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American Literature through Time

To find out more about a particular literature time period, click a link in the table below .

Puritan Times
1650-1750

Content:
errand into the wilderness
be a city upon a hill
Christian utopia

Genre/Style:
sermons, diaries
personal narratives
captivity narratives
jeremiads
written in plain style

Effect:
instructive
reinforces authority of the Bible and church

Historical Context:
a person's fate is determined by God
all people are corrupt and must be saved by Christ
                                                                                  

Rationalism/ Age of Enlightenment

1750-1800

Content:
national mission and American character
democratic utopia
use of reason
history is an act of individual and national self-assertion

Genre/Style:
political pamphlets
travel writing
highly ornate writing style
fiction employs generic plots and characters
fiction often tells the story of how an innocent young woman is tested by a seductive
male


Effect:
patriotism grows
instills pride
creates common agreement about issues
shows differences between Americans and Europeans

Historical Context:
tells readers how to interpret what they are reading to encourage Revolutionary War
support
instructive in values

American Renaissance/Romanticism
1800-1855

Content:
writing that can be interpreted 2 ways, on the surface for common folk or in depth for
philosophical readers
sense of idealism
focus on the individual's inner feelings
emphasis on the imagination over reason and intuition over facts
urbanization versus nostalgia for nature
burden of the Puritan past

Genre/Style:
literary tale
character sketch
slave narratives,
political novels
poetry
transcendentalism

Effect:
helps instill proper gender behavior for men and women
fuels the abolitionist movement
allow people to re-imagine the American past

Historical Context:
expansion of magazines, newspapers, and book publishing
slavery debates
                                                                              

Gothic
sub-genre of Romanticism
1800-1850

Content:
sublime and overt use of the supernatural
individual characters see themselves at the mercy of forces our of their control which
they do not understand
motif of the "double": an individual with both evil and good characteristics
often involve the persecution of a young woman who is forced apart from her true love

Style:
short stories and novels
hold readers' attention through dread of a series of terrible possibilities
feature landscapes of dark forests, extreme vegetation, concealed ruins with horrific
rooms, depressed characters

Effect:
today in literature we still see portrayals of alluring antagonists whose evil
characteristics appeal to one's sense of awe
today in literature we still see stories of the persecuted young girl forced apart from
her true love

Historical Context:
industrial revolution brings ideas that the "old ways" of doing things are now irrelevant
                                                       

Realism
1855-1900

Content:
common characters not idealized (immigrants, laborers)
people in society defined by class
society corrupted by materialism
emphasizes moralism through observation

Style:
novel and short stories are important
prefers objective narrator
dialogue includes many voices from around the country does not tell the reader how to
interpret the story

Effect:
social realism: aims to change a specific social problem
aesthetic realism: art that insists on detailing the world as one sees it

Historical Context:
Civil War brings demand for a "truer" type of literature that does not idealize people
or places

Naturalism
(sub-genre of realism)
1880-1900

Content:
dominant themes: survival fate violence taboo
nature is an indifferent force acting on humans
"brute within" each individual is comprised of strong and warring emotions such as
greed, power, and fight for survival in an amoral, indifferent world.


Genre/Style:
short story, novel
characters usually lower class or lower middle class
fictional world is commonplace and unheroic; everyday life is a dull round of daily existence
characters ultimately emerge to act heroically or adventurously with acts of violence, passion, and/or bodily strength in a tragic ending

Effect:
this type of literature continues to capture audiences in present day: the pitting of man against nature

Historical Context:
writers reflect the ideas of Darwin (survival of the fittest) and Karl Marx (how money and class structure control a nation)

Modernism
1900-1946

Content:
dominant mood: alienation and disconnection
people unable to communicate effectively
fear of eroding traditions and grief over loss of the past


Genre/Style:
highly experimental
allusions in writing often refer to classical Greek and Roman writings
use of fragments, juxtaposition, interior monologue, and stream of consciousness
writers seeking to create a unique style

Effect:
common readers are alienated by this literature

Historical Context:
overwhelming technological changes of the 20th Century
World War I was the first war of mass destruction due to technological advances
rise of the youth culture

Harlem Renaissance
(runs parallel to modernism)
1920s

Content:
celebrated characteristics of African-American life
enjoyment of life without fear
writing defines the African-American heritage and celebrates their new identity as Americans

Genre/Style:
allusions in writing often refer to African-American spirituals
uses the structure of blues songs in poetry (ex-repetition of key phrases)
superficial stereotypes later revealed to be characters capable of complex moral judgments

Effect:
this period gave birth to a new form of religious music called "gospel music"
blues and jazz are transmitted across America via radio and phonographs

Historical Context:
mass African-American migration to Northern urban centers.
African-Americans have more access to media and publishing outlets after they move north.

Postmodernism
1946-Present

Content:
people observe life as the media presents it, rather than experiencing life directly
popular culture saturates people's lives
absurdity and coincidence

Genre/Style:
mixing of fantasy with nonfiction; blurs lines of reality for reader
no heroes
concern with individual in isolation
detached, unemotional
usually humorless
narratives
metafiction
present tense
magic realism

Effect:
erodes distinctions between classes of people
insists that values are not permanent but only "local" or "historical"

Historical Context:
post-World War II prosperity
media culture interprets values
                                                                                                      

Contemporary
(continuation of Postmodernism)
1980s-Present

Content:
identity politics
people learning to cope with problems through communication
people's sense of identity is shaped by cultural and gender attitudes
emergence of ethnic writers and women writers

Style:
narratives: both fiction and nonfiction
anti-heroes
concern with connections between people
emotion-provoking
humorous irony
storytelling emphasized
autobiographical essays

Effect:   too soon to tell


Historical Context:
people beginning a new century and a new millennium
media culture interprets values

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