21st Century Literature

AMERICAN
LITERATURE MS. MELISSA A. CANTOS

Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/art/American-literature
http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/writing/main-characteristics-of-american-literature.htm
l https://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-074/summary/
AMERICAN LITERATURE
Points of Discussion
Introduction
Characteristics
Five Major Periods
LITERATURE
Like other national literatures, American literature
was shaped by the history of the country that
AMERICAN produced it.
America was merely a group of colonies scattered
along the eastern seaboard of the North American
continent. After a successful rebellion against the
motherland, America became the United States, a
nation.
Meanwhile, the rise of science and industry, as well
as changes in ways of thinking and feeling,
wrought many modifications in people’s lives. All
these factors in the development of the United
INTRODUCTION States molded the literature of the country .
LITERATURE
It reflects beliefs and traditions that come
from the nation’s frontier days.
AMERICAN American writers have always had a strong
tendency to break with literary tradition
and to strike out their awn directions.
A lively streak of humor runs through
American literature from earliest times to
the present.
It reflects the people’s ability to laugh at
themselves even during the most difficult
CHARACTERISTICS
times.
LITERATURE
The Colonial and Early National period
AMERICAN (17th century to 1830)

The Romantic period (1830 to 1870)

Realism and Naturalism (1870 to 1910)

The Modernist period (1910 to 1945)

The Contemporary period (1945 to

PERIODS
present)
 PERIODS OF
AMERICAN
LITERATURE
The Colonial and Early National Period
Newly arrived colonists create villages and towns and establish
new governments while protesting the old ways in Europe.
Literature of the period dominated by the Puritans and their
religious influence.
Writing is utilitarian; writers are amateurs (not professional
writers)
Writing is instructive—sermons, diaries, personal narratives.
Wiliam Bradford (journal), Anne Bradstreet (poetry), Jonathan
Edwards (sermons), Phillis Wheatley (poetry) and John Smith
(travelogues).
The Colonial and Early National Period
John Smith (1580-1631) was
president of Jamestown’s
council from September 1608
to September 1609. He is
credited with providing the
leadership that helped the
colony survive that difficult
year. Smith had spent his early
years traveling around Europe
and participated in battles as a
soldier in the French, Dutch,
and finally the Transylvanian
army.
The Romantic Period
In New England, several different groups of writers and thinkers
emerged after 1830, each exploring the experiences of
individuals in different segments of American society.
Three men—Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and —
began publishing novels, short stories, and poetry that became
some of the most-enduring works of American literature.
During the 1850s, as the United States headed toward civil war,
more and more stories by and about enslaved and free African
Americans were written.
The Romantic Period

Edgar Allan Poe,

American short-story
writer, poet, critic, and
editor who is famous for
his cultivation of
mystery. His “The Raven”
(1845) numbers among
the best-known poems
in the national literature.
The Realism and Naturalism Period
The human cost of the Civil War in the United States was immense:
more than 2.3 million soldiers fought in the war, and perhaps as
many as 851,000 people died in 1861–65. Walt Whitman claimed
that “a great literature will…arise out of the era of those four
years,” and what emerged in the following decades was a literature
that presented a detailed and unembellished vision of the world as it
truly was. This was the essence of realism. Naturalism was an
intensified form of realism. After the grim realities of a devastating
war, they became writers’ primary mode of expression.
The Realism and Naturalism Period
Period
Mark Twain, American
humorist, journalist,
lecturer, and novelist
who acquired
international fame for his
travel narratives. One of
his works is the The
Adventures of Tom
Sawyer (1876) and
Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (1885).
The Modernist Period
It is the second most influential and artistically rich age of American
writing.
Its major writers include such powerhouse poets as E.E. Cummings,
Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore,
Langston Hughes, Carl Sandburg, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and Edna
St. Vincent Millay.
The Modern Period contains within it certain major movements including
the Jazz Age, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Lost Generation.
Many of these writers were influenced by World War I and the
disillusionment that followed, especially the expatriates of the Lost
Generation.
The Modernist Period
Robert Frost, American
poet who was much
admired for his depictions
of the rural life of New
England, his command of
American colloquial
speech, and his realistic
verse portraying ordinary
people in everyday
situations.
The Contemporary Period
The United States, which emerged from World War II confident and
economically strong, entered the Cold War in the late 1940s. This
conflict with the Soviet Union shaped global politics for more than four
decades, and the proxy wars and threat of nuclear annihilation that
came to define it were just some of the influences shaping American
literature during the second half of the 20th century. The 1950s and ’60s
brought significant cultural shifts within the United States driven by the
civil rights movement and the women’s movement. Prior to the last
decades of the 20th century, American literature was largely the story of
dead white men who had created Art and of living white men doing the
same.
The Contemporary Period
Eugene O’Neill, the most admired
dramatist of the period, was a
product of this movement. He
worked with the Provincetown
Players before his plays were
commercially produced. His dramas
were remarkable for their range.
Beyond the Horizon (first performed
1920), Anna Christie (1921), Desire
Under the Elms (1924), and The
Iceman Cometh (1946) were
naturalistic works, while The
Emperor Jones (1920) and The Hairy
Ape (1922) made use of the
Expressionistic techniques
developed in German drama in the
period 1914–24.