great american novel

The Great American Novel (sometimes abbreviated as GAN) is a canonical novel that is thought to embody the essence of America, generally written by an American and dealing in some way with the question of America's national character. The term was coined by John William De Forest in an 1868 essay. Although De Forest mentioned Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe as a possible contender, he noted that the Great American Novel had most likely not been written yet. Writer Henry James used the shortened term, GAN, in 1880.
Practically, many academics use the term to refer to a small number of books that have historically been the nexus of discussion, including Moby-Dick (1851), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and The Great Gatsby (1925). However, there is no consensus on which novel, or novels, merits the title of Great American Novel.
The idea has evolved and continued into the modern age, although America's national development has led to it being dismissed by some as no longer applicable. The early 1900s saw the idea considered as "extinct as the dodo". It did slowly resurge from the 1920s onwards. Clyde Brion Davis and Philip Roth both wrote novels about the Great American Novel, titled as such—the latter in the 1970s, a time of prosperity for the concept.
Since the concept's creation an assortment of novels have been declared the Great American Novel, ranging from The Last of the Mohicans (1826), to Invisible Man (1952). Interpretations of the Great American Novel has also arisen. Writers and academics have commented upon the term's pragmatics, the different types of Great American Novels and the idea's relation to race and gender. Equivalents to the Great American Novel, such as the Great American painting and poem, have been proposed.

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