Colonialism

Beginnings to 1800

Native Americans
used their myths to
explain the creation
of the world and
humankinds
relationships with
each other or to
nature.
Puritans (1600s1800s) were a
group persecuted for
religious beliefs in
England who came
to America for
religious freedom
and wrote on and
about Biblical
models.
Rationalists
believed that
humans could arrive
at truth by using
reason.

Overview of American Literature Major Characteristics

American
American
A New
Realism
Romanticism
RenaissanceAmerican
1850-1900
1800-1860
1840-1860
Poetry
W. (1819-1892)
&
D. (1830-1886)
This literary
This literary
These two
Civil War
period valued
rebirth began with
people were
writing favored
feeling and
the question, Will both great
realistic
intuition over
there ever be a
innovators of a
characters and
reason. It was
greater writer than
new way of
settings over
characterized by
Shakespeare?
writing but
those that were
heroes and
Transcendentalis
were total
contrived.
journeys. Most
m was a belief of
opposites.
Seeing the
of these symbolic finding religion in
Whitman was
horrors of war
trips were
nature. Everything
a spokesman
made Whitman
moving away
was a reflection of
for progress,
more optimistic
from the evil of
the divine soul
and Dickinson
because heroes
civilization and
according to
wrote privately overcame so
the bonds of
Emerson and
of her spiritual
much suffering
rational thought
Thoreau.
metaphors in
but make
to the purity of
Gothic ideals
nature.
Melville more
nature and the
looked at the dark
pessimistic
freedom of the
side of human
because of the
imagination.
nature using
pain he
They preferred
spooky settings,
witnessed.
youthful
mysterious
Realism sought
innocence,
illnesses, strange
to portray
individual
sounds, and live
ordinary life in
freedom, the
burials (in works
non-romantic
wisdom of the
of Poe, Melville,
settings, and to
past, fascination
and Hawthorne) to
explain why
with the
make people face
people act the
supernatural,
their feelings.
way they do.
inspiration of
Regionalism
folk culture, and
(or local color
poetry as the
writing)
highest
focused on a
expression of
small
creativity. ,The
geographical
Fireside poets
area and tried to
(the Boston poets
accurately
of Longfellow,
reproduce the
Lowell, Whittier,
speech and
and Holmes
manners of that
sometimes
region.
referred to as
Naturalism
Schoolroom
was a 19th c.
Poets ) were
literary
extremely
movement that
popular, often
wanted to show
memorized, and
life exactly as it
usually recited.
is, with people
Their subject
behaving like
matter (love,
animals who
patriotism,
follow natural
nature, family,
laws of the
God) comforted
universe and
their audiences
sometimes are
but did not
not able to
challenge them
control their
to be innovative.
own destinies.
Psychological
fiction occurs
inside a
characters
mind while the
universe is
indifferent.

Moderns1900-1950

Contemporary
1950-Present

Writers boldly
experimented with
new styles and
rejected traditional
themes. After
World War I,
disillusionment
abounded, and
new moral codes
tempted some.
Some wrote of the
American dream,
which showed this
country as a land
of promise, a place
for optimists, and
a world for the
independent
individualist.
(Emerson defined
its elements most
clearly). Rather
than most writers
coming from New
England, many
now came from
the South, the
Midwest, or the
West. Marxism
and Freuds
psycholanlysis
drew many away
from the old
values. Stream of
consciousness
writing used no
chronology but
followed a
characters
random thoughts
wherever they
went. The Jazz
Age, of the
Roaring 20s,
found people
seeking pleasure
to avoid the
restraints of the
Prohibition.
Expatriates left
America in search
of grace and
luxury abroad.
Some rejected the
ideal American
hero for one who
is flawed but has
honor and
courage.
Symbolists and
Imagists
dominated new
poetry.

Gallows humor (by

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.,
Joseph Heller, and
Terry Southern)
laughed at lifes
tragic ironies,
acknowledging the
absurd and the
grotesque. Postwar
science and
technology gave
economic growth
but left individuals
lost in a fast-paced,
impersonal world.
Post-modern work
allows for multiple
meanings and
worlds,
nontraditional
forms, and
comments upon
itself. It has
cultural diversity,
blurred lines
between fiction
and nonfiction,
and relied on the
past. Truman
Capote called his In
Cold Blood a
nonfiction novel.
(The tone of the
book is almost as
important as the
facts themselves).
New journalism or
(Literary
Journalism) has
added personal and
fictional elements to
nonfiction, making
it more popular with
readers.
Contemporary
poetry became more
personal and
accessible and more
challenging of
convention. The
Beat poets,
nonconformist new
bohemians or
hippies, cried out
against conformity
of the 1950s.
Allen Ginsbergs
Howl and Robert
Lowells Life
Studies were about
personal
experiences.

Colonialism
Beginnings to 1800

American
Romanticism
1800-1860

American
Renaissance1840-1860

Washington
Irvings The
Sketch Book
(Rip Van
Winkle & The
Legend of Sleepy
Hollow)

Ralph Waldo
Emersons
Nature and SelfReliance

William Bradfords
Of Plymouth
Plantation

William Cullen
Bryants Thanatopsis

Henry David
Thoreaus Walden,
or Life in the
Woods; Resistance
to Civil
Government

Mary Rowlandsons
A Narrative of the
Captivity

Henry
Wadsworth
Longfellows
Evangeline and
The Legend of
Hiawatha; The
Ropewalk and
The Cross of
Snow

Poes The Fall of

House of Usher,
The Raven,
The Purloined
Letter, The TellTale Heart,
&The Cask of
Amontillado;
founder of modern
detective story

A New
American
Poetry
W. (1819-1892)
&
D. (1830-1886)
Whitmans I
Hear America
Singing and
Song of Myself

Dickinsons
The Poems of
E.D; Success
Is Counted
Sweetest;
Because I
Could Not Stop
for Death; I
Heard a Fly
Buzz-When I
Died

Realism
1850-1900

Frederick
Douglas My
Bondage and
My Freedom
and The Life
and Times of
Frederick
Douglas
Kate Chopins
The Awakening
and A Pair of
Silk Stockings

Mark Twains
Life on the
Mississippi,
Adventures of
Huckleberry
Finn, and
Adventures of
Tom Sawyer

E. A. Robinson
and Robert Frost
from New
England and
Edgar Lee Masters
from the Midwest
wrote traditional
verse forms. The
*Harlem
Renaissance
(1920s mid
1930s) was a
rebirth of AfricanAmerican art,
music, and
literature focused
mainly in the
Harlem section of
New York City. It
used ghetto speech
and the rhythms of
jazz and blues to
enhance poetry. As
a belief in selfreliance persisted,
Edenic American
writers in the
Modernist era kept
asking questions
about the
meaning and
purpose of
human existence.
Moderns1900-1950

The Confessional
School of Poets,
friends or (like
Sylvia Plath, Anne
Sexton and John
Berryman) wrote
brutal poems about
their private lives.
Oral performance at
poetry slams
indicates a fresh
voice and a new
attitude of poetry
with a democratic
quality, but the same
familiar themes,
seeking spiritual
revelations in
ordinary life.

Contemporary
1950-Present

Willa Cathers O,
Pioneers! and My
Antonia; A
Wagner Matinee

Robert Lowells
For the Union
Dead; a play The
Old Glory about the
stories of Melville
and Hawthorne

Robert Frosts
Mountain Interval
(The Road Not
Taken and
Birches)

Bernard Malamuds
The Natural; short
story collection
The Magic Barrel

F. Scott
Fitzgeralds
The Great Gatsby
and Tender Is the
Night

Richard Wrights
Black Boy

Colonialism
Beginnings to 1800

American
Romanticism
1800-1860

(A Southern Planter)
William Byrds
The History of the
Dividing Line

John Greenleaf
Whittiers
Snow-Bound: A
Winter Idyll

Nathaniel
Hawthornes The
Ministers Black
Veil; Twice-Told
Tales; The Scarlet
Letter

Olaudah Equianos
The Interesting
Narrative of the Life
of Olaudah
Equiano

Oliver Wendall
Holmes Old
Ironsides and
The Chambered
Nautilus;
founder of
Atlantic Monthly
magazine

Herman Melvilles
Moby Dick; Billy
Budd

Anne Bradstreets
Here Follow Some
Verses Upon the
Burning of Our
House
Jonathan Edwardss
Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry
God
Ben Franklins The
Autobiography

Patrick Henrys
Speech to the
Virginia
Convention
Thomas Paines
The Crisis, No. 1
and The Rights of
Man
Thomas Jeffersons
The Autobiography:
The Declaration of
Independence
Phyllis Wheatleys
Poems

American
Renaissance1840-1860

A New
American
Poetry
W. (1819-1892)
&
D. (1830-1886)

Realism
1850-1900

Moderns1900-1950

Contemporary
1950-Present

Ambrose
Bierces An
Occurrence at
Owl Creek
Bridge; The
Devils
Dictionary, or
The Cynics
Word Book
Stephan Cranes
The Red Badge
of Courage and
Maggie: A Girl
of the Streets

John Steinbecks
Of Mice and Men
and The Grapes of
Wrath

Elizabeth Bishops
The Fish

Eudora Weltys A
Worn Path; The
Optimists
Daughter; The
Ponder Heart;
One Writers
Beginnings

John Updikes
Son

Edwin Arlington
Robinsons
The Town Down
the River; Tilbury
Town poems;
Richard Cory;
Miniver Cheevy
E. Hemingways;
A Farewell to
Arms; For Whom
the Bell Tolls; The
Old Man& the Sea
T. S. Eliots The
Waste Land; The
Hollow Men; The
Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock
Flannery
OConners A
Good Man Is
Hard To Find
Edgar Lee
Masters Spoon
River Anthology;
Lucinda
Matlock
Edna St. Vincent
Millays
Renascence and
Other Poems

Anne Sextons
The Bells

Jack Londons
The Call of the
Wild; To Build
a Fire; The
Sea Wolf

Katherine Anne
Porters The
Jilting of Granny
Weatherall; Pale
Horse, Pale Rider

Alice Walkers The

Color Purple and
In Search of Our
Mothers Gardens
Amy Tans The
Rules of the Game;
The Joy Luck
James Baldwins
Go Tell It on the
Mountain
Sylvia Plaths
Mirror

Sandra Cisneros
The House on
Mango Street
AMERICAN
DRAMA
Basic elements are
exposition,
characters, and
conflict. A success
requires
collaboration
between the
playwright, the
producer, the
director, the actors,
and the audience.

Colonialism
Beginnings to 1800

American
Romanticism
1800-1860

American
Renaissance1840-1860

A New
American
Poetry
W. (1819-1892)
&
D. (1830-1886)

Realism
1850-1900

Moderns1900-1950

Contemporary
1950-Present

William
Faulkners A
Rose for Emily,
The Sound and the
Fury; The
Unvanquished

Theater seems to
dramatize accepted
attitudes and values
because it is a social
art. Eugene ONeill
(1888-1953) is
Americas most
important
playwright with
plays like The Great
God Brown, Days
Without End, and
Strange Interlude.
He won the Nobel
Prize in literature in
1936.
European
playwrights Henrik
Ibsen from Norway,
August Strindberg
from Sweden, and
Anton Chekhov
from Russia greatly
influenced
American drama by
shifting dramatic
action to intense
inner emotional
concerns of
common life. This is
called slice-of-life
dramatic technique.
We see a realistic
play through a
fourth wall that
has been removed
from real life so that
we can see into the
characters lives.
Arthur Miller
(1915- ) is a
playwright of social
conscience. He uses
characters
psychological
makeup, along with
social,
philosophical, and
economic
atmosphere of their
times to work his
magic.He wrote The
Death of a
Salesman and The
Crucible.

*Harlem
Renaissance

*James Weldon.
JohnsonsGo
Down, Death

Colonialism

American

American

A New

Realism

Moderns-

Contemporary

Beginnings to 1800

Romanticism
1800-1860

Renaissance1840-1860

American
Poetry
W. (1819-1892)
D. (1830-1886)

1850-1900

1900-1950

1950-Present

*Claude McKays
America

Tennessee Williams
(1911-1983) wrote
realistic drama
mixed with
imaginative, poetic
sensibility in his
plays The Glass
Menagerie, and A
Streetcar Named
Desire and has been
called the
playwright of our
souls. His
characters are often
lost women dealing
with their own
social tensions and
problems.
The Theater of the
Absurd or
Expressionist
drama, does not
rely on time order
but presents action
in a fragmented
way. It is a revolt
against realism.
Corresponding to
stream-ofconsciousness
writing, it is
expressive and
experimental.
Samuel Becketts
Waitng for Godot,
Eugene Ionescos
The Bald
Soprano,and
Edward Albees
Whos Afraid of
Virginia Wolfe? are
examples.

*Countee Cullens
Tableau

*Zora Neale
Hurstsons Dust
Tracks on a
Road
*Langston
Hughes The
Weary Blues and
Harlem
Ezra Pounds The
Cantos
William Carlos
Williams The
Red
Wheelbarrow
Wallace Stevens
Anecdote of the
Jar
Carl Sandburgs
Chicago and
Fog
E. E. Cummings
Tulips and
Chimneys and &

15% The Colonial and Early National Period (Beginnings-1830)

25% The Romantic Period (1830-1870)
20% The Period of Realism and Naturalism (1870-1910)
25% The Modernist Period (1910-1945)
15% The Contemporary Period (1945-Present)
American Literature covers different periods of time and the theme usually changed due to the time period.
Most early American Literature centered around the dream of having a successful career and family ( "the
American dream"). The Rise of Silas Lapham is a great example of this. Most fiction during this time was
considered "historical fiction or realistic fiction" because it did not venture far from what could happen in
real life. As time moves on, other themes arise that have to do with what is happening in the world, such as
slavery in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Other novels such as Moby Dick focus around adventure,
but are still realistic fiction.
Common Themes in Literature
The American Dream
The Development and Image of the Hero
The Meaning of Freedom
Individuality
Death and How To Deal With It
Religion and Faith
The Power of One
Human Relationship
Liberty and Authority
Community and Responsibility
Challenge and Success
Innocence and Experience
Guilt
Choices and Possibilities
Friendship
Family
Love