American Literary Periods Colonial Period (Puritanism) (1620-1750) Revolutionary Period (Age of Reason) (1750-1800) Romanticism (1800-1865) Transcendentalism (1840-1860) American Gothic (1830-1850) Realism (1865-1914) Regionalism (1865-1895) Naturalism (1885-1945) Modernism (1914-1945) Lost Generation (1917-1930) Harlem Renaissance (1919-1937) Contemporary (1939-) Southern Gothic (1930-1940) Beat Movement (1950-1965) Confessional Poetry Post-Modernism (1940-1970) African-American

Colonial Period (Puritanism) (1620-1750) Characteristics of the Literature utilitarian, instructive, or religious Anne Bradstreet Jonathan Edwards How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in danger of this great wrath, and infinite misery! But this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation, that has not been born again… There's wealth enough; I need no more. Farewell, my pelf; farewell, my store. The world no longer let me love; My hope and Treasure lies above.

Revolutionary Period (Rationalism) (1750-1800) Characteristics of the Literature: political Thomas Paine Thomas Jefferson “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” “The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind.”

Characteristics of the Literature Romanticism (1800-1865) Characteristics of the Literature Focus on the individual (not group/society) A sense of idealism or optimism Focus on emotions and imagination (not reason) Emphasis on the splendors of nature Fascination with the supernatural (some writers)

Notable Romantic Authors Nathaniel Hawthorne Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Washington Irving “Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “Rip Van Winkle,” “The Devil and Tom Walker” The Scarlet Letter, “Rappacini’s Daughter,” “The Minister’s Black Veil” “Song of Hiawatha,” “A Psalm of Life”

Transitional Authors (A little Romanticism, a little Transcendentalism) Emily Dickinson Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass “Song of Myself” “I Hear America Singing” “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” “Hope is the Thing with Feathers”

Transcendentalism (1840-1860) Central Beliefs of Transcendentalists Intuition is superior to rationality Self-reliance and individualism outweigh external authority and blind conformity The natural world is a doorway to the spiritual or ideal world. Everything in the world, including humans, is a reflection of the divine soul (Oversoul).

Notable Transcendentalist Authors Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Nature Self-Reliance Walden Civil Disobedience

American Gothic (1830-1850) Mysterious, unusual settings Violent events Grotesque characters Terror or horror Magic or the supernatural Bizarre situations

Notable Gothic Author Edgar Allan Poe “The Raven,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Black Cat,” “The Masque of the Red Death”

Realism (1865-1914) Characteristics of the Literature Renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail. Characters appear in their real complexity Writing truthfully and objectively about ordinary individuals Events will usually be plausible. Diction is natural vernacular, not heightened or poetic

Notable Realist Authors Ambrose Bierce Kate Chopin “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” The Awakening “The Story of an Hour”

Regionalism (1865-1895) Captures distinct and unique qualities of a geographic area and its people Use of local color The physical environment of an area The mood of a time and place The ways people talk and how they think

Notable Regionalist Authors Mark Twain Bret Harte A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” “The Luck of Roaring Camp”

Naturalism Portrays ordinary people’s lives, sometimes ill-educated characters Suggests environment, heredity, and chance—forces they could neither understand nor control—determined people’s fate Theme of “the brute within”

Notable Naturalist Authors Jack London John Steinbeck “To Build a Fire,” The Call of the Wild, White Fang Of Mice and Men, The Pearl, The Grapes of Wrath

Modernism (1914-1945) Sought to capture the essence of modern life Fragmented works written to reflect fragmented society Omitted expositions, transitions, resolutions and explanations Poems abandoned traditional forms for free verse Implied themes (not directly stated)

T.S. Eliot William Butler Yeats W.H. Auden The Wasteland, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” “The Second Coming,” “When You are Old,” “Sailing to Byzantium” “The Unknown Citizen,” “A Walk After Dark”

Lost Generation Disillusioned by WWI Sense of chaos and hopelessness Sense of moral loss or aimlessness Rejected modern American materialism Saw very little to praise in modern civilization

F. Scott Fitzgerald Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, “In Another Country” This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby, The Last Tycoon, “Winter Dreams”

Harlem Renaissance (1919-1937) Explored such themes as alienation, marginality, black identity, and the effects of institutional racism Drew on the rich folk tradition, including black dialect Incorporated jazz and blues rhythms into poetry Use of traditional forms to emphasize the growing urbanity and sophistication of African Americans. Expressed racial pride Used art/lit. to prove their humanity and demand equality

Notable HR Writers Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston (+ others) “A Dream Deferred,” “The Weary Blues,” “Mother to Son” “How it Feels to be Colored Me,” Their Eyes Were Watching God

Post-Modernism Instead of the modernist quest for meaning in a chaotic world, the postmodern author avoids, often playfully, the possibility of meaning, and the postmodern novel is often a parody of this quest. Expresses the idea of fragmentation as a necessity Use of paradox Use of questionable narrators A celebration of chance over writer’s craft Use of metafiction (a story about a story) to undermine the author's "univocation" (the existence of narrative primacy within a text, the presence of a single all-powerful storytelling authority Use of pastiche, the combination of multiple cultural elements including subjects and genres not previously deemed fit for literature

Notable Post-Modernist Writers Kurt Vonnegut William Burroughs Slaughter-house Five, Breakfast of Champions, Welcome to the Monkeyhouse Naked Lunch, Tornado Alley