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AMERICAN LITERARY PERIODS

COLONIAL PERIOD

COLONIAL PERIOD

1620-1750

1

The colonial period arise from the native american colonies and it took place between 1620 to 1750 and it was the beginning of the American Literature

Common literary genres: sermons, diaries, poems journals, histories, narratives, etc. They were focus on oral transmission of literature works.

The writings were mostly centered in religious issues

Characteristics:

  • they used to wear simple in the way they wrote and also in the way they dressed or lived, their style was simple and unadorned
  • they used to write non fiction pieces, unreal events didn´t take place in this perios
  • writers used direct statements, they usually got to the point but at the same time they needed many details to explain events

2

the puritanism

  • it was a religious movement that emerged in the colonial period.
  • their object was to purify the church of England
  • They wanted the rest of the nations to follow their beliefs
  • It was necessary to have a balance in the spiritual life.
  • Salvation or life after death is a gift that God offers through preaching which is given through the Holy Spirit.

3

Books and writers

  • Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War.

By Nathaniel Philbrick

  • American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund S. Morgan

  • A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison by James E. Seave

AGE OF REASON

1750-1800

AGE OF REASON

1

  • THE AGE OF REASON WAS FOCUSED ON REASONING RATHER THAN RELIGIOUS

  • They were harassed by the church and what it proclaimed to be true.

  • They began to write about science and logic, only about real things to describe and understand the world in which we live.

  • Literature began to change because of the way they wrote.
  • A genre that was used a lot was satires in order to criticize injustices, abuse of power, etc.

  • the modern-day novel began

2

John Locke

A Philosopher in the age of reason believed that consciousness and reasoning were the main doors that would lead us to freedom and happiness.

Locke disproved the idea that our knowledge was pre-programmed.

3

MAJOR IDEAS OF THE AGE OF REASON

The age of reason was a period in which the literature and the way of thinking changed and it was because of the people that were part of this period that started creating new things. For example:

  • the rationalism of Descartes
  • Newton discovered the law of gravity
  • Rosseau accepted the suggestion of a "novel savage"
  • Voltaire embrace the idea of the brotherhood and the goodness of a man

4

Authors and their books

Rights of Man by Thomas Paine

This Glorious Struggle by George Washington

Common Sense by Thomas Paine

Philip Freneau, The British Prison

DOCUMENTS: Declaration of Independence, The U.S. Constitution.

ROMANTICISM

ROMANTICISM

1800-1860

1

  • romanticism was a literary movement that began in Germany, England and France between 1800 and 1860.

  • was in opposition to the previous period because it did not support rationalism.

  • Its writers focused on feelings and emotions.

  • some of the main characteristics of their literary genre were to give the imagination a chance, they wrote about unreal facts giving way to fiction, they also focused on the original and the ostentatious of reason so they were in opposition to the age of reason.

  • In this period they used to mix tragedy with comedy, show a spirit of revelry, etc.

  • They focused on the individual as such and on nature.

  • They believed that man has a good side and a bad side and they made literature about it.

2

FEATURES OF THE ROMANTICISM PERIOD

  • The importance of feelings and emotions was emphasized.

  • Rejection of reason

  • gave importance to nationalist, traditional and pre-indistrial historical themes.

  • their authors were very popular, their writings were original, that is, from the imagination and inspiration of the writer.

  • they were opposed to the professionalization of artistic creation.

  • Mystery was an element of his works

  • some outstanding genres were the poetic and narrative genres.

  • gothic literature was a subgenre of romanticism.

  • Idealistic vision that the human being was always in search of freedom and the romantic.

The importance of originality was recognized

Among its themes were death, nature, ruins, disillusionment, freedom, tradition, feelings and emotions.

3

AUTHORS

Alone by Edgar Allan Poe

Romantic Gothic Tales, 1790-1840 by Gary Richard Thompson

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

Morella by Edgar Allan Poe

London

by William Blake

TRASCENDENTALISM

TRASCENDENTALISM

1830-1880

1

Features

  • It was a literary and philosophical movement that took place in the 19th century.

  • Described the retalionship between God, man and Nature.

  • They were against the idea that organized religion could have power over personal life and individual choices.

  • Did not conform to the accepted pattern of behavior or thought of their time.

  • Rejection of the practice of organized religion, so there was no church or spiritual book of transcendentalism.

  • They believed that there was a private relationship between the self and the universe and that each person carried a universe within him or herself.

  • They believed in a spiritual soul carried by each human being, which became known as the Eternal.

  • Intuitive thinking was very important to them, which is the ability to learn something through feelings and not by reason, so each person should be guided by what their feelings dictate what is right.

  • They took from puritamism only the parts that seemed right to them, they merged concepts also prominent in other religions, thus creating a flexible set of values.

  • They sought a life not tied to material possessions, they simply desired simplicity.

  • They believed that each person was self-sufficient and should have confidence in his own means rather than in those of others.

2

Characteristics:

Greater importance to the intuitive than to the logical

strong relationship between God, man and nature

Linked the individual with the universal

The soul of each person is identical to the universal spirit

God can be found everywhere

Desired to achieve the freedom that would mean realization as an individual

They respected and valued women. They began to think about women's rights.

3

Authors and books

WaldenWalden by Henry David Thoreau

Self-Reliance and Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Walden & Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

ANTI- TRASCENDENTALISM

ANTI+ TRASCENDENTALISM

1830-1880

1

It was a literary subgenre that took place from 1830 to 1880. It was also known as gothic or dark literature. It took place in the same period as transcendentalism, in opposition to it.

They describe the limitation and negative aspects of humans

They focused more on the negative aspects of nature, for example: Fire purifies but can also destroy everything.

They held that there is always evil in the human heart.

There were two common types of writers in this period: transcendentalist or obscure. The dark ones will be those who used serious and horrifying tones in their works, one of the most famous was Edgar Allan Poe for example in his poem "the raven", the raven was a symbol of death.

For the dark writers, the sea was scattered everywhere.

2

Characteristics

Centered on human evil and the propensity to sin.

Were influenced by transcendentalism although they did not support its ideas.

Did not believe that perfection was an innate quality of human beings.

Their characters are very prone to sin since they are not governed by divine grace or wisdom.

One of their criticisms was that they perceive a world in which God is inherent. Also the fact that they used images representing evil in the guise of demons, ghosts, monsters or vampires.

Shared with transcendentalism the idea that nature is a spiritual force but both contemplated it in a different way.

REALISM

REALISM

1850-1900

1

It was a literary movement that began even when transcendentalism and anti-transcendentalism had not yet ended.

It took place during the civil war

At this time, people were bored with fiction, so they focused on real events and disasters that occurred at that time.

They wrote about real, everyday things in order to explain social reality.

The most outstanding genre of this period was the novel because it explained the social reality.

The most outstanding genre of this period was the novel, since it was based on the philosophical doctrine called determinism, which says that the origins of human problems are genetic, social and material, which was included in the literature and art of this period.

They often used satire and social denunciation in their literature.

focused on the upper class

2

Authors

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

NATURALISM

1865- 1915

NATURALISM

1

Literary movement that emerged in the nineteenth century as a continuation of realism.

opposed to romantic idealism

Its artistic and literary vision was closer to the truth and far from fiction.

It emphasized free will and human reason as the truths of man.

influenced by Comte's positivism, Darwin's evolutionism and Mendel's genetics.

Literature was a social, political and ideological weapon.

Naturalism is an evolution of realism.

focused on the lower class, as opposed to realism, which focused on the upper class.

2

PRINCIPLES

Human existence came from natural forces that did not come from the will. These forces came from the social reality, the economic environment, instinct, passion, etc.

Literature should highlight or be focused on society, defining it as real as possible, away from moral or ethical values.

Realism was indifferent to the concepts of beautiful and ugly since it was considered that they had no difference or that if so there was no importance or indifference between them.

its characters were centered on the lower class

in their works they used a language that did not discriminate against the jargon or popular speech characteristic of the lower classes.

3

Authors

El Naturalismo Émile Zola

La cuestión palpitante. Emilia Pardo Bazán

Thérèse RaquinÉmile Zola, Robin Buss

REGIONALISM

1865-1915

REGIONALISM

1

It was a literary movement characterized by describing in detail the culture, language, geography, customs, beliefs and history.

The land is the main protagonist of his works.

They were very detailed when describing the richness of the land.

They highlighted specific issues of the countries such as the dialect.

Helped to highlight American regional entities.

It was also a great help to the country after the civil war as it helped to reunify the country.

2

Regional Writers

James Lane Allen [5]

Mary Austin [5]

Wendell Berry

Alice Brown [5]

George Washington Cable [6] [5]

Erskine Caldwell

Alice Cary [5]

Willa Cather

Charles W. Chesnutt [5]

Kate Chopin [5]

Irvin S. Cobb

August Derleth

Alice Dunbar Nelson [5]

Edward Eggleston [6] [5]

Sui Sin Far

William Faulkner

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman [5]

Richard Ford

Zona Gale [5]

Hamlin Garland [5]

Ellen Glasgow

Davis Grubb

Joel Chandler Harris [6] [5]

Bret Harte [6] [5]

Pauline Hopkins

Sarah Orne Jewett [5]

Grace King [5]

Harper Lee

Carson McCullers

3

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERISTICS

regionnal language was used

it is based on classic stories and legends of the region

cultural traits of a specific region

its aspect was centralized not globalized as it discussed specific aspects of the region.

MODERSNISM

1900-1950

MODERNISM

1

modernism sought to defend the imagination, beauty and creativity as people live in a hurry and spend many hours at work and the world has become a place where machines take the place of human beings.

industrialism caused the interest in imagination and the arts to diminish as society focused more on its development than on beauty and aesthetics.

focused on some themes such as the passion for art, the attitude of revelry, defended the imagination and feelings.

its main objective was to show the historical movement that had arisen at that time.

its main themes were death, the passage of time, loneliness, nature that reflected the writer's emotions.

they were concerned with the way in which they expressed the contents of their works.

2

CHARASTERISTICS

The favorite genre of the modernists was poetry because it allowed them to express beauty and aesthetics.

They wanted to emphasize aesthetics in their work which meant the pleasure or enjoyment of art and language.

They defended the motto "art for art's sake", which meant that the creation of works of art was purely for pleasure and not because they needed a reason to do so.

One of the characteristics of modernism was its works with neat and careful language, selected with delicacy and using literary figures.

It influenced the art of painting, drawing and architecture.

They rejected realism because it sought to move away from everyday life, so they wrote about locations that allowed them to move away from reality.

As in Romanticism, they sought freedom and to break the rules created by their predecessors.

3

Books and Authors

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Howards End by E. M. Forster

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley

Ulysses by James Joyce

Post Modernism

CONTEMPORARY

1950- present

1

some of the characteristics of the contemporary period are its technological advances and its social, cultural and political changes.

It began with the Second World War, which imposed a change of mentality in the social area.

writers break the criteria and aesthetic models of previous periods to express their thoughts.

it is based on real life taking into account fiction, fantasy and mystery.

One of the benefits of the era is that thanks to the technological revolution their works can increase the number of publications of their works.

New genres such as comics, comic books and cyberpunk emerged.

2

CHARACTERISTICS

It reflects a vision of the world in which there was a break with traditional customs and beliefs.

They play with reality and fiction through the new literary genres that emerge which mix different writing techniques.

breaks with the chronological order, that is, the order in which events occur. In contemporary literature, time does not pass in a linear way. In this way they are able to start explaining an event from the end.

They do not focus on a single point of view, which gives the reader the opportunity to use his or her own judgment.

A common feature of contemporary works is that the narrator is at odds with the reality he is talking about.

3

CONTEMPORARY GENRES

PRINCIPAL THEMES

Fiction

graphic novel

Free verse poetry.

The folk tale or fable.

The comedy.

Social inequality

Terrorism and war

Alienation of human beings in society

Politics and corruption

The environment and the lack of awareness of its care

Ethics and morality

Economics and social classes

Gender inequality

4

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

hree Junes. Author: Julia Glass.

Commonwealth. Author: Ann Patchett.

Beartown. Author: Fredrik Backman.

The Heart's Invisible Furies. Author: John Boyne.

Room. Author: Emma Donoghue.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.

A Little Life.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

UNIVERSIDAD CATOLICA DE EL SALVADOR

GENERALITIES

CREATED BY: TANIA LISBETH RUIZ

TEACHER: WILLIAM MOLINA

TOPIC: LITERARY PERIODS

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