Time Periods in American Literature

Colonial Period years

1607-1775

Revolutionary Age years

1765-1790

The Early National period years

1775-1828

American Renaissance years

1828-1865

Realistic period years

1865-1900

Naturalist period years

1900-1914

Modern period years

1914-1939

Beat generation years

1944-1962

Contemporary period years

1939-present

Colonial period summary

during the founding of Jamestown until the Revolutionary war. Writings were historical, practical or religious

The Revolutionary Age summary

a decade before the revolutionary war. Writings were political, such as “Declaration of Independence”, “The Federalist Papers”

The Early National Period summary

American comedy, fiction, poetry

The American Renaissance summary

greatest of American literature, first novels were written by African American authors, male and female

Realistic period summary

after the Civil War, reconstruction and industrialism occurred leading to realistic descriptions of American life

The naturalistic period summary

short period that recreated life realistically. In writing, characters are victims who fall prey to their own instincts

The modern period summary

second most influential and artistically rich age. Contains jazz age, Harlem Renaissance, Lost generation, Great Depression and New Deal. Writers were influenced by WW1.

Beat Generation summary

devoted to anti traditional literature, poetry, prose, anti-establishment politics. Rise in confessional poetry and sexuality in literature which led to legal challenges and debates over censorship

Contemporary period summary

after WW2 American literature became varied. In this time period, many writers works became classics.m

The colonial period writers

Phillis Wheatley, Cotton Mather, William Bradford, Anne Bradstreet and John Winthrop

The Revolutionary Age writers

Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton

The Early National Period writers

Royall Tyler, William Hill, James Fenimore Cooper, Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe and William Cullen Bryant

The realistic period writers

William Dean Howells, Henry James, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson

Naturalist period writers

Frank Nrris, Theadore Dreiser, Jack London and Edith Wharton

The modern period writers

E.E. Cummings, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner

Beat Generation writers

Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Henry Miller

The contemporary period writers

Kurt Vonnegut, Amy Tan, Sylvia Plath, Arthur Miller, Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros, Maya Angelo, James Baldwin, Alice Walker

American Renaissance writers

Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe