 This period was a time when authors were focused more on their own reasoning rather than simply taking what the church taught as fact. During this period there was also cultivation of patriotism. The main medium during that period were political pamphlets, essays, travel writings, speeches, and documents. Also during this period many reforms were either made or requested, for instance during this time the Declaration of Independence was written.

GENRE/STYLE  Political pamphlets  Travel writing  Highly ornate style  Persuasive writing HISTORICAL CONTEXT  Tells readers how to interpret what they are reading to encourage Revolutionary War support  Instructive in values  Moves away from lofty philosophies (God, church, etc…) to domestic, immediate issues

EFFECTS/ASPECTS  Patriotism grows  Instills pride  Creates common agreement (and opposition) and issues  National mission and the American character  Control in own destiny? EXAMPLES  Poor Richard’s Almanac by Benjamin Franklin  Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry

 After the “Age of Reason” came to an end, the people of America were tired of reality; they wanted to see life as more than it was. This was the Era of Romantics. The main medium that presented itself at that time were short stories, poems, and novels. During this era, as apposed to the “Age of Reason” the imagination dominated; intuition ruled over fact, and there was a large emphasis on the individual/common man, and on nature or the natural world.

STYLE/GENRE  Character sketches  Slave narratives  Poetry  Short stories HISTORICAL CONTEXT  Expansion of magazines, newspapers, & book publishing  Slavery debates  Industrial revolution brings ideas that the “old ways” of doing things are now irrelevant

EFFECT/ASPECT  Value feeling and intuition over reasoning  Journey away from corruption of civilization & limits of rational thought toward integrity of nature & freedom of the imagination  Helped instill proper gender behavior for men and women EXAMPLES  Poems of Emily Dickinson  Poems of Walt Whitman

 This movement pushed America from the elaborate and fantasy like writings displayed in the period Romanticism, into a period of literature that stressed individualism, and mature and self- reliance. Often Transcendentalists used nature to gain knowledge or to return to a life of self-reliance and individualism. It also stressed the fundamental idea of a unity between God and the world, that each person was a microcosm for the world. Unlike many European groups, the Transcendentalists never issued a manifesto. They insisted on the differences in each individual.

STYLE/GENRE  Poetry  Short Stories  Novels HISTORICAL CONTEXT  Today in literature we still read of people seeking the true beauty in life and in nature  In literature, we also still see a belief in true love and contentment

EFFECTS/ASPECTS  True reality is spiritual  Idealists  Self-reliance & individualism  Importance & significance of nature EXAMPLES  “Self Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson  Walden by Henry David Thoreau