What is a literary period?

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Essential Question(s)

• What is a literary period?
• What are the characteristics of the Native
  American Period?

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What is a literary period?

• The period concept suggests
• (1) that literary works can be grouped according
  to what they share with each other within a given
  time span,
• (2) that this grouping can be differentiated from
  other such chronological groupings.
• Literary periods share, in phrase, "systems of
  norms," which include such things as conventions,
  styles, themes, and philosophies
• (Rene Wellek)

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Literary Periods in American Literature

• Native American
• Colonial/Revolutionary/National
• Romanticism/Transcendentalism
• Realism
• Naturalism
• Modernism
• Postmodernism/Contemporary

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Native American Periodpre-1620-1840

• Native American literature is an oral tradition
  of song and stories.
• Any written literature is an account of these
  songs and stories.

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• Much Native American literature focuses on the
  natural world and the sacred world and the
  importance of land and place.
• The dates for this period refer to the period of
  Native American dominance in the New World.

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