American Literature
of the second half of the 19th – the
beginning of the 20th c.
Realism and the Frontier
1865-1915
• America was changing dramatically in the
late 19th century and early 20th century -the Civil War was becoming a hazy memory
• The American Frontier no longer existed by
1915 - this did not stem western migration
• railroads bridged the continent
• the Wright Brothers took their first aircraft
aloft at Kitty Hawk, NC in 1903
History Overview
• Science and industry were making great
leaps forward as was literature after
relative quiety of post-war years -- “an
impressive array of writers began to
appear”
• Prewar Romantic writers were still widely
read but most new writers were not
Romantics. The new writers wanted to
portray “life as it was lived, not
sentimentally or in flights of fancy.” Goal
was REALISM or Naturalism or Regionalism.
History Overview
• Between 1865-1915 U.S. population grew by
more than 42 million people (due to new
immigration)
• before 1880 most immigrants came from
Western Europe and the Scandinavian
countries
• in the 1880s immigrants came from
Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy, Greece,
Poland, Russia)
History Overview (cont’d.)
• Population in older cities,
Boston/Baltimore, tripled and quadrupled
• Chicago and Detroit also skyrocketed
• Major, new cities sprung up (Denver - in
1858 60 crude log cabins, due to Pikes Peak
Gold Rush, 3 years later, Denver’s
population was 3,000 people) By 1890 the
population of Denver exceeded 100,000
A Nation of the Move
• Advances in transportation
• Mark Twain traveled - “this kind of movement
helped to shape both the subject matter and
the attitudes of writers in this period” Roughing It
• writers now writing about and representing
the mid-west and far west
– Bret Harte (moved from NYC to CA)
– Willa Cather (moved from VA to Nebraska) A Wagner
Matinee
– Jack London (native CA) To Build A Fire (1897 prospected
for gold in Alaska, his early novels were set in Alaska, not
in CA)
Frontier Experience
• 1827 President John Quincy Adams
• frontier dwellers were generally mobile,
practical, inventive, deomocratic and
optimistic
• Mark Twain’s writing showed all 5 traits
• BUT, the Frontier was not an “idyllic
existence” could be lonely and cruel
Problems
• Along with rapid industrialization came
problems
–
–
–
–
urban slums
farming problems
labor unrest
The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles
Dudley Warner “dealt with unrestrained greed in
a time of financial speculation and uncertain
moral values”
National Diversity
• Depression in 1893
• farmers faced failing agricultural prices, high interest
rates on bank loans, unequal railroad shipping
charges
• after centuries of conflict, Native American Tribes had
been defeated
• Restrictive immigration laws prohibited Chinese
workers from entering the U.S. after 1882
• European immigrants often worked long hours in
sweatshops and lived in slums
• Women were not allowed to vote in national elections
National Diversity (cont’d.)
• Literature reflected this diversity
as well as the promise and
problems of the frontier and
industry
Realism in American Literature
• “the buoyant spirits of Emerson and the wild
imaginings of Poe seemed out of date to many after
the war, especially to the young writers”
• “Realistic” writers saw themselves as being in
revolt against Romanticism
Realism (cont’d.)
• European Realistic writers: Balzac,
Stendhal, Flaubert
• Not only did European influences help,
American writers had plenty of material on
their own, plus the objectivity of science
played a part
– 1885 The Rise of Silas Lepham by William Dean
Howells -- in 1891 he described his theory of
Realism in Criticism and Fiction
– other Realists: Stephen Crane, Hamlin Garland
Naturalism
• One step beyond Realism, influenced by
French writer Emile Zola - “a writer must
examine people and society objectively
and, like a scientist, draw conclusions from
what is observed
• viewed reality as the inescapable working
out of natural forces “One destiny is
decided by heredity and environment,
physical drives and economic
circumstances (tended to be pessimistic
writers)
Naturalism (cont’d.)
• 1893 Stephen Crane Maggie: A Girl of the
Streets
• Jack London To Build A Fire (man at the
mercy of the brutal forces of nature)
• Frank Norris The Octopus (struggles
between wheat growers and an allpowerful railroad in San Joaquin Valley, CA)
Regionalism
• Also known as the “Local Color Movement”
• “through use of regional dialects and vivid
descriptions of landscape, Regionalists
captured the essence of life in different
regions”
– Mark Twain “The Notorious Jumping Frog of
Calaveras County”
– Bret Harte (considered founder of the local
color movement) “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”
– George Washington Cable (wrote about Creole
life in Louisiana
Regionalism (cont’d.)
• This movement could have come about
because people wanted to learn more
about others (also due to the advances in
transportation)
– Edward Eggleston, The Hoosier Schoolmaster
(backwoods Indiana)
– Sarah Orne Jewett - The County of the Pointed
Firs
– Mary Wilkins Freeman (rural New England)
– Kate Chopin (Louisiana) Creole and Cajun life
Poets of the Time
• Stephen Crane - short, spare, untitled
fables/riddles
• Sidney Lanier - fused musical and poetic
principles
• Paul Laurence Dunbar - used black dialect
and folklore
• Edwin Arlington Robinson - The Children of
the Night, 1897 (contains “unforgettable
psychological portraits of people)
• Edgar Lee Masters - Spoon River Anthology
Poets of the Time (cont’d.)
• James Whitcomb Riley - Rustic Hoosier
dialect “Little Orphant Annie,” Knee Deep in
June”
• Eugene Field, Denver journalist, “Little Boy
Blue,” “Whynken, Blynken and Nod”
• Edwin Markam - “The Man With The Hoe”
(Oregon)
• Joaquin Miller “Columbus” (Oregon)
Famous Short Story Writers
• William Sydney Porter (O Henry) - portrayed
N.Y. City, uses surprise endings, worked
within a customary plot structure with
certain familiar character types, settings
and situations
• Dime Store Novels (Westerns)
– Owen Wister - The Virginian, 1902
VOCABULARY
• Humor = writing that is intended to evoke
laughter
• Narration = writing that tells a story
(fictional = often inspired by real life events
OR factual = some details are fictionalized
or exaggerated)
• Regionalism = habits, speech, appearance,
customs and beliefs of people from one
geographical region often differ from those
of people from other areas
VOCABULARY
• Point of View = refers to the vantage point or
perspective from which a narrative is told
• Imagery = words or phrases that create
mental pictures or images, that appeal to
one or more of the five senses
• Irony = contrast between what is stated and
what is meant or between what is expected
to happen and what actually happens
• Characterization = the means by which a
writer reveals a character’s personality
VOCABULARY
• Conflict = a struggle between two opposing
forces or characters, plays a vital role in the
plot development
• Realism = literary movement that emerged as
a reaction against Romanticism
• Naturalism = major literary movement of the
late 19th century and early 20th century, grew
out of Realism
• Sound Devices = gives writing a musical
quality - 4 most frequently used: alliteration,
consonance, assonance, internal rhyme
VOCABULARY
• Tone = writer’s attitude toward his or her
subject, characters or audience
• Sonnet = a 14-line lyric poem, usually written
in rhymed iambic pentameter (verse with 5
feet per line, each foot consisting of an
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed
syllable). A sonnet usually expresses a
single complete idea or theme
• Speaker = voice of the poem