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Native American – The dates for this period are very unclear because we have absolutely no idea when they started. Much of the literature of that period were myths, and, of course, the Native Americans still write today. Most of what our text calls Native American myths were written long before Europeans settled in North America.
Imagism – Imagism was a literary movement that flourished between 1912 and 1927. Led by Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell, the Imagist poets rejected nineteenth-century poetic forms and language. Instead, they wrote short poems that used ordinary language and free verse to create sharp, exact, concentrated pictures.
Modern Age – (1915-1946) – An age of disillusionment and confusion—just look at what was happening in history in the US during these dates—this period brought us perhaps our best writers. The authors during this period raised all the great questions of life…but offered no answers. Faulkner, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Frost are all examples.
Puritan – (1472-1750) – Most of this is histories, journals, personal poems, sermons, and diaries. Most of this literature is either utilitarian, very personal, or religious. We call it Puritan because the majority of the writers during this period were strongly influenced by Puritan ideals and values. Jonathan Edwards continues to be recognized from this period.
Regionalism – Another outgrowth of Realism, Regionalism in literature is the tendency among certain authors to write about specific geographical areas. Regional writers like Willa Cather and William Faulkner, present the distinct culture of an area, including its speech, customs, beliefs, and history. Local-color writing may be considered a type of Regionalism, but Regionalists, like the southern writers of the 1920’s, usually go beyond mere presentation of cultural idiosyncrasies and attempt, instead, a sophisticated sociological or anthropological treatment of the culture of a region.
American Periods
Enlightenment – (1750-1800) – Called the Enlightenment period due to the influence of science and logic, this period is marked in US literature by political writings. Genres included political documents, speeches, and letters. Benjamin Franklin is typical of this period. There is a lack of emphasis and dependence on the Bible and more use of common sense (logic) and science. There was not a divorce from the Bible but an adding to or expanding of the truths found there.
Harlem Renaissance – Part of the Modern Age, The Harlem Renaissance, which occurred during the 1920’s, was a time of African American artistic creativity centered in Harlem, in New York City. Writers of the Harlem Renaissance include Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, and Arna Bontemps.
Naturalism – An outgrowth of Realism, Naturalism was a literary movement among novelists at the end of the nineteenth century and during the early decades of the twentieth century. The Naturalists tended to view people as hapless victims of immutable natural laws. Early exponents of Naturalism included Stephen Crane, Jack London, and Theodore Dreiser.
Realism – (1865-1915) - Realism is the presentation in art of the details of actual life. Realism was also a literary movement that began during the nineteenth century and stressed the actual as opposed to the imagined or the fanciful. The Realists tried to write truthfully and objectively about ordinary characters in ordinary situations. They reacted against Romanticism, rejecting heroic, adventurous, unusual, or unfamiliar subjects. The Realists, in turn, were followed by the Naturalists, who traced the effects of heredity and environment on people helpless to change their situations. American realism grew from the work of local-color writers such as Bret Harte and Sarah Orne Jewett and is evident in the writings of major figures such as Mark Twain and Henry James.
Romanticism – (1800-1840) - Romanticism was a literary and artistic movement of the nineteenth century that arose in reaction against eighteenth-century Neoclassicism and placed a premium on fancy, imagination, emotion, nature, individuality, and exotica. There’s a movement here from personal and political documents to entertaining ones. Purely American topics were introduced such as frontier life. Romantic elements can be found in the works of American writers as diverse as Cooper, Poe, Thoreau, Emerson, Dickinson, Hawthorne, and Melville. Romanticism is particularly evident in the works of the New England Transcendentalists
Transcendentalism – (1840-1855) -Transcendentalism was an American literary and philosophical movement of the nineteenth century. The Transcendentalists, who were based in New England, believed that intuition and the individual conscience “transcend” experience and thus are better guides to truth than are the senses and logical reason. Influenced by Romanticism, the Transcendentalists respected the individual spirit and the natural world, believing that divinity was present everywhere, in nature and in each person. The Transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, W.H. Channing, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Peabody. The anti-Transcendentalist (Hawthorne and Melville) rebelled against the philosophy that man is basically good. A third group, the Fireside poets, wrote about more practical aspects of life such as dying and patriotism.
Caroline, Interregnum and Restoration periods
Born into the growing middle class, son of a wine merchant (c. 1340).
Served in the royal household and later held a series of administrative posts under Edward and Richard II.
Visited France and Italy on behalf of the crown during the 1360's and 1370's,
Chaucer's career illustrates the economic, political, and social ferment of late 14th century England (landed wealth versus moneyed wealth).
Literary Chronology: Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1385) and The Canterbury Tales (c. 1386-1400)
• A huge growth in population. During Victoria's reign, the population of England more than doubled, from 14 million to 32 million.
• There were also some significant improvements in technology. The Victorian era slightly overlaps with Britain's Industrial Revolution, which saw big changes to the way that people lived, worked, and traveled. These improvements in technology offered a lot of opportunities for the people in England but also represented a major upheaval in regards to how people lived their lives and interacted with the world.
• Another characteristic of the Victorian era are changing world views. In addition to the major developments in technology, there were emerging scientific beliefs, like Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and those things were changing how people in England thought about themselves and how they interacted with the world around them. Most notably, a lot of people were distancing themselves from the church.
• And finally, there were poor conditions for the working class. The Industrial Revolution led to the distance between the haves and have-nots growing at a really high rate, and a lot of people (especially artists, like writers) felt obligated to speak out against what they believed to be societal injustices.
1. Originally planned for 120 stories (2 stories each way on pilgrimage from London to Canterbury for 30 pilgrims), but only 22 completed, with 2 fragmentary tales.
2. Chaucer left the manuscript(s) unfinished, so we don't know the final ordering of the tales
3. Generic Complexity of the Canterbury Tales different genres give different views of the world, different vocabularies, different images for truth.
a. Romance (Knight's Tale) deals with human emotions and relationships.
b. Fabliau (Miller's Tale) deals with the basic human needs of food, sex, or money.
c. Saint's Life (Second Nun's Tale, Prioress's Tale) deals with the operations of God in a holy person's life.
d. Moral Tales (Pardoner's Tale, Melibee) deal with orthodox morality.
e. Sermons and Ethical Treatises (Parson's Tale) deal with spiritual matters.
The reign of Queen Victoria - 1837-1901
a bridge between Romantic literature and Modernism of the 20th century
600-1500
Authors - Charles Dickens, George Eliot (actually a woman)
Poets- Lord Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and also Matthew Arnold. Their poems were often characterized by a strong desire to connect with the past, a skepticism about religion, which could tie in with Darwin's theory of evolution coming in to prominence during that time, and they also had a stronger sense of humor than was generally present in the Romantic poetry that came before it.
17th and 18th century
Enlightenment people are really into strict science, logic, intellectual discourse - really breaking things down into, 'Does this make sense?' and not having any kinds of just blind faith and becoming a real scientific people.
Three major periods
1. The Renaissance - or really, the back end of it. The early 17th century is also known as the 'Jacobean era' in England.
2. The Caroline, Interregnum and Restoration periods that filled up the latter half of the 17th century. By the way, these names basically just refer to what was going on politically at the time. ('Caroline' is the Latin word for 'Charles,' and King Charles I had an on-again/off-again relationship with the throne during this time.)
3. The Neoclassicism of the 18th century. The first half of this century is also known as the 'Augustan era'.
Not Much Different from British Lit- shorter time frame
Native American
Puritans
Romantics
Transcendentalism
Realism
Naturalism
Regionalism
Imagisim
Modern Age
Harlem Renaissance
Important works: Beowolf, Canterbury Tales
Works written in a religious context
Not many people writing, because not many people are literate
Black Plague, the Crusades, the Hundred Years war (England Vs France)
Caedmon's Hymn - earliest recorded poem
Le Morte D'Arthur - story of King Arthur and his knights
2000
2005
1995
2010
1990
early 19th century
we don't care about logic and rationality and all of this stuff. We are more into nature, emotions.
Poets - William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake and John Keats, - write these ballads and odes that are full of reverence of nature, descriptions of internal moods
Novelists - Jane Austin, Bronte Sisters, Shelley
T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, W.B. Yeats