Kortmans literary periods and their characteristics

American Renaissance/Transcendentalism1840-1860 Historical Context • Transcendentalists: *True reality is spiritual century philosopher Immanuel Kant • Self-reliance & individualism un

American Literary Periods and Their Characteristics

• All people are

corrupt and must be saved by Christ

(Original Sin)

and Covenant of Works debate

1650-1750 Genre/Style

1650-1750 Effect/Aspects

church

• Though not written during

Puritan times, The Crucible

& The Scarlet Letter depict

life during the time when Puritan theocracy prevailed.

Revolutionary/Age of Reason

1750-1800 Historical Context

to interpret what they are reading

encourage Revolutionary War support

values

Revolutionary/Age of Reason

1750-1800 Genre/Style

Revolutionary/Age of Reason

1750-1800 Effect/Aspects

Revolutionary/Age of Reason

1750-1800 Examples

• Writings of Thomas Jefferson,

Thomas Paine- “Common

Sense”

• Benjamin Franklin's Poor

Richard's Almanac and "The

Autobiography"

• Slavery debates

• Industrial revolution

brings ideas that the

"old ways" of doing things are now

irrelevant

Romanticism 1800-1860 Genre/Style

thought toward the

integrity of nature and

freedom of the

imagination

• Helped instill proper

gender behavior for men and women

• Allowed people to

re-imagine the American

past

Romanticism 1800-1860 Examples

• Washington Irving's

"Rip Van Winkle

• William Cullen Bryant's

American Renaissance/Transcendentalism

1840-1860 Historical Context

• Transcendentalists:

*True reality is spiritual

century philosopher Immanuel Kant

• Self-reliance &

individualism

understanding in life and

in nature

American Renaissance/Transcendentalism

1840-1860 Genre/Style

through dread of a series

of terrible possibilities

dark forests, extreme vegetation, concealed ruins with horrific rooms, depressed characters

Realism 1855-Civil War & Post War period

Historical Context

• Civil War brings demand for a "truer" type of

literature that does not idealize people or places

• Battlefield Photography

Realism 1855-Civil War & Post War period

Realism 1855-Civil War & Post War period

Effect/Aspects

• Social realism: aims

to change a specific social problem

• Aesthetic realism: art that insists on

detailing the world as one sees it

Realism 1855-Civil War & Post War period

Examples

• Writings of Mark Twain,

Ambrose Bierce, Stephen

Crane The Narrative of

the Life of Frederick

Douglass

• The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn (some

say 1st modern novel)

• Regional works like: The

Awakening Ethan Frome,

and My Antonia (some

say modern)

• Regionalism was a literary movement in which

authors would write a story about specific

geographical areas

• Writers in this time not only tried to show the

region they wrote about to their readers, but they

also made an attempt at a sophisticated

sociological or anthropological treatment of the

culture of the region.

• By writing about regions, the authors explore the

culture of that area including its-

 Trend rather than a movement; never formalized nor dominated by the influence

of a single writer

 A more extreme, intensified version of realism

 Shows more unpleasant, ugly, shocking aspects of life

 Objective picture of reality viewed with scientific detachment

 Determinism – man’s life is dominated by the forces he cannot control:

biological instincts, social environment

 No free will, no place for moral judgment

 Pessimism

 Disillusionment with the dream of success; collapse of the predominantly agrarian myth

 Struggle of an individual to adopt to the environment

 Society as something stable, its predictability allowed one to present a

universal human situation through accurate representation of particulars

 Faith in society and art

The Moderns 1900-1950 Historical Context

of Darwin (survival of the fittest), Karl Marx (how money and class

structure control a

nation), and Sigmund

Freud (the power of the subconscious)

technological changes of the 20th Century

The Moderns 1900-1950 Genre/Style

resurgence after deaths

of Whitman & Dickinson)

• In Pursuit of the American Dream—

The Moderns 1900-1950 Examples

• Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

• Poetry of Jeffers, Williams,

Cummings, Frost, Eliot,

Sandburg, Pound, Robinson,

Stevens

• Rand's Anthem

• Short stories and novels of

Steinbeck, Hemingway,

Thurber, Welty, and Faulkner

• Hansberry's A Raisin in the

Sun & Wright's Native Son (an

outgrowth of Harlem

Renaissance see below)

• Miller's The Death of a

Salesman (some consider

Postmodern)

Harlem Renaissance

(parallel to Modernism)

1920s Historical Context

have more access to

media and publishing

outlets after they

move north

Harlem Renaissance

(parallel to Modernism)

1920s Genre/Style

Harlem Renaissance

(parallel to Modernism)

1920s Effect/Aspects

• Gave birth to "gospel

music"

• Blues and jazz

transmitted across American via radio and phonographs

Harlem Renaissance

(parallel to Modernism)

1920s Examples

• Essays & Poetry of W.E.B DuBois

• Poetry of McKay, Toomer, Cullen

• Poetry, short stories and novels of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes

Watching God

Postmodernism 1950-present

permanent but only

"local" or "historical"

Postmodernism 1950-present Genre/Style

• Mixing of fantasy with nonfiction; blurs lines of reality for reader No

heroes

• Concern with individual in isolation

• Social issues as writers align with feminist & ethnic groups

Postmodernism 1950-present Examples

Plath, Rich, Sexton, Levertov, Baraka, Cleaver, Morrison, Walker & Giovanni