American Literary
Periods and Their
Characteristics
Puritanism
1650-1750
Historical Context
• A person’s fate is
determined by God
(predestination)
• All people are corrupt
and must be saved by
Christ (Original Sin)
• Covenant of Grace and
Covenant of Works
debate
Puritanism
1650-1750
Genre/Style
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•
Sermons
Diaries
Personal narratives
Written in plain
style
Puritanism
• Instructive
• Reinforces authority of the Bible and church
Puritanism
1650-1750
Examples
• Bradford's Of Plymouth
Plantation
• Rowlandson's "A Narrative
of the Captivity”
• Edward's "Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry God”
• Though not written during
Puritan times, The Crucible
& The Scarlet Letter depict
life during the time when
Puritan theocracy
prevailed.
Rationalism
1750-1800
Historical Context
• Tells readers how to
interpret what they
are reading
• Meant to encourage
Revolutionary War
support
• Instructive in values
Rationalism
1750-1800
Genre/Style
•
•
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•
Political pamphlets
Travel writing
Highly ornate style
Persuasive writing
Rationalism
1750-1800
Effect/Aspects
• Patriotism grows,
Instills pride
• Creates common
agreement about issues
• National mission and
the American character
Rationalism
1750-1800
Examples
• Writings of Thomas Jefferson,
Thomas Paine- “Common Sense”
• Benjamin Franklin's Poor
Richard's Almanac and "The
Autobiography"
Romanticism
1800-1860
Historical Context
• Expansion of
magazines, newspapers,
and book publishing
• Slavery debates
• Industrial revolution
brings ideas that the
"old ways" of doing
things are now
irrelevant
Romanticism
1800-1860
Genre/Style
•
•
•
•
Essays
Stories
Poems
Novels
• Focus on
– Nature
– Emotion
– Imagination
– Intuition
Gothicism
• Considered Romantics but explored the
darker side of human existence
• Awareness for human capacity and evil
• Probing of the inner life of the characters
and the mysterious forces that shape human
behavior
• Grotesque characters, bizarre situations, and
violent events
Gothicism
Edgar Allan Poe
• Pioneer of the
detective story
• First major author of
science fiction and
fantasy
• “The Raven,” “The
Fall of the House of
Usher,” “The Cask of
Amontillado”
Herman Melville
• Mostly adventure
stories set in the South
Pacific
• Explores issues such as
madness and the
conflict of good and
evil
• Moby Dick
Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Examined the darker facets of the human
soul
• Agreed with the romantic ideals of emotion
and the individual
• Many of Hawthorne’s stories are set in
Puritan America
• The Scarlett Letter,
“The Minister’s Black Veil”
Transcendentalists
• Came from “Transcendent” – knowledge that
exists beyond reason or experience
• Emphasized living a simple life and
celebrating the truth found in nature
• Favored personal emotion and imagination
• Believed people were inherently good
Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Ralph Waldo Emerson is considered to be a
founding writer and philosopher within the
American romantic movement.
• Emerson is perhaps best known for his
essays, from which emerge the grounding
notions of Transcendentalism.
• “Self-Reliance,” “Nature”
Henry David Thoreau
• Wrote about living as one with nature and
being self-reliant
• Thoreau presents an exploration of selfdiscipline and self-discovery which resonates
significantly through American literature.
• Considered one of the first environmentalists
• “Civil Disobedience,” “Walden”
Realism
1855-Civil War & Post War period
Historical Context
• Civil War brings demand for a "truer" type of
literature that does not idealize people or places
• Battlefield Photography
Realism
1855-Civil War & Post War period
Genre/Style
• Novels and short
stories
• Objective narrator
• Does not tell reader
how to interpret story
• Dialogue includes
voices from around the
country
Realism
1855-Civil War & Post War period
Effect/Aspects
• Social realism: aims to
change a specific social
problem
– Frederick Douglass
– Slave narratives
Realism
1855-Civil War & Post War period
Examples
• Writings of Mark Twain,
Ambrose Bierce, Stephen
Crane The Narrative of the
Life of Frederick Douglass
• The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (some say
1st modern novel)
• Regional works like: The
Awakening. Ethan Frome,
and My Antonia (some say
modern)
REGIONALISM
1865-1915
Regionalism was a literary movement in
which authors would write a story about
specific geographical areas.
•Writers in this time not only tried to show the
region they wrote about to their readers, but
they also made an attempt at a sophisticated
sociological or anthropological treatment of
the culture of the region.
•By writing about regions, the authors explore
the culture of that area including its•Languages
•Customs
•Beliefs
•history
Authors of Regionalism
Mark Twain
Willa Cather
William Faulkner
Kate Chopin
Frank Norris
NATURALISM (1890S - 1950S)
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Trend rather than a movement; never formalized nor dominated
by the influence of a single writer
A more extreme, intensified version of realism
Shows more unpleasant, ugly, shocking aspects of life
Objective picture of reality viewed with scientific detachment
Determinism – man’s life is dominated by the forces he cannot
control: biological instincts, social environment
No free will, no place for moral judgment
Pessimism
Struggle of an individual to adopt to the environment
The Moderns
1900-1950
Historical Context
• Writers reflect the ideas of
Darwin (survival of the
fittest), Karl Marx (how
money and class structure
control a nation), and
Sigmund Freud (the power
of the subconscious)
• Overwhelming
technological changes of
the 20th Century
• Rise of the youth culture
• WWI and WWII
The Moderns
1900-1950
Genre/Style
• Novels Plays
• Poetry (a great resurgence
after deaths of Whitman &
Dickinson)
• Highly experimental as
writers seek a unique style
• Use of interior monologue
& stream of consciousness
The Moderns
1900-1950
Effect/Aspect
• In Pursuit of the American
Dream—
• Admiration for America as
land of Eden
• Optimism
• Importance of the
Individual
• Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
•
Poetry of Jeffers, Williams,
Cummings, Frost, Eliot,
Sandburg, Pound, Robinson,
Stevens
• Rand's Anthem
• Short stories and novels of
Steinbeck, Hemingway,
Thurber, Welty, and Faulkner
• Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun
& Wright's Native Son (an
outgrowth of Harlem
Renaissance-- see below)
• Miller's The Death of a Salesman
(some consider Postmodern)
The Moderns
1900-1950
Examples
Harlem Renaissance
(parallel to Modernism)
1920s
Historical Context
• Mass African-American
migration to Northern
urban centers
• African-Americans
have more access to
media and publishing
outlets after they move
north
Harlem Renaissance
(parallel to Modernism)
1920s
Genre/Style
• Allusions to AfricanAmerican spirituals
• Uses structure of
blues songs in poetry
(repetition)
• Superficial
stereotypes revealed
to be complex
characters
Harlem Renaissance
(parallel to Modernism)
1920s
Effect/Aspects
• Gave birth to "gospel
music"
• Blues and jazz
transmitted across
American via radio and
phonographs
Harlem Renaissance
(parallel to Modernism)
1920s
Examples
• Essays & Poetry of
W.E.B. DuBois
• Poetry of McKay,
Toomer, Cullen
• Poetry, short stories
and novels of Zora
Neale Hurston and
Langston Hughes
• Their Eyes Were
Watching God
Postmodernism
1950-present
• Post-World War II
prosperity
• Media culture interprets
values
• Disillusionment
• Resistance to easily
recognizable themes or
morals in a story
• Insists that values are not
permanent but only "local"
or "historical"
Postmodernism
1950-present
Genre/Style
• Mixing of fantasy with nonfiction; blurs lines of reality for reader No
heroes
• Concern with individual in isolation
• Social issues as writers align with feminist & ethnic groups
• Usually humorless
• Narratives
• Metafiction
• Present tense
• Magic realism
Postmodernism
1950-present
Examples
• Mailer's The Naked and the Dead and The Executioner's Song Feminist &
Social Issue poets: Plath, Rich, Sexton, Levertov, Baraka, Cleaver,
Morrison, Walker & Giovanni
• Miller's The Death of a Salesman & The Crucible (some consider Modern)
• Lawrence & Lee's Inherit the Wind
• Capote's In Cold Blood
• Stories & novels of Vonnegut
• Salinger's Catcher in the Rye
• Beat Poets: Kerouac, Burroughs, & Ginsberg
• Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest