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American literature is literature written or produced in the United States and in the colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature but also includes literature produced in languages other than English .
In the United States, the nation's Founders were strongly influenced by the classics, and they looked in particular to the Roman Republic for their form of government. [13] From the beginning of the 18th century, the study of Greek became increasingly important relative to that of Latin. [14]
All three official scripts of the modern European Union—Latin, Greek and Cyrillic—descend from writing systems used in the Roman Empire. Today, the Latin script, the Latin alphabet spread by the Roman Empire to most of Europe, and derived from the Phoenician alphabet through an ancient form of the Greek alphabet adopted and modified by ...
Romanization in most of those regions remains such a powerful cultural influence in most aspects of life today that they are described as "Latin countries" and "Latin American countries". That is most evident in European countries in which Romance languages are spoken and former colonies that have inherited the languages and other Roman influences.
In Roman tradition, borrowed from the Greeks, literary theatre was performed by all-male troupes that used face masks with exaggerated facial expressions to portray emotion. Female roles were played by men in drag . [417] Roman literary theatre tradition is represented in Latin literature by the tragedies of Seneca, for example.
Native American literature in the early-19th century was in conflict between retaining traditional elements and incorporating elements of contemporary American literature. [152] Realism and naturalism became popular in the United States in the late-19th century. Mark Twain saw wide acclaim for his novels, including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
He was the first Roman statesman to put his political speeches in writing as a means of influencing public opinion. [citation needed] Early Latin literature ended with Gaius Lucilius, who created a new kind of poetry in his 30 books of Satires (2nd century BC). He wrote in an easy, conversational tone about books, food, friends, and current events.
From antiquity until the present day, the influence of Homeric epic on Western civilization has been significant, inspiring many of its most famous works of literature, music, art and film. [61] The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education; to Plato , Homer was simply the one who "has taught Greece ...