Changes in the Ideas of "English Literature" and "American Literature" Perceived in the 20th-Century Literature in the English Language

自从这个项目开始以来，英语文学变得更加多样化。很明显，“英国文学”和“美国文学”这两个传统术语，如果今天还在使用的话，已经不再局限于任何一个特定的种族群体。所谓少数民族文学在二十世纪的重要性怎么估计都不过分。如果我们忽略萨尔曼·拉什迪、石黑一雄、哈尼夫·库雷希、朱巴·拉希里等非盎格鲁-撒克逊作家，当代英语文学简直不可想象。这些少数民族作家的出现不仅使当代文学，而且使过去的文学看起来不同，现在的变化也改变了过去。这往往发生在少数民族作家站在自己的角度讨论过去的文学，或创造性地借用过去的经典作品时。在关注少数民族命运的文学作品中，往往是作者所属民族的价值观得到肯定，主流白色文化成为“敌人”：在这种情况下，多样性只是民族主义的缩影。然而，在更有创造性的情况下，作家可以采取更复杂的观点，就像盎格鲁-撒克逊美国小说家理查德·鲍尔斯在他最近的作品中所做的那样，他描绘了两个兄弟的命运，他们的父亲是犹太人，母亲是非洲裔美国人，他们在世纪中期的美国长大。

Literature in the English language has become even more diverse since this project started. It is obvious that the conventional terms "English literature" and "American literature, " if they are to be used at all today, are no longer restricted to any particular ethnic group. The importance of so-called minority literature in the twentieth century cannot be overestimated. Contemporary literature in the English language would be simply unthinkable if we omitted non-Anglo-Saxon writers such as Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, Hanif Kureishi, Jhumpa Lahiri.The presence of these ethnic authors have made not only contemporary literature but literature in the past look different changes in the present also change the past. This often occurs when minority authors discuss literature in the past from their own viewpoint or when they creatively appropriate the past, canonical works.In a literary work that focuses on the fate of a minority, it is often the case that the values of the ethnic group to which the author belongs are affirmed, and the mainstream white culture becomes the "enemy" : diversity, in that case, simply means nationalism in miniature. In more creative cases, however, writers can assume a more complex viewpoint as Richard Powers, an Anglo-Saxon American novelist, does in his recent work in which he delineates the fate of two brothers whose father is Jewish and mother is African-American growing up in the mid-20th century America.