Journalism and the American Renaissance Essay -- Literature Essays Lit

Journalism and the the Statesn Renaissance The period in the Statesn Literature known as the American Renaissance was a while of great change in our country. It was an age of westward expansion and amicable conflict. Americans were divided on such volatile issues as slavery, reform and localism that ultimately led to the Civil War. Emerging from this cauldron of change came the translator of a new nation - a nation with views and ideals all its own. The social, economic, expert and demographic revolution that was taking sit at this time stick the stage for a new era of writers. The voice of the nation prepare a home, first, on the pages of the newspaper. It was there that the hopes, fears and political views of Americans were represented. The newspaper united Americans by giving them a vehicle to voice their opinions and concerns. The result was a newfound spirit of solidarity that opened the door to the first great period of inventive writing in America known as the Amer ican Renaissance. The ranks of Americas greatest imaginative writers overflow with men and women whose careers began in news media (Fishkin 3). The birth of the penny press created hundreds of new newspapers along with jobs that authors like Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway and stigmatise Twain were eager to fill. The affect that journalism, with its respect for fact, had on the early authors of America was profound (Fishkin 4, 6). It fostered a style of writing that put truth higher up rhetoric and first hand knowledge above hearsay. Writing for a newspaper required that the writer be immersed in the events taking place in the world around him and report what he saw, heard and felt. It brought the writer into the realm of the everyday raw experiences of ... ...press. It was as poets and novelists that the American Renaissance writers challenged connection to consider unfamiliar concepts - to move beyond their limited scope and pinch the unknown. Works Cited Bell, Michael D. The Problem of American Realism Studies in the Cultural report of a Literary Idea. Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1993. Fishkin, Shelley F. From Fact to Fiction. Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985. Lauter, Paul The heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998. Matthiessen, F.O. American Renaissance. modernistic York Oxford University Press, 1941. Reynolds, David S. Beneath the American Renaissance. New York Alfred A. Knopf, 1988. Robertson, Michael. Stephen Crane, Journalism and the Making of Modern American Literature. New York Columbia University Press, 1997.