by Aela Ajdinovic

Created on: October 24, 2009

American literature to some extent has always been proud of the fact that it is different from the European literature. Though the earliest beginnings of the American literature were still thematically akin to English, later American literature succeeded in distinguishing one single factor of its uniqueness, which is off course the notion of the American dream.

The notion of the American dream is even to this very day a single representative of the American culture and most importantly its literature. The question posing is when did it actually all start? When did the group of colonists decide that it was about time for a change, time to completely devoid themselves from Europe? The answer lies in the early colonial writings; even then, a significant change was visible. Moreover, after the Declaration of Independence and the ending of the war, the true American spirit demanded for a new type of literature, a vision shaped on the rejections of the European models. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who first addressed the public on this issue; he addressed the students, as the rising hope of the new and improved America. In his speech, later entitled the American Scholar, he announced that the time of change was upon the American artists, and that the new beginning was at hand. This later became known as some proclamation of the American dream, a new and fresh beginning that was now one of the waist privileges on this new virginal continent. The essence of the American dream has not changed even to this very day, the search for happiness and luck, the ability to have a fresh new start, a better and improved life, a chance for a new beginning, a new life. Some regard it as a simple myth, but the land of the free offered a perfect setting for the new Eden.

Among the great number of authors, there are a couple that directly touched upon the previously stated topic. Walt Whitman addressed the issue of an American dream in the Song of Myself, where he celebrated freedom, life and the non-existence of death. Even though some of his later works talk directly about death, most specifically about the death of President Abraham Lincoln, still the faith lives on attempting to strengthen the American spirit.

The American dream was formulated sometimes in the mid nineteenth century, but it went through a lot of ordeal in the twentieth century. Under the influence of skepticism and disbelief and the horrors of the World War I, authors placed the importance in the real life and

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