Periods of American Literature

Early American ( ) Native American Oral Consisted of myths, legends, stories Reverence of spiritual forces in weather, land, water, animals, and plants Colonial Most prominent writers were the Puritans Writings consisted of religious essays and sermons Glorification of God Writers: Jonathan Edwards, Anne Bradstreet, Cotton Mather, William Byrd

The Revolutionary Period ( ) Political writings on justice, liberty, and equality Focus on reason, common sense, scientific investigation Writers include: –Ben Franklin –Washington Irving –Thomas Paine –Thomas Jefferson

The Romantic Period ( ) Heroic, larger than life characters Lonely, often hostile settings Characters strive for identity – powerful imaginations Writers include: –Edgar Allen Poe –Herman Melville –Nathaniel Hawthorne

Transcendentalism (part of the Romantic Period) A movement based on a belief that the world and God were one and the same Therefore, each individual was identical to God. Self reliance and individualism –Henry David Thoreau –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Realism and Naturalism ( ) Stressed the limited freedom of choice people have over nature and their environment. Focus on daily life in the real language of ordinary Americans. Exposed alienation, the poor, the outcasts Writers include: –Mark Twain –Edith Wharton –Stephen Crane –Jack London

Modernism ( ) Stretched from WWI to WWII Writing explored innocence and disillusionment, materialism vs. love, racism, brutality of war Writers include: –F. Scott Fitzgerald –Ernest Hemingway –William Faulkner –Sinclair Lewis

Harlem Renaissance ( ) Period when black writers, musicians, and actors began to emerge. Jazz music Roaring 20s Writers include: –Langston Hughes –Countee Cullen –Richard Wright

Post Modernism (1945 – Present) Literature focused on reshaping the American society, promise of equality, and the uncertainties of change. Writers include: –Flannery O’Conner –Eudora Welty –Stephanie Meyers –Toni Morrison –Sandra Cisneros –Stephen King