Periods

Question 1

colonial period

Answer 1

15th through 18th century
Puritanism: morals, scripture, god centered
authors: anne bradstreet “the author to her book”(1678), edward taylor “meditation 8”(1684), William Bradford

Question 2

REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD AND EARLY REPUBLIC

Answer 2

18th century
age of enlightment, age of revolutions(US and FR), interest in nature, science, constant search of the self, study of the bible for personal interpretation
authors: benjamin franklin “the autobiography”(1771-1790), thomas jefferson et al. “The declaration of independence”(1776), Phillis Wheatley “on being brought from africa to america”(1773)

Question 3

EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY AND ROMANTICISM

Answer 3

19th century
optimism, immigrants, industrialization
individuality, expressive emotion, subjectivity, against age of reason, gothic, interest in past, myths, legends, nature
authors: edgar allan poe “the raven”(1845) “the masque of the red death”(1842), washington irving “the legend of sleepy hollow”(1820)

Question 4

AMERICAN RENAISSANCE

Answer 4

1830-1860
the classical age and first period of fame of american literature, no rebirth, but the writers felt valued for the first time, movement against capitalism, transcendentalism
authors: nathaniel hawthorne “the scarlet letter”(1850), walt whitman “leaves of grass”(1855), Rebecca Harding Davis, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Question 5

REALISM (LOCAL COLOR WRITING)

Answer 5

1860-1890
self-conscious america, railroads bound east and west
character more important than plot, attack upon romanticism, morality(often self-relaized), daily experience, ordinary characters, authorial objectivity, responsible morality
authors: mark twain “adventures of huckleberry finn”(1890), sarah orne jewett “a white heron” (1886)

Question 6

TURN OF THE CENTURY / NATURALISM

Answer 6

1890-1910
science, charles darwin, freud, growing technology, slums through industrialization
sexual desire, greed, mob psychology, sterotypes and absolutes, life is ugly, brutal and short, free will is an illusion, courage and virtue have no meaning
authors: edith wharton “the age of innocence”(1920), Frank Norris “The Octopus”(1901)

Question 7

MODERNISM

Answer 7

~1914-1945
experiments in writing, free verse, rise of american drama, women writers
authors: f. scott fitzgerald “the great gatsby”(1925), Ezra Pound “in a station of the metro”(1913), T.S. Eliot “The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock”(1915), Ernest Hemingway, E.E. Cummings, Sylvia Plath

~1919- 1935 Harlem Renaissance: artistic and social awakening among african americans as a race, blues into poetry, authors:claude mckay “if we must die”(1919), zora neale hurston “color struck”(1925), Langston Hughes

Question 8

LITERATURE AFTER WW II

Answer 8

1945
literature becomes more regional and more urban, protagonists are deeply involved with their world, in search for their own identities, wrestling with a world who tries to dictate this identity to them
authors: robert lowell “Mr. Edwards and the Spider”(1946), Arthur Miller “Death of a salesman”(1949)

Question 9

POSTMODERNISM

Answer 9

~1965
civil rights movement, women’s right movement, anti-war movement, assassinations
can truth be known? greets the absurd, blurring lines fiction and non-fiction, beat poets
authors: allen ginsberg”howl”(1956), edward albee “who’s afraid of virginia woolf?”(1962)

Question 10

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

Answer 10

present

authors: james dickey, toni morrison, sam shepard