Literary TIme periods
Native American Lit. (How the text looks)
Explains nature and often takes place in a primal world
Native American Lit.
Formation of the world through struggle and Movements from a sky world to a water world by means of a fall
Native American Lit. (Authors)
John Rollin Ridge, Sherman Alexie, but MOSTLY ORAL TRADITION
Native American
Trickster heroes provide for disorder and change
Colonial Lit. (How the text looks)
Written in a plain style, unadorned with figurative language
Colonial Lit.
Diaries and letters
Colonial Lit.
Themes of Salvation, man’s sinfulness, and Moral Law
Colonial Lit. (Authors)
Jonathan Edwards, Anne Bradford, and Cotton Mather
Age of Reason Lit. (Enlightenment or Revolutionary) (How the text looks)
Emphasis on Logic and Rational Thought
Age of Reason Lit. (Enlightenment or Revolutionary)
Humanity’s inherent goodness and the universe is orderly
Age of Reason Lit. (Enlightenment or Revolutionary) (Authors)
Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin & Thomas Paine
Age of Reason Lit. (Enlightenment or Revolutionary)
Influence helped the creation of the Declaration of Independence
Age of Reason Lit. (Enlightenment or Revolutionary)
Reason over Faith, or “Common Sense”
Romantic Lit. (How the text looks)
Inspired by myths, legends, and folktales (Fantasy); & Prefers innocence over sophistication
Romantic Lit.
A journey is often a flight from something and a flight to something
Romantic Lit. (Authors)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, & Oliver Wendell Holmes
Romantic Lit.
The Fireside Poets
Transcendentalism Lit. (How the text looks)
Had a sense of intense individualism and “Self-Reliance”
Transcendentalism Lit.
Valued Individuality, Non-conformity, & Freethought
Transcendentalism Lit. (Authors)
Henry David Thoreau & Ralph Waldo Emerson
Transcendentalism Lit.
Valued Nature and Human Intuition
Transcendentalism Lit.
Immanuel Kant wrote, in his Critique of Practical Reason (1788): “To him, Transcendentalism meant the knowledge or understanding a person gains intuitively, although it lies beyond direct physical experience.”
Realism Lit. (How the text looks)
Settings are familiar to the author & plots emphasize “the norm of daily experience.”
Realism Lit.
Reveal ugliness & cruelty of life, but leaves the conclusions to the reader
Realism Lit. (Authors)
Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, & Herman Melville
Realism Lit.
Began with the suffering of the Civil War
Realism Lit.
Slavery
Naturalism Lit. (How the text looks)
Influenced by Determinism or Fatalism
Naturalism Lit.
Futile attempts of human beings to exercise free will in a universe that ironically reveals that free will is just an illusion.
Naturalism Lit. (Authors)
Jack London, Stephen Crane, & Edith Wharton
Naturalism Lit.
Characters as Marionettes
Naturalism Lit.
A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”
Modernism Lit. (How the text looks)
Use of classical allusions and juxtapositions
Modernism Lit.
Alienation of the individual & Breakdown of Societal Norms
Modernism Lit. (Authors)
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, & William Faulkner
Modernism Lit.
This period is heavily associated with the time between the two world wars
Modernism Lit.
Urbanization, Harlem Renaissance, Jazz, The Great Gatsby
Postmodernism Lit. (How the text looks)
Comments on itself, can overlap fiction & nonfiction and features cultural diversity
Postmodernism Lit.
Irony, playfulness, and black humor
Postmodernism Lit. (Authors)
Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, & Joseph Heller
Postmodernism Lit.
Paranoia
Postmodernism Lit.
Plurality and Cultural Diversity