American Literature

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• American Literature

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Periods of Am. Lit.

• Beginning of American Literature
• 1607-1776 Colonial Period
• 1765-1790 The Revolutionary Age
• 1775-1828 The Early National Period

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2. Romanticism, Transcendentalism

• 1828-1865 The Romantic Period
• (Also known as
• TheAmerican Renaissance)
• The Age of Transcendentalism 1865-1900

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3. Realism, Naturalism

• The Realistic Period 1900-1914
• The Naturalistic Period (extreme realism)
• 1914-1939 1920s 1920s, 1930s
• American Modernist Period
• Jazz Age,
• Harlem Renaissance
• The "Lost Generation"

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1939-present 1950s 1960s, 1970s The Contemporary
Period

• The Beat generation
• American Literature recognizes works of
• African-American Writers
• Native American Writers
• Asian-American Writers

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Colonial Period

• Periods of Am. Literature vary a lot
• Its impossible to give exact dates
• The first literature started to appear after
  founding of the first settlement at Jamestown in
  1607
• It continuoud till the outbreak of the Revolution

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Literary genres

• Historical writings
• Religious themes sermons (kázání)
• tracts
• Writers
• Anne Bradstreet (poet)
• Benjamin Franklin (The Way to Wealth)
• William Bradford

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The Revolutionary Age

• The greatest documents of American history were
  authored
• Thomas Paine (Common Sense he urged
  independence)
• The Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson
  - 1776)
• The Constitution (1789 - ratified)

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The Early National Period

• Beginnings of true Am. Literature
• The writers wrote in th English style but the
  settings, themes and characters were
  authentically American

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• Washington Irving he wrote about Am. Life,
  biography of G. Washington
• James Fenimore Cooper The Last of the Mohicans
• Edgar Allan Poe

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E.A.Poe (1809-1849)

• son of a poor actress (drastic death)
• his father alcoholic
• He was taken by his guardian Mr. Allan
• Studied West Point kicked out
• Marriage with 13 year-old cousin
• She died of TB ten years later despair, grief
  was reflected in his works
• 1849 found delirious in a steet

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• The Raven (poem) - a tired, unhappy student
  asks if he ever meets his love again
• His doubts are underlined by the ravens
  repetition nevermore,
• symbol of doubts and longing

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• The Golden Bug
• The Pit and the Pendulum
• The Black Cat
• The Murders in the Rue Morgue
• The Fall of the House of Usher

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• His work
• 1. realism detective stories logical,
  brilliant, rational
• 2. romanticism irrationalism, mystery,
  violence, criminality, death, passion
• Perverse, vulgar, grotesque style.

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Transcendentalism

• American reflection of European romanticism
• Philosophical movement

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• The transcendal philosophy was based on
• Free will
• Humanity
• Intuition
• Individual conscience
• It glories nature

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• All transcendentalists were isolated people
• They lived in Utopian Community Brookfarm
  near Boston
• The individual can transcend the world and
  discover union with God and Ideal

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Main representatives

• Ralph Waldo Thoreau
• Henry David Thoreau

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Other Romantic Writers

• Herman Melville symbolist (Moby-Dick)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter)
• the main theme sin
• Hester has te wear letter A means adulteress
• Walt Whitman (poet)
• Emily Dickinson (poet)

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Realistic Period

• After Civil War
• Social injustice first millionaires appear
  (Rockefeller)
• discoveries in science (railway, telegraph cable,
  telephone,)
• Growth of education
• Twain called this period gilded age

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Realism

• Action against romanticism
• Main literary form novel
• Authors accuse romanticism of falsehood
• They describe common things, common places,
  everyday life

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Mark Twain

• His real name Samuel Langorne Clemens
• He spent his childhood on the Mississippi river
• Workedon a steamboat on the Mississippi
• Travelled a lot
• He recollects his childhood in his books

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• The Innocents Abroad
• The Gilded Age
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• The Advedntures of Huckleberry Finn
• Tom likes danger, hes always able to avoid
  problems, Huck represents social conscience, hes
  sensitive to everything around him

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Naturalism

• Derived from the word nature (interest in nature)
• It has its origin in France Zola
• Prople are influenced by environmental forces
  (outside us) and inner drives (inside us) peole
  can t control them
• The main drives of characters hunger, fear, sex,
  

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• Their writings are often cruel and tragic.
• Stephen Crane
• Jack London (Tjhe Call of the Wild)
• Theodore Dreiser (An American Tragedy)
• Upton Sinclair (The Jungle)

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Lost Generation

• A term applied for Am. Writers born around 1900,
  who fought in WWI
• The term comes from Gertrude Stein
• Main features description of the loss of
  traditional values as the result of the war
• other social evils

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Ernest Hemingway

• Find some info. about him

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F. S. Fitzgerald

• Connected with Jazz Age in 20s
• Wrote many stories about wealthy people
• The Great Gatsby masterpiece
• (a rich man earns money by smuggling, he loves
  Daisy, but Daisy is married
• Nick a narrator is is disgusted)
• American Dream

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Other 20th century writers

• The Harlem Renaissance
• Harlem (N.Y.) was a centre of it
• Motto Let us return to Africa! (in a literary
  sense)
• We all have sth. in common

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Main representatives

• Langston Hughes
• Countee Cullen
• Richard Wright

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The Great Depression

• the end of American Modernist Period
• William Faulkner
• John Steinbeck
• Eugene ONeil (a playwright)
• Dealt with social and political issues

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Jewish Writers

• Big emigration of the Jews to the US
• Writers explore new themes of identity,
  psychological problems
• They are looking at their racial background
• Saul Bellow
• J.D. Salinger (The catcher in the Rye)
• Bernard Malamud
• Joseph Heller (Cath 22)

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The Beat Generation

• The main personalities
• A. Ginsberg, W. Boroughs, J. Kerouac, G. Corso
• Knew each other, travelled through the US by
  taking drugs and having many sexual affairs
• SAn Francisco cradle of the Beats

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Basic Characteristics

• Wanted to live life without social conventions
• Against supermacy of money
• Their idol wanderer travelling with his bag
  from a state to state, listening to JAZZ, being
  spontaneous, free, sincere
• Taking drugs, drinking alcohol

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Jack Kerouac

• On the Road
• Written on toilet paper
• Journeys from East of States to the West