Literary Writing Movements

1. Courtesy of Ms. Hernandez, AfricanAfrican.com, and other sources Literary Writing Movements

2. Puritanism • Time Period 1620s-1770s • First person narratives (journals and diaries) -Topic of immigration, settling and life in America

3. WRITERS • Poetry: Anne Bradstreet (1612 – 1672) Michael Wigglesworth (1631 – 1705) Edward Taylor (1645 – 1729)   • Diaries/Chronicles/Histories: William Bradford (1590 – 1657) John Winthrop (1588 – 1649) Cotton Mather (1663 – 1728) Edward Johnson (1598 – 1672) Mary Rowlandson (c.1636 – c.1678) • Sermons: Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 1758)

4. Enlightenment 1750-1800 • Rational approach to the world -  Pragmatism – (think prudence) and law of nature -  Deism – God created the world but has no influence on human lives -  Idealism – conviction and the essential goodness of man - Interest in human nature

5. Writers • Benjamin Franklin   (1706 – 1790) • Thomas Paine   (1737 – 1809) • Thomas Jefferson   (1743 – 1826) • Alexander Hamilton  (1757 – 1804

6. Neoclassic • Time Period- 1770s- early 1800s • Some sources say that the literature was between 1660 and 1798. • 3 parts: the Restoration period, the Augustan period, and the Age of Johnson. • Imitate the style of the Romans and Greeks. '.

7. Romanticism • Time Period 1820s-1860s (1870s?) • Imagination instead of comprehending reasoning • Imagination's transformative power to invest reality w/ meaning, • A multifaceted movement in music, painting, and literature that originated in Germany and Britain during the 18th century.

8. ROMANTICISM continued (1820s – 1861) • Explored what it meant to be an American •     The problems of war and Black slavery •    Sexuality; relationships between men and women • ****** The power of nature • Individualism- see next slide • Idealism- see next slide •      Spontaneity in thought and action

9. Characteristics of American Literary Romanticism INDIVIDUALISM Frontier tradition was the main influence Jacksonian democracy

10. 2. IMAGINATION Opposes reasoning Experimentation “Organicism”: every idea held within it an inherent structure

11. 3. EMOTION Feeling over reality Intuition leads one to truth Truth/reality are now highly subjective

12. 4. NATURE- Very Important Knowing Truth with assistance of nature God reveals himself solely through Nature Nature becomes a moral teacher

13. 5. DISTANT SETTINGS Both in terms of time and place Used to comment on attitudes of the time period

14. The Fireside Poets America’s First Literary Stars

15. What are the Fireside Poets? First American poets to rival British poets in popularity in either country. Scholarship and the resilience of their lines and themes. Preferred conventional forms Often used American legends and scenes of American life as their subject matter.

16. Who were the Fireside Poets? Henry Wadsworth Longfellow William Cullen Bryant James Russell Lowell Oliver Wendell Holmes John Greenleaf Whittier

17. Realism • Time Period 1860s-1900s • Also 1850s • Mark Twain • Surface appearance in an unembellished way • The Usual versus the Exotic

18. REALISM (1860s – 1890s) •   fidelity in presenting the inner workings of the mind •   the analysis of thought and feeling •   function of environment in shaping the character •   set in present or recent past •   commonplace characters •   exposed political corruption, economic inequity, business deception, the exploitation of labor, women rights problems, racial inequity •   described the relationship between the economic transformation of America and its moral condition

19. Characteristics of Realism • Opposed Romanticism and Neoclassicism • All Factual and not intellectual or the emotional   • Treats nature objectivelyand orderly • Tells the stories of everyday people • Details over plot • Atheistic • Life is driven by fate

20. Regionalism or “Local Color” • Time Period 1884- early 1900s • Kate Chopin, Mary E Wilkins, and Mark Twain • Often called“local color.” • Focuses on characters, dialect, customs, topography, and other features specific to a certain region (Think Cold Sassy Tree) • Shared traits with Realism • Prominent from 1865-1895.

21. Naturalism • Time Period 1890s-1920s • Combination of some of realism and determinism, Humans cannot change their own destinies. • The influence of Marx and Darwin • Stephen Crane, Ambrose Bierce, Katherine Anne Porter, and Edith Wharton • The swell of immigrants in the latter half of the 19th century, which led to a larger lower class and increased poverty in the cities • Psychology and the theories of Sigmund Freud • Pessimism in the wake of the Civil War and Reconstruction • Publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species

22. Modernism • Time Period 1920s-1945 • New self-consciousness about modernity and by radical formal experimentation. • Driven by the belief that the assurances provided by religion, politics, or society no longer sufficed. Psychology was a big influence. • Ezra Pound • Gertrude Stein • Robert Frost • William Carlos Williams • Wallace Stevens • Ernest Hemingway

23. Post-Modernism • Time Period 1945- • A style of literature, philosophy, art, and architecture, or the situation of Western society in a late capitalist or postcapitalist age. • Characteristics- Mixing of styles in the same text; discontinuity of tone, point of view, register, and logical sequence; apparently random unexpected intrusions and disruptions in the text; a self-consciousness about language and literary technique, especially concerning the use of metaphor and symbol, and the use of self-referential tropes. • Trope- a figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression

24. Contemporary Period (1970s-Present) • Overview of Contemporary Period • Genre/Style :Narrative, fiction, nonfiction, anti heroes, emotional, irony, storytelling, autobiographical, and essays. • Effect/Aspects :Shift in emphasis from homogeneity to celebrating diversity. • Historical Context :New century, new millennium.

25. Impressionism • Time Period 1800s • Life is objective. • Some sources say early 20th-century novelists to question the validity of long-accepted narrative conventions.

26. Plain Style- Belongs to Puritanism • Time Period 1620-1700s • Mimics Puritan writing and writes directly to the point, and avoids elaborative writing which was popular in Europe.  Simple sentences with common language allowed Puritans to communicate information without feeling like they were drawing attention to themselves.

27. Rationalism • Time Period late 1700s

28. Surrealism • Time Period 1920s

29. Symbolism • Time Period 1800s (France)

30. Transcendentalism • Time Period- 1830-1860s • Unity between nature and God, the presence of God in each individual, and the potential perfectibility of humans. These core beliefs branded individualism and in the self-reliance. • Bronson Alcott • Emerson, Margaret Fuller • Henry David Thoreau.

31. Confessional Poetry • Modernist Time Period

32. The Lost Generation • Modernist Time Period 1920s-1930s- Immediately after World War I • Writers characterized by a mood of futility and despair. • T.S. Elliot, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald (1920s Paris)

33. Harlem Renaissance • Time Period 1923- late 1940s • African American Literature • Black writers and intellectuals engaged in intense debate regarding African Americans in American life(role and identity of the African-American artist) • Countee Cullen • Langston Hughes • James Weldon Johnson • Arna Bontemps

34. Beat Generation • Time period-Mid-1950s until the early 1960s • A rejection of the materialism, militarism, consumerism, and conformity of the 1950s, in favor of individual freedom and spontaneity. • Allen Ginsberg • Lawrence Ferlinghetti • Philip Whalen • Gary Snyder • Gregory Corso • William Burroughs