1. Key: Bold = AP Test list; ! = taught in junior or senior year at CV
American Literary Periods and Accompanying Works (taken from AP tests or just good ones to read)
Please note: these dates are extremely loose. It is impossible for one period to simply END one day and for the next one to begin.
These dates are used simply because they give scholars something to work with and a structural frame to grasp. You will find as you
research that the periods overlap tremendously. Also, these are the “big” periods; you may find other terms / defining features of your
selected piece of literature that will be more than acceptable to use.
1607-1776: Colonial Period
*Spans the time between the founding of the first settlement at Jamestown to the outbreak of the Revolution. Writing is centered on
religious, practical, or historical themes.
*William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation—1651
*Anne Bradstreet, The Tenth Muse (collection of poems)—1650
*Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack—1732-1757 (also can be considered Revolutionary)
1765-1790: Revolutionary Period
*Signified by some of the greatest documents in American history, such as the Declaration of Independence, Common Sense, The
Articles of Confederation, and The Constitution of the United States.
1775-1828: Early National Period
*The writers of the period generally wrote in English style, but the settings, themes, and characters became authentically American.
*Washington Irving, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.—1819
*James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers, Last of the Mohicans—1826, Leatherstocking Tales—1876
*Edgar Allen Poe, Tamerlane (collection of poems)—1826
1828-1865: The Romantic Period (Also known as The American Renaissance or The Age of Transcendentalism)
*An era of tremendous change in the United States—developments in technology, industry, transportation and agriculture.
*Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays—1841
*Henry David Thoreau, Walden—1854!
*Herman Melville, Moby Dick—1851, Billy Budd—1886
*Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter —1850!
*Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin—1852
*Emily Dickenson, Complete Poems
*Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass—1899

2. Key: Bold = AP Test list; ! = taught in junior or senior year at CV
1865-1900: The Realistic Period
*Following the Civil War, this form of literature represents life as it really is and makes the reader believe that the characters actually
could exist and the situations could actually happen. The focus is on the ordinary and commonplace.
*Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn —1884
*Henry James, Portrait of a Lady—1908
*Kate Chopin, The Awakening —1899!
*Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House —1879!
*Upton Sinclair, The Jungle—1906
*W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk--1903
1900-1914: The Naturalistic Period
*Naturalism claims to give an even more accurate depiction of life than realism. In accordance with a post-Darwinian thesis, naturalistic
writers hold that the characters of their works are merely higher-order animals whose character and behavior is entirely based upon
heredity and environment. Writings are often frank, crude, and tragic.
*Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage—1895
*Jack London, The Call of the Wild—1903
1914-1939: American Modernist Period
*This literature experiments with subject matter, form, and style.
*T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems—1922
*Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome –1911 , The Age of Innocence —1920
*Willa Cather, O Pioneers—1913 , My Antonia—1918!
*William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury—1929
*John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath—1939!
*Richard Wright, Native Son—1940
*Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio—1919
*Aldous Huxley, Brave New World —1932
*1920s: Jazz Age*
*F.Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby— 1925!, Tender is the Night—1934

3. Key: Bold = AP Test list; ! = taught in junior or senior year at CV
*1920s and 1930s: The Lost Generation*
*Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises—1926, A Farewell to Arms —1929!
*Agnes Smedley, Daughter of Earth—1923
*Tillie Olsen, Yonnondio From the Thirties—1974 (published)—1924 (written)
1939-present: The Contemporary Period
*Eudora Welty, The Curtain of Green—1941
*Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five—1969
*Joseph Heller, Catch 22 —1961
*Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar—1963
*Arther Miller, Death of a Salesman — 1949 , The Crucible —1953!
*Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man— 1953
*Zora Neal Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God—1937
*Alice Walker, The Color Purple —1982 !
*Toni Morrison, Beloved —1987
*James Baldwin, Go Tell It On the Mountain— 1953
*Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings—1969
*Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie —1944
*1950s: Beat Writers*
*Anti-establishment, anti-traditional literary movement.
*Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems—1956
*Jack Kerouac, On the Road—1957
*William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch—1959
*1960s and 1970s: Counterculture*
*Extreme and fevered continuation of the beat movement
*Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird—1960
*Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique—1963
*Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—1963
*Mary McCarthy, The Group--1963