American literature

1939-present 1950s 1960s, 1970s The Contemporary Period:  The Beat generation  American Literature recognizes works of: African-American Writers Native American Writers Asian-Americ

American Literature

Periods of Am Lit.

1. Beginning of American Literature:

 1607-1776 Colonial Period

 1765-1790 The Revolutionary Age

 1775-1828 The Early National Period

2 Romanticism, Transcendentalism

 1828-1865 The Romantic Period

(Also known as:

TheAmerican Renaissance)

 The Age of Transcendentalism 1900

1865-3 Realism, Naturalism

1939-present 1950s 1960s, 1970s

The Contemporary Period:

 The Beat generation

 American Literature recognizes works of:

African-American Writers

Native American Writers

Asian-American Writers

Colonial Period

 Periods of Am Literature vary a lot

 It´s impossible to give exact dates

 The first literature started to appear after founding of the first settlement at

Jamestown in 1607

 It continuoud till the outbreak of the

Revolution

Anne Bradstreet (poet)

Benjamin Franklin (The Way to Wealth)

William Bradford

The Revolutionary Age

 The greatest documents of American history were authored:

 Thomas Paine (Common Sense – he urged independence)

 The Declaration of Independence

(Thomas Jefferson - 1776)

 The Constitution (1789 - ratified)

The Early National Period

 Beginnings of true Am Literature

 The writers wrote in th English style but the settings, themes and characters were authentically American

 Washington Irving – he wrote about Am Life, biography of G Washington

 James Fenimore Cooper – The Last of the Mohicans

 Edgar Allan Poe

E.A.Poe (1809-1849)

 son of a poor actress (drastic death)

 his father alcoholic

 He was taken by his guardian Mr Allan

 Studied West Point – kicked out

 Marriage with 13 year-old cousin

 She died of TB ten years later – despair, grief was reflected in his works

 1849 found delirious in a steet

 The Raven (poem) - a tired, unhappy

student asks if he ever meets his love

 The Golden Bug

 The Pit and the Pendulum

 The Black Cat

 The Murders in the Rue Morgue

 The Fall of the House of Usher

 American reflection of European romanticism

 Philosophical movement

 The transcendal philosophy was based

 All transcendentalists were isolated people

 They lived in „Utopian Community“ –

Brookfarm near Boston

 The individual can transcend the world

and discover union with God and Ideal

Main representatives:

 Ralph Waldo Thoreau

 Henry David Thoreau

Other Romantic Writers

 Herman Melville – symbolist (Moby-Dick)

 Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter)

the main theme –sin

Hester has te wear letter A – means adulteress

 Walt Whitman (poet)

 Emily Dickinson (poet)

Realistic Period

 After Civil War:

 Social injustice – first millionaires appear (Rockefeller)

 discoveries in science (railway, telegraph cable, telephone,…)

 Growth of education

 Twain called this period „gilded age“

 Action against romanticism

 Main literary form – novel

 Authors accuse romanticism of falsehood

 They describe common things, common places, everyday life

Mark Twain

 His real name: Samuel Langorne Clemens

 He spent his childhood on the Mississippi river

 Workedon a steamboat on the Mississippi

 Travelled a lot

 He recollects his childhood in his books

 The Innocents Abroad

 The Gilded Age

 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

 The Advedntures of Huckleberry Finn

Tom likes danger, he´s always able to avoid problems, Huck represents social conscience, he´s sensitive to everything around him

 Derived from the word nature (interest in nature)

 It has its origin in France – Zola

 Prople are influenced by environmental

forces (outside us) and inner drives (inside us) – peole can ´t control them

 The main drives of characters: hunger,

fear, sex, …

 Their writings are often cruel and tragic.

 Stephen Crane

 Jack London (Tjhe Call of the Wild)

 Theodore Dreiser (An American Tragedy)

 Upton Sinclair (The Jungle)

Lost Generation

 A term applied for Am Writers born

around 1900, who fought in WWI

 The term comes from Gertrude Stein

 Main features: description of the loss of traditional values as the result of the war other social evils

Ernest Hemingway

 Find some info about him

F S Fitzgerald

 Connected with Jazz Age in 20s

 Wrote many stories about wealthy people

 The Great Gatsby – masterpiece

(a rich man earns money by smuggling, he loves Daisy, but Daisy is married

Nick – a narrator is is disgusted)

American Dream

Other 20th century writers

 The Harlem Renaissance:

Harlem (N.Y.) was a centre of it

Motto: Let us return to Africa! (in a literary sense)

We all have sth in common

Main representatives:

 Langston Hughes

 Countee Cullen

 Richard Wright

The Great Depression

= the end of American Modernist Period

William Faulkner

John Steinbeck

Eugene O´Neil (a playwright)

Dealt with social and political issues

Jewish Writers

The Beat Generation

 The main personalities:

 A Ginsberg, W Boroughs, J Kerouac, G Corso

 Knew each other, travelled through the US

by taking drugs and having many sexual affairs

 SAn Francisco – cradle of the Beats

Basic Characteristics

 Wanted to live life without social

conventions

 Against supermacy of money

 Their idol = wanderer travelling with his bag from a state to state, listening to

JAZZ, being spontaneous, free, sincere

 Taking drugs, drinking alcohol

Jack Kerouac

 On the Road

Written on toilet paper

Journeys from East of States to the West