Timeline of
American Literature
English 11
Native American (?-1600)
HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
• Creation stories to explain
nature
• Ritualistic (healing, initiation,
planting & harvesting,
purification & hunting)
GENRE/STYLE:
• Communicated orally, not in
writing
• Myths, legends, chants
EXAMPLES:
• “How the World was Made”
(Cheyenne)
• “Origin Legend” (Navajo)
Age of Faith (1607-1750)
HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
• Puritans & Pilgrims
• Separated from the Anglican church
of England
• Religion dominates writing & lives
• Work ethic: hard work & simple living
GENRE/STYLE:
• Sermons, diaries, letters, personal
narratives, slave memoirs
• Instructive, plain style,
documentation
MAJOR WRITERS:
• Anne Bradstreet (1st published
American poet), “To My Dear &
Loving Husband”
• Jonathan Edwards (Minister),
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
God”
Age of Reason (1750-1800)
HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
• American Revolution; growth of
patriotism
• Democracy as a value/character
• Reason replacing faith
GENRE/STYLE:
• Political pamphlets, essays,
almanacs, travel writing, speeches,
documents
• Instructive writing in highly ornate
language
EXAMPLES:
• Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography &
Poor Richard’s Almanac
• Thomas Jefferson, “Declaration of
Independence”
• Thomas Paine, “The American
Crisis”
Romanticism (1800-1855)
HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
• Expansion of book, magazine &
newspaper publishing
• Industrial Revolution
• Abolitionist movement
GENRE/STYLE:
• Short stories, novels, poetry
• Imagination over reason, intuition over
fact; focused on the fantastic part of
human experience & human feeling
• Writing interpreted both on surface & in
depth
• Gothic literature (supernatural, characters
both good & evil, dark & depressed
settings)
EXAMPLES:
• Washington Irving, “Legend of Sleepy
Hollow,” “Rip van Winkle”
• Nathanial Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter,
“Young Goodman Brown”
• Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven,” “Fall of the
House of Usher”
Transcendentalism (1840-1855)
Fit these notes under the
“Romanticism” heading:
• Transcendentalism:
• Stressed the individual,
intuition, nature, being
self-reliant
• EXAMPLES:
• Ralph Waldo Emerson,
“Nature”
• Henry David Thoreau,
Walden
REALISM (1865-1915)
HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
• Civil War brings demand for realistic
writing
• People defined by “class”
• Darwin’s influence: survival of the
fittest
GENRE/STYLE:
• Realism: focus on lives of ordinary
people
• Naturalism: the universe is
unpredictable, free will an illusion
• Novels, short stories
• Focus on social problems
EXAMPLES:
• Frederick Douglass, escaped slave,
My Autobiography
• Mark Twain, Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
• Jack London, Call of the Wild, “To
Build a Fire”
MODERNISM (1915-1945)
HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
• Overwhelming changes in
technology
• WAR and mass destruction
• Rise of youth culture
GENRE/STYLE:
• Stream of consciousness,
interior monologue, other unique
experimental styles
EXAMPLES:
• John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath
• F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great
Gatsby
CONTEMPORARY (1945-present)
HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
• Media-saturated culture
• Post WW2 prosperity
• Social protest
• New millennium
GENRE/STYLE:
• Mix of fantasy & non-fiction
• Anti-heroes
• Women/ethnic writers
• Graphic novels, experimental styles
EXAMPLES:
• J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye
• Maya Angelou, “I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings”
• Tim O’Brien, The Things They
Carried