Great American Authors Since 1650

Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle) hosts this ambitious but flawed eight-part survey of American literature that combines overlaid narration, Hollywood film clips, dramatic readings (and recreations), archival footage/stills, and sparse scholar interviews, to present the kind of politically correct overview of the American literary canon that would make Harold Bloom wince. Opening with the arguably jingoistic observation that “no other country has produced as noble a body of literature as the United States,” the first half-hour episode offers perfunctory sketches of America's first poet Anne Bradstreet, the Calvinist Cotton Mather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Fenimore Cooper, and Phillis Wheatley, the first published black woman poet (author of a slim book of verse), who is here given more time than the prolific Washington Irving, and singled out as having “founded an American poetic tradition” that led to Poe and Dickinson—a statement so vague as to be nearly meaningless. The first episode concludes with one of the worst readings of Poe's “The Raven” I have ever heard (with biographical data inserted between stanzas). Subsequent volumes feature most of the great American authors, including Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, Whitman, Twain, Eliot, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Ellison, and Dr. Seuss (I'm not joking—although I do think he's a defensible inclusion). The final volume, covering the years 1958-present, is particularly weak, singling out Amy Tan, for example, but virtually ignoring Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, and Philip Roth (except for a brief mention of Portnoy's Complaint—but no acknowledgement that Roth has emerged over the last two decades as one of America's premier writers). Of course, no survey will please everyone (the filmmakers are obviously forced to be selective within a four-hour running time), and the truth is that in the hands of a good teacher, this series might actually help lead students to particular works of American literature (the film clips certainly won't hurt in this respect). DVD extras include Spanish subtitles, a teacher's guide (with blackline master quiz), historical timeline, gallery of authors, and recommended reading lists. Optional. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)