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American Literary Movements
American Literary Movements
The following timeline shows the period of each American literary movement and its duration.
The term American literary movement refers to the periods of evolution in American literature and the
characteristics that literature from different time periods shares. Factors that unify literature within a particular
movement might include the style of the authors' writing, common themes or ideas, and the influence of the era’s
social and political climate.
With the arrival of European settlers, the first period of English language literature began. As Puritans settled in
New England, they used literature, not for entertainment, but rather to explore religious themes and biblical
teachings. Puritan literature was generally non-fiction and included letters, diary entries, and other details of daily
activities.
At the same time, Colonial literature was also developing in America. Like Puritan literature, the literature of the
Colonial period was mostly non-fiction and geared towards descriptions of daily life. The major difference,
however, was the religious content of Puritan literature, while Colonial writers like Captain John Smith focused on
describing the process of colonization for those back home in Europe and Great Britain.
The American Revolution in 1775 marked the start of the Revolutionary and Early National literary movements. As
you might guess, this literary movement was strongly influenced by the development of the new nation and the
fight for independence. As a result, much of the literature from this period was political in nature. These texts
included political essays discussing the formation of the new government as well as propaganda pamphlets
supporting the revolutionaries’ cause.
Some of the most important writers of this period were also well-known political figures, such as Benjamin Franklin
(1706-1790), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), and Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804).
Influenced by the Enlightenment in Europe, American authors in the Revolutionary and Early National periods also
embraced the literary movement of Rationalism. A preference for rational thought and deductive reasoning shaped
texts of the era, including The Declaration of Independence (1776) and Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason (1794).
This was the first time American authors tried to separate themselves from the literary traditions of Europe and
Great Britain. Authors such as Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melville wrote novels and poetry inspired by the
American landscape and the ideals of freedom and individuality.
American Romanticism was also the first literary movement in the United States that split into several sub-
movements. These sub-movements included Transcendentalism, Dark Romanticism, American Gothic, and the
poetry of the Fireside Poets.
Towards the middle of the 19th century, American literature began to move away from Romanticism as authors
embraced the literary movements of Realism and Naturalism. The horrors of the Civil War had changed the mood
of the country and the idealism of Romanticism was no longer applicable.
Instead, American authors such as Stephen Crane and Mark Twain sought to depict life as it really was, even the
parts that might have been ugly or unpleasant. This movement was also exemplified in the proliferation of slave
narratives that were published in the wake of the Civil War, including Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) by
Harriet Jacobs.
Towards the end of the 19th century, Mark Twain became one of the most important writers associated with the
literary movement known as regionalism or local color fiction. His novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and
The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin (1884) paid special attention to regional specifics, including dialect, landscape,
and customs.
Following World War II, Modernism began to shift into Postmodernism, a literary movement that eschewed
meaning and embraced disorder and fragmentation. Postmodern authors such as Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick
wrote playful, distorted texts that often relied heavily on metafiction and intertextuality.
By the mid to late 20th century, American literature had begun to resemble the diverse body of work that we see
today. American drama grew in importance, with the first performances of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named
Desire (1947) and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949). American poets as diverse as Sylvia Plath and Allan
Ginsberg established a variety of literary movements including the San Francisco Renaissance, New Formalism, the
Confessional Poets, and the Beat Generation.
The urge towards experimentation and the breaking of literary conventions that began during the Modernist and
Experimental periods continue to influence American literature, which represents a broad variety of literary
themes, styles, and genres.
Examples include trickster myths, often featuring a coyote as the troublemaker, and creation myths to explain how
various aspects of the world came into being.
Non-fiction materials, including journal and diary entries or letters. Literature was not for entertainment but for
religious instruction.
Examples include Of Plymouth Plantation (1651) by William Bradford and the poetry of Anne Bradstreet.
Focused on describing the process of colonization and daily life in the colonies.
Examples include A True Relation of Virginia (1608) and The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the
Summer Isles (1624) by John Smith.
Focus on political ideology and the use of literature to further the cause of independence.
Examples include The American Crisis (1776-1783) by Thomas Paine and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
(1773).
Focus on political ideology and the use of literature to build national identity.
Popular literary forms included political essays and most literature remained non-fiction in nature.
Examples include the Federalist Papers (1787-1788) and The Declaration of Independence (1776).
Focus on themes of individualism, the beauty of nature, and conveying strong emotions.
Sub-movements of American Romanticism include Transcendentalism, Dark Romanticism, American Gothic, and
the Fireside Poets.
Transcendentalism
Examples include Walden (1854) by Henry David Thoreau and the poetry of Walt Whitman (1819-1892).
Dark Romanticism
Focus on the fallibility of the individual and the tendency towards self-destruction.
Opposite of Transcendentalism: the individual cannot transcend the world around them.
Examples include Moby Dick (1851) by Herman Melville and The Scarlet Letter (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
American Gothic
Examples include the short stories “The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) by Edgar Allan Poe and "The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow" (1820) by Washington Irving.
Fireside Poets:
Examples include William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882).
Naturalism (1865-1914)
Examples include Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) by Stephen Crane and To Build a Fire (1902) by Jack London.
Slave Narratives
Focus on simple language to realistically and matter-of-factly portray the horrors of slavery.
Examples include A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) by Frederick Douglass, and
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) by Harriet Jacobs.
Experimentation with structure and point of view in both poetry and prose.
Sub-movements within Modernism and Experimentation include the Harlem Renaissance and the Lost Generation.
Examples include the poetry of Langston Hughes (1901-1967) and Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) by Zora
Neale Hurston.
Examples include The Sun Also Rises (1926) by Ernest Hemingway and The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott
Fitzgerald.
Novels and essays that were published after World War II.
Authors employ a wide variety of themes and styles to describe the experience of the contemporary world, usually
following the themes and arguments seen in Postmodernism.
Examples include To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee and Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison.
Examples include A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) by Tennessee Williams and Death of a Salesman (1949) by
Arthur Miller.
Sub-movements within Modern American Poetry include the San Francisco Renaissance, New Formalism,
Confessional Poetry, The New York School, the Beat Generation, the Black Mountain Poets, and Poetry Slam.
Examples include the poetry of Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) and William Everson (1912-1994).
New Formalism
Poets rejected free verse and instead returned to traditional forms of rhyme, meter, and verse.
Examples include the poetry of Charles Martin (1942-present) and Molly Peacock (1947-present).
Confessional Poetry
Examples include the poetry of Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) and Anne Sexton (1928-1974).
Focus on depicting everyday life while embracing humor and references to popular culture.
Examples include the poetry of John Ashbery (1927-2017) and Alice Notley (1945-present).
Beat Generation
Examples include the poetry of Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) and Jack Kerouac (1922-1969).
Black Mountain Poets
Focus on the use of conversational language and turning away from poetic conventions of the past.
Examples include the poetry of Charles Owen (1910-1970) and Larry Eigner (1927-1996).
Poetry Slam
Examples include the poetry of Taylor Mali (1965-present) and Anis Mojgani (1977-present).