1. Timeline through American Literature

2. Puritanism – The Colonial Period Colonialism – 1750 Historical Context
Religion dominates
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

3. Puritanism – The Colonial Period Genre/Style
Sermons,
diaries,
personal narratives
Written in plain style

4. Puritanism – The Colonial Period Effect/Aspects
Instructive
Reinforces authority of the Bible and church

5. Puritanism – The Colonial Period 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.

6. Rationalism – The Age of Reason 1750-1800 Historical Context
Intellect dominates
Tells readers how to interpret what they are reading
Meant to encourage Revolutionary War support
Instructive in values

7. Rationalism – The Age of Reason Genre/Style
Political pamphlets
Travel writing
Persuasive writing
Highly ornate style

8. Rationalism – The Age of Reason Effect/Aspects
Patriotism grows, Instills pride
Creates common agreement about issues
National mission and the American character

9. Rationalism – The Age of Reason Examples
Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine- “Common Sense”
Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac and "The Autobiography"

10. Romanticism – The Period of Idealism 1800-1850 Historical Context
Emotion dominates
Expansion of magazines, newspapers, and book publishing
Slavery debates
Industrial revolution brings ideas that the "old ways" of doing things are now irrelevant

11. Romanticism – The Period of Idealism Genre/Style
Character sketches
Frontier exploits
Slave narratives
Poetry
Short stories

12. Romanticism – The Period of Idealism Effects/Aspects
Value feeling and intuition over reasoning
Journeys away from corruption of civilization and limits of rational thought toward the integrity of nature and freedom of the imagination
Helped instill proper gender behavior for men and women
Allowed people to re- imagine the American past

13. Romanticism – The Period of Idealism Examples
Washington Irving's ”The Devil and Tom Walker”
Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask"
Edgar Allen Poe
Emily Dickinson

14. Transcendentalism – A New Spiritualism 1850-1865 Historical Context
Intuition Dominates
True reality is spiritual
*Comes from18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant
Idealists
Self-reliance & individualism
Seeking true beauty and understanding in life and in nature

15. Transcendentalism – A New Spiritualism Genre/Style
Poetry
Short Stories
Novels
*Hold readers’ attention through dread of a series of terrible possibilities
*Feature landscapes of dark forests, extreme vegetation, concealed ruins with horrific rooms, depressed characters

16. Transcendentalism – A New Spiritualism Examples
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and “Civil Disobedience”

17. The New England Renaissance – Anti-transcendentalism 1840 - 1855 Historical Context
Known as the Dark Side of Individualism
Gothic
Potential for evil in all people
Examples:
Walt Whitman
Edgar Allen Poe
Poems of Emily Dickinson

18. Realism – Age of the Average Man Civil War (1861-1865) 1865-1890 Historical Context
Accuracy dominates
Civil War brings demand for a "truer" type of literature that does not idealize people or places
Battlefield Photography

19. Realism – Age of the Average Man Genre/Style
Novels
Short stories
Objective narrator
Does not tell reader how to interpret story
Dialogue includes voices from around the country

20. Realism – Age of the Average Man Effect/Aspects
Social realism: aims to change a specific social problem
Aesthetic realism: art that insists on detailing the world as one sees it

21. Realism – Age of the Average Man Examples
Lincoln speeches
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)

22. Naturalism – A Period of Pessimism 1890 – 1915 Historical Context
Struggle dominates
Shows more unpleasant, ugly, shocking aspects of life
No free will, no place for moral judgment
Pessimism
Disillusionment with the dream of success; collapse of the predominantly agrarian myth
Struggle of an individual to adapt to the environment – characters controlled by environment

23. Naturalism – A Period of Pessimism 1890 – 1915 Examples
Mark Twain
Jack London
Stephen Crane
John Steinbeck

24. Modernism – The Psychological Factor 1915-1945 Historical Context
Scrutiny Dominates
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

25. Modernism – The Psychological Factor 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

26. Modernism – The Psychological Factor Effect/Aspect
In Pursuit of the American Dream—
Admiration for America as land of Eden
Optimism
Importance of the Individual

27. Modernism – The Psychological Factor Examples
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)
Modernism – The Psychological Factor Examples

28. 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

29. Harlem Renaissance (parallel to Modernism) 1920s Genre/Style
Allusions to African-American spirituals
Uses structure of blues songs in poetry (repetition)
Superficial stereotypes revealed to be complex characters

30. Harlem Renaissance (parallel to Modernism) 1920s Effect/Aspects
Gave birth to "gospel music"
Blues and jazz transmitted across American via radio and phonographs

31. 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

32. Postmodernism – A Cultural Diversity 1945-present Context
Controversy dominates
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"

33. Postmodernism – A Cultural Diversity 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

34. Postmodernism – A Cultural Diversity Examples
Feminist & Social Issue poets: Plath, Rich, Sexton, Levertov, Baraka, Cleaver, Morrison, Walker & Giovanni
Miller's The Death of a Salesman
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