What Killed American Lit?

[LarryLawrence]

Today’s collegians don’t want to study it—who can blame them?

http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/killed-american-lit/

[Rothbardian Girl]

Honestly, I never found American literature interesting in the least bit, except for maybe a few authors. It's very hard to generalize any category of literature, certainly, but the authors traditionally considered American literary giants always failed to hold my interest. I remember many long, boring hours of reading Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whitman, and some other authors as well whose names I can't recall. All my favorite authors are usually British, and I only like more contemporary American literature for the most part. Even Twain failed to hold my attention with any of his novels other than Huck Finn.

I am not really sure why I don't like earlier American literature, before about 1900 or so. (Edith Wharton, who is American, is one of my favorite authors actually.) It's definitely something to ponder. All I can say is that I would have been much happier in high school English if I would have been able to pick the works that I wanted to read, that were at an appropriate reading level, and just write papers about them or something. I lose interest in assigned summer reading really fast.