American Literature Essay

Exploration Period, 1492-1607 Characteristics The initiatory European writings about North America ar compose in this effect. European writings describe the explorers travels and impressions of the continent and its Native people. major(ip) Writers or working Prose Christopher Columbus, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, doubting Thomas Harriot, and Samuel de Champlain. Oral narratives Seneca legend How America was discovered. colonial Period, 1607-c. 1765 Characteristics The Colonial period was dominated by Puritan beliefs and thus publications of this period is usually historical, religious, or didactic. The most common genres were tracts, polemics, journals, narratives, sermons, and some poetry. The eldest slave narratives were written at this time. Imaginative literature was rare in some colonies, it was banned for being immoral. Major Writers or whole kit and caboodle poesy Michael Wigglesworth, Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor.Prose John Smith, Roger W illiams, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Benjamin Franklins Poor Richards Almanacks. Narratives Mary Rowlandsons A Narrative of the imprisonment and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.Revolutionary Period, 1765-1790 Characteristics This period begins with the passing of the Stamp flirt in England and ends in 1790. The Revolutionary period usually refers to writings that are politically motivated, either in contain of British rule, in support of American patriotism and independence, or relating to the Constitution. Major Writers or whole kit and boodle Prose Thomas Jeffersons Autobiography, Declaration by the Represent-atives of the United States of America, Thomas Paines parkland Sense, Alexander Hamilton and James Madisons Federalist Papers. Drama Royall Tylers The Contrast. versify and Ballads Yankee Doodle, The Liberty Song. Early National Period, 1775-1828 Characteristics During this period, a body of distinctly American imaginative li terature began to emerge. As with the novel, poetry, essays, and sketches also began to flourish. The publishing macrocosm and readership in America also began to grow. break ones back narratives were published with increasing frequency. This period is sometimes called the Federalist period after(prenominal) the conservative federalists in power at the time. Major Writers or work numbers Phillip Freneau, William Cullen Bryant, Phillis Wheatley.Prose Judith Sargent Murray, Mercy Otis Warren, chapiter Irving, Lydia Maria Child Narratives Olaudah Equianos The Interesting Narrative of the Lfe of Olaudah Equiano. Novels Hannah Webster Fosters The Coquette. Romantic Period, 1828-1865 Characteristics The Romantic period covers the period between Jacksonian country to the end of the Civil War. This period was the first major explosion of a distinctly American body of literature for this reason, this period is also referred to as the American spiritual rebirth. Many of American liter atures most well-known writers emerged during this time.Readership increased significantly and the 1850s saw a number of immensely hot novels. Issues and subjects addressed in the literature of this time ranged from the American identity, to the slavery debate, to historical narratives, to poems and narratives inspired by romanticism, to prose whole shebang examining national unity. Major Writers or Works verse line heat content Wadsworth Longfellow, Lydia Sigourney, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitmans Leaves of Grass, Emily Dickinson. Prose Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rebecca Harding Davis, William Lloyd Garrison. Narratives Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.Novels James Feni more than Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Herman Melville, Susan Warner, Maria Susanna Cummins The Lamplighter, Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin, William swell Brown, Harriet E. Wilson. Drama George Aikens play, Uncle Toms Cabin, b ased on Stowes novel. The Age of Transcendentalism, 1836-1860 Characteristics Transcendentalism, though varied, investigated the relationship between nature, mercifulity, society, and the divine.Major Writers or Works Prose Ralph Waldo Emersons Nature, Self-Reliance, and The American Scholar, MargaretFullers Woman in the ordinal Century, Henry David Thoreaus Walden, Bronson Alcott. Realism, 1865-1900 Characteristics The post-Civil War period was an era of increased industrial enterprise and urbanization as the nation attempted to recover emotionally, culturally, and politically from the outcome of the war.Though there were still elements of romanticism, this period was considered realistic in its accent mark on unidealized and truthful depictions. Major Writers or Works Poetry Walt Whitman, capital of Minnesota Laurence Dunbar, Emily Dickinsons poems published posthumously. Prose Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary E.Wilkins Freeman, Zitkala-Sa, Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpap er, George Washington Cable, Kate Chopin. Novels seduce Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, William Dean Howells, Bret Harte, Louisa May Alcotts Little Women, Henry James, Helen Hunt Jacksons Ramona, Frances E. W. Harpers Iola Leroy. Naturalism, 1900-1914 Characteristics An offshoot of realism, naive realism claimed to give an even more realistic and unflinching depiction of present-day(a) life. Naturalism was characterized by a pessimistic view of humanity and human existence.Major Writers or WorksProse Frank Norris, Jack London, Stephen Crane, Hamlin Garland. Novels Frank Norris McTeague, Theodore Dreisers Sister Carrie, Jack Londons The Sea-Wolf, Stephen Cranes Maggie a Girl of the Streets. Modern Period, 1914-1939 Characteristics A period in British and American literature spanning the years between WWI and WWII. Works in this period confer the changing social, political, and cultural climate and are diverse, experimental, and nontraditional.Major Writers or Works Poe try Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, e.e. cummings, H. D. Novels Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Sinclair Lewis, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway. DramaEugene ONeills The Emperor Jones, Susan Glaspells, Trifles, Clifford Odets. Harlem Renaissance, twenties and 1930s Characteristics The Harlem Renaissance was the first major burgeoning of visual, literary, and execute arts by African Americans concerned with African-American life, art, culture, and politics. The influence of the Harlem Renaissance remained strong for the remainder of the 20th century.Major Writers or Works Poetry Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay. Prose W. E. B DuBois, Jean Toomer. Novels Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Passing, Jessie Redmon Fauset, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay. Drama Randolph Edmonds, Langston Hughes.Lost Gener ation, 1920s Characteristics After WWI, a group of American writers grew increasingly disillusioned by, and unsusceptible to, what they saw as hypocrisy in dominant American ideology and culture. Many of these writers left America in search of a more artistic life in London or Paris. Major Writers or WorksPoetry Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot. Prose Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot. NovelsF. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingways The Sun Also Rises. Beat Writers, fifties Characteristics Beat Writers writing was generally anti-traditional, anti-establishment, and anti-intellectual. Major Writers or Works Poetry Allen Ginsbergs Howl, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Prose Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot. Novels William Burroughs, Jack Kerouacs On the Road. Postmodern or Contemporary, 1940-present Characteristics In British and American literature, the postmodern period refers to literature written after WWII.The postmodern period reflects anxieties concerning, and reactions to life in the 20th century. Postmode rn works are often highly experimental and anti-conventional. Major Writers or Works Poetry Sylvia Plath, Marianne Moore, Robert Penn Warren, Anne Sexton, Gwendolyn Brooks, Adrienne Rich, Philip Larkin. Prose Eudora Welty, Raymond Carver, John Cheever, Alice Walker.Novels Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. , Richard Wright, Thomas Pynchon, E. L Doctorow, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison. Drama Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Lorraine Hansberry, August Wilson, David Mamet.