American Literature

1. American Literature From the Beginning to the Present

2. The Colonial Period1650-1750 • Sermons, diaries, personal narratives • Written in plain style • Instructive • Reinforces authority of Bible and church • Person’s fate determined by God • People are corrupt and must be saved by Christ

3. The Colonial Period1650-1750 • William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation • Jonathon Edward’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” • Anne Bradstreet’s poetry • Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity” • Though not written in Puritan times, The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter depict Puritan life

4. The Revolutionary Period1750-1800 • Political pamphlets • Travel writing • Highly ornate style • Persuasive writing • aka Age of Reason • Patriotism grows • National mission and the American character • Tells readers how to interpret and encourage war • Instructive in values

5. The Revolutionary Period1750-1800 • Thomas Jefferson • Thomas Paine • Patrick Henry • Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac • Benjamin Franklin’s The Autobiography

6. The Romantic Period1800-1860 • Slave narratives • Poetry and Short Stories • Philosophy • Value feeling and intuition over reasoning • Journey away from corruption of civilization to the integrity of nature • Transcendentalists are idealists • Encourage self-reliance and individualism • Dark Romantics use symbolism and focus on sin, guilt, and evil

7. The Romantic Period1800-1860 • Transcendentalists: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature and Henry David Thoreau’s Walden • Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter • Herman Melville’s Moby Dick • Emily Dickinson poetry • Walt Whitman poetry • Edgar Allan Poe’s short fiction and poetry

8. The Realistic Period1855-1900 • Novels and short stories • Objective narrator • Does not tell reader how to interpret story • Dialogue includes dialect • Social realism—aims to change a specific social problem • Aesthetic realism—art that insists on detailing the world as it really is • Naturalism—the application of scientific determinism to literature

9. The Realistic Period1855-1900 • Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn • Kate Chopin’s The Awakening • Frederick Douglass’s The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass • Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage

10. The Modern Period1900-1950 • Novels, plays, and poetry • Highly experimental writing • Stream of consciousness • Loss of faith in American dream • Cynical point of view • Writers reflect ideas of Darwin and Marx • Major technological changes • Rise of the youth culture • WWI and WWII

11. The Modern Period1900-1950 • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby • Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms • William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying • John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath • Poetry of Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, eecummings, etc.

12. The Harlem Renaissance1920s • Mass African-American migration to Northern urban centers • Allusions to African-American spirituals • Uses structure of blues songs in poetry • Stereotypes revealed to be complex characters

13. The Harlem Renaissance1920s • Essays and poetry of W.E.B. DuBois • Poetry of Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen • Poetry and short fiction of Langston Hughes • Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God

14. The Postmodern Period1950-present • Mixing of fantasy and nonfiction • No heroes • Concern with individual in isolation • Social issues as writers align feminist and ethnic groups • Post-WWII prosperity • Vietnam an d counter-culture

15. The Postmodern Period1950-present • J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye • Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman • Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood • Ken Kesey’sOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest • Beat poets—Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg • Maya Angelou, Amy Tan, and Alice Walker