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Robert Frost

(1874-1963)
A nature poet who used plain
speech and short, traditional
forms of lyrics
Wrote:
-“Nothing Gold Can Stay”
-“The Road Not Taken”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
(1896-1940)
Celebrated the boom of the
1920’s and crash of 1930’s
Wrote:
-The Great Gatsby
T.S. Elliot
(1888-1965)
Most dominant literary figure
between the world wars
Wrote:
-The Waste Land
-Tradition and the Individual
Talent
Ernest Hemingway
(1899-1961)
Wrote:
-A Farewell to Arms
-For Whom the Bell Tolls
-The Old Man and the Sea
-The Sun also Rises
Sylvia Plath
(1932-1963)
Committed suicide by
gassing herself in kitchen
Wrote:
-The Bell Jar
-Ariel
-The Colossus
E.E. Cummings
(1894-1962)
One of the most notable
poets of the 20th C., used
creativity in his poems
Wrote:
-The Enormous Room
-Tulips and Chimneys
William Faulkner
(1897-1963)
Experimented in use of
stream-of-consciousness
technique in his novels
Wrote:
-The Sound and The Fury
-As I Lay Dying
-Absalom! Absalom!
Sherwood Anderson
(1876-1941)
Influenced Hemingway and
Faulkner
Wrote:
-Windy McPherson’s Son
-Many Marriages
-Marching Men
Upton Sinclair
(1878-1968)
American novelist, essayist,
playwright, and short story
writer
Wrote:
-The Jungle
Willa Cather
(1873-1947)
Considered one of the best
chroniclers of pioneering life
in the 20th C.
Wrote:
-My Antonia
-One of Ours
Gertrude Stein
(1874-1946)
The autobiography of Alice
B. Toklas
Tender Buttons
The Making of Americans
Sinclair Lewis
(1885-1951)
1st American to win Nobel
Prize for Literature
Wrote:
-Arrowsmith
-Main Street
-Babbitt
John Steinbeck
(1902-1968)
Considered foremost novelist
of American Depression of
the 1930’s
Wrote:
-The Grapes of Wrath
-Of Mice and Men
-The Red Pony
Stephen Crane
(1871-1900)
Was internationally well-
known for his depiction of
ghetto life and the
deprivation of war
Wrote:
-The Red Badge of Courage
-Maggie, A Girl of the Streets
James Fenimore Cooper
(1789-1851)
1st great national novelist
Wrote:
-The Leatherstocking series
-The Last of the Mohicans
Mary Rowlandson
(1635-1678)
Wrote about her 11-week
captivity by Indians during an
Indian massacre of 1676
Wrote:
-The Narrative
Phillis Wheatly
(1753-1784)
1st African-American to
publish a book of fiction
1st Black woman poet in
U.S.
Wrote:
-To S.M., a young African
Painter, on seeing his works
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Famous Transcendentalist
who wrote about nature and
truth
Wrote:
-Nature
-Self-Reliance
-The Poet
Frances Ellen
Watkins Harper
(1825-1911)
Active in abolition, women’s
sufferage, and temperance
movement
Wrote:
-Sketches of Southern Life
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow
(1807-1882)
Best known American poet
of the 1800’s
Wrote:
-“The Song of Hiawatha”
-“The Courtship of Miles
Standish”
Fredrick Douglass
(1818-1895)
Most famous black American
anti-slavery leader and
orator of era
Wrote:
-Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass, An
American Slave
Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1804-1864)
Rounded off the Puritan
cycle in American writing
Wrote:
-The Scarlet Letter
-“The Minister’s Black Veil”
-The House of the Seven
Gables
Thomas Paine
(1737-1809)
Sold over 100,000 copies in
1st 3 months of publication
of his 1st book
Wrote:
-Common Sense
Anne Bradstreet
(1612-1672)
Wrote long, religious poems on
conventional subjects and poems
about daily life and her family
1st American Woman to publish a
book
1st American to publish book of
poems
Wrote:
-The 10th Muse Lately Sprung Up
in America
-“To My Dear and Loving
Husband”
Louisa May Alcott
(1832-1888)
Wrote:
-Little Women
-Little Men
-8 Cousins
-Rose in Bloom
Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
Wrote “The Song of Myself,”
which he was most known
for
Wrote:
-Leaves of Grass
Mark Twain
(Samuel Clemens)
(1835-1910)
Admired for capturing typical
American experiences in a
language which is realistic
and charming
Wrote:
-The Adventures of Huck
Finn
-The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer
-Life on the Mississippi
Jack London
(1876-1916)
Wrote:
-The Call of the Wild
-White Fang
-Seawolf
-The War of the Classes
Harriet Beecher Stowe
(1811-1896)
Depicts slavery as evil b/c it
divides families and destroys
normal parental love
Wrote:
-Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Samson Occom
(1723-1792)
Wrote one of the earliest
autobiographies of an
American Indian, which
explains his conversion to
Christianity and rejection of
his tribe, Mohawks
Wrote:
-A Short Narrative of My Life
Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849)
Invented detective fiction
Wrote:
-“The Raven”
-The Purloined Letter
-The Gold Bug
Herman Melville
(1819-1891)
Wrote:
-Moby Dick
-Typee
-Bartleby, the Scrivner
John Smith
(1580-1631)
Captain who started
Jamestown colony
Married Pocahontas
Wrote:
-A Map of VA, with a
Description of the country
Jonathan Edwards
(1703-1758)
Leader of the The Great
Awakening in New England
and was a frightening
Sermonist
Wrote:
-“Sinners at the Hands of an
Angry God.”
Henry James
(1843-1916)
Made important contributions
to the literary theories
Wrote:
-The Portrait of a Lady
-The Turn of the Screw
-“The Art of Fiction”
Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886)
Wrote nearly 8,000 poems
on love, nature, faith, and
death
Uses ambiguity, obscurity,
and onomatopoeia
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1807-1892)
Respected for his anti-
slavery poems
Wrote:
-“Snowbound”
-“Ichabod”
Cotton Mather
(1663-1728)
Gave insight into his views
on puritan society and wrote
chronicles on settlement of
N.E.
Wrote:
-Magnalia Christ I Americana
William Byrd II
(1674-1744)
One of the 1st Americans to
document appreciation of
America’s vast wilderness
Wrote:
-History of the Dividing Line
Ambrose Bierce
(1842-1914)
Noted for his Civil War tales
Wrote:
-Devil’s Dictionary
-Tales of Soldiers and
Civilians
-Can Such Things Be?
Paul Laurence Dunbar
(1872-1906)
Well known for his poetry
that was written in the dialect
of southern blacks
1st African-American to gain
national prominence as a
poet
Wrote:
-Oak and Ivy
-In Old Plantation Days
Jupiter Hammon
(1711-1806)
1st black writer to publish in
America
Wrote:
-Evening Thought; An Essay
on the 10 Virgins
-“An Address of Miss Phyllis
Wheatly”
St. Jean de Crèvecoeur
(1735-1813)
1st European writer to
explore the concept of the
American dream
Wrote:
-Letters From an American
Farmer
Edward Taylor
(1642-1729)
Finest example of 17th C.
poetry in America
Best writer of the Puritan
Times
Wrote:
-Prepatory Meditations
John Winthrop
(1588-1649)
Gave a famous speech
conveying idea of Manifest
Destiny in different wording
Wrote:
-“A Model of Christian
Charity”
-“On Liberty”
William Bradford
(1589-1590)
One of the authors of The
Mayflower Compact
Wrote:
-History of the Plymouth
Plantation
Washington Irving
(1789-1859)
1st American literary
humorist
Introduced non-fiction prose
as a genre
Wrote:
-Rip Van Winkle
-The Legend of
SleepyHollow
William Cullen Bryant
(1794-1878)
Wrote:
-Thanatopsis
Translated:
-Illiad
-Odyssey
Maya Angelou
(1928-present)
*One of the greatest voices of
contemporary literature
*Has written 12 best sellers which
includes I Know Why the Cage Bird
Sings and her more current A Song
Flung Up to Heaven
*Another icon (Oprah) respectfully
transcends Maya’s words, “If you get –
give”
Benjamin Franklin
(1706-1790)
Apprenticed printer turned witty writer.
Best known for 1733 Poor Richard’s
Almanac, which preached the value of
hard work and thrift along with clever
maxims for achieving wealth.
Other Works:
-Rules by which a Great Empire May
be Reduced to a Small Once
-Remarks Concerning the Savages of
North America
-The Autobiography
Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886)
Wrote, at the last count, 1,789 poems.
Only a handful of them were published
during her lifetime – all anonymously
and probably without her knowledge.

Wrote:
-“I shall know why, when time is over”
-“I never lost as much but twice”
Harlem Renaissance
(unofficially = 1919-mid 1930s)
Flowering of African American art, music,
literature, and culture in the US led primarily
by the African American community based in
Harlem, NY

Langston Hughes
Zora Neal Hurston

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