The -isms of American Literature

Puritanism

The puritans tended to write histories, journals, sermons, and diaries.

• belief in god

• man is lesser, evil

• Emphasis on the hereafter

• Belief in theocracy

• Strict adherence to Biblical rules\

• 1st POV

Puritan writers

William Bradford, Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor

Rationalism

Colonial writing focused on their political agendas and their attempt to win independence from Britain. American revolution

• logic & reasoning

• Man is blank

• Belief in the individual

• Belief in the present (here and now)

• Democracy and poiltics

Rational, Colonial writers (orators)

Thomas Jefferson (The Declaration of Independence); Thomas Paine ("Common Sense"); Benjamin Franklin ("The Autobiography");

Romanticism

westward/national expansion.

• reaction against rationalism and industrialization

• imagination > logic

• extreme emotions

• Belief in and on nature

• Belief in the goodness of the common man

• Belief in individuality

• Focus on mystery and supernatural

• emphasis on the past for inspiration

• Romantic Hero archetype.

Romantic writers

Nathanial Hawthorne; Edgar Allen Poe ("The Raven," "Fall of the House of Usher"); Emily Dickinson;

Transcendentalism

Industrial Revolution and desire for social reform (abolitionism, women’s rights)

• Glorification of nature

• idealization of the individual

• Freedom of thought and expression

• Reliance on oneself and one’s intuition

• Desire to live independently from society’s rules and regulations.

• Active involvement in change

• Focus on humanitarian reform.

• Essays, journals, nature writing, periodicals, travel writing, poetry

Transcendental writers

Ralph Waldo Emerson; Henry David Thoreau ("Walden"); Walt Whitman

Realism Writers

Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Ambrose Bierce

Realism

• Civil war, rise in literacy and media, pushback against romanticism

• Opposed to the imaginary and fanciful

• Slice of life

• Lives of ordinary people

• Belief in honesty and objectivity

• Life as it is without embellishment

• Harsh realities

• Pessimestic

• Regional

• Novel, short stories, social critiques.

Naturalism

• urban growth, industrialization

• Darwin’s theory of evolution

• depressing details

• shocking

• Man is a product of environment & heredity

• Man is a victim of forces greater than himself, over which he has no control, and against which he loses

• Nature is hostile to man

• Novels, narratives, survival stories.

Naturalistic writers (American literature)

Henry James (The Portrait of a Lady); Stephen Crane (Red Badge of Courage), Sinclair Lewis, Jack London (Call of the Wild)

Modernism

WW1, Roaring 20’s, The Great Depression

• Disillusionment and uncertainty with modern life

• Subjective experiences

• Use of new writing techniques (stream of consciousness & fragmentation were common)

• Recurring symbols & motifs

• Reflections/critiques of social, political, & technological changes & institutions

• Often leaves readers with more possibilities and not solutions

• Themes of alienation and loss

• Novel/narratives, poetry.

Modernist movement writers in the US

F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby); Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God ; Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises; A Farewell to Arms); John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men;The Grapes of Wrath.)

Post-Modernism

• WW1, Cold War, rise of consumerism

• Psychological exploration of reality vs. illusion

• Often features unreliable narratives and narrators

• Embraces the idea that solving crises in a chaotic world is not possible

• Man’s search for identity and/or meaning

• Fragmentation

• Use of parody

• Response to modernism (we should move further than just subjective dissatisfaction)

• Anti War Sentiments

• Common themes:

  • Anxiety

  • Uncertainty

  • Inability to communicate despite availability of communication tools

• Novels, Poems

Post-Modernism Authors

Kathy Acker, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood