Transcript Timeline of American Literature File

Anne Bradstreet
Edward Taylor
Jonathan Edwards
Ben Franklin
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Paine
 Sparked
by the formation of The Royal
Society in London in 1660.
 Emphasis
on science, rational thinking,
balance, and logic.
 Writings
reflect the rational, logical thinking
of the period.
Edgar Allen Poe
Washington Irving
Nathaniel Hawthorne
 This
period is the antithesis of neoclassicism.
 The
emphasis is on the heart rather than the
head.
 Romantics
stress emotion, intuition,
individuality, imagination, the exotic, and
the supernatural.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
 This
is EXTREME Romanticism!
 Transcendentalists
take individualism to an
extreme.
 One
should follow one’s heart and intuition
to an extreme, even if it means breaking the
law or disappointing one’s family and friends.
Emily Dickinson
Mark Twain
Kate Chopin
 After
the carnage of the American Civil War
the optimism of Romanticism faded.
 Writers
strove to present the everyday
realities of life in their works.
 Realists
presented a sometimes stark
depiction of life as it is really lived.
Stephen Crane
Ambrose Bierce
 Naturalism
is EXTREME realism, which
presents a cold, uncaring world.
 Naturalists
were greatly impacted by the
writings of Darwin and saw the environment
as a great determiner of human actions.
 Naturalism
is a pessimistic world view in
which one questions the existence of God
and sees man as a helpless victim of forces
beyond his control.
William Faulkner
F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Modernism
characterized the first half of the
20th century.
 This
was a time of experimentation in
literature.
 Writings
of this period exhibit ambiguities
which force readers to form their own
opinions. (Sometimes even the narrators are
unreliable.)
Arthur Miller
Kurt Vonnegut
 This
period, which began after World War II
and the dropping of the first atomic bomb, is
characterized by continued experimentation
and a pessimistic world view.
 Post
Modernism includes the philosophy of
Existentialism, the idea that there is no
ultimate meaning embodied is human
existence. The only meaning in life is that
which one brings to it.