1. American Literature
A Year in Review

2. Unit 1: Colonial Period (Native Americans, Explorers, and Puritans)
Time Period: Beginnings – 1750
Basics of Literary Time Period
Native Americans were the first settlers in North America
Colonists from Europe did not begin arriving until the late 1500s
Religious reformers called Puritans sailed from England on the Mayflower in 1620

3. Background on Native Americans
Native American Myths
Explain customs, institutions, or religious rites
Natural landmarks
Events beyond
people’s control
Use oral tradition

4. Background on Puritans
Pilgrims, or Separatists, wanted to withdraw from the Church of England
Puritans wanted to reform or “purify” the church from within; they wanted to create a theocracy
Human beings exist for the glory of God
Predestination (John Calvin)- God’s elect vs. the damned
Thought they could accomplish good only through continual hard work and self-discipline
Great Awakening-series of religious revivals
Early 1700s, Puritanism was in a decline
In 1720, religious revivals, known as The Great Awakening, were led by ministers, such as Jonathan Edwards
This was done in hopes of reviving the Puritan ways and beliefs
It did little to revive old-fashioned Puritanism

5. Literature of the Time Period
Native American Tradition: myths, folktales, etc.
Explorer’s Accounts
Slave Narratives
Religious writings
Southern Writers

6. Writers and Works of the Period
Native Americans
“The Earth on Turtle’s Back
“When Grizzlies Walked Upright”
Explorers
Christopher Columbus – “Journal of the First Voyage to America”
William Bradford – “Of Plymouth Plantation”
Puritans
Edward Taylor – “Huswifery”
Anne Bradstreet – “To My Dear and Loving Husband”
Jonathan Edwards – “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
The Crucible (written in the 1950s, but about Puritans in the 1600s)

7. Unit 2: Revolutionary Period (Age of Reason-Rationalists)
Time Period:
Basics of Literary Time Period
Deists-believed God created the world and set it up to run without Him on a daily basis
Valued logic and reason over faith
Science will further human progress
Unlike Puritans, little care was given to the afterlife or cleansing of sins
Believed that people are by nature good, not evil. Could become perfect
Values rationality, order, and balance
Believes the universe is orderly and good

8. Writers and Works of the Period
Benjamin Franklin
“The Autobiography”
“Poor Richards Almanack”
“Speech in the Convention”
Thomas Jefferson
“Declaration of Independence”
Thomas Paine
“The Crisis, Number 1”
Patrick Henry
“Speech in the Virginia
Convention”

9. Persuasive Techniques (Rhetorical Devices)
Literary Term
Definition
Repetition
Restating an idea using the same words
Rhetorical question
Asking a question whose answer is self-evident
Parallelism
Repeating grammatical structure
Allusion
Reference to a well-known/existing piece of literature, history, etc.
Alliteration
Repetition of initial consonant sounds
Simile
Comparison of two unlike items by using “like” or “as”

10. Common Universal Themes in American Literature
American Individualism- the colonists who first arrived in America were seeking freedom to practice their individual religions
American Dream-the idea that anyone in America can achieve prosperity through hard work, perseverance, and determination
Cultural Diversity-individuals of diverse backgrounds are accepted in the U.S. (melting pot)
Tolerance-acceptance of others’ beliefs (religious beliefs are often illustrated with American literature)

11. Unit 3: Romantic Period (Romantics, Transcendentalists, and Dark Romantics)
Time Period:
Basics of the Literary Time Period
Emphasized imagination, feeling, and intuition
over reason (fiction popularized as opposed to non-
fiction of the Revolutionary period)
The 5 Characteristics of the Literature (Stories, Poems, and Novels)
Imagination and Escapism
Individuality
Nature was seen as a source of spirituality
Looked to the past for wisdom
Emphasized common man as a hero

12. Background on Romanticism
Characteristics of the American Romantic hero:
young, or possesses youthful qualities
Innocent and pure of purpose
Sense of honor
Knowledge of people and life
Loves nature
Quests for some higher truth

13. Fireside Poets Couplet: 2 line poem Quatrain: 4 line poem
Cinquain: 5 line poem
Characterization: reveals personality traits of a character (Direct and Indirect)
Represented a literary coming of age with the first generation of acclaimed American poets
Used American settings
Some of the most read and most beloved poets
Wrote poems that were usually told around the fire

14. Transcendentalism Background
Everything in the world and God are 1
So… God is in everything
So… Everything in the world (nature) contains laws and meanings of existence
So… each soul also contains the soul of the world and all the world is connected to God (the over soul connects us all)

15. Dark Romanticism Background
Can be referred to as anti-transcendentalism
Thought transcendentalists were too optimistic
Focused on the perceived darkness of the human soul
Felt humans were inherently selfish
Began the gothic movement
Imagery: use of language to evoke a picture or concrete sensation of a person, thing, place, or experience
Gothic Style: (Poe) remote settings, violent acts, tormented characters, and often supernatural elements
Allegory: story/poem that can be read on one level for its literal meaning and on a second level for its symbolic meaning
Paradox: statement that appears self-contradictory, but that reveals a kind of truth

16. Writers and Works of the Period
Romantics
Washington Irving (A.K.A. the father of American literature -
Rip Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and “The Devil and
Tom Walker”
James Fennimore Cooper – First American novelist; wrote about Natty Bumppo (character was considered the first American hero)
Herman Melville – Moby Dick
William Cullen Bryant - “Thanatopsis”
Dark Romantics-Reflected the darker side of life
Edgar Allen Poe - “The Raven” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter and “The Minister’s Black Veil”
Emily Dickinson – “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died”

17. Writers and Works of the Period (Continued)
Transcendentalism – Reflected spirituality and optimism
Ralph Waldo Emerson – “Nature” and “Self-Reliance”
Henry David Thoreau – “Walden” and “Civil Disobedience”
Walt Whitman - “I Hear America Singing”

18. Unit 4: Realism Time Period: 1850-1914
Basics of the Literary Time Period
Style of writing developed in the 19th century
Depicts life accurately without idealizing, romanticizing, or filtering it through personal feelings
Focuses on ordinary people suffering the harsh realities of everyday life “our common course”
Subjects include poor factory workers and corrupt politicians

19. Writing Techniques
Objective Point of View- reader follows the action without understanding any character’s thoughts about the events
Third-Person Limited- the narrator relates the inner thoughts and feelings of a single character
Flashback-interrupts chronological presentation of events to relate to an earlier time
Situational Irony- outcome of an action or situation is very different from what one expects

20. Background Emphasizes a specific geographical setting
Regionalism
Emphasizes a specific geographical setting
Reproduces a speech of people in a certain area
Also shows behavior and attitudes of people living in a certain area
Naturalism
Humans are subject to the laws of nature and controlled by instinct
Fate determined by environment, heredity, chance, or by uncontrollable forces
Characters have limited choices and motivations
“we are all fighting a losing battle”
Dissected human behavior with complete objectivity (like scientists)

21. Writers and Works of the Period
Mark Twain – Huck Finn
Stephan Crane – “An Episode of War”
Kate Chopin – “The Story of an Hour”, “Desiree’s Baby”
Owl Creek Bridge”
Bret Harte – “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”
Jack London – “To Build a Fire”
Abraham Lincoln – “The Gettysburg Address”
Paul Laurence Dunbar – “Douglass”, “We Wear the Mask”

22. Unit 5: Modernism Time Period: 1914-1946
Basics of the Literary Time Period
Two World Wars and a Great Depression marked this era.
The devastation of WWI brought an end to optimism. People were left feeling uncertain and disillusioned; they did not trust the ideas and values that once characterized our country.
The quest for new ideas occurred in the world of literature, and modernism was born.

23. Modernism Key Points (Cont.)
Modernist authors sought to capture the essence of modern life in both the form and the content of their work.
Modernists constructed their works out of fragments. Poets abandoned traditional forms and meters, in favor of free verse.
Themes of their works were usually implied, rather than directly stated, making readers draw upon their own conclusions.
Modernist works demanded more from readers.

24. Imagism ( ): demanded hard, clear expression, concrete images, and the language of everyday speech; their models came from the Greek and Roman classics, Chinese and Japanese poetry, and the free verse of the French poets. (Poets: H.D., Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams)
Expatriates: writers who settled in Paris after WWI, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway
Writer Gertrude Stein created the phrase “lost generation” to describe those who were disillusioned by WWI; she influenced the ideas of those writers who had settled in Paris.
Writers began using stream of consciousness attempting to recreate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts. (William Faulkner and Katherine Anne Porter were known for this.)

25. Modernism Key Points (Cont.)
Poets also sought to stretch old boundaries – E.E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, etc.
Harlem Renaissance: African Americans from the South created their own renaissance in Harlem; it began in 1921 (Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neal Hurston
Claude McKay, and Jean Toomer)
Major themes in the early 20th century: loss of innocence in people and pursuit of the American Dream

26. Writers and Works of the Period
F. Scott Fitzgerald – Great Gatsby
T.S. Elliot – “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Earnest Hemingway – “In Another Country”
Eudora Welty – “A Worn Path”
Poets: Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, and Langston Hughes

27. Unit 6: Postmodernism Time Period: 1946 – Present
Basics of the Literary Time Period
WWII and Holocaust was hurting the meaning of life
Influenced by the growth of informational technology
Loss of trust in author’s irrational thoughts
Less confidence that work is unique – culture continually copies itself
Interest in work as process and how it evolves
Loss of belief that work is immortal
Belief that fine art can be a cartoon
Works consisting of dialogue alone
Works that blend fiction and non-fiction
Experimentation of the physical appearance of a work
Essence of contemporary life in works
Impersonal and commercial nature of today’s work

28. Writers and Works of the Period
Arthur Miller – The Crucible
J.D. Salinger – Catcher in the Rye
Flannery O’Connor – “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”
Naomi Shihab Nye – “Mint Snowball”
Alice Walker – “Everyday Use”
Carson McCullers – “The Mortgaged Heart”
Sylvia Plath – “Mirror”
Gwendolyn Brooks – “The Explorer”
Tim O’Brien – “Ambush”

29. The End!
I hope you’ve learned plenty about American Literature, and perhaps, you can now reflect upon the significance of this history and how it continues to shape the ideas, culture, and literature of today.