Transcript American Literature - Mira Costa High School

American Literature
Overview
I.Qualities of America/
Being an American
 Individualism
 Equality
 Freedom
II. American Experiences
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What is the American Experience?
How does America’s unique
experience influence its literature,
poetry, and other arts?
III. Themes in American
Literature
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The Individual
The Community
The American Dream
The Frontier
The City
Coming of Age: Innocence to Awareness
The Hero and the Anti-Hero
IV. Literary Movements

Colonialism/Puritanism
– World view emphasizes the conflict
between personal freedom and
society’s desire for conformity.
– William Bradford, Thomas Jefferson,
William Byrd, Thomas Paine
IV. Literary Movements
cont’d

Classicism
–World view emphasizes that
reason and logic perfect man
and reform society.
–Ben Franklin, Alexander
Hamilton
IV. Literary Movements
cont’d

Romanticism
– World view emphasizes that
emotion, the individual, and the
imagination are the key to the
elevation of the human spirit.
– Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan
Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
IV. Literary Movements
cont’d

Transcendentalism
–World view emphasizes that
when man combines intuition
with a close observation of
nature, he can achieve a higher
level of spiritual truth.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry
David Thoreau
IV. Literary Movements
cont’d

Realism
– World view emphasizes that the
truth of an experience should be
expressed through an emphasis on
objective details, the common man,
and vernacular language.
– Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Kate
Chopin, Walt Whitman
IV. Literary Movements
cont’d

Naturalism
– World view emphasizes that man is
a victim of both nature and society
and is engaged in a brutal and
constant struggle for survival.
– Edith Wharton, Jack London,
Stephen Crane
IV. Literary Movements
cont’d

Modernism
– World view emphasizes that human
experience is characterized by
alienation, fragmentation, and loss.
No universal higher power exists to
give meaning to life.
– Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath, John
Steinbeck
IV. Literary Movements
cont’d

Post-Modernism/Contemporary
–Extension of modernism; world
view emphasizes social
commentary through criticism
and absurdity.
–Arthur Miller, Tennessee
Williams, Maya Angelou