Literary Movements in American Literature

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Literary Movements in American Literature

• Mrs. Hernandez

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PURITANISM (1620s 1783)

• Forms of writing
• histories
• diaries
• chronicles
• poetry
• sermons
• 1. explanation of biblical
  quotation
• 2. interpretation
• 3. application to the life of
  the Puritans

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WRITERS OF THE PURTIAN PERIOD

• Poetry
• Anne Bradstreet (1612 1672)
• Michael Wigglesworth (1631 1705)
• Edward Taylor (1645 1729)  
• Diaries/Chronicles/Histories
• William Bradford (1590 1657)
• John Winthrop (1588 1649)
• Cotton Mather (1663 1728)
• Edward Johnson (1598 1672)
• Mary Rowlandson (c.1636 c.1678)
• Sermons
• Jonathan Edwards (1703 1758)

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HISTORICAL EVENTS

• 1620 -  Mayflower, Puritans found Plymouth
  Plantation
• 1630 -  arrival of Arbella
•             Massachusetts Bay Colony founded
• 1636 -  Harvard University founded near Boston
• 1650 -  Bradstreet, Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up
  In America
• 1662 -  Wigglesworth,  The Day of Doom
• 1704 -   first newspaper gt in Boston
• 1741 -  Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an
  Angry God
• 1741-61 The Great Awakening

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Influences on America

• Puritan influence on American Values
•    Urge to succeed and exceed
•     Belief that hard work necessary for
  happiness
•      Conviction that Americans are the chosen
  people

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Enlightenment 1750-1800

• Rational approach to the world, belief in
  progress
• -  Pragmatism truth measured by practical
  experience, law of nature
• -  Deism God created the world but has no
  influence on human lives
• -  Idealism conviction of the universal sense
  of right and wrong belief in essential goodness
  of man
• - Interest in human nature

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Writers of the Enlightened Period

• Political Pamphlets
• Philosophical / Religious Tracts
• Benjamin Franklin   (1706 1790)
• Thomas Paine   (1737 1809)
• Thomas Jefferson   (1743 1826)
• Alexander Hamilton  (1757 1804

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Historical Events

• 1773 -  Boston Tea Party
• 1775-83   American Revolution
• 1776, 4 July Declaration of Independence
• 1783 -  Treaty of Paris
• 1787-88 -   Federalist Papers Alex. Hamilton,
  John Jay, and James Madison
• 1789 -   American Constitution   
• 1789-1799 - French Revolution

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ROMANTICISM (1820s 1861)

• Explored what it meant to be an American, an
  American artist
•     Looked at American government and political
  problems
•     The problems of war and Black slavery
•    Emerging materialism and conformity
•    Influence of immigration, new customs and
  traditions
•    Sexuality relationships between men and women
  
•    The power of nature
•     Individualism, emphasis on destructive effect
  of society on individual
•      Idealism
•      Spontaneity in thought and action

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Characteristics of American Literary Romanticism

• 1. INDIVIDUALISM
• Popularized by the frontier tradition
• Jacksonian democracy
• Supported Abolitionism

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• 2. IMAGINATION
• Reaction against the earlier ages emphasis on
  Reason
• Abandonment of literary tradition in favor of
  experimentation
• Organicism every idea held within it an
  inherent structure

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• 3. EMOTION
• Feeling is now considered superior to rationality
  as the mode of perceiving and experiencing
  reality
• Intuition leads one to truth
• Truth/reality are now highly subjective

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• 4. NATURE
• The means of knowing Truth
• God reveals himself solely through Nature
• Nature becomes a moral teacher
• The actual subject matter of the Romantics

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• 5. DISTANT SETTINGS
• Both in terms of time and place
• Used to comment on attitudes of the time period

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The Fireside Poets

• Americas First Literary Stars

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What are the Fireside Poets?

• First group of American poets to rival British
  poets in popularity in either country.
• Notable for their scholarship and the resilience
  of their lines and themes.
• Preferred conventional forms over
  experimentation.
• Often used American legends and scenes of
  American life as their subject matter.

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Who were the Fireside Poets?

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• William Cullen Bryant
• James Russell Lowell
• Oliver Wendell Holmes
• John Greenleaf Whittier

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Lasting Impact

• Longfellow remained the most popular American
  poet for decades. When Poe criticized him, he
  was all but ostracized. Longfellow remains the
  only American poet to be immortalized by a bust
  in Westminster Abbeys Poets Corner
• They took on causes in their poetry, such as the
  abolition of slavery, which brought the issues to
  the forefront in a palatable way.
• Through their scholarship and editorial efforts,
  they paved the way for later Romantic writers
  like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau,
  and Walt Whitman.

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Writers of the Romantic Period

• James Fennimore Cooper (1789 1851)
•  Edgar Allan Poe (1809 1849)  
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 1882)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 1864)
• Margaret Fuller (1810 1850)
• Henry David Thoreau (1817 1862)
• Herman Melville (1819 1891)
• Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811- 1896)
• Louisa May Alcott (1832 1888)
• Poetry
• The Boston Brahmins
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  (18071882)
• Oliver Wendell Holmes  (1809 1894)
• Walt Whitman (1819 1892)
• Emily Dickinson   (1830 1886)

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Historical Events

• 1812 War with England
• 1815-50 Westward Expansion
• 1846-48 Mexican War
• 1849 California gold rush
• 1861-1865 Civil War
• 1863 - Gettysburg Address
• 1863 Emancipation Proclamation

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REALISM (1860s 1890s)

• life presented with fidelity
•   fidelity in presenting the inner workings of
  the mind
•   the analysis of thought and feeling
•   function of environment in shaping the
  character
•   set in present or recent past
•   commonplace characters
•   exposed political corruption, economic
  inequity, business deception, the exploitation of
  labor, women rights problems, racial inequity
•   described the relationship between the economic
  transformation of America and its moral condition

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American Regionalism, Realism, and Naturalism

• 1860-1920(ish)

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Why did Realism develop?

• The Civil War
• The urbanization and industrialization of America
• As a reaction to Romanticism
• Increasing rates of democracy and literacy
• The emerging middle class
• Upheaval and social change in the latter half of
  the 19th century

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What is Realism?

• A faithful representation of reality in
  literature, also known as verisimilitude.
• Emphasis on development of believable characters.
• Written in natural vernacular, or dialect.
• Prominent from 1860-1890.

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Characteristics of Realism

• Reaction against Romanticism and Neoclassicism
• Factual is more important than the intellectual
  or the emotional  
• Treats nature objectively, but views it as
  orderly
• Tells the stories of everyday people
• Use of details more important than plot
• In diction, seeks to use natural language
• Atheistic
• Life is driven by fate

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Realist Writers

• Mark Twain
• William Dean Howells
• Henry James
• Edgar Lee Masters

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Why did Regionalism develop?

• Dual influence of Romanticism and Realism
• The Civil War and the building of a national
  identity
• An outgrowth of realism with more focus on a
  particular setting and its influence over
  characters

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What is Regionalism?

• Often called local color.
• Focuses on characters, dialect, customs,
  topography, and other features specific to a
  certain region (eg. the South)
• Coincided with Realism and sharing many of the
  same traits.
• Prominent from 1865-1895.

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Regionalist Writers

• Kate ChopinSouth
• Mary E. Wilkins-FreemanNew England
• Mark TwainWest
• Willa CatherMidwest

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Why did Naturalism develop?

• The swell of immigrants in the latter half of the
  19th century, which led to a larger lower class
  and increased poverty in the cities
• The prominence of psychology and the theories of
  Sigmund Freud
• Pessimism in the wake of the Civil War and
  Reconstruction
• Publication of Charles Darwins Origin of the
  Species

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What is Naturalism?

• Applied scientific principles of objectivity and
  detachment to the study of human beings.
• Influenced by Darwinism (natural selection) and
  psychology (Freud)
• Posited that men were governed by heredity and
  environment.
• Often depict man in conflict with nature,
  society, or himself.
• Prominent from 1880-1920(ish)

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Distinctions of Naturalism

• Views life from a deterministic, mechanistic
  point of view.
• Makes people the subjects of scientific case
  studies.
• Tone is often coldly scientific.
• Uses great masses of details their informal
  arrangement reflects the chaotic state of society
  and nature.
• In diction, sometimes seems to seek out the ugly
  word for its own sake.
• Likely to present nature as chaotic.
• Studies society dispassionately to correct the
  evils found there.
• Drops artificial concepts of plot and action for
  a "slice of life."
• Main characters are usually low on the social
  scale often morally frail

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Naturalist Writers

• Stephen Crane
• Ambrose Bierce
• Jack London
• Edwin Arlington Robinson
• Katherine Anne Porter
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Edith Wharton

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Points to Remember

• Realism, Regionalism, and Naturalism are
  intertwined and connected.
• Their influence has dominated most literature
  created since 1920, though the movement itself is
  dated to roughly that point.
• They are truly American modes of writing.

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Realism Continued.

• introduction of a new kind of characters
•           industrial workers and rural poor
•           ambitious businessman and
  vagrants
•           prostitutes
•           unheroic soldiers

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Writers of the Realist Period

• Mark Twain  (18351910)
• Henry James (1843 1916)
• William Dean Howells (1837 1920)
•  
• Local Color
• Sarah Orne Jewett (1849 1909)
• Kate Chopin (1851 1904)
• Bret Harte (1836 1902) 
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860 1935)

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Historical Events

• 1860 Abraham Lincoln elected President
• 1861-65 Civil War
• 1863, 1 Jan Emancipation Proclamation
• slavery abolished
• 1865 13th Amendment (abolition of
• slavery)
• 1869 first transcontinental railroad
• 1870s few individuals take control of big
  industries steal, railroad, oil, meat-packing
•  
• 1859 Darwins The Origin of Species
• 1870 Darwin's Descent of Man

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NATURALISM (1890s gt 1950s)

• 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 mans 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 unabled one to present a universal
  human situation through accurate representation
  of particulars
•        Faith in society and art

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Writers of the Naturalist Period

• Henry Adams (1838 1918)
• Hamlin Garland (1860 1940)
• Frank Norris (1870 1902)
• Stephen Crane (1871 1900)
• Theodore Dreiser (1871 1945)
• Edith Wharton (1862 1937)
• Jack London (1879 1916)
• Sinclair Lewis (1885 1951)
• Upton Sinclair (1878 1968)
• John Steinbeck (1902 1968)

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Historical Events of the Naturalist Period

• 1898 Spanish-American War
• 1901 - Theodore Roosevelt elected President
• 1903 - first powered airplane flight

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MODERNISM  (1914-1945)

•       Construction out of fragments, collage
  technique, montage of images (cinema)
•    The ideal of art is to regain the whole (like
  in The Waste Land)
•       Work structured as a quest for the very
  coherence it seems to lack at the surface order
  found in art (Porter), religion (Eliot)
•    Sense of discontinuity, harmony destroyed in
  WWI
•      Omission of explanations, interpretations,
  connections, summaries, continuity
•      Arbitrary beginning, advancement without
  explanation, end without resolution
•    

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•    Shifts in perspective, voice and tone
•       Experimentation with time flashback, leaps
  to the future
•       Rhetoric understated, ironic
•       Symbols and images instead statements
•       Use of myth escape from dramatic present,
  Christianity also a myth (Faulkner)

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Important Characteristics of Narrative

• AlienationSelf is separate and distinct from
  society which is frequently antagonistic to
  differences
• Fragmentation Disintegration or breakdown of
  norms of thought, behavior, or social
  relationship
• Stream of consciousness
• Complex allusions
• Juxtaposition and multiple points of view

• Use of extended metaphors
• Use of extended symbolism
• New types of symbolism allusive in style and an
  interest in rarified mental states

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Important Characteristics of Poetry

• Open form
• Use of free verse
• Juxtaposition of ideas rather than detailed
  explanations
• Use of allusions and multiple associations of
  words
• Unconventional use of metaphor
• Importance given to sound to convey the music of
  ideas
• Imagism

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Writers of the Modern Period

• Prose
• Gertrude Stein (1874 1946)
• Ernest Hemingway (18991961)
• John Dos Passos (1896 1970)
• F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 1940)
• William Faulkner (1897 1962)
• Sherwood Anderson (18761941)
• Katherine Anne Porter (1890 1980)
• Zora Neale Hurston (1901?1960)
• Thomas Wolfe (1900 1938)
• Nathaniel West (1903 1940)
• Willa Cather (1873 1947)
• Henry Miller (1891 1980)
• Anais Nin (1903 1977)
•  
• Poetry
• Thomas Stearns Eliot (18881965)
• William Carlos William (1883 1963)
• Wallace Stevens (1879 1955)

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Historical Events of the Modern Period

• 1914-18 World War I
• 1917 US enters the War, Russian Revolution
• 1918 worldwide flu epidemic
• Jan 1919 Prohibition (18th Amendment)
• 1920 women given the vote (19th Am.)
• 1920s Henry Fords assembly-line, cars become 
  affordable
• 1921 Sacco-Vanzetti case
• 1924 Immigration Act, quota systems 1921,
  1924.
• 1927 first non stop solo flight across
  Atlantic
• 1928 Mussolinis comes to power in Italy
• 1929 first motion picture with sound
•                stock market crash, Depression
  begins
• 1932 F. Delano Roosevelt becomes President
• 1933 18th Amendment repealed
• 1933 Hitlers dictatorship in Germany
• 1936-39 Spanish Civil War
• 1941, 7 Dec   Pearl Harbor
• 1945, 6 Aug Hiroshima atomic bomb
•  

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POST-WWII (1945 - )

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