Literary Movements

Colonial Period Works

Benjamin Franklin - Poor Richard’s Almanac

Revolutionary Period Works

Thomas Paine - Common Sense

James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay - The Federalist Papers

Godfrey - The Prince of Parthia

William H. Brown - The Power of Sympathy

Early National Period Works

Charles Brockden Brown - Wieland

Washington Irving - The Sketch Book

North American Review

James Fenimore Cooper - Leatherstocking Tales

Romanticism Works (American)

Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass

Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter

Herman Melville - Moby-Dick

Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Realism Works

Mark Twain - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Naturalism Works

Stephen Crane - Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Frank Norris - McTeague

Theodore Dreiser - An American Tragedy

Modernism Works (Authors, really) (American)

Faulkner

Hemingway

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tennesse Williams

Arthur Miller

Postmodernism Works (American)

Thomas Pynchon - Gravity’s Rainbow

Renaissance Works

Sir Thomas More - Utopia

Francis Bacon - Scientific Method + Novum Organum

Edmund Spenser - Faerie Queene

William Shakespeare

King James Bible

John Milton - Paradise Lost

Neoclassicism Works

Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe

Jonathan Swift - A Modest Proposal, Gulliver’s Travels

Romanticism Works (British)

Wordsworth and Coleridge - Lyrical Ballads

Mary Shelley - Frankenstein

Keats and Byron

Victorian Age Works

Charles Darwin - On the Origin of Species

Tennyson - In Memoriam

Matthew Arnold - Culture and Anarchy

Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson

Modernism Works (British)

T. S. Eliot - The Waste Land

James Joyce - Ulysses

Ezra Pound and William Butler Yeats

Postmodernism Works (British)

Kurt Vonnegut, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby

The Side of Paradise

Tender is the Night

William Faulkner

The Sound and the Fury

As I Lay Dying

Light in August

Absalom, Absalom!

Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises

A Farewell to Arms

The Old Man and the Sea

John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men

The Grapes of Wrath

Tennesse Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire

Cat On a Hot Tin Roof

Arthur Miller

All My Sons

Death of a Salesman

The Crucible

American Colonial Period

Not a lot of writings from this period because most people did not have time to write or read because they were too busy struggling with daily problems of survival in a new nation. A few literate people wrote some stuff like travel account and sermons.

American Revolutionary period

The Stamp Act marked the beginning of a new period of literature in the colonies that reflected the growing interest in political matters and the movement for independence. (the first American novel was The Power of Sympathy by William H. Brown)

American Early National Period

When serious literature began to develop in the new nation (Edgar Allen Pow, literary magazines, gothic stuff)

American Romanticism

Emergence of American creative spirit in literature, where writers celebrated the beauties of nature, the importance of individual freedom, and the expression of emotion. (transcendentalism- an important movement during romantacism)

American Realism

During a time of rapid changes (industrialization and new discoveries), was a return to a more realistic portrayal of the world and revolted against the excess of Romanticism.

American Naturalism

A rapid increase of problems associated with the urban environment (poverty, overcrowding, etc) inspired writers to explore the principles of naturalism (movement that viewed heredity, environment, and circumstance as the determinants of human behavior)

American Modernism

The two world wars (especially WWI) and the great depression led a new era of pessimism for writers who witnessed the failure of traditional spiritual beliefs. Modern man lost hope in the promise of an improved life brought by science and technology

American Postmodernism

the assassination of JFK, the Vietnam War, inflation, etc., continued to erode the confidence of Americans in a bright future. A period of continued experimentation and rebellion against the traditional rules and expectations of literature (challenging the traditional structure of literature to create spontaneous interaction with the reader).

European Renaissance

A golden era of culture, literature, and expression as society broke away from the constraints of a world dominated by the church to a new society in which the individual was the center of importance (Francis Bacon, King James bible)

European Neoclassicism

Sought to revive the classical ideals of ancient Greece and Rome with a renewed emphasis on formal structure and rules of decorum. Neoclassical Authors sought to impose order on the chaos in literature (first dictionary created around this time)

European Romanticism

The French Revolution provided the intellectual catalyst with a renewed interest in individual freedom and revolt against the rigid constraints of earlier periods. Sought inspiration from the beauty of nature and celebrated expression of emotions (preferred Dionysian elements and not Apollonian elements of reason)

European Victorian Age

a period of transition in the social, political, and scientific spheres as scientists discovered the secrets of the physical universe and religion was challenged. lots of conflict and controversy. (ars gratia artis- literature doesn’t need a moral meaning)

European Modernism

WW1, the Great Depression, and WW2 led to illusions of progress and prosperity to be shattered and writers discovered new methods to express pessimism and discontent in the modern world torn apart by political conflict. (loss of spiritual meaning)

European Postmodernism

continuation of modernism and challenged the conventional forms of literature to greater extremes. Challenged aspects of art and emphasized metafiction (self-reflective).

First American Play

Godfrey - The Prince of Parthia

First American Novel

William H. Brown - The Power of Sympathy

First American Literary Magazine

North American Review

First Important American Novelist

James Fenimore Cooper

First English Novel

Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe