American Literary Movements

American Literary Movements

By Charity Ballard

Authors include: Amy Tan, Alice Walker, Sandra Cisneros

The idea of diversity and acceptance drives this movement. Pluralism is "the realization that literature does not only need to come from dead white guys."

Magical Realism

This genre of narrative fiction combines a realistic view of the world with magical elements. Sometimes it is called "fabulism" and elements of the supernatural are included.

Not large, but this movement was influential after WWII and was a protest against capitalism, materialism, and prudery of their parents' generation.

This movement is characterized by narrative techniques such as paradox, parody, and the unreliable narrator. This form of literature came about after WWII and could often include dark humor.

Beat Movement- 1950s

Post-Modernism

Pluralism

An African-American movement that took place primarily in Harlem, New York in the 1920s.

Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood, criticized the beat generation writers when he said, "None of these people have anything interesting to say and none of them can write, not even Mr. Kerouac...It isn't writing at all-it's typing" in 1959.

Harlem Renaissance

Enlightenment

1685-1815

Puritanism

16th and 17th Centuries

1895- 1960s: Unlike realism which focuses on literary technique, naturalism implies a philosophical position.

Naturalism

The fireside poets (also called the “schoolroom” or “household” poets) were the first group of American poets to rival British poets in popularity in either country. Today their verse may seem more Victorian in sensibility than romantic, perhaps overly sentimental or moralizing in tone, but as a group they are notable for their scholarship, political sensibilities, and the resilience of their lines and themes. (Most schoolchildren can recite a line or two from "Paul Revere’s Ride" or The Song of Hiawatha.)

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne set in 17th century New England is a criticism of Puritan Beliefs. Hawthorne presents how women are treated unfairly in a society with strict Christian-like rules.

Realism

1800s: Exploration of American Lives in Various Contexts

Fireside Poets

Ben Franklin's Autobiography

Poor Richard's Almanac by B. Franklin

Regionalism

Core period between WWI and WWII: American modernism stemmed from a rejection of Enlightenment thinking. Everything from subject matter to writing style was experimented with, and traditional religious, political, and social views were challenged.

On the other hand, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is written from the perspective of puritanism where the societal belief was that sinners live on the brink of hell. "So that thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked."

Modernism

Mid to late 19th Century to the Early 20th Century: Includes both verse and prose where setting is particularly important

Early Settlers

1500s to 1670s

William Strachey- a contemporary of William Shakespeare's

Works Cited

Goodman, Russel B., American Philosophy and Romantic Traditions,

Cambridge; Cambridge University Press. 1990. Web. 5 April 2017.

Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Elements ofLiterature, 5th Course.

Harcourt Education Company: Austin, TX. 2006. Print.

Jalic Inc. 2006-2017. Web. 4 April 2017.

"Literary Periods". The Literature Network. Jalic. Inc. 2000-2017. Web.

4 April 2017.

Nadin, Emma. Literary Movements and Periods. Sutori. 3 April 2017.

"Transcendentalism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford

Metaphysics Lab. 12 Aug 2015. Web. 5 April 2017.

Native Americans

Romanticism 1800-1850

How high a poor man showes in low estate

Whose base is firme, and whole frame competent,

That sees this Cedar, made the shrub of fate,

Th'on's little, lasting: Th'other's confluence spent.

And as lightning comes behind the thunder

From the torn cloud, yet first invades our sense,

So every violent fortune, that to wonder

Hoists men aloft, is a cleere evidence

Of a vaunt-curring blow the fates have given

To his forst state: swift lightning blindes his eyes,

While thunder from comparison-hating heaven

Dischargeth on his height, and there it lies:

If men will shun swolne Fortunes ruinous blastes,

Let them use Temperance. Nothing violent lastes.

William Strachey.

This movement is concerned with relationships and connections between people and emotion provoking story-telling is common. One sub-genre of this movement is Urban fantasy which includes novels such as Twilight and Hunger Games.

"Sky Tree"

"The Sun Still Rises"

"Coyote Finishes His Work"

Speech by Chief Joseph

Contemporary- 1970s -on

Definition of transcendentalism

1

: a philosophy that emphasizes the a prior conditions of knowledge and experience or the unknowable character of ultimate reality or that emphasizes the transcendent as the fundamental reality

2

: a philosophy that asserts the primacy of the spiritual and transcendental over the material and empirical

3

: the quality or state of being transcendental; especially : visionary idealism

Transcendentalism

18th and 19th Centuries