Fiction: The 1960s to the Present

In 1955, when Robert E. Spiller’s The Cycle of American Literature argued for the figural and historical typologies that help organize American Literary Scholarship and most other surveys, the period covered by this chapter had not even begun. Now, 58 years later, its parameters equal that of other eras. But does any reliable typification fit this latest epoch in the cavalcade of American letters? Has postmodernism arisen only to quickly fall? Has deconstruction undermined the critic’s ability to totalize? Perhaps these very instabilities are the most apt characterization of literary activity during the past six decades. At the very least, a spirit of debate has characterized the best scholarship of fiction written throughout these years.