The Eight Periods of American Literature

The Eight Periods of American Literature • Late 1500s-1620 Native American & Age of Exploration • 1620-1720 The Puritan Age • 1720-1820 The Age of Enlightenment • 1820-1865 The Romantic Age • 1865-1895 The Age of Realism • 1895-1920 The Age of Naturalism • 1920-1945 The Age of Disillusionment • 1945-Present The Age of Anxiety

Native American Literature • Primarily oral- • Passed down from generation to generation through storytelling and performance • Includes myths to explain creation and tales of heroes and tricksters • Originally over 200 distinct groups and 500 languages • Collected in early 1900s by anthropologists (study human culture and growth over time) • (Ever play telephone?)

Emphasis in N.A. Literature • Nature is “alive and aware” • Kinship with animals, plants, heavenly bodies, the land, and the elements • Humans and non-humans part of a sacred whole • Humans do NOT have control over nature • must act to maintain a right relationship with nature

Trickster Tales • Mythic folk tales • Often involved a coyote or fox. Why? • Use animals or humans who engage in deceit, violence, and magic • Explains features of the world

First Explorers • European’s traveled for • Adventure and recognition • To Find great riches • Had been to India and China • Looking for Trade • Slave Trade began with Portuguese in 1400’s • To find land-commissioned for their country • To avoid religious persecution • To spread Christianity

Explorers and Slavery • Travel to East Indies brought first African slaves • Africans with most Spanish and Portuguese Explorers • Indians were to vulnerable to European diseases • English in Jamestown brought first African Indentured servants in 1600’s • By 1640, first American-built slave ship

First Explorers • Written Accounts-Historical & Personal • Christopher Columbus- for Spain • Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca -Spanish to Florida • William Bradford-Plymouth, MA • John Smith -VA • Olaudah Equiano-slave narrative

Historical Narratives • Audience/Point of View • Details • Diction • Author’s Purpose • Primary and Secondary Sources

Puritan Literature • Devotional in nature • Non-Fiction • Sermons, essays, speeches, prayers, instructional; minimal poetry • Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, Jonathan Edwards

Puritan Beliefs • Predestination-an unfolding of God’s will • Elect-very few are saved and will go to Heaven • Knowledge of salvation from religious conversion • Original Sin-human beings are inherently evil • Repentance (showing regret) depended on grace of God • Sin could never be completely erased-guilt and remorse were signs of grace

Puritan Beliefs • Divine Providence-belief God intervenes in daily life • Hard Work-a life devoted to service and duty • Christian Commonwealth-each person puts the good of the group ahead of personal concerns • Education- primary way to fight atheism and instill the value of hard work

Puritan Beliefs • Theocracy-the Bible was the supreme authority on Earth –including government • Preoccupied with punishing and wiping out sinfulness even in other Christians • believed in witches as instrument of the devil • Intolerant of other viewpoints • Execution • Excommunication

Puritan Beliefs • Rules of morality were severe and strict • No play on Sundays • Relations between the sexes scrutinized • Adultery, theft- punishable by death • Blasphemy and disrespect to one’s elders led to public whipping; the pillory on the gallows

Enlightenment • Faith in natural goodness-born without sin • Helping others • Possible to improve oneself-birth, economy, religion, politics

Enlightenment • Caused Writers to search into all aspects of the world • Interested in the classics as well as the Bible • Optimism • Sense of personal responsibility for success

Romanticism • Writing celebrated nature rather than civilization • Nature is beautiful, strange, and mysterious • Romantics valued imagination/emotion over rationality and reason • Emotion and Creativity more important in individual than reason • Irrational depths of human nature explored • Human potential for social growth

Romantics: Friends to the Transcendentalists • Transcendentalism: literary, philosophical, spiritual movement during the Romantic Period (transcend: to move beyond or across) • Perceived truth through intuition-a spiritual reality which goes beyond the empirical and scientific • Oversoul-universal soul shared by God, humanity and nature. Since humanity shares a soul with God and nature-man intuitively knows things about them • Nature worlds are within our inner worlds-all is symbolic of the spirit

Romantic and Transcendentalist Writers • Washington Irving • Edgar Allen Poe • Margaret Fuller • Ralph Waldo Emerson • Henry David Thoreau • Nathaniel Hawthorne • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Realism • Literature moves away from nature, spirituality, and creativity • Accurate and detailed portrayal actual life typical to middle and lower class • Class is important • Ugliness of war, poverty, and resulting sin • Stephen Crane, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Bret Harte

Naturalism • A branch of Realism • Writers focused on how natural environment and instinct influence human behavior • Fate of humans is beyond an individual’s control • Humans are products of their environments

Disillusionment • Disillusionment-to become disenchanted or disappointed; to be stripped of an illusion • Writing mimics confusion of the time • Stream of Consciousness, free verse poetry • Ending left for readers to figure out based on clues in the novel or short story • Themes implied-reader feels uncertain about outcome • Reflects feelings of loss of innocence because reality of situation becomes clear • Examples:

Writers during the Age of Disillusionment • F. Scott Fitzgerald • William Faulkner • Ernest Hemingway

The Age of Anxiety • WWII • Social changes for women, African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Communist Americans • J.D. Salinger, James Thurber, E.B. White, W. H. Auden, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Arthur Miller

The Eight Periods of American Literature