《新編20世紀美國文學選讀》在作家的取舍方面，考慮得比較周到全面。凡是已經成為經典的，如海明威、�？思{和菲茨杰拉德等小說家和艾略特、弗羅斯特等詩人，《新編20世紀美國文學選讀》都有收錄，而鑒于美國文學的多元化發展特點，我們所選的作家不僅在文學史上占有一定的地位，而且在主題、手法、文體風格或種族、性別等方面都有一定的代表性。比如其中托尼·莫里森和愛麗絲，沃克兩位作家，就是美國黑人女作家中的翹楚，而亞瑟·米勒則是美國猶太裔劇作家的代表。
美國文學屬于世界上最年輕的文學，從其誕生至今僅有二百多年的歷史。然而在這短短的二百多年間，美國文學卻迅速沖出了歐洲文學的樊籬而成長為與世界其他偉大文學比肩而立的文學藝術，涌現出了一大批享譽世界的偉大作家，也產生了許許多多題材廣泛、風格迥異的文學精品，為繁榮和發展世界文化與文學做出了重要貢獻。作為英語專業的學生，美國文學課無疑是學習英語語言，欣賞英語文學作品，了解西方文化的一門必修課。然而長期以來，國內出版的許多美國文學教材常常從建國前殖民地時期的文學作品說起，講到第一次世界大戰為止。而美國文學是20世紀，尤其是在第一次世界大戰后走向世界并稱霸世界文壇的。為了與時俱進，讓讀者多接觸更多現當代的文學作品，我們決定編撰一本20世紀美國文學選讀，供專業教師做教材使用，也方便大學英語專業高年級學生、研究生及有一定英語基礎的文學愛好者了解現當代美國文學和美國社會與文化發展的脈絡，使其在增長知識的同時提高對文學的鑒賞能力。
《新編20世紀美國文學選讀》是筆者根據多年教授該課程的教學實踐和授課講義，同時借鑒參考國內外多種同類教材，結合目前本課程授課時數的實際情況，反復篩選、精心編纂而成的。全書分為小說，詩歌、戲劇三大板塊，精選了20世紀美國文學具有代表性的小說家、詩人、劇作家及其經典作品，比較全面地反映了美國20世紀的主要文學成就。在體例設計上，本著簡單實用、可操作性強的原則，簡明扼要，重點突出。每個章節均由作家生平介紹、主要作品介紹、對作家及其作品的簡要評論、選文內容提要、選文及引導提問、注釋、生詞、課后練習等部分構成。
《新編20世紀美國文學選讀》的特點之一在于，雖然此教材屬于針對高年級學生、研究生及有一定英語基礎的文學愛好者的高級文學讀本，但實際操作性特別強。良好的教學效果是編寫此書的首要目的之一，務求讓老師們使用起來得心應手，學生們理解起來輕松自如。通常文學教材中的思考題部分是在選文后作為課后練習題出現的，但本教材創造性的突破是將問題揉入選文，以腳注的方式對每頁的選文提出引導性的問題。這些問題具體到段落、句子甚至單詞，大多關于選文內容細節，不難解答，但以小見大、深入淺出地將學生往主題立意等更深層次的問題上引導，達到開拓思維、增進理解的目的，給教師和學生都留有充分的思考空間和余地。
《新編20世紀美國文學選讀》的另一個特點是，在作家的取舍方面，考慮得比較周到全面。凡是已經成為經典的，如海明威、�？思{和菲茨杰拉德等小說家和艾略特、弗羅斯特等詩人，本書都有收錄，而鑒于美國文學的多元化發展特點，我們所選的作家不僅在文學史上占有一定的地位，而且在主題、手法、文體風格或種族、性別等方面都有一定的代表性。比如其中托尼·莫里森和愛麗絲，沃克兩位作家，就是美國黑人女作家中的翹楚，而亞瑟·米勒則是美國猶太裔劇作家的代表。
本書在立項、編寫、審稿、統稿、定稿和出版等過程中，得到了中南財經政法大學外國語學院領導、學科帶頭人、武漢各大高校專業教師以及北京理工大學出版社工作人員的大力支持，在此，對他們表示衷心的感謝。由于編者水平所限，書中錯誤、缺點和考慮不周之處在所難免，懇切希望讀者批評指正。
Part One Stories and Novels
Unit 1 F. Scott Fitzgerald
Babylon Revisited
The Long Way Out
Unit 2 Ernest Hemingway
A Clean Well-Lighted Place
Hills Like White Elephants
Unit 3 William Faulkner
Dry September
A Rose for Emily
Unit 4 Sherwood Anderson
The Egg
Hands
Unit 5 John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men
Unit 6 Saul Bellow
A Father-to-Be
Unit 7 Flannery O'Connor
A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Unit 8 Katherine Anne Porter
Theft
Unit 9 James Langston Hughes
Thank You Ma：m
Unit 10 Joseph Heller
Catch-22
Unit 11 Alice Walker
The Color Purple
Unit 12 Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye
Part Two Poems
T. S. Eliot
The Hollow Men
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Robert Frost
Mending Wall
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Williams Carlos Williams
The Red Wheelbarrow
This Is Just to Say
Irwin Allen Ginsberg
A Supermarket in California
Part Three Plays
ArthurMiller
Death of a Salesman
Eugene O'Neill
Long Day's Joumey into Night
Tennessee Williams
The Glass Menagerie
Certainly no memories to be cherished. Occasionally an item provoked a physical reaction： an increase of acid irritation in the upper intestinal tract, a light flush of perspiration at the back of the neck as circumstances surrounding the piece of furniture were recalled. The sofa, for example. It had been purchased new, but the fabric had split straight across the back by the time it was delivered. The store would not take the responsibility... "Looka here, buddy. It was O. K. when I put it on the truck. The store can't do anything about it once it's on the truck..." Listerine and Lucky Strike breath. "But I don't want no tore couch if it's bought new. " Pleading eyes and tightened testicles. "Tough shit, buddy. Your tough shit..."
You could hate a sofa, of course-that is, if you could hate a sofa. But it didn't matter. You still had to get together $4. 80 a month. If you had to pay $4. 80 a month for a sofa that started off split, no good and humiliating-you couldn't take any joy in owning it. And the joylessness stank, pervading everything. The stink of it kept you from painting the beaverboard walls; from getting a matching piece of material for the chair; even from sewing up the split, which became a gash, which became a gaping chasm that exposed the cheap frame and cheaper upholstery. It withheld the refreshment in a sleep slept on it. It imposed a furtiveness on the loving done on it. Like a sore tooth that is not content to throb in isolation, but must diffuse its own pain to other parts of the body-making breathing difficult, vision limited, nerves unsettled, so a hated piece of furniture produces a fretful malaise that asserts itself throughout the house and limits the delight of things not related to it.
The only living thing in the Breedloves' house was the coal stove, which lived independently of everything and everyone, its fire being "out," "banked," or "up" at its own discretion, in spite of the fact that the family fed it and knew all the details of its regimen： sprinkle, do not dump, not too much……The fire seemed to live, go down, or die according to its own schemata.
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