American
Literary
Movements
Mr. Cost
Native American
(Pre-Columbian)
Native American
Only recently has the voice of Native
Americans come to be studied and
appreciated.
Native American literature was an oral
tradition that often was used to impart lessons
and instill morality.
In the Native American world, humans do not
dominate nature. Theirs is a more reverent and
inclusive view of the natural world.
There is a belief in and usage of metaphor.
Native American
The worldview represented in the literature is
not one of a progressive straight line, but
rather one of a cyclical nature.
Therefore, it is the events of life that are of
import and not the technology of getting to
them.
Puritan and Colonial
1600s-1800
Puritan
Puritan literature focused often on religious
ideals and a fervent belief in God.
It reflected the idea that Puritans believed they
were destined to colonize this “new world”
and is often celebratory of Puritan religious
zeal.
Puritan
(1472-1800)
Anne Bradstreet was the first American poet
who wrote in English.
Colonial
(The Enlightenment)
The writers of the enlightenment reflected the
influence of science and logic, rather than pure
adherence to the Bible.
Famous authors of this period include
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas
Paine, and Patrick Henry.
The writings were quite often political,
grappling with independence from Britain.
American
Romanticism
(1800-1840)
Romanticism
Romanticism began in Europe and filtered later
to American soil.
It is a reaction to what Poe referred to as “the
dull realities” of Science. It is a response to
rationalism and the industrial revolution.
The dull realities of urban squalor and poor
working conditions led the Romantics to seek
natural beauty and intuition over science and
reason when contemplating art.
Romanticism
The Romantics sought meaning in art through
intuition and feeling rather than through
science and reason.
Gothic literature is a sub-movement of
Romanticism.
Some American Romantics of note: Edgar
Allen Poe; William Cullen Bryant; James
Fenimore Cooper; Washington Irving; Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow; Oliver Wendell
Holmes; Herman Melville; and Nathaniel
Hawthorne.
Transcendentalism
(1840-1855)
Transcendentalism
The Transcendentalists, like the Romantics,
believed that empiricism was too limited to
express the totality of human experience.
They also championed intuition and deeply
questioned urbanization and industry.
They believed in the power of nature to teach
people about themselves.
They believed in God but rejected organized
religion.
Transcendentalism
The Transcendentalists strove to create a
uniquely American body of literature.
They believed in non-conformity and civil
disobedience.
Famous Transcendentalists: Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
Melville and Hawthorne are sometimes
connected to Transcendentalism; however, they
are more appropriately labeled as Romantics.
New American
Poetry
Also often lumped in with the
Transcendentalists and, to a lesser extent, the
Romantics are Walt Whitman and Emily
Dickinson.
Realism
(1865-1915)
Realism
Realism in American literature, not
coincidentally, coincided with the beginning of
the Civil War.
Realism looked to portray life through
literature in a more realistic manner, and was,
in this way, a response to the larger-than-life
heroics of the Romantic heroes. Realism’s focus
should be on normal people.
Realistic novels focused on the details of
everyday life and relied often on the emerging
social, psychological, and biological sciences.
Realism
In America, a sub-movement of Realism is
Regionalism.
These authors focused realistic portrayals on
specific regions of the country, recording on the
specifics of speech and temperament of said
region.
Some famous writers of Realism/Regionalism
are Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, and Harriet
Beecher Stowe, and William Faulkner.
Naturalism
Naturalism
Another offshoot of Realism, Naturalism
possessed far less of the final optimism of the
Realists.
Naturalism focused even more intensely on
science, and posited that humans are victims of
natural forces that are beyond their control.
Humans, like animals, acted on crude instinct.
Some famous Naturalist authors are Jack
London and Stephen Crane.
Modernism
(1915-1946)
Modernism
Before World War I, America was a land of
idealism and a belief in the virtuousness of its
founding and its goals.
After the war, many artists became quite
cynical, leading to the Modernism.
Modernism is characterized by a
disillusionment with past traditions, a
disillusionment that led to bold
experimentation.
Modernism
In America, Modernism called into question
the validity of the assumed American Dream.
“The three underpinnings of the American
dream are a belief in the land as a bountiful
new Eden, an unwavering faith in progress,
and a confidence in the ultimate triumph of the
individual.” --John Leggit and John Malcom
Brinnin.
The Modernists, due to the atrocities of the first
world war, as well as the onset of the Great
Depression, began to question the validity of
this dream.
Modernism
Modernists were influenced by psychoanalysis
and Marxism.
One of many important developments of the
Modernist movement is narrative stream-ofconsciousness. This technique eschews
narrative chronology to better represent the
ramblings and meanderings of the human
mind.
Modernism
Modernist authors sought meaning in what
they perceived as a cruel and uncaring world.
The validity of human goodness was often
questioned, but often was assumed to exist and
to be the norm.
Modernism
Imagism and Symbolism
Symbolism was a movement related somewhat
to the Romantic movement; however, whereas
the Romantics felt that they could find solace
in nature, the Symbolists disagreed. For them,
nature had been stripped of its wonder by
science.
The symbolists looked actually to reject old
notions of symbols and replace the rational
with the imaginative. Their quest was for
individuality and originality in a world they
felt was being destroyed by mass culture.
Modernism
Imagism and Symbolism
The Imagists believed in the power of the
image and valued it above all else.
They stressed economy of language, especially
stressing the choosing of the “perfect” word
and a firm distrust of adjectives.
They distrusted traditional poetic forms and
looked to strip poetry of its sentimentality and
prettiness.
Modernism
Imagism and Symbolism
The Imagists looked to use common language
and to use the “exact word, not merely the
decorative word.”
Ezra Pound, Imagism’s most ardent devotee,
described an image as “that which presents an
intellectual and emotional complex in an
instant of time.”
Famous imagists include Ezra Pound, T.S.
Eliot, Amy Lowell, and William Carlos
Williams.
Modernism
The Harlem Renaissance
In the early 1920s, African American culture
began to push its way into mainstream art.
Harlem was reaping the benefits of the
American economic upswing.
Harlem writers wrote about the African
American experience and often incorporated
the rhythms of jazz and traditional African
music into their poetry.
Modernism
The Harlem Renaissance
Writers of the Harlem Renaissance include
Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston,
Countee Cullen, and Claude McCay.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism begins after World War II.
It is in great part a reaction to the violence of
the war itself and also to the invention of the
atom bomb.
The nuclear bomb suddenly made it possible
for humanity to be wiped from the face of the
earth in a short amount of time.
Postmodernism
Like the modernists, postmodernists sensed
that we exist in an uncaring universe; however,
unlike the modernists, postmodernism does
not see meaning as possible.
Postmodernist works often rely heavily on
irony and meta-literary techniques.
Postmodernism is often playful and blurs the
line between high culture and low culture.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism eschews traditional narrative
structure and often relies heavily on pastiche.
Some postmodern authors are Thomas
Pynchon, Dave Eggers, David Foster Wallace,
Joseph Heller, and Kurt Vonnegut.