Pre-Colonial/ Native American[ 1600]
CHARACTERISTICS
•1ST Americans
•Creation & Origin Myths
•Legends
•Storytelling
•Oral Tradition
Colonial(Puritans & Age of Reason)
[1600-1800]
CHARACTERISTICSPURITANS[1600-1700]• Sermons
• Personal Narratives• Plain Style
• Authority of Bible & church
Colonial(Puritans & Age of Reason)
[1600-1800]
CHARACTERISTICSAGE OF REASON
[1700-1800]• Political pamphlets
• Ornate Style• Persuasive Writing
• Patriotism
COLONIAL
HISTORY
PURITAN
Person’s fate determined by God• All are corrupt & must be saved by Christ• Settlement of British Colonies in America
AGE OF REASON• Revolutionary War • Instructive in values
COLONIALPURITAN
• William Bradford• Mary Rowlandson• Jonathan Edwards• Anne Bradstreet
• The Crucible (Arthur Miller-1950)
AGE OF REASON• Thomas Jefferson• Benjamin Franklin
• Thomas Paine• Patrick Henry
ROMANTICISM[1800-1860]
CHARACTERISTICS• VALUE FEELING & INTUITION OVER
REASON• IMAGINATION
• MYSTERY• SLAVE NARRATIVES
• POETRY• SHORT STORIES
ROMANTICISM
HISTORY
Expansion of magazines, np, and book publishing
• Slavery debates
• Industrial Revolution: “old ways” of doing things are now irrelevant
ROMANTICISM
WRITERS• Washington Irving
• William Cullen Bryant• Paul Laurence Dunbar• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Edgar Allan Poe • Emily Dickinson• Herman Melville
TRANSCENDENTALISM/ Anti-Transcendentalism
CHARACTERISTICSTRANSCENDENTALISM
[1840-1860]• “American Renaissance”
• Self-Reliance• Individualism
• Inner-Light• Idealist• Utopia
• Intuition
TRANSCENDENTALISM/ Anti-Transcendentalism
CHARACTERISTICS
ANTI-TRANSCENDENTALISM
• “Dark Romanticism”
• Symbolism
• Sin, Pain, & Evil
TRANSCENDENTALISM/ ANTI-TRANSCENDENTALISM
WRITERSTRANSCENDENTALISM• Ralph Waldo Emerson• Henry David Thoreau• Nathaniel Hawthorne*
ANTI-TRANSCENDENTALISM• Edgar Allan Poe*
REALISM/ REGIONALISM/ NATURALISM
CHARACTERISTICS
• “Verisimilitude”
• “Local Color”
• Ordinary People
• Real-life, Every-day events
• Objective Narrator
• Open Interpretation
REALISM/ REGIONALISM/ NATURALISM
HISTORY
[1860-1900]
• Civil War & post Civil War
• Influence of Sigmund Freud & Charles Darwin
• Demand for “truer” type of lit. that does not idealize people or places
• Completion of Transcontinental Railroad
REALISM/ REGIONALISM/ NATURALISM
WRITERS• Walt Whitman• Mark Twain
• Ambrose Bierce• Stephen Crane
• Frederick Douglas• Kate Chopin
• Edith Wharton• Edwin Arlington Robinson
MODERNISM
CHARACTERISTICS
• Pessimism• “American Dream”
• Imagism• Lost Generation• Beat Generation
• Use of interior monologue & stream of consciousness
• Plays, Poetry, Novels
MODERNISM
HISTORY[1900-1950]
• WWI & WWII• “Jazz Age”/ “Roaring 20’s”
• Harlem Renaissance• The Great Depression
• Karl Marx• rise of youth culture
MODERNISM
WRITERS• F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Robert Frost• T.S. Elliot
• John Steinbeck• William Faulkner• Langston Hughes
• W.E.B. DuBois• Ezra Pound
• William Carlos Williams• Arthur Miller*
POST-MODERNISM/ CONTEMPORARY
CHARACTERISTICS[1950 ]
• Mix of fantasy w/ non-fiction• Media culture interprets values
• Narratives• Anti-Heroes
• Emotion-Provoking• Humorous Irony
• Storytelling• Autobiographies
• Individual Isolation• Social Issues (ethnic & feminist)
POST-MODERNISM/ CONTEMPORARY
HISTORY• Post WWII prosperity
• New century & millennium• Space exploration
• Korean War• Vietnam War
• Gulf War• WTC/ 9-11• Iraqi War
• Advances in technology
POST-MODERNISM/ CONTEMPORARY
WRITERS• Arthur Miller
• Toni Morrison• Sylvia Plath• J.D. Salinger• “Beat Poets”
• Maya Angelou• Alice Walker