1. A Literary History of America

2. The Puritan Period:

3. The Puritan Period:
a religious sect hoping to purify the Church of England, a branch of Calvinism
2 separate groups
God
Man
Big space

4. The Puritan Period:
The concept of the Elect: preordained at birth, nothing can be done to change this.
Later philosophy according to Cotton Mather and Anne Hutchinson: you can know if you are an Elect through direct communication with God.

5. Puritan Literature Prose pieces in the form of sermons
Philosophical or historical treatises
Journals
Diary entries

6. End of Puritan Period
As a new generation came, they had more money and more industries were established.
Two options:
People could adapt - the church could clamp to teachings down harder
Which prevailed?

7. The Deist Movement and the Revolutionary Spirit: 1700-1800
New order was needed after the Puritans
Deism – a religion and way of looking at the world, most confined to the educated class, generally the lawmakers
Man must rely on science, reason, and logic to solve his problems
Church and state begin to separate
God
man
Less space

8. Literature of Deism and the Revolutionary Spirit: 1700-1800
Logical treatises
Arguments
Persuasive papers

9. The Romantic Period:
Romantics believed that there was something else to the world
They interpreted life as an artist would have: the world how they wanted it to be rather than how it was
Rooted in lots of description and the common man
Rejected institutions and anything that told you that you have to tow the line
nature
God
man

10. The Romantic Period:
American Gothic: an off-shoot of Romanticism

11. The Romantic Period:
Morally didactic: the good are rewarded and the evil are punished
Anti-science (watch out for Roger Chillingworth)
Idealization of women (Hester Pyrnne as a madona figure)

12. Literature of the Romantic Period: 1790-1890
Poetry
Philosophical treatises
Reform pieces
Folk tales
Fables
Novels
Plays
The world as he sees it/wishes it, not how it is

13. The American Renaissance and Transcendentalism: 1829-1861
American Renaissance: burst of energy for America – a growing population, westward expansion, optimism for the future, and industry. Reform movements like Women’s Rights, education, abolitionism develop.
Transcendentalism: a philosophical movement confined mostly to Massachusetts, rooted in the belief that something existed within man that transcends the human experience. Man can rely on the divinity within himself.
You | | God Concept of oversoul

14. Nathanial Hawthorne: 1804-1864

15. Nathanial Hawthorne: 1804-1864
Has Puritan roots, born in Salem, MA
His grandfather was a hanging judge for the Salem witch trials
Early in his life he goes to the Brook Farm Experiment, near Boston

16. Nathanial Hawthorne: 1804-1864
Anti-Puritan, Anti-Transcendentalist Romantic writer
The characters in The Scarlet Letter are reminiscent of Hawthorne’s ideology (above)

17. Local Color, Realism, and Naturalism: 1880-1920
Realism: the faithful portrayal of people, scenes, and events as they are, not how the writer would like them to be
Naturalism: off-shoot of realism – a literary theory that emphasizes the role of heredity and environment in human life and character development
Local color: literature in which the writer tires to realistically capture a geographic place employing accuracy in speech, dress, mannerisms, and customs

18. Literature of Local Color, Realism, and Naturalism: 1880-1920
Stark, not much imagery
Depicts less elegant aspects of life
Objective writing styles
Happy endings
Redemption
The triumph of good over evil
Natural world in tune with man and things of the past
Later literary trends: Modernism, Post-modernism, Magical Realism

19. What am I?
A – Transcendentalist
B – Puritan
C – Deist
D – Romantic