SOURCE: “The Literature of America: A Comparative Discipline,” in Redefining American Literary History, edited by A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff and Jerry W. Ward, Jr., The Modern Language Association of America, 1990, pp. 9-34.

In the following essay, Lauter suggests that the very idea of a mainstream literary canon is not appropriate to the heterogeneous society of the United States, and that a comparative approach is more useful in studying American literature.

An image has long haunted the study of American culture. It limits our thought, shapes our values. We speak of the “mainstream,” implying the existence of other work, minor rills and branches. In prose, the writing of men like Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne Melville, James, Eliot, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Bellow constitute the mainstream Others—writers of color, most women writers, “regional” or “ethnic” writers—might, we said, be assimilated into the mainstream, though probably they would continue to serve...