5 Literary Time Periods

Colonialism time period

1650-1800

Romanticism time period.

1800-1865

realism time period

1865-1900

modernism time period

1900-1950

post-modernism time period

1950-present

sections of romanticism

dark romanticism/american gothic, and trancendentalism

sections of realism

regionalism and naturalism

The civil war and westward expansion did what?

created numerous changes in society and politics

Realism and regionalism allows writers to...

comment on concern of the public (ie. working class struggles, elevation of the middle class, technology, womens rights)

What fueled westward expansion?

improvements in farming equipment (production greater), expansion of railroads (able to physically move west)

what fueled urban and manufacturing development?

invention of electric lightbulb and telephone: new jobs, longer work hours, labor unions

Who started the women's rights movement and who continued it?

transcendentalists, Realists

Why did women's rights advocacy slow during the civil war?

focus on ending slavery, after focus put back on suffrage

What did slavery and women's rights do to romanticism?

Made it seem silly, idealism seemed out of touch, there was a desire to reflect on complexity of controversial issues

What is realism?

literary movement whose authors described life as they saw it

American dream despite realism movement

American's believed in hard work, honesty, reverence: would insure economic success, national harmony, and individual well being

Confronting reality in realism led to...

curiosity to learn about other sections of the country

Regionalism time period

1880-1900

Regionalism focused on...

local color: features of a region (tradition, topography, characters, dialects, customs, history, landscape)

Regionalists analyzed attitudes characters have towards...

one another and their community

In regionalism, the narrator acts as...

a tour guide/translator, makes story understandable

Key figures of regionalism

Mark twain (glorifies region) John Steinbeck, Kate Chopain, William Faulkner (setting influences people's lives)

Where and when was john steinbeck born? died?

1902 in Salinas, Ca, died in 1968

Steinbeck education

Stanford, didn't graduate

Steinbeck Career

moved to NYC 1925, returned to Ca when he didn't make it big, publishes GOW in 1939, gets noble peace prize

Steinbeck focused on...

regionalism: lifestyles of migrant workers and their living conditions

and naturalism.

Steinbeck's work sympathized with...

underdogs, factory workers, farmhands, working class

Steinbeck was influenced by...

Ed Ricketts (philosopher and biologist: independence) Carl Jung (phychoanalyst), Joseph Campbell (professor of Lit: human experience, Quest narrative, epic hero)

Steinbeck believed that...

americans can succeed through hard work, but societal issues prevent dreams from becoming reality.

Response to GOW

"distorted mind", book banned and burned. Won Pulitzer prize

Steinbeck rumored to be...

Communist and Jewish working to undermine American economy

William Faulkner focused on...

regionalism: decay of the Old South and effects on Southern People

What is Naturalism?

more extreme version of realism and regionalism. authors influenced by Charles Darwin. Believed people had little control over their own lives. Convinced that hereditary and environment shaped peoples destiny, wrote about ordinary people, focused on working class/poor.

Naturalism included what literature?

Black spirituals, wartime diaries, letters, journals, speeches

Parts of Regionalism

1. Setting (rural) 2. Characters (dialects, blend into setting) 3. Theme (nostalgia, conflicted between old fashioned (outside intruders in traditional community) 4. Plot (focus on community and its rituals)

Realism time period

Post-civil war (1865-on)

Realist works focused on/inspired by...

Darwin's Theory of evolution, protagonist development, reshaping world after civil war, middle class

Naturalism

type of literature that applies scientific principles of objectivity and thinking on humans

Naturalist writers believed

the laws that govern humans can be studied

Characters in naturalism

not educated, lower middle class, governed by gut-instinct

Settings of naturalism

rural

common themes in naturalism

human inner struggle, struggle against the id (primal instincts), warring emotions, man vs nature, nature as a backdrop for plot (nature is unrelenting and divine force)

Five I's of Romanticism

intuition, imagination, individualism (inner experience), innocence, inspiration fron supernatural

in 1830, US citizens anxious to...

create own identity that was "American"

American Romantic Movement

challenged rational thinking from Age of Reason, fewer instructional texts, more stories, novels, poetry

Characteristics of Romanticism

1. Imagination and escapism (migration to big cities/supernatural elements) 2. individuality (intellectual independence, intuition, melting pot of America) 3. Nature as a source of spirituality 4. looking for wisdom in the past (writers move away from tradition, poets use tradition techniques) 5. Seeing the common man as a hero (Ben Franklin, Natty Bumppo)

Key figures of romanticism

William Cullen Bryan (poet: explores death through life cycle) Fireside poets (Henry wadsworth longfellow, john green whittier, oliver wendell holmes, james russel lowell), Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne

Tension in colonialism

between politics and religion (dem./american) revolution, puritians fled to escape religious persecution

Political turmoil in colonialism from...

Age of Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

(1620-1780) Rise of Science, Newton: rigorous study, logic, math, methodology, facts

Age of Enlightenment leads to...

questioning institutions, belief in leading a purposful life without god.

Key figures of Colonialism

Newton, René Decarts, John Locke (ind. rights)

Longterm effects of colonialism

power moves away from established institutions into secular power and ind. person. Democratic revolutions (US and France) unify countries

Great Awakening

1730-1750 (end of englightenment) return to religion, fire and brimstone)

Key Figures of Great Awakening

Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield

longterm effects of great awakening

backlash against authoritarian rule (people are more educated), fuels further democratic revolt, new age of democracy)

Modernists experimented with?

literary form & expression

Modernism was characterized by what?

the conscious desire to overturn traditional modes of representation & express new sensibilities of their time

Key figures of modernism

Sigmund Freud (questioned the rationality of mankind), T.S. Eliot (emo), Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound (early modernists), William Faulkner, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Ralph Ellison (Late modernists)

Modernists mistrusted...

institutions of power, rejected absolute truth

The post-WWI disillusionment led to... (modernism)

development of unreliable narrators, movement away from "normal" art that was made for everyone.

Modernism is well known for...

"stream of consciousness" style to recreate natural flow of a character's thought, creating a nonlinear novel structure

Elements of Transcendentalism

Optimism (Believed they could find answers to whatever they were seeking.) Civil Disobedience (A higher law than civil law demands the obedience of the individual.) Over-soul (The human soul is part of a universal spirit to which it and other souls), utopian society, societal reformation (end slavery)

Key figures of Transcendentalism

Ralph Emerson (nature), Henry David Thoreau (civil disobedience), Herman Melville (Moby Dick), Margaret Fuller

Definition of Transcendentalism

Form of romanticism, religious, intellectual, and philosophical movement, divine soul, intuition, individualism (aspects include native mysticism), optimism