AMERICAN LITERATURE TERMS

Puritanism A religious reform movement in the late 16th and 17th centuries that
sought to “purify” the Church of England of remnants of the Roman
Catholic “popery” that had been retained after the religious settlement
reached early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and they do not accept
the compromises she offers. Puritans believed that it was necessary to be
in a covenant relationship with God in order to redeem one from one’s
sinful condition, that God had chosen to reveal salvation through
preaching, and that the Holy Spirit was the energizing instrument of
salvation. Mostly second-born people because they did not want to
accept primogeniture. No church hierarchy. Predestination &
Preparatorism.

Congregationalist Members of a Christian movement that arose in England in the late 16th
(Puritans) and 17th centuries. Congregationalists have generally been distrustful of
state establishment of religion and have worked for civil and religious
liberty. Their emphasis on the rights of the particular congregation and
on freedom of conscience arose from their strong convictions
concerning the sovereignty of God and the priesthood of all believers.
Congregationalists were originally called Independents because for them
each individual church is regarded as independent and autonomous.

Separatist (Puritans) Separatist, also called Independent, any of the English Christians in the
16th and 17th centuries who wished to separate from the Church of
England and form independent local churches. The Plymouth Separatists
cooperated with the Puritans who settled Massachusetts Bay. A
fundamental belief of the Separatists was the idea of the gathered church
which was in contrast to the territorial basis of the Church of England
whereby everyone in a certain area was assigned to the parish church;
the foundation of the church was God’s Spirit, not man or the state.

Manifest destiny The idea of “Manifest Destiny” is the supposed inevitability of the
continued territorial expansion of U.S. boundaries westward to the
Pacific, and even beyond. It was often used by American expansionists
to justify U.S. annexation of Texas, Oregon, New Mexico, and
California and later U.S. involvement in Alaska, Hawaii, and the
Philippines. It was first used in 1845 by John L. O’Sullivan.

predestination The doctrine that God has eternally chosen those whom he intends to
save. Predestination is distinct from both determinism and fatalism and
is subject to the free decision of the human moral will; but the doctrine
also teaches that salvation is due entirely to the eternal decree of God.
It's been especially associated with John Calvin and the Reformed
tradition.

City upon a hill The term "city upon a hill" was initially invoked by English-born
Puritan leader John Winthrop. Drawing upon Matthew 5:14–15,
Winthrop articulated his vision of the prospective Puritan colony in New
 England as "a city upon a hill": an example to England and the world of
a truly godly society.

Bay Psalm Book The Whole Book of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English
Metre (1640), was the first book printed on Anglo-American soil. It
included a dissertation on the lawfulness and necessity of singing psalms
in church. John Cotton wrote the Preface to it and Richard Mather was
one of its writers.

Captivity narrative In colonial North America this narrative originally told more-or-less
factual stories of real people - often women - captured by Indians; their
trials, sufferings, adventures; finally, their escape, redemption, or death.
Many of these narratives were published in New England and later in the
west. The metaphorical meaning of this genre was about a single
individual, usually a woman, standing passively under the strokes of
evil, awaiting rescue by the grace of God.

Enlightenment A European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries in

which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and man were synthesized
into a worldview that gained wide assent and that instigated
revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics. Sapere aude
(Horatius). You have the right to life, freedom and the pursuit of
happiness.

Gothic 18th-19th centuries, portraying fantastic tales dealing with horror,

despair, the grotesque and other “dark” subjects. Gothic literature was
named for the apparent influence of the dark gothic architecture. Many
of the Gothic tales took places in “gothic” surroundings, characterized
by an atmosphere of mystery and horror and having a pseudo-medieval
setting, such as old castles, monasteries and hidden trapdoors. In
essence, these stories were romances, largely due to their love of the
imaginary over the logical, and were told from many different points of
view. This literature gave birth to many other forms, such as suspense,
ghost stories, horror, mystery, and also Poe's detective stories.

Twice-Told Tales A short story collection by Nathanial Hawthorne (1837). Generally

praised by contemporaries and critics; contains a lot of allegories.

pastoral An artistic composition dealing with the life of shepherds or with a

simple, rural existence. It usually idealized shepherds' lives in order to
create an image of peaceful and uncorrupted existence. More generally,
pastoral describes the simplicity, charm, and serenity attributed to
country life, or any literary convention that places kindly, rural people in
nature-centered activities. Typically, pastoral liturgy depicts beautiful
scenery, carefree shepherds, seductive nymphs, and rural songs and
dances.

noble savage In literature, an idealized concept of uncivilized man, who symbolizes

the innate goodness of one not exposed to the corrupting influences
of civilization. The glorification of the noble savage is a dominant theme
in the Romantic writings of the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in the
 works of Rousseau. Typically, the depiction of Amerindians, indigenous
African tribesmen, and Australian bushmen in two opposing stereotypes:
(1) the race as inferior to the civilized race and dangerously
superstitious, violent, lazy, or irrational; (2) exotic, primitive, or
uncivilized races and characters as being innately good, dignified, and
noble, living harmoniously with nature. They are thought to be
uncorrupted by the morally weakening and physically debilitating
effects of decadent society.

romance A literary form, usually characterized by its treatment of chivalry that

came into being in France in the mid-12th century. It had antecedents in
many prose works from classical antiquity, but as a distinctive genre it
was developed in the context of the aristocratic courts. It was applied to
narrative compositions similar in character to those imitated from Latin
sources but totally different in origin. In modern English the word can
mean either a medieval narrative composition or a love affair, or, again,
a story about a love affair, generally one of a rather idyllic or idealized
type, sometimes marked by strange or unexpected incidents and
developments

Doppelganger (German: “double goer”) A paranormal double of a living person. The

doppelgänger became a popular symbol of horror literature. In The Fall
of the House of Usher (Poe), the twins are Doppelgängers: the man
represents the mental state, the woman the physical.

narrative ellipsis Ellipsis is a literary device that is used in narratives to omit some parts
of a sentence or event, which gives the reader a chance to fill the gaps by
using imagination while acting or reading it out. It is usually written
between the sentences as “…”. Ellipsis can be dated back to Earnest
Hemingway who also presented the Iceberg theory, which is also called
the theory of omission.

American New England Renaissance, period from the 1830s roughly until the end
Renaissance of the American Civil War in which American literature, in the wake of
the Romantic movement, came of age as an expression of a national
spirit. Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Hawthorne, Stowe… important:
transcendentalism, nature.

Transcendentalism 19th-century movement of writers and philosophers in New England.

Essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of man, and the
supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the
deepest truths. Kant: argumentation philosophy. Emerson: importance of
divination. 1. human and divine unity, the universe is inside the person
2. unity between human and nature – pessimism/optimism later. 3.
imagination, intuition, emotion 4. priority of literature and its creator 5.
American self-reliant (Emerson).

The Dial The literary organ of the American Transcendental movement of which
Fuller was editor; she was succeeded by Emerson. It contained
contributions by Thoreau.
allegory A story in verse or prose with double meaning -> primary (or surface)
and secondary (or under-the-surface); can be read and understood at two
levels.

rite of passage Ceremonial event, existing in all historically known societies, that marks
the passage from one social or religious status to another. In many
Native and African-American communities, traditional Rites of Passage
programs are conducted by community-based organizations.

quest narrative A story that revolves around an adventure, a journey. They usually
revolve around an epic scope (a lot is at stake for the characters and/or
world, the world itself is large and wide-sweeping, etc). It's
characterized by the protagonist stumbling onto several
obstacles/challenges that must be completed in order to progress in the
journey (and story). Another characteristic is that the protagonist
typically meets other characters that divulge necessary knowledge that
will enable the protagonist to complete his quest/adventure/journey.

abolitionism The abolition movement, (c. 1783–1888), in western Europe and the
Americas, the movement chiefly responsible for creating the emotional
climate necessary for ending the transatlantic slave trade and chattel
slavery. The Liberator (anti-slavery newspaper): William Lloyd
Garrison.

Underground A system existing in the Northern states before the Civil War by which
Railroad escaped slaves from the South were secretly helped by sympathetic
Northerners, in defiance of the Fugitive Slave Acts, to reach places of
safety in the North or in Canada. Though neither underground nor a
railroad, it was thus named because its activities had to be carried out in
secret, using darkness or disguise, and because railway terms were used
in reference to the conduct of the system.

Fugitive Slave Law 1850 mandated that states to which escaped slaves fled were obligated to
(1851) return them to their masters upon their discovery and subjected persons
who helped runaway slaves to criminal sanctions. The first Fugitive
Slave Act was enacted by Congress in 1793 but as the northern states
abolished Slavery, the act was rarely enforced. The southern states
bitterly resented the northern attitude toward slavery, which was
ultimately demonstrated by the existence of the Underground Railroad,
an arrangement by which abolitionists helped runaway slaves obtain
freedom.

slave narrative A narrative, often autobiographical in origin, about a slave's life, perhaps
including his original capture, his punishments and daily labor, and his
eventual escape to freedom. Golden age after 1840, it showed that these
slaves are not that primitive.

Linda Brent Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself,

autobiographical narrative by Harriet Jacobs, a former North Carolina
slave, published in 1861. Jacobs’s narrator and alter ego, Linda Brent, is
a woman of mixed descent owned by sadistic Dr. Flint, a pious
 churchgoer who repeatedly beats and rapes Linda and also sells her
children. Very popular because it was taboo, includes graphic
descriptions of brutality, slave auctions, and the cruelty of slave owners’
wives to their husbands’ slave children. White and black women are all
victims of white men. Written after Jacobs’s own escape to freedom.
She wrote it because of other fellow slaves, it’s a public gesture.
Sentimental literature.
Poetry based on the natural rhythms of phrases and normal pauses
free verse
rather than the artificial constraints of metrical feet verse. The form is
thought to add force to thought and expression. Free verse is an open
form of poetry. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any
other musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural
speech. Ezra Pound & T. S. Eliot.

elegy A mournful, melancholy poem, especially a funeral song or lament for

the dead or a personal, reflective poem. Whitman: Lilacs.

slant rhyme a.k.a. "half rhyme", "imperfect rhyme"; a type of rhyme in which two
words located at the end of a line of poetry themselves end in similar—
but not identical—consonant sounds. For instance, the words "pact" and
slicked" could be slant rhymed.

regionalism Local color or regional literature is fiction and poetry that focuses on the
characters, dialect, customs, topography, and other features particular to
a specific region. Between the Civil War and the end of the nineteenth
century this mode of writing became dominant in American literature. It
requires a setting outside the world of modern development, a zone of
backwardness where locally variant folkways still prevail. Its characters
are ethnologically colorful, personifications of the different humanity
produced in such non-modern cultural settings. Above all, this fiction
features an extensive written simulation of regional vernacular, a
conspicuous effort to catch the nuances of local speech. Jewett, Stowe,
Chopin, Twain.

realism (as literary A literary term so widely used as to be more or less meaningless except
mode) when used in contradistinction to some other movement, e.g. naturalism,
Expressionism, Surrealism. “A loosely used term meaning truth to the
observed facts of life.” Depicted a contemporary view of what was
happening; an attempt at defining what was real.
Mark Twain: very important. For Twain and other American writers of
the late 19th century, realism was not merely a literary technique: It was
a way of speaking truth and exploding worn-out conventions.

naturalism (as A literary movement seeking to depict life as accurately as possible,

literary mode) without artificial distortions of emotion, idealism, and literary
convention. The school of thought is a product of post-Darwinian
biology in the nineteenth century. It asserts that human beings exist
 entirely in the order of nature. Human beings do not have souls or any
mode of participating in a religious or spiritual world beyond the
biological realm of nature, and any such attempts to engage in a
religious or spiritual world are acts of self-delusion and wish-fulfillment.
Chopin: The Awakening.

picaresque Early form of novel, usually a first-person narrative, relating the

adventures of a rogue or low-born adventurer as he drifts from place to
place and from one social milieu to another in his effort to survive.

unreliable narrator An imaginary storyteller or character who describes what he witnesses

accurately, but misinterprets those events because of faulty perception,
personal bias, or limited understanding. Often the writer or poet creating
such an unreliable narrator leaves clues so that readers will perceive the
unreliability and question the interpretations offered. Turn of the Screw,
Huckleberry Finn.

limited focalization Focalization is a term coined by the French narrative theorist Gerard
Genette. It refers to the perspective through which a narrative is
presented. A limited narrator, may know absolutely everything about a
single character and every piece of knowledge in that character's mind,
but the narrator's knowledge is "limited" to that character—that is, the
narrator cannot describe things unknown to the focal character. Henry
James.

Cult of Domesticity Cult of true womanhood, value system among the upper and middle
classes (19th century), emphasized new ideas of femininity, woman's
role within the home.

feminism A range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that

share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political,
economic, personal, and social rights for women; Margaret Fuller -
Woman in the Nineteen Century, Harriet Ann Jacobs - Incidents
avantgarde: beginning of the 20th century, (advance guard) are people or works that
are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art,culture, and politics.The avant-
garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the
cultural realm. The avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as
distinct from postmodernism. The avant-garde also promotes radical social reforms. Art
movements: imagism, impressionism, symbolism, surrealism, cubism, dadaism… Writers,
poets: Ezra Pound, W. C. Williams, Ginsberg, E. E. Cummings…

Black Mountain poets: or projectivist poets, were a group of mid 20th century American
avant-garde or postmodernpoets centered on Black Mountain College which launched a
remarkable number of the artists who spearheaded the avant-garde in the America of the
1960s. In 1950, Charles Olson published his essay, Projective Verse that became a kind of de
facto manifesto for the Black Mountain poets. Poets: Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, Denise
Levertov and Robert Creeley.
canon: The term "literary canon" refers to a classification of literature. It is a term used
widely to refer to a group of literary works that are considered the most important of a
particular time period or place. A literary canon establishes a collection of similar or related
literary works

collage: artistic technique of applying manufactured, printed, or “found” materials, such as

bits of newspaper, fabric, wallpaper, etc., to a panel or canvas, frequently in combination
with painting. The word collage was first used to refer to works by Dada and Surrealist
artists, especially Max Ernst. In the 1960s collage was employed as a major form of Pop art.
It means in literature that a work, such as a literary piece, composed of both borrowed and
original material, combining unrelated styles.

confessional poetry: 1950s and 1960s. It has been described as poetry "of the personal". The
content of confessional poems is autobiographical and marked by its exploration of subject
matter that was considered taboo at the time. This subject matter included topics like mental
illness, sexuality, and suicide. The school of poetry that became known as "Confessional
Poetry" was associated with several poets in the 1950s, including Robert Lowell, Sylvia
Plath, John Berryman, Anne Sexton, Allen Ginsberg.

dramatic monologue: A literary, usually verse composition in which a speaker reveals his or
her character, often in relation to a critical situation or event, in a monologue addressed to the
reader or to a presumed listener. T. S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

flapper: "new breed" of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed
their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable
behavior. Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in
a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting social and sexual
norms. The Great Gatsby.

formalist poetry: late-20th and early 21st century movement in American poetry that has
promoted a return to metrical and rhymed verse. Despite the formal innovations of
Modernism as exemplified in the work of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and the widespread
appearance of free verse in the early decades of the 20th century, many poets chose to
continue working predominantly in traditional forms, such as Robert Frost.

Harlem Renaissance: 1924-1929. A blossoming of African American culture, particularly in

the creative arts, and the most influential movement in African American literary history.
Embracing literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts, participants sought to reconceptualise
“the Negro” apart from the white stereotypes that had influenced black peoples’ relationship
to their heritage and to each other. They also sought to break free of Victorian moral values
and bourgeois shame about aspects of their lives that might, as seen by whites, reinforce racist
beliefs. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925
anthology by Alain Locke. Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes.
high modernism: Between the two WW-s. Yeats, Eliot, Auden, Frost. symbolic dualism
(surface and depth, hidden layers, vertical structures: always metaphorical). Coherence: a
poet’s mind always puts extremely different tings together in a new whole. Indirection:
metaphor is a very basic formula. It tries to explain transcendental and abstract issues via
metaphors. The high modernist movement was particularly prevalent during the Cold War,
especially in the late-1950s and 1960s.

iceberg theory: Hemingway’s main instrument is the ellipsis and omission of certain parts
from his works. The reader can feel that there is more under the surface than what is actually
written down. Hemingway believed the true meaning of a piece of writing should not be
evident from the surface story.

imagism: movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favoured precision of

imagery and clear, sharp language. As a poetic style it gave Modernism its start in the early
20th century, and is considered to be the first organized Modernist literary movement in the
English language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness. Imagism called for
a return to what were seen as more Classical values, such as directness of presentation and
economy of language, as well as a willingness to experiment with non-traditional verse forms.
Imagists use free verse. Poet’s Club. Ezra Pound & Amy Lowell.

interior monologue: always presents a character's thoughts ‘directly’, without the apparent
intervention of a summarizing and selecting narrator, it does not necessarily mingle them with
impressions and perceptions. While an interior monologue may mirror all the half thoughts,
impressions, and associations that impinge upon the character’s consciousness, it may also be
restricted to an organized presentation of that character’s rational thoughts.

intertextuality: the concept of texts' borrowing of each others' words and concepts. This
could mean as much as an entire ideological concept and as little as a word or phrase. As
authors borrow pro-actively from previous texts, their work gains layers of meaning. Also,
another feature of intertextuality reveals itself when a text is read in light of another text, in
which case all of the assumptions and implications surrounding the other text shed light on
and shape the way a text is interpreted. Ernest Hemingway draws language from metaphysical
poet John Donne's "Meditation XVII" in naming his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Jazz age: 1920s (ending with The Great Depression) when jazz music and dance became
popular. This occurred particularly in the United States, but also in Britain, France and
elsewhere. Jazz played a significant part in wider cultural changes during the period, and its
influence on pop culture continued long afterwards. Jazz music originated mainly in New
Orleans, and is/was a fusion of African and European music. The Jazz Age is often referred to
in conjunction with the phenomenon referred to as the Roaring Twenties. The term "Jazz
Age" was coined by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby, Streetcar Named Desire.

lost generation: they came of age during World War I. They The term was popularized by
Ernest Hemingway, who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun
Also Rises. In that volume Hemingway credits the phrase to Gertrude Stein, who was then his
mentor and patron. T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alan Seeger. Lost means not vanished but
disoriented, wandering, directionless — a recognition that there was great confusion and
aimlessness among the war's survivors in the early post-war years.

mass culture: the set of ideas and values that develop from a common exposure to the same
media, news sources, music, and art. Mass culture is broadcast or otherwise distributed to
individuals instead of arising from their day-to-day interactions with each other. Thus, mass
culture generally lacks the unique content of local communities and regional cultures. It
developed in the 1990s in the United States due to the proliferation of newspapers and mass
transit with the finish of the transcontinental railroad.

memory play: The term coined by Tennessee Williams to describe non-realistic dramas, in
which the audience experiences the past as remembered by a narrator, complete with music
from the period remembered, and images representing the characters' thoughts, fears,
emotions, and recollections projected on a scrim in the background.

metafiction: describing fictional writing that self-consciously and systematically draws

attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions about the relationship between fiction
and reality, usually using irony and self-reflection. Novels and stories that examine,
experiment with, or poke fun at the conventions and genres of fiction itself. The term "meta-
fiction" means "beyond fiction" or "over fiction," indicating that the author or narrator stands
"beyond" or "over" the fictional text and judges it in a highly self-conscious way. E.g.: A
story about a writer creating a story, a story about a reader reading a book, a story that
features itself (as a narrative or as a physical object), a story containing another work of
fiction within itself (A Clockwork Orange, Heart of Darkness), a story addressing the specific
conventions of story, such as title, character conventions, paragraphing or plots, a novel where
the narrator intentionally exposes him or herself as the author of the story, a book in which the
book itself seeks interaction with the reader, a story in which the readers of the story itself
force the author to change the story, narrative footnotes, which continue the story while
commenting on it or a story in which the characters are aware that they are in a story.

moveable feast: a memoir by Ernest Hemingway about his years in Paris as part of the
expatriate writers in the 1920s. The book describes Hemingway's apprenticeship as a young
writer in Europe (especially in Paris) while married to his first wife, Hadley.

multiculturalism: multiculturalism is the cultural diversity of communities and the policies

that promote this diversity. There is no dominant culture. Multiculturalism is often contrasted
with the concepts of assimilationism and has been described as a "salad bowl" or "cultural
mosaic" rather than a "melting pot".

NAACP: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is an African-
American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to
ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to
eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination"
passing narrative: an account of a person (or group) claiming a racial or ethnic identity that
she does not (or they do not) “possess.” Such narratives speak to the authenticity, the
ambiguity, and the performance of personal identity; they also speak to issues of official and
traditional categorization. The passing narrative necessarily unsettles notions of belonging and
ownership and underscores that race can be viewed as a construction or a series of
conventions. Nella Larsen: Passing: woman of mixed origins try to pass to whites.

Petrarchan sonnet: was not developed by Petrarch himself, but rather by a string of
Renaissance poets. 8+6 lines. Rhyme scheme: a b b a a b b a c d e c d e (can vary).
Conclusion of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, usually positive, but here pessimistic.

radical modernism: Rimbaud, the Imagists, Pound, W. C. Williams, Stein. Direct

presentation, anti-symbolist, values are immanent (consist within limits) rather than
transcendent. The surface has importance. Metonymy is the governing trope, object is nothing
else than an object, horizontal poetry. Freedom and experimenting that can set them free from
social and lingual expectations.

roaring twenties: a period of literary creativity, and works of several notable authors
appeared during the period. D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was a scandal at
the time because of its explicit descriptions of sex. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald;
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.

roman-á-clef: French for novel with a key, is a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade
of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the
relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction. This "key" may be produced separately by
the author, or implied through the use of epigraphs or other literary techniques. The Sun Also
Rises by Ernest Hemingway is a disguised account of Hemingway's literary life in Paris and
his 1925 trip to Spain with several known personalities.

satire: a mode of writing that exposes the failings of individuals, institutions, or societies to
ridicule and scorn. Satire is often an incidental element in literary works that may not be
wholly satirical, especially in comedy. A feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm, but
parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are
all frequently used in satirical speech and writing.

Southern gothic: American South, deeply flawed, disturbing or eccentric characters. While
the tales in literature can be set among various classes, the decay of the southern aristocracy
and the setting of the plantation are the usual settings for southern gothic tales in the popular
mind. William Faulkner: A Rose for Emily. Tennessee Williams.

Yankee pastoral: Robert Frost. Within the United States, Yankee usually refers to people
from the north, largely those who fought for the regions in the Union side of the American
Civil War, but also those with New England cultural ties, such as descendants from colonial
New England settlers, wherever they live. Its sense is more cultural than literally geographic.
The speech dialect of New England is called "Yankee" or "Yankee dialect." As Harriet
Monroe said: “Perhaps no other poet in our history has put the best of the Yankee spirit into a
book so completely.”