the grave is not its goal, Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,, Find us farther. In addition, when the speaker says Life is real! Life is earnest!, parallelism is depicted. So all these speech figures can be seen just in these two passages, implying the main idea of the poet. At this point, it is interesting to note, Hyatt Waggoner observed the irony of Longfellow's in "A Psalm of Life," noting that "though it intends to mean that life is worth living after all, what it effectivelydoesmean is that lifemustbe worth living but the poet can't think why."The author, expresses both the confusion of his feelings in that time of depression and his insistence not to give in to mournful attitude. The general tone of the author is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. However, the author is honest and quite realistic and is trying to encourage the readers to move on in life. The main idea of the passages is that there is only one life, so we should make it worth. The poem is also didactic, as the author tries to convey a moral lesson by teaching basic human values to the audience for a successful ethical life. To sum up, the passages express the meaning of the poem that life does not end with death and each of us have our destiny, so we should act now, in the presence to achieve our goals. However, life is too short, and unfortunately we do not have time for long missions. Therefore, we should make our life the best it can be.

SECTION 3 MY LOST YOUTHMy lost youth was written in 1855, as Longfellow wrote in his journal while his stay in Portland. Although, Longfellow was a private man and didnt use to write autobiographical elements, this poem is a lyrical autobiography of the poets early life. The poem is a devotion to the home of his youthful years in Maine and to his own youthful years. The poem was collected in the Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems in1858. In his poem, Longfellow emphasize his tendency to folk poetry and balladry. Longfellow was among the first writers who used native themes from American history, a fact which shows his patriotism and is seen in his poem.Actually, the title of the poem lost stands to the exact opposite meaning of the word lost, implying it is time regained or even time never lost. The poem reveals the poets worries about the emotions which arouse to his mind rather than the view of his hometown. Vague details lead to the emotional theme ofprivate boyhood dream, a time in youth when our imagination is more prevalent. The subject matter is youth. The theme is the connection of the past and present around the hopes and dreams of youth. The author is saying that the memories and ambitions he held as a young man are still with him today. The poem is set in the seaside city of Portland, Maine, where the boy grew up, and as an adult still visits it. The city of his youth, and accurately the things that made that time of his life significant and realare still vivid and alive, pointing out who the author is today.The two-line refrain from the poem, about boys will to the winds will, captures both the nostalgia and the idea of naughty youth. The wind cannot be held, therefore it is varied and widespread. Similarly, the boys desires and thoughts move in an uncontrolled way. There is an interesting point to mention, the seventh line in each stanza contains a key word, usually a verb, which sums up the feeling expressed in the stanza. For example, in stanza 8, chill expresses the loneliness and personal sadness he feels. In stanza 9, sighing and whispering gowith the people, who are unfamiliar (strange). Finally, in stanza 10, groves simply repeats Deerings Woods about which he is concerned in the stanza.The narrators nostalgia for his boyhood home evokes such strong emotions that he recalls things of which I may not speak, dreams that cannot die, and thoughts that make the strong heart weak. At the end of the poem he feels a joy that is almost pain as his heart returns to the dreams of earlier days. He finds his lost youth again in the strange and beautiful song that is echoed in the famous refrain. These passages, sounds to me like a song, and impact a great emotional value, because memories of my youth will always be with me.To sum up, My Lost Youth, tells the story of an emotional and nostalgic journey to the narrators boyhood home town after many years of life have gone by. Although, the poem is old-fashioned, it still has the power to move human emotions. Just think about, how many of us have not had the experience of returning to the places of our youth without feeling a joy that is almost pain!

Section 4 The Song of HiawathaLongfellow had an eager interest in the Indians and his plans for prose tales about the Indians began in the summer of 1854. In 1855, his plans fulfilled by publishing his epic poem Hiawatha, a work around American Indians and their traditions. The poem had a great success and a few years later was set to music by Stoepel and given at the Boston Theatre. Before writing Hiawatha, Longfellow was inspired by the nineteenth-century Finnish epic poem Kalevala, by Elias Lnnrot, which also reminded him of the Indian legends. However, some critics accused him of plagiarizing the Finish folk hero Kalevala, but after his visit to Finland he wrote, I have at length hit upon a plan for a poem on the Indians, which seems the right one, and the only one... The poem, also include subjects about nature, social issues, and supernatural elements. The name Hiawatha from the title, is actually derived from a historical Indian chief, but although sharing the same name, the characters are different.The Song of Hiawatha,is a long narrative poem that recounts the adventures of an American Indian hero. A renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell, describes Hiawatha as Hero of Thousand Faces and thats because Hiawatha has to go through many trials and challenges before becoming the leader of the five nations. Hiawatha was raised by his grandmother as his good and mortal mother died soon. When he finds out his father, his heart fills with anger and he goes to kill him. Later he learns that his father has tested him to see if his able to become a leader. After the blessing of his father he become a glorious, wise and good leader. The Song of Hiawatha , is a long narrative poem, divided into twenty-two sections. Using picture language, the author utilizes both tribal legend and imaginative storytelling . The meter he uses is trochaic tetrameter, which lends itself to a euphonic quality that creates music to the ears. Moreover there is an ellipse of rhyme pattern.The setting is on the Shore of Lake Superior, in the years before the arrival of European colonists, a time and place completely unfamiliar to Longfellow. The poet, though was able to represent the landscape of the time. His depictions of the country are remarkably accurate. The poem represents a set of encounters and challenges that enable Hiawatha to develop his tribe and to help create peace among the other tribes. During the narrative, Longfellow reveals also many aspects of American Indian mythology concerning life, nature, and ritual.In the semifinal section of the poem, called The White Mans Foot (XXI), Iagoo claimed that he saw a large canoe approaching the shore . One hundred warriors came from the great canoe, their faces were white and there was hair on their chins. Since Iagoo was a common boaster, the people ridiculed his story, but Hiawatha did not laugh. He told the people that Iagoo spoke the truth. He had seen it in a vision. Gitche Manito was sending these people. They were bringing an important message. Hiawatha urged his children to receive them as friends. Hiawatha also had seen a vision of the future: a chaotic nation because people had failed to notice his advice. The episode recounts the coming of the white people. However, rather than fearing and fighting the white priest who soon arrives, Hiawatha welcomes him as a sign of things to come and is not troubled by the visions he has had of the native tribes being spread to the West. This implies that he is a pacifist, and thus Longfellows optimism to the point of unrealistic romanticism is clearly seen. Therefore, in my opinion the passage depicts the poets main idea among the whole text.In conclusion, what makes the song of Hiawatha a favorite of most Americans is that he captured a period of America. Whether or not he was accurate in the myths he chose, he described the American experience at that time accurately. He became the first national poet of America. Song of Hiawatha, not only was the reason for Longfellows popularity, but also gave the poet financial freedom. He was the only poet who made money on his poetry.

Section 5 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock & A Psalm of Life"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", is usually known as Prufrock. The poem is written by the American-British poet T.S. Eliot. Eliot began writing "Prufrock" in 1910, but it was published in his first book of poems Prufrock and Other Observations in 1917. Precisely, T.S Eliot wrote most of "Prufrock" when he was 22 years old, a point related to the young age of Longfellow while writing A Psalm of Life. The poem is regardedas the beginning of Eliot's career as a famous poet.Prufrock is a dramatic monologue ,while A psalm of life is a lyric poem. However, Eliot modernizes the form by avoiding the implied listeners and focusing on Prufrocks interiority and isolation. So both poets are narrating in the first person, speaking directly to the reader.Eliot narrates the experience of Prufrock using thestream of consciousness, a narrative device which depicts the various thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind. The poem described as a "drama of literary anguish", is adramaticinterior monologueof an urban man, suffering from feelings of isolation and an inability for decisive action. He is a typical modern man, described as overeducated, fluent, neurasthenic, and unable to express himself emotionally to the outside world. "Prufrock", is one of the most recognized voices in Modern literature, as he expresses feelings of weariness, regret, embarrassment, carving,weakness,sexual frustration, and an awareness of mortality. The poem's structure was influenced by Eliot's fond reading ofDante Alighieri, an Italian poet of the Middle Ages, whose work Longfellow first started to translate. The poem makes several references to the Bible like Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, which refers to the Biblical story of John the Baptist, beheaded at the command of Herod upon Salomes request.. Similarly in A psalm of life , Dust thou art, to dust returnest, refers to the Bible, meaning that when body disappears, the soul remains. The rhyme scheme of this poem is irregular but not incidental, while sections of the poem may resemble free verse. Actually the bits and pieces of rhyme become much more apparent when the poem is read aloud. The paired rhymed couplets of "tea-me," "while-smile," create an emotional music song, and thus serve to carry the reader into Prufrock's emotional state. The varying line lengths and stanza lengths of this poem indicate Eliot's unwillingness to set a form on the thoughts and emotions at the center of the composition. In addition Longfellows own writing stylewithout using a normal meter, shows that life is not constant. In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", the poet constantly says that one should not waste time in unimportant tasks which are useless and which will keep a person away from dreams. This life is very meaningful and it depends on the person to make it worth. One should strictly avoid laziness and work for their dreams. All unnecessary tasks like sleeping for long hours, laziness in work and much more are useless. However the speaker in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", wasted plenty of time eating, drinking, and now is worrying if it would it have been worth to make a move and risk of declaring his feelings.In conclusion, the dramatic monologue is set in a big, dirty city, and its speaker is a very unhappy man who is afraid of living and therefore bored all the time, whereas the lyric poem, depicts the authors thoughts about life emphasizing that life is short, and gives us advices so we could make it seem more meaningful. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is totally a modernist poem, published duringWorld War I, one of the most violent conflicts in human history, while A Psalm of life is a poem of high Romanticism and Transcendentalism.

Section 6 Next Please & A Psalm of LifeNext Please, is a poem published in 1951, and written by the well-known Philip Larkin, an English poet and novelist. Both Next Please and A Psalm of Life are lyrics poems, which means that the speaker is the author itself who expresses his own thoughts and ideas.Therefore, this aims to speak directly to the audience and as Larkin once said, the readers get the impression of a chat. Although, sharing the same type of genre these two passages depict a different angle of view in life. Next Please is oneof many poems about death. However, it doesn't hope for it, or mourn it. It looks towards itseffect on the living, in a different way. The passage examines the common desire many people have to focus their attention on the future instead of living in the present, which is claimed wrong in the A Psalm of Life. However, in Next Please death is the only thing you are counting on, because it is the only thing that provides a permanent future for you or anyone else, unlike the second passage which states that Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal;As regard to the title of the poems both are meaningful. Next, Please, is often used when speaking politely to another person, as if the word Please will lessen the offensive nature of the commanding Next and oblige the listener to correspond. Please is also used as an expression of desire. It is a request that betrays intense hope and want! A psalm is a request to people to follow the path of the righteousness.Next, Please, is six /four-line stanzas and the A Psalm of life, consists of nine stanzas of four lines each. In the first passage as we see the first three lines of each (with several exceptions) are in iambic pentameter (UIUIUIUIUI), while the last line of each is noticeably shorter (either four or six syllables). The rhyme scheme of each of the stanzas isCouplet (AABB) black-back, wake-break. Whereas, in the second poem there is a typical rhyming pattern, called crossed rhyme (ABAB) earnest-returnest, goal-soul, sorrow-tomorrow way-today. However, there isnt a normal meter which shows that life is not constant. Moreover, in both poems there is a frequent use of punctuation marks, which creates a forced pause and leads to the question: why and what is next?The effect causes an impatience in the reader who then desires to quickly move on. Metaphor, is commonly used in the two poems like in the first passage the poet says, Only one ship is seeking us, a black-Sailed unfamiliar this black ship is the death. So death itself comes, at the end, in the form of a metaphor. In the second passage, we also see the metaphor, Art is long, and Time is fleeting. To sum up, these two passages form a great contrast according to the meaning, which the authors tries to imply. On the one hand, the poem Next, Please, implies that the one thing mankind can look forward to with certainty is death, and that there will be nothing after that. On the other hand, A Psalm of life, emphasizes the existence of afterlife! Longfellow, in his poem seems to be quite optimistic, the future didn't look so rosy to Philip Larkin.

Section 7 The Beast in the Jungle & A Psalm of LifeThe Beast in the Jungle, is a short narrative written by Henry James an American-British writer of the nineteenth century. The novella was published in 1903, as part of the collection The Better Sort. Henry James, regarded as one of the key figures of the literary realism include in his story universal themes like loneliness, fate, love and death. The Beast in the Jungle, presents the reader with the idea of the failure to live life. The story has been read as a confession or moral lesson about James' own life. He never married and possibly never experienced a consummatedsexual relationship. However, he did enjoy an experience of aestheticcreativity in his work. The narrative is also didactic like The Psalm Of life. Henry James is possible that regretted what he called the "essential loneliness" of his life, thus both works try to convey a moral lesson by teaching basic human values to the audience for a successful ethical life. The final passages, recounts the day that Marcher visited Mays tombstone, he is sad and feels that he would be quite content to die. He suddenly realizes that he has never had extreme depths of grief: No passion had ever touched him.He realizes the emptiness of his past life as well as his present one. He also realizes that May herself was what he had missed. This was the beast in the jungle, the long-awaited thing that had happened to him; he had failed to love her for herself, and so he had become a man to whom nothing at all was going to happen. He had loved her only because of what she could do for him, never for herself only, whereas she had loved him for himself. He remembers back to that day in April when she had told him it was not too late, and how he had failed to understand what she was saying. He tries to feel the pain of it all, since at least that would show he was still alive. But he still finds the truth almost impossible to face, and in torment he flings himself face down on Mays tomb.Despite Henry Jamess choice to write in third person narrative, the narrator is quite distant from his characters as well as he tries to create a distance between the reader and the storys main character. However, in A Psalm of Life, we see the exact opposite. The poet narrates in the first person, (Is our destined end or way;/ Find us farther than today ), trying to speak directly to the reader. Although, the third person narrative in the nineteenth-century realism was used by an omniscient narrator, whose narration not only conveyed characters' thoughts and actions but also commentary and judgment of their thoughts and actions, James's third-person narration was limited presenting just the characters thoughts (No passion had ever touched him/ He had justified his fear and achieved his fate; ). Both titles of the poem are meaningful. In "The Beast in the Jungle" the 'Beast' is the result of the egotism and self-absorbed obsession of the protagonist. A psalm is a request to people to follow the path of the righteousness. In conclusion, The Beast in the Jungle, is a short narrative, a novella of Realism, whereas A Psalm of Life is a lyric poem of the period of High Romanticism and Transcendentalism.

Section 8 General ConclusionThroughout the essays, American poets of the nineteenth-century were discussed and their works were analyzed. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry James, and T.S. Eliot in sequence were poets of the period of High Romanism and Transcendentalism, Realism and Naturalism, and Modernism. However, Philip Larkin was the exception as an English poet of the late twentieth-century.Transcendentalism,was a religious and philosophical movement that was developed during the late 1820s and 1830s, in the Eastern region of the United Statesas a protest against the general state of culture and society, Transcendentalism, was an idea that in determining the ultimate reality of God, the universe, the self and other important matters, one must go beyond everyday experience in the natural world. The idea dates back to the Greek Philosopher Plato, in the fourth century B.C. and values intuition and human perfection. Romanticismwas an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and partly a reaction to theIndustrial Revolution, and a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of theAge of Enlightenment as well as a reaction against the scientificrationalizationof nature. Realismis the trend, started in the nineteenth-century French literatureand extends to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors, toward depictions of contemporary life and society. It is An artistic where artists and writers were focused on the detailed realistic and factual description. They tried to represent events and social conditions as they actually are, without idealization. Naturalismwas a literary movement or tendency from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailedrealismto suggest that social conditions, inheritance, and environment had shaped the human character. It was a mainly unorganizedliterary movementthat tried to depictthe everyday reality. Unlike, Realism which focuses on literary technique, naturalism implies a philosophical position: for naturalistic writers, characters could studied through their relationships to their surroundings. Literarymodernism, ormodernist literature, has its origins in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly in Europe and North America. Modernism is characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional styles of poetry and verse. Modernists experimented with literary form and expression. The aim of the modernist literary movement was the desire to overturn traditional modes of representation and express the new sensibilities of their time. Finally, literatureof the 20th century refers toall literature works produced during the 20th century. This means that the works are from1900 through the 1990s. Although these terms (modern, contemporary and postmodern) are most applicable to Western literary history, the rise of globalization has allowed European literary ideas to spread into non-Western cultures quite rapidly, AsianandAfrican literaturescan be also included into these divisions but with some only minor qualifications.

APPENDIX14

The psalm of life, by Henry Longfellow Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,Is our destined end or way;But to act, that each tomorrowFind us farther than today.Art is long, and Time is fleeting, My Lost Youth, by Henry Longfellow There are things of which I may not speak; There are dreams that cannot die;There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,And bring a pallor into the cheek, And a mist before the eye. And the words of that fatal song Come over me like a chill: "A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

Strange to me now are the forms I meet When I visit the dear old town;But the native air is pure and sweet,And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street, As they balance up and down, Are singing the beautiful song, Are sighing and whispering still: "A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair, And with joy that is almost painMy heart goes back to wander there,And among the dreams of the days that were, I find my lost youth again. And the strange and beautiful song, The groves are repeating it still: "A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

The song of Hiawatha(XXI), by Henry LongfellowInthegreatcanoewithpinionsCame,hesaid,ahundredwarriors;PaintedwhitewerealltheirfacesAndwithhairtheirchinswerecovered!AndthewarriorsandthewomenLaughedandshoutedinderision,Liketheravensonthetree-tops,Likethecrowsuponthehemlocks."Kaw!"theysaid,"whatliesyoutellus!Donotthinkthatwebelievethem!"OnlyHiawathalaughednot,ButhegravelyspakeandansweredTotheirjeeringandtheirjesting:"TrueisallIagootellsus;Ihaveseenitinavision,Seenthegreatcanoewithpinions,Seenthepeoplewithwhitefaces,SeenthecomingofthisbeardedPeopleofthewoodenvesselFromtheregionsofthemorning,FromtheshininglandofWabun."GitcheManito,theMighty,TheGreatSpirit,theCreator,Sendsthemhitheronhiserrand.Sendsthemtouswithhismessage.Wheresoe'ertheymove,beforethemSwarmsthestingingfly,theAhmo,Swarmsthebee,thehoney-maker;Wheresoe'ertheytread,beneaththemSpringsaflowerunknownamongus,SpringstheWhite-man'sFootinblossom."Letuswelcome,then,thestrangers,Hailthemasourfriendsandbrothers,Andtheheart'srighthandoffriendshipGivethemwhentheycometoseeus.GitcheManito,theMighty,Saidthistomeinmyvision."Ibeheld,too,inthatvisionAllthesecretsofthefuture,Ofthedistantdaysthatshallbe.IbeheldthewestwardmarchesOftheunknown,crowdednations.Allthelandwasfullofpeople,Restless,struggling,toiling,striving,Speakingmanytongues,yetfeelingButoneheart-beatintheirbosoms.Inthewoodlandsrangtheiraxes,Smokedtheirtownsinallthevalleys,OverallthelakesandriversRushedtheirgreatcanoesofthunder."Thenadarker,dreariervisionPassedbeforeme,vagueandcloud-like;Ibeheldournationscattered,Allforgetfulofmycounsels,Weakened,warringwitheachother;SawtheremnantsofourpeopleSweepingwestward,wildandwoful,Likethecloud-rackofatempest,LikethewitheredleavesofAutumn!

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S Eliot

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep tired or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophetand heres no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: That is not what I meant at all;

That is not it, at all.

Next Please, by Philip Larkin Always too eager for the future, wePick up bad habits of expectancy.Something is always approaching; every day () Only one ship is seeking us, a black-Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her backA huge and birdless silence. In her wakeNo waters breed or break.

The Beast in the Jungle by Henry JamesSomethingand this reached him with a pangthathe, John Marcher, hadnt; the proof of which was precisely John Marchers arid end. No passion had ever touched him, for this was what passion meant; he had survived and maundered and pined, but where had beenhisdeep ravage? The extraordinary thing we speak of was the sudden rush of the result of this question. The sight that had just met his eyes named to him, as in letters of quick flame, something he had utterly, insanely missed, and what he had missed made these things a train of fire, made them mark themselves in an anguish of inward throbs. He had seenoutsideof his life, not learned it within, the way a woman was mourned when she had been loved for herself: such was the force of his conviction of the meaning of the strangers face, which still flared for him as a smoky torch. It hadnt come to him, the knowledge, on the wings of experience; it had brushed him, jostled him, upset him, with the disrespect of chance, the insolence of accident. Now that the illumination had begun, however, it blazed to the zenith, and what he presently stood there gazing at was the sounded void of his life. He gazed, he drew breath, in pain; he turned in his dismay, and, turning, he had before him in sharper incision than ever the open page of his story. The name on the table smote him as the passage of his neighbor had done, and what it said to him, full in the face, was that she was what he had missed. This was the awful thought, the answer to all the past, the vision at the dread clearness of which he turned as cold as the stone beneath him. Everything fell together, confessed, explained, overwhelmed; leaving him most of all stupefied at the blindness he had cherished. The fate he had been marked for he had met with a vengeancehe had emptied the cup to the lees; he had been the man of his time,theman, to whom nothing on earth was to have happened. That was the rare strokethat was his visitation. So he saw it, as we say, in pale horror, while the pieces fitted and fitted. Soshehad seen it while he didnt, and so she served at this hour to drive the truth home. It was the truth, vivid and monstrous, that all the while he had waited the wait was itself his portion. This the companion of his vigil had at a given moment made out, and she had then offered him the chance to baffle his doom. Ones doom, however, was never baffled, and on the day she told him his own had come down she had seen him but stupidly stare at the escape she offered him.The escape would have been to love her; then,thenhe would have lived.Shehad livedwho could say now with what passion?since she had loved him for himself; whereas he had never thought of her (ah how it hugely glared at him!) but in the chill of his egotism and the light of her use. Her spoken words came back to himthe chain stretched and stretched. The Beast had lurked indeed, and the Beast, at its hour, had sprung; it had sprung in that twilight of the cold April when, pale, ill, wasted, but all beautiful, and perhaps even then recoverable, she had risen from her chair to stand before him and let him imaginably guess. It had sprung as he didnt guess; it had sprung as she hopelessly turned from him, and the mark, by the time he left her, had fallen where itwasto fall. He had justified his fear and achieved his fate; he had failed, with the last exactitude, of all he was to fail of; and a moan now rose to his lips as he remembered she had prayed he mightnt know. This horror of wakingthiswas knowledge, knowledge under the breath of which the very tears in his eyes seemed to freeze. Through them, none the less, he tried to fix it and hold it; he kept it there before him so that he might feel the pain. That at least, belated and bitter, had something of the taste of life. But the bitterness suddenly sickened him, and it was as if, horribly, he saw, in the truth, in the cruelty of his image, what had been appointed and done. He saw the Jungle of his life and saw the lurking Beast; then, while he looked, perceived it, as by a stir of the air, rise, huge and hideous, for the leap that was to settle him. His eyes darkenedit was close; and, instinctively turning, in his hallucination, to avoid it, he flung himself, face down, on the tomb.