American literature developed through distinct eras influenced by religious, political, and social movements. The Puritans focused on non-fiction works and the Bible while the Rationalists valued reason. Romanticism embraced emotion and nature. The Transcendentalists believed in a personal connection to nature. The Civil War and Realism led to more realistic depictions of life and society. Modernism used new styles and symbolism, while the Harlem Renaissance gave voice to the African American experience. Great authors have explored the American experience through each era.

1. Eras in
American Literature

2. Before We Start
• Fold your paper into 2 columns
• Topic: Eras in American Literature
• Label – left column: Q’s, right column:
Notes
• Summary box at the bottom

3. The Puritans, the Rationalists, and the Revolution
•Captain John Smith, charter member of the Jamestown
colony, chronicled his new world in a volume known as
True Relation
–Typical of the style of writing during the early period of
America
–Concerned more with facts than literary style
–Mostly historical
•Puritans, band of religious zealots who braved the
Atlantic to establish a new order in America
–Believed that each person should seek a direct personal
relationship with God
–Strive to live without sin to ensure a path to salvation in the
afterlife
–Much of their reading focused on the Bible
–Writings tend to be nonfiction historical accounts or diaries
that focused on religious observation
•Poet Anne Bradstreet
•Minister Jonathan Edwards

4. The Puritans, the Rationalists, and the Revolution
•Captivity stories
–Tales of settlers being abducted and tortured by native
Americans
–Wildly exaggerated, if not completely fabricated
–Fed the colonists’ desire for exciting tales of an exotic new
land and their perception of Native Americans as a people to be
feared.
•The Age Of Reason
–Pamphlets and essays influenced popular opinion
–Complete faith in human intellect
–Valued reason above all
–Believed that people were essentially good and capable of
creating an ideal society
•The Rationalists
–Benjamin Franklin
–Thomas Paine
–Thomas Jefferson

5. Topic: Eras in Am. Lit
Q’s Notes
• How did Puritan beliefs • Puritans
influence their writing – nonfiction historical
and the society? accounts or diaries focused
on religious observation
– Jonathan Edwards, Cpt.
John Smith, Anne
Bradstreet
• In what ways did the • Rationalists
Rationalists shape our – Reason
country? – People good & able to
create ideal society (utopia)
– Ben Franklin, Thomas
Paine, Thomas Jefferson

6. American Romanticism
• Rebelled against the ideas of the Age of
Reason
• Valued emotion, imagination, and
intuition
• Found inspiration in nature
• The Fireside Poets
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
– Oliver Wendell Holmes
– James Russell Lowell
– John Greenleaf Whittier

7. American Renaissance
•Very different thinking •Poets
about religion, human –Emily Dickinson
nature, and the future –Walt Whitman
•Americans were •Transcendentalists
discussing how best to –Ralph Waldo Emerson
organize American society –Henry David Thoreau
–Better public education –Believed that to live
–End to slavery more satisfying life, you
–Women’s rights had to go beyond
everyday reality by
•Writers immersing yourself in
–Nathaniel Hawthorne nature
–Herman Melville –Optimistic, putting
–Edgar Allan Poe faith in the power of the
individual
–Washington Irving
–People could be
–James Fenimore Cooper
happy and good if they
felt a personal
connection to nature

8. Topic: Eras in Am. Lit
Q’s Notes
• Why was nature such • Romanticism
an important part of – Rebelled against
Rationalists
Romanticism and
– Imagination, creativity
Transcendentalism?
– Nature
– Longfellow, Holmes,
• Compare Romanticism Whittier
• Renaissance
to Transcendentalism.
– How to organize society
– Hawthorne, Melville, Poe
• Transcendentalists
– People could be happy and
good if they felt a personal
connection to nature

9. The Civil War and Realism
•Writings about slavery
–1850 Fugitive Slave Act – imposed
punishment on anyone who helped a
person trying to escape in the
southern states
–Harriet Beecher Stowe – Uncle Tom’s
Cabin
–Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick
Douglass
–The life story of Sojourner Truth
–Walt Whitman celebrated the bravery
of American soldiers

10. Realists, Regionalists, and Naturalists
• Stephen Crane - The Red Badge Of Courage
– Tried to describe life as accurately as possible
– Lives of ordinary people from a neutral point of view
• Henry James
– Psychological novel
• Fascinated with people’s behavior
• Explored thinking and motivation behind the actions of
characters
• Mark Twain – Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn
– Regionalist - focused on the reality of life in specific parts of
the country
• Jack London – The Call The Wild
– Naturalist – focused on the forces of society or nature that
are beyond a person’s control but influence life

11. Topic: Eras in Am. Lit
Q’s Notes
• How did the Civil War • Civil War
affect writing? – Not much significant
literature
• Realists, Regionalists,
• Compare and contrasts and Naturalists
Realists, Regionalists, – Focus on reality,
and Naturalists. forces of nature, and
people’s behavior.
– Jack London
– Mark Twain

12. Modernism
•Spirit of changing growth reflected in which
of the early twentieth century
–The Roaring Twenties
•T.S. Eliot , Ezra Pound, e e cummings, and
Marianne Moore
–Broke from tradition
–Modern style that was more impersonal
–Used symbolism to a greater degree
–Influenced by European modernist artists the
•Picasso and Matisse

13. Modernism
•The Harlem Renaissance
–Explosion in human rights
–Migrated to northern cities in the nineteen
twenties
–Came together to influence each other’s work
–Focused on the reality of black life including
history, racism, and identity
•Langston Hughes
•James Weldon Johnson
•Countee Cullen
•Zora Neale Hurston
•Richard Wright

14. Modernism
•Following the Great •Stream of consciousness
Depression, Americans writers
–William Faulkner
core beliefs about
–Katherine Anne Porter
themselves in the world •Influenced by Freud
began to change •Psychology
–The American Dream •Reality of American life
changed –Sinclair Lewis – small town
•Americans were cynical but –Ernest Hemingway –
the government disillusionment with
•Began to question traditional American ideas
ways of thinking about –F. Scott Fitzgerald –
politics and culture consequences of living the
American Dream,
questioning societies
definition of success and
progress
•The Great Gatsby

15. Topic: Eras in Am. Lit
Q’s Notes
• Give an example of the • Roaring 20’s
symbolism used by – Break from tradition
writers in the 20’s. – Symbolism
– Modernist influence
• Harlem Renaissance
• In what ways did the – Focus on black life, civil
writers of the Harlem rights, racism
Renaissance change – Langston Hughes
people’s perceptions of – Malcolm X
African Americans? • Modernism
– New American Dream
– Stream of Consciousness
– Hemmingway, Fitzgerald

16. Great Names in American Literature
•Washington Irving •TS Eliot
•James Fenimore Cooper •Katherine Anne Porter
•Ralph Waldo Emerson •Zora Neale Hurston
•Nathaniel Hawthorne •F. Scott Fitzgerald
•Henry Wadsworth Longfellow •Ernest Hemingway
•Edgar Allan Poe •Thomas Wolfe
•Harriet Beecher Stowe •Langston Hughes
•Henry David Thoreau •John Steinbeck
•Frederick Douglass •Robert Penn Warren
•Herman Melville •W.H. Auden
•Walt Whitman •Richard Wright
•Emily Dickinson •Eudora Welty
•Louisa May Alcott •Tennessee Williams
•Mark Twain •Ralph Ellison
•Henry James •Arthur Miller
•Kate Chopin •Robert Lowell
•Edith Wharton •J.D. Salinger
•Stephen Crane •Jack Kerouac
•Theodore Dreiser •Joseph Heller
•Willa Cather •James Baldwin
•Robert Frost •Allen Ginsberg
•William Carlos Williams •Anne Sexton
•Sinclair Lewis •Toni Morrison
•Eugene O’Neill •Sylvia Plath
•Ezra Pound