Do the Americas have a common literary history?

This book is based on the assumption that the problem of American literatures written in European languages is not the burden of Europe but the fact that they are second or further literatures written in the same language as older ones that happen to be located in Europe. The papers collected here address the following questions: Is it possible for two or more distinct literatures to coexist in the same language? If the distinction is more than merely ideological and convenient, what are the differences, and how did they come about? Is it reasonable to assume that differentiation followed similar patterns in the various literatures? The volume combines textual and theoretical studies of programmatic writings, literary works, and literary histories in English, French, and Spanish.