This article aims at investigating in detail the origin and development of American national literature. It focuses on how material growth fostered cultural expansion, creating a climate in which writers could forge a new literature---a literature typically American in theme and setting and often characterized by the nation`s mood of youthful optimism. Although cries for literary nationalism in America were strong enough before the Revolutionary War, it was only after the American colony was politically emancipated from the rule of the British Crown that a national literature in the proper sense of the word began to emerge. Never totally free of European and English influences, the Hartford Wits, like Timothy Dwight, John Trumbull, Joel Barlow, Lemuel Hopkins, David Humphreys, and Elihu Hubbard Smith, attempted in their own ways to pave the way for establishing a national literature in America. Philip Freneau in poetry and James Fenimore Cooper in his `Leatherstocking Tales` developed American literary nationalism one step further. It might be argued, however, that national literature in America was completed in significant ways by Walt Whitman and Mark Twain. In his Leaves of Grass, Whitman created what might be called truly American literature not only in subject matter and themes but in forms and techniques as well. On the other hand, Twain in his novels emancipated American literature from the tyranny of its British counterpart, creating a new literature uniquely American in themes and techniques.
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