Literary Movements in
American Literature
Origins and Encounters
2000 B.C. – A.D. 1620
• 2000-1000 B.C.-Native Americans in Southwest
cultivate maize, a forerunner of corn.
• A.D. 500-Native American tribes in Eastern woodlands
establish agricultural economy and trade.
• A.D. 800-Mound Builder culture develops along
Mississippi River.
• A.D. 1000-Anaszi build elaborate, multistory cliff
dwellings in Southwest canyons.
Origins and Encounters
2000 B.C. – A.D. 1620
Miamisburg Mound, the largest conical mound in Ohio, is
attributed to the Adena archaeological culture.
Origins and Encounters
2000 B.C. – A.D. 1620
Cliff Palace – Mesa Verde National Park, CO
Origins and Encounters
2000 B.C. – A.D. 1620
• Mythology-a system of hereditary stories of ancient
origin which were by a particular cultural group, and
which served to explain that culture.
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“The World on the Turtle’s Back”-Iroquois Tribe
“The Song of the Sky Loom”-Tewe Tribe
Native American Myths
“Hunting Song”-Navajo Tribe
“Coyote and Buffalo”-Okanogan Tribe
Origins and Encounters
2000 B.C. – A.D. 1620
• Accounts of Exploration and Exploitation
• 1502-First enslaved Africans taken to America.
• 1607-First permanent English colony set up in
Jamestown, Virginia.
• “La Relacion”-(report) Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
• “The Travels of Marco Polo”-(travelogue) Marco
Polo
• “The Interesting Narrative of the Life Olaudah
Equiano”-(slave narrative) Olaudah Equiano
From Colony to Country
1620-1800
• Age of Reason is the literary movement that
adheres to strict Puritan doctrine.
• 1,000 Puritans settle in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
• 1630 - “A Modell of Christian Charity” by John
Winthrop— “For we must consider that we shall
be like a City upon a Hill”
Winthrop envisioned “a city of God” as the
Utopian foundation for the new society that the
Puritans would be building.
From Colony to Country
1620-1800
• 1666-”Upon the Burning of Our House” by Anne
Bradstreet—the first famous colonial poet.
From Colony to Country
1620-1800
• 1692-1693 – “The Examination of Sarah Good” – Salem
witch trials.
• What evil spirit have you familiarity with?
None.
Have you made no contract with the devil?
No.
Why do you hurt these children?
I do not hurt them. I scorn it.
Who do you imploy then to do it?
I imploy no body.
What creature do you imploy then?
No creature. I am falsely accused.
Dialogue based on the examination of Sarah Good by
Judges Hathorne and Corwin,
from The Salem Witchcraft Papers, Book II, p.355
From Colony to Country
1620-1800
• 1732- Poor Richard’s Almanack- by Benjamin Franklin
“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy
wealthy and wise.”
From Colony to Country
1620-1800
• 1741- “Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God”- a sermon
delivered by Jonathan Edwards.
“The God that holds you over
the pit of hell, much as one
holds a spider, or some
loathsome insect over the fire,
abhors you…his wrath toward
you burns like fire; he looks
upon you as worthy of nothing
else, but to be cast into the fire.”
From Colony to Country
1620-1800
• 1776- “Declaration of Independence” by Thomas
Jefferson. “We hold these truths to be self-evident:--That
all men are created equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
• 1782- “What Is an American?” by Michel-Guillaume Jean
de Crevecoeur. “He is an American who, leaving behind
him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives
new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced,
the new government he obeys, and the new rank he
holds.”
Colonial Period Artwork
• Artist: The Freake-Gibbs Painter
• Place and period: Worked in Boston in 1670
• Title of work: The Mason Children: David,
Joanna, and Abigail
• Date of completion: 1670
The Spirit of Individualism
1800-1855
• Romanticism – At the beginning of the 19th
century, this movement took place as a reaction
to Neoclassicism. The Romantics realized the
limitations of reason; as a result, they focused
on the individual spirit, the emotions, the
imagination, and the supernatural.
• 1835- Emerson, Thoreau, and others organized
the Transcendental Club. Transcendentalism is
based on the idea that truth exists beyond
reason and experience.
Francisco Goya, The Third of May, 1808, Spain, 1814-1815
This Romantic painting by Goya serves as a social satire about the
oppressive Napoleonic forces in Spain at the time. This painting exemplifies
Romanticism as it explores a new subject matter as well as color effects, and
places an extreme importance on the power of emotion.
The Spirit of Individualism
1800-1855
• 1838- Longfellow, a famous romantic writer, wrote “A
Psalm of Life”
“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;”
The Spirit of Individualism
1800-1855
• 1845- Thoreau begins to live on Walden Pond.
• 1849- “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David
Thoreau— “That government is best which
governs least;”
The Spirit of Individualism
1800-1855
• 1841- “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron
string.”
The Spirit of Individualism
1800-1855
• 1855- Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
“Song of Myself”
“Or I guess the grass is itself a child….the
produced babe of the vegetation.”
The Spirit of Individualism
1800-1855
• American Gothic- the setting is usually
in the middle ages, often with a gloomy castle
furnished with dungeons, underground passages
and ghosts.
• American Gothic relates to romanticism where the
imagination leads to the dark regions of the
unknown.
• 1839- “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar
Allan Poe
Conflict and Expansion
1850-1900
A House Divided
• 1851- Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• 1852- Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• 1865- Abraham Lincoln delivers “Gettysburg
Address.”
• 1882- “Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass” Autobiography
Conflict and Expansion
1850-1900
• 1876- Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• 1883- Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain
Conflict and Expansion
1850-1900
Realism became the dominant literary style after
the Civil War. The focus was on ordinary
people.
Local-color realism- the detailed representation
in a literary work of the setting, dialect, customs,
dress, and ways of thinking and feeling which
are distinctive to a particular region. Mark Twain
and Willa Cather used local-color realism.
Conflict and Expansion
1850-1900
• Childe Hassam
“Improvisation”-1899
• 1870-1900- Edith Wharton – “Age of Innocence”
“The Gilded Age” is an era that characterizes
economic growth that widens the gap between
rich and poor, and breeds corruption through
affluence in politics, business, and society.
Impressionism
Impressionist artists were concerned with the affects and quality of light, and
knew how colors could complement or alter one another. The spontaneity of
their painting was a great contrast to academic paintings of the past, and
leisure time activities were a favorite subject. While the name impressionism
derives from realism, the movement was deemed as such because of Monet’s
“Impression Sunrise.”
Expressionism
Van Gogh was influenced by the 20th century. Van Gogh's
inner state of mind certainly played a large role in his
subject matter and painting as a whole. Characterized by
his extreme uses of color and fragmentary brush marks, his
own feelings are fairly evident in his works.
Vincent Van Gogh,
Boulevard de Clichy, 1887
The Changing Face of America
1855-1925
• 1862- Emily Dickinson writes 366 poems in a
year.
“Because I could not stop for DeathHe kindly stopped for meThe Carriage held but just OurselvesAnd Immortality.”
The Changing Face of America
1855-1925
• 1890- “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte
Perkins Gilman illustrates the emotional and
intellectual oppression of a young woman during
the Victorian Era.
The Changing Face of America
1855-1925
The American Dream / Illusion or reality?
• 1890s- “We Wear The Mask” by Paul Laurence
Dunbar describes the pain of racism.
“We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-”
The Changing Face of America
1855-1925
• “Winter Dreams” by F. Scott Fitzgerald- “Often
he reached out for the best without knowing why
he wanted it…”
The Modern Age
1910-1940
• 1915- “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by
T.S. Eliot.-Alienation of the Individual
“I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
Modern Art
Edvard Munch (1863-1944): "Disease and Insanity were the black
angels on guard at my cradle". An early life full of death and struggle
traumatized Munch and left him "a human isolate in constant fear of
death". Themes of illness and death "dominate his paintings" as he was
so utterly scared of these issues. He also had a deep hatred of women
and of hands. His works really reflect his own personal issues.
The Modern Age
1910-1940
• “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost
“Good fences make good neighbors.”
The Modern Age
1910-1940
1920s- Harlem Renaissance originated in Harlem, New York. Langston
Hughes was a leading voice for the Harlem Renaissance.
Harlem
Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore- And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Harlem Renaissance Art
William H. Johnson arrived in Harlem in 1918.
The Modern Age
1910-1940
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1920s-Harlem Renaissance Writers:
Zora Neal Hurston
Countee Cullen
Claude McKay
Langston Hughes
After 1960s-Reaffirming Black Cultural Identity:
James Baldwin
Gwendolyn Brooks
Toni Morrison
Nikki Giovanni
Alice Walker
Reaffirming the Harlem Renaissance
Romare Bearden can best be described as a "descendent" of the
Harlem Renaissance, for the majority of his works were created a
couple of decades after the movement had ended. His paintings,
collages and prints celebrate black history, black music (jazz primarily
an invention of black musicians), and black lifestyles. Bright colors,
unusual spatial compositions, and a jubilant attitude frequently occupy
his works.
“Soul History”
The Modern Age
1910-1940
• Southern Gothic- The 19th century setting of a
medieval castle shifted to a decaying plantation,
with a family isolated in time and place.
• 1930- “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner.
War Abroad and Conflict at Home
1940-Present
• Remembering the Wars (World War II)
• “Armistice” by Bernard Malamud- a story set in
World War II before the U.S. entered the conflict.
Anti-Semitism, prejudice against Jews, plays a
major role in the story.
War Abroad and Conflict at Home
1940-Present
• “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall
Jarrell. Jarrell served in the U.S. Army Air Force,
teaching flight navigation in Arizona. He gained
firsthand knowledge of fighter planes and
gunners.
War Abroad and Conflict at Home
1940-Present
• Traditions Across Time: War in Vietnam
• “Ambush” by Tim O’Brien presents a soldier’s
response to the fear and confusion in Vietnam
and the memories that haunt him after the war.
War Abroad and Conflict at Home
1940-Present
• Integration and Disintegration
• “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther
King Jr.(1963)- “…My friends, I must say to you
that we have not made a single gain in civil rights
without determined legal and non-violent
pressure.”
War Abroad and Conflict at Home
1940-Present
• Integration and Disintegration
• “Legal Alien” by Pat Mora
“sliding back and forth
between two worlds”
War Abroad and Conflict at Home
1940-Present
• Integration and Disintegration
• “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan
“I don’t see myself writing about culture and the
immigrant experience. That’s just part of the
tapestry. What I believe my books are about is
relationships and family.”
Contemporary Art
Pop Art began in England in the 1950s and emerged in a different way
in the United States in the 1960s. Pop is short for popular, as pop art
reflected and expressed popular culture of the time. American Pop Art
was a unified movement that "insisted on a direct relationship between
its use of the imagery of mass production and its adoption of modern
technological procedures". Each artist established their own style and
identity which we can see clearly through the works of Andy Warhol
and Roy Lichtenstein.
Works Cited
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Images
Miamisburg Mound, Cliff Palace - en.wikipedia.org
John Winthrop - www.pbs.org
Anne Bradstreet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, F. Scott
Fitzgerald - www.todayinliterature.com
Benjamin Franklin - teachpol.tcnj.edu
• Jonathan Edwards - www.jonathanedwards.com
• The Mason Children - www.thinker.org
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The Third of May – Francisco Goya - www.sbac.edu
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - www.nndb.com
Henry David Thoreau - etext.library.adelaide.edu.au
Edgar Allan Poe - www.crimelibrary.com
Herman Melville - nantuckets.com
• Frederick Douglass - www.historyplace.com
Works Cited
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Mark Twain - passouline.blog.lemonde.fr
“Improvisation”-Childe Hassam - americanart.si.ed
“Impression Sunrise”-Claude Monet -www.mezzo-mondo.com
“Boulevard de Clichy” –Vincent Van Gogh - www.1st-art-gallery.com
Emily Dickinson - www.lucidcafe.com
Charlotte Perkins Gilman - gilman.thefreelibrary.com
Paul Laurence Dunbar - events.stanford.edu
T.S. Eliot - thecriticalpoet.tripod.com
“Scream” – Edvard Munch - www.geocities.com
Robert Frost - www.internal.org
• Langston Hughes - alloftheabove.wordpress.com
• William H. Johnson - www.iusb.edu
• Chain Gang – William H. Johnson http://www.reveries.com/folkden/riley.html
• “Soul History” – Romare Bearden -www.eyeconart.net
Works Cited
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William Faulkner - www.themodernword.com
Bernard Malamud - www.csustan.edu
Randall Jarrell, Pat Mora - www.poets.org
Tim O’Brien -www.iwvpa.net
Martin Luther King Jr. - no.wikipedia.org
• Amy Tan - www.usnews.com
• Pop Art - www.artofcolour.com
Information
• Contemporary Art - en.wikipedia.org
• Quotations, Literary terms, Backgrounds on writers
Anderson R., Brinnin J., Leggett J., Burroway, J., and Cisneros, S.,
Elements of Literature. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. 1993.