American Literature Timeline

11th Grade American Literature

Native American
(30,000 B.C. – 1730 A.D.)

• Historical Events
• 30,000 B.C. – 1492 A.D. – settlement of
American Indians into various tribes on
the American continents (Indians traveled
to this continent by crossing the Bering
Strait)
• 1492 – Columbus discovers America
landing in the Bahamas
• 1521 – Cortez conquers Aztecs in Mexico
Native American

• Characteristics of Native American

Culture:
• Ancestors arrived more than 10,000 years ago.
• Each of the 700 tribes spoke their own language
and had their own folklore and mythology.
• Focus on the common origin of all things
• Tribal traditions and rituals
• Respect for all nature
Native American

• Types of Literature
• Mostly oral
• Some written
• Ceremonial songs and prayers
• Historical narratives
• poems
Native American

• Writers and their works:

• Walam Olum
• Navajo Origin Legend
• Spring Song
Puritans (1607-1702)

• Historical Events:
• 1620 – Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock
• 1629 – Puritans come to New England
• 1692-The Salem Witch Trials take place.
Nineteen people are killed.
Puritans

• Characteristics of Puritan Culture:

• The Puritans left England because they wanted to purify the
Church of England.
• They believed that the Bible was God’s instruction to man and
therefore a guide for writing and establishing government.
• Puritans believed in predestination—the belief that God has
already determined who is saved (the elect) and who is not
(the unregenerate).
• Puritans lived very simple lives.
• They believed that anything done for entertainment, such as
gambling, excessive drinking, dancing, and singing, was sinful.
• They highly valued art, literature, and education.
Puritans

• Types of Literature:
• Sermons
• Diaries
• Journals
• Narratives
• Poetry
***Fiction and drama were forbidden!!!

FICTION
Puritans

• Writers and their

works:
• Jonathan Edwards –
“Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry
God” (sermon)
• Anne Bradstreet –
“Upon the Burning of
Our House” (poem)
• Cotton Mather
Colonial (1750-1800)
“The Age of Reason”/The Enlightenment”

• Historical Events:
• 1765 – Colonists resist new Stamp Act
passed by the British
• 1770- The British kill colonists in the Boston
Massacre
• 1776 – Americans declare independence and
Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of
Independence
• 1775-1783 – Revolutionary War; Americans
defeat the British
• 1789 –George Washington becomes the first
president of the United States
Colonial (1750 – 1800) – “The Age of
Reason”/ “The Enlightenment”

• Characteristics of Colonial Culture:

• Also known as the Age of Reason or the
Enlightenment
• People believed that the universe was an
orderly place that could be understood by
using reason.
• Believed that reason could result in
advances in science, a better government,
and an ideal society.
Colonial (1750-1800) “The Age of
Reason” / “The Enlightenment”
• Types of Literature:
• Mostly political writings
• Broadsides (posters that let people know
what was going on)
• Persuasive and argumentative writings
• Almanacs (Benjamin Franklin), speeches,
essays, pamphlets (essays), and poetry
Colonial (1750-1800) – “The Age of
Reason”/ “The Enlightenment”

• Writers and their

works:
• Benjamin Franklin –
“Poor Richard’s Almanac”
• Patrick Henry- “Give Me
Liberty or Give Me Death”
• Thomas Paine- “Common
Sense”
• Phillis Wheatley – “On
Being Brought from
Africa to America”
(poem)
• Thomas Jefferson –
Declaration of
Independence
American Romanticism (1800-1840)

• Historical Events
• 1803 – expansion of U.S. through the
Louisiana Purchase
• 1812 – 1814 – War of 1812 against the
British
• 1830-Passage of the Indian Removal Act
• 1848-First Women’s rights convention in
Seneca Falls, NY
• 1850-The Fugitive Slave Act promises
punishment to anyone helping an escaped
slave.
American Romanticism:

• Characteristics of Romanticism:
• Valued feeling and intuition over reason
• Placed faith in inner experience and the power of
the imagination
• Shunned the artificiality of civilization and sought
unspoiled nature
• Preferred youthful innocence to educated
sophistication
• Stood for individual freedom and the worth of the
individual
• Saw nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual and
moral development
American Romanticism

• Characteristics Continued:
• Looked to the wisdom of the past and
distrusted progress
• Found beauty and truth in exotic locations,
the supernatural realm, and the inner
world of the imagination
• Saw poetry as the highest form of
expression
• Found inspiration in myth, legend, and
folklore
American Romanticism

• Characteristics of the Romantic Hero:

• Is young or possesses youthful qualities
• Is innocent and pure of purpose
• Has a sense of honor based not on society’s
rules but on higher principles
• Has a knowledge of people and life based on
deep, intuitive understanding, not on formal
learning (noble savage)
• Loves nature and avoids town life
• Searches for higher truth in the natural world
American Romanticism:

• Types of Literature:
• Poetry- The Romantics believed poetry to
be the highest form of art; the ideal form
of expression
• Novels
• Short stories
• Sketches
• Folklore
American Romantic Writers and Their
Works

• William Cullen Bryant –

“Thanatopsis”
• Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow – “The Tide
Rises, the Tide Falls”
• Washington Irving – “The
Devil and Tom Walker”
• The Fireside Poets – a
group of poets whose
poems Americans read in
the evening “by the
fireside”
• James Fenimore Cooper-
The Last of the Mohicans
Transcendentalism (1840 – 1860)

• Historical Events:
• Occurred during the same time period as
Romanticism and Dark Romanticism
• 1852 – The anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s
Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is
published
Transcendentalism

• Characteristics:
• Arose in the New England area
• There are kinds of knowledge that “transcend” or
“rise above” reason and experience
• People should have faith in their “inner light”
• Strong belief in the importance of the individual
and self-reliance
• Looked to nature for inspiration and guidance
• All people are connected by the “Oversoul” – a
spiritual force connecting nature and humans
• Optimistic view of life
Trancendentalism

• Types of Literature:
• Essays
• Novels
• Short stories
• Poetry
Transcendentalist Writers and Their
Works

• Henry David
Thoreau – Walden,
“Civil Disobedience”
• Ralph Waldo
Emerson – “Nature,”
“Self-Reliance”
Dark Romanticism/Anti-
Transcendentalism (1840 – 1860)

• Historical Events:
• Occurred during the same period as
Romanticism and Transcendentalism
Dark Romanticism/Anti-
Transcendentalism

• Characteristics of Dark Romanticism:

• Shared some of the same beliefs as Romanticism
• Pessimistic viewpoint - literature often focuses
on death and tragedy
• Truth and happiness are not always found in life
• Human nature is a mix of good and evil
• Focus on the darker side of human nature
• A belief in the supernatural with a focus on the
dark, evil side of the supernatural
• Also known as “Anti-Transcendentalism”
Dark Romanticism/Anti-
Transcendentalism

• Types of Literature:
• Essays
• Novels
• Short stories
• Poetry
Dark Romantic Writers and Their Works:

• Edgar Allan Poe –

“The Raven,” “The
Pit and the
Pendulum”
• Nathaniel
Hawthorne – The
Scarlet Letter, “The
Minisiter’s Black
Veil”
• Herman Melville –
Moby Dick
Realism and Naturalism (1855-1900)

• Historical Events:
• 1861-1865 – Civil War
• (not much was written during this time because the war
was too painful to write about; much literature about the
war came many years AFTER the war was over)
• 1863-The Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the
slaves, is issued by Abraham Lincoln
• 1865-The Thirteenth Amendment outlaws slavery
• 1876-Alexander Graham Bell invents the
telephone
• 1881-The Red Cross is organized by Clara Barton
• 1898-The Spanish-American War breaks out
Characteristics of Realism

• Civil War literature was very political in nature

• Expression of life as it is actually lived
• Used clear, direct language to present ordinary
everyday events.
• Subjects of literature often consist of factories,
slums, workers, bosses, criminals, and social
outcasts
• Regionalism, or local color, focuses on the unique
character of various regions and depicts their
dialect, customs, and characters
• Sometimes contains humor and social commentary
• Began because of the Civil War; the war opened the
population’s eyes to the realities of life and death
Characteristics of Naturalism

• Extreme form of realism

• Human beings have no control over
their fates.
• People were victims of their
surroundings, drives, and desires.
• Influence of scientific method. A writer
carefully gathers facts about human
experience and then draws conclusions
• Nature is powerful and shows no mercy
Types of literature:

• Short stories
• Novels
• Poetry (only a couple written during the Civil
War by a poet named Walt Whitman)
• Travel books
• Songs
• Spirituals
• Diaries and journals (almost the only
literature written during the Civil War)
Writers and Their Works:
• Mark Twain (Realism)-
Adventures of Tom Sawyer,
Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn (considered first and
finest “American” novel),
“The Jumping Frog of
Calaveras County”
• Stephen Crane – The Red
Badge of Courage (one of
the most famous novels
about the Civil War; written
many years after the war)
• Jack London (Naturalism) –
Call of the Wild, “To Build a
Fire”
• Kate Chopin-The Awakening
Modernism (1900-Present)

• Historical Events:
• 1914-1918—World War I
• 1929 – Stock Market Crash
• 1930-1940 – Great Depression
• 1941-1945 – U.S. involvement in World War II
• 1945-America drops the atomic bomb on Japanese cities
• 1954 – Prayer in public schools becomes illegal
• 1961- Alan Shepard is the first American in space
• 1964-The Beatles debut in America on the Ed Sullivan Show
• 1968 – Martin Luther King, civil rights leader, is
assassinated
• 1973 – U.S. troops withdraw from Vietnam
• 1986- Space shuttle Challenger explode on take-off
• 1989-The Berlin Wall is torn down in Germany
• 2001- Terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon
Characteristics of Modernism:

• Growth in America’s industrial power, military

strength, and influence in world affairs
• Modernism lasted from around the beginning of the
20th century until the end of World War II.
• Writers rejected the literary rules of the 19th century
and opposed conventional morality, taste,
traditions, and economic values
• Writers looked for new and varied modes of
expression
• Stream of consciousness writing developed
• Stories had no clear resolution at the end
• Readers struggle to find meaning in texts because
life itself is a struggle.
Characteristics of Modernism (continued)

• The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was the first

significant artistic movement of African-Americans.
Harlem, NY was where many of these artists lived,
worked, and performed.
• In Postmodern writing, characters struggle to make
sense of the ever-changing world in which they live.
• Postmodern literature tends to have a pessimistic
tone.
• The “American Dream,” the hope for happiness from
a home, money, and good job, suffered a loss
during this time due to war and the Great
Depression.
Types of Literature:

• Short stories
• Poetry
• Dramas
• Novels
• Essays
• Songs
• Speeches
Writers and Their Works:

• F. Scott Fitzgerald –
The Great Gatsby
(great novel about the
American Dream)
• William Faulkner – The
Sound and the Fury, “A
Rose for Emily”
• Ernest Hemingway –
The Old Man and the
Sea
• Zora Neale Hurston-A
Raisin in the Sun
Writers and their Works (continued):

• Claude McKay- If
We Must Die
• Alice Walker – The
Color Purple
• T. S. Elliot – “The
Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock”
• Langston Hughes –
“The Negro Speaks
of Rivers,” “A
Dream Deferred”
Writers and Their Works (continued):

• John Steinbeck-The
Grapes of Wrath
• Sylvia Plath – The
Bell Jar
• Tennessee Williams
– Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof
• Arthur Miller – The
Crucible