Trickster Tales – a story featuring anthropomorphized animal who has magical powers, and

helped to bring the world to the present shape – common as a native American oral story

Puritans – radical religious people who believed that church should be purified from roman
catholic influences – they threatened to disrupt the unity of the church, so they started to be
persecuted in England. Most radical Puritans left England to Holland and finally Plymouth.
They believed in ultimate human depravity, predestined election and irresistibility of faith.

Autobiography – Early personal narratives and journals written in the confessional mode –
for Puritans, didactic and ideological – they provide glimpses into their psyches; many of
them recorded moments of conversion – moments of turning away from God and then
returning.

Sermons – chief means through which God communicates his grace through his believers.
Preached in a plain, yet inventive style, using metaphors, analogies and similes. They consist
of explanation, where the doctrine is explained, and then application – where the passage
from the Bible is applied to life

Captivity narratives – stories told by Puritans who were captured by natives, and then
escaped captivity and wanted to record their experiences – Mary Rowlandson and John
Williams

Travel literature – literature describing travels through American wilderness, focusing on

landscapes and encountered people – Sarah Kemble Knight

Puritan poetry – poetry using direct and simple language to describe the world created by
perfect being

The Great Awakening (swan song of colonial America) – revivalist religious movement
occurring in 1730s and 1740s, when many traveling preachers would move from place to
place, organizing meetings, where they preached powerful sermons, addressing people’s
emotions. They wanted to stress experiential aspect of faith and stress the importance of
inviting God to hearts. It was a reaction for overintellectual religion and the swan song of
colonial, puritan America.

The American Schizophrenia – Times when colonial America was straddling between the
worlds of Enlightenment and Great Awakening.
The Enlightenment – The Age of Reason, called by Immanuel Kant – the Maturity of
mankind. He claimed that mankind used to be like children – superstitious (implying belief in
God). Now they were mature – valued the power of human mind, rather than relying on
religion. Human beings were capable of explaining the world in rational terms.

Deism – belief that God has created the world, and then stopped interfering and let it be.

Slave narratives – Stories written by freed slaves in order to describe life in slavery.

Narrative of an indentured servant – Stories written by indentured servants in order to

describe living in indenture.

The sentimental novel – type of novel, where virtue is rewarded and vice is punished. It is
supposed to teach women on how to avoid scandal errors, how to be moral and how to avoid
dangers of seduction. It is usually showing tragic consequences of seduction, reinforcing
traditional values and reflecting the helplessness of 18th century women

The picaresque novel – novel, where main character is a traveling “good, bad boy”, living
through many adventures, which has an episodic structure

The gothic novel – novel which combines elements of horror and romance, contains scary
elements of plot and a theme of mystery

Romanticism – characteristics:
● Glorification of nature
● Themes of solitude and individualism
● Supernatural elements
● Interest in common man
● Focus on spirituality

Dark romanticism – sub-genre of romanticism, reflecting popular fascination with the

irrational, the demonic and grotesque. Dwells on the dark human urges.

Literature of the South – characteristics and changes

During colonial times – not much literature 🡪 Focus on money, agrarity and hierarchy.
During romanticism 🡪 Edgar Allan Poe – most prominent figure. Colonists of south wanted
to build a garden, not the city upon a hill. They developed a pseudo medieval culture, build
upon feudalism;
During Realism – South dominated by nostalgia for a lost cause – South as it was before civil
war; many writers celebrated southern society as it was during plantations and slavery 🡪
Creole Culture of New Orleans – focus on search for liberation and freedom in post-civil war
American South
Mark Twain was then the most prominent writer, who wrote in a vernacular manner.
During modernism 🡪 William Faulkner wrote about South – he contrasted Old South with
New South. 🡪 also a representative of Southern Gothic
American South – had separate history, was agricultural, rejected middle class and progress. It
was more violent than other cultural regions of America. There was a sense of loss, alienation
and defeat after the civil war. It put southern writers with alienation of modernism. Society
was also different than in other regions – aristocracy became impoverished – plantation
owners lost their slaves, but those who were freed were not offered other opportunities to
earn, so they had to work again for their owners; plantation workers finally became
impoverished and very poor white people (called in a slur way - white trash) were gaining
careers

Transcendentalism – 19th century movement of writers and philosophers, who saw that
human nature is good, but the world could be a better place. They Believed that reforms could
lead to greater equality and better world. The movement begun with R.W. Emerson’s lecture
called – Nature, where he claimed that a human being is situated at intersection of two
realities – spiritual (God, soul) and nature (our bodies, creation of God)

Difference between novel and romance – according to Nathaniel Hawthorne, novel is more
concerned with the superficial reality, whereas romance is concerned with the truth of the
heart. There are certain rules that have to be obeyed while writing a novel, but when the
romance is concerned, there aren’t any.

Fruitlands – Transcendentalist’s experiment at communal living, which was a brain child of

Amos Bronson Alcott. They introduced vegan diet at the community, and wanted to use the
land without labor, which meant no tea, coffee, and use of only those vegetables, which grew
upward, (those which grew downward were killed by pulling them off of the ground). Very
short lived experiment which ended in bankruptcy.

Brook Farm – Transcendentalist’s experiment at communal living, established in 1841 by

George and Sophia Ripley. The community provided education for all participants and was
closed in 1847. They played a great role in American philosophy and religion, and homed the
most important American writers of that period, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret
Fuller

Realism – literary movement started in 1865, that attempts to represent subject-matter

truthfully, avoiding supernatural elements. Realist authors chose to depict everyday activities
and experiences, were fascinated by the city and insisted on precise descriptions.

Regional realism – Also called – Local Color Fiction - literature of memory, including
elements of nostalgia for a way of life and landscapes that were disappearing, due to the
industrialization

Melting Pot – the idea, that the society of United States despite having many different
cultures, is gradually becoming one.

The Gilded Age – Mark Twain called America that way, since the surface was shining, and
the inside was corrupted.

Classical realism – realism which deals mostly with the middle class, showing individual
struggles to become successful and fulfil American dream

Test of realism – a way of testing whether a piece of work belongs to realism. If the
characters can make conscious choices and have the freedom of will, then the work is realist.

Psychological realism – Focus on the way people perceive the reality and how the
consciousness works. It is the key bridge between realism and modernism. Represented by
Henry James.

Naturalism – literary movement beginning in late 19th c., rejecting romanticism, but
embracing determinism, scientific objectivism and social commentary.

Naturalism – characteristics:
● Determinism
● Pessimism
● Human condition influenced by inheritance
● Focus on poverty and miserable conditions
 ● Story set in an urban environment
● Social Darwinism
● Lack of free will
● Everything determined by heredity, environment, instincts and drives
● Amoral view of reality

Differences between realism and naturalism

Realism vs. Naturalism
● Focus on the ordinary vs. Rejecting the ordinary, focusing on the fringes of society
and experience – often include extreme or shocking events and/or material
● Focus on the individual vs. No interest in the individual, but in larger human patterns
and movements
● Exploring individual ethical choice vs. Rejecting the power of human choice, humans
were driven by biological and social forces beyond their control
Chicago Literary Renaissance – flourishing of literary activity in Chicago during the period
from approximately 1912 to 1925. They realistically depicted the contemporary urban
environment, decrying the loss of traditional rural values in the increasingly industrialized and
materialistic American society, and the failure of the romantic promise. Its leading writers
were Edgar Lee Masters, Vachel Lindsey, Carl Sandburg and Sherwood Anderson

The Armory show in 1913 – First possibility for Americans to see impressionists and
cubists. It inflicted giant shock on the society. Marcel Duchamp’s Nude descending a
staircase caused the change of the nature of perception. Old way of depicting reality wouldn’t
do after it. The artists became aware that what we see is an illusion, and that reality is in
movement. It is considered to begin modernism.

Modernism – started with first world war, had an impact on the whole generation of writers,
who fought or served as non-combatants in WWI. They all started to question the old
conventions and truths, lost many values, and spirituality, started to ask the question – Where
was God during the war?

Modernism characteristics:
● Impression
● No smoothly-flowing stories
● Writing technique that would work with discontinuity of life
● Dissonance
● Construction out of fragments
● Omitting explanations
● Collages – collections of fragments
● Often several narrators telling contradictory story
 ● Irony
● Understatements
● Symbols
● Images
● Challenging for the reader, searching for missing coherence
● Style stressed on discipline, working hard and revising 🡪 artist is a craftsman and art
is rigorous

Lost Generation – group of writers who were in early adulthood during WWI, so that they
became soldiers or non-combatants. They often wrote about their war experiences. Among
such writers there are Ernest Hemingway, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and
William Faulkner

Harlem Renaissance – rediscovery of African-American culture in Harlem in 1920s, where

the Negros were discovered producing exciting art – jazz music, painting, literature, poetry
and novels. Main cultural centre was the Cotton Club in Harlem

Southern Gothic – subgenre of gothic unique to America. It relies on the supernatural,

unusual events to guide the plot – it uses these tools to comment on cultural characteristics
and difference of the south, explores social issues of the region. Characters are often
exaggerated grotesques. It examines human condition and human beings’ potential for evil.
Among southern gothic writers there are William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, Flannery
O’Connor and Truman Capote.

Literature of the Thirties – literature addressing problems of lower classes, these writers
were interested in socialistic ideas and proletariat. The most prominent 30s writer was John
Steinbeck.

The Tranquilized Fifties – 1950s, when the literature was addressing the problem of
heightening of human alienation from the crowd. The tranquilized fifties manifesto is J.D.
Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye

Silent Generation – the generation of writers, who were born between 1928 and 1945 –
Great Depression of the 1930s and WWII caused people to have fewer children and as a result
the generation is comparatively small
The Beat Generation – literary movement started in the 2nd half of the 1950s, by Allen
Ginsberg after reciting his Howl. Members of the movement wore black sweaters, turtlenecks,
glasses and beards. They travelled route 66 in search of freedom and existence, lived
spontaneously, rejected graduation, education, getting married and having children. Always
drunk and on the road. They were the first group of writers who adopted the idea of
postmodernism. Apart from Ginsberg, there was also Jack Kerouac and William S.
Burroughs.

Existentialism – movement in philosophy and literature that emphasizes individual existence,

freedom and choice. It is based on the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and
try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. It focuses on the
question of human existence, and the feeling that there is no purpose or explanation at the
core of existence. As there is no God or any other transcendent force, the only way to counter
this nothingness (and hence finding the meaning of life) is by embracing existence.

Postmodernism – mainstream post WWII avant-garde – continued literary experiments in

response to the irrationality of WWII.

Postmodernism – characteristics:
● Embracing of randomness
● Fragmentation
● Intertextuality
● Disrupting representational realist literary conventions
● Introduction of a character, who is a persona of an author
● World experienced as a text – reality is a system of codes, constructed by shadowy
others for unguessable purposes
● Plot is more important than the character – flat characters; labyrinthian plots
● Violations of genre conventions
● Parallel realities and counter stories within stories

Black humor novels – one of post-modernist genres, focusing on dealing with serious
matters through the lens of black humor – irrationality of history cannot be talked without
laughter through tears

Metafiction/self-reflexive fiction – literary works that openly reflect upon their own
processes of artful composition. Typical in postmodernism among such authors as Donald
Barthelme, John Barth and Vladimir Nabokov

Native American Renaissance – in the late 1960s and 70s, a generation of native Americans
educated in English language institutions were coming of age. They initiated period of
historical revisionism and public interest in native American communities. The plot usually
focused on the devotion to sacred landscape, alienated character who ultimately reclaim their
heritage and come back home (usually to reservations)

Imagist movement – movement that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language.
It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in in the English
language. Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot were the prophets of that movement.

Imagist poem – its purpose was to recreate the instant when a thing – outward and objective
– transformed itself into inward and subjective – when impression becomes internalized as
experience

An image according to imagist – that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex
in an instant of time – not simply an image, but also a complex that involves emotions and
intellect

Modernist poem – poem that rejects fixed poetic pattern, and fixed meters – every emotional
state is unique and particular – the particular rhythm is needed to convey it. It relies on a free
verse, shows city as a landscape, describes sexuality rather than romantic love, and uses irony
to keep emotion at distant

Postmodernist poems characteristics:

● Spontaneous utterance – art as a process – not a final product
● Emotional, direct – not an escape from emotion
● Socially and politically engaged
● Repudiation of the persona – confessional poetry – poet speaks with his own voice
● Naturalism – human being is a creaturly being – emphasis on mortality, vulnerable
suffering body
● Weakening of humanism and religion

Open form – postmodernists struggled to write in an open form – since content is unique to
every experience, the form should also be unique. The premises of open form can be found in
jazz, composition by field – by arranging words on a page in a specific manner, attentiveness
as an ideal of life – responsiveness to each moment

Beat poetry – poetry against consumerism, intolerance and America’s establishment

destroying young people, focused on rejection of standard narrative values, exploration of
American and eastern religions, rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of
human condition, experimentations with psychedelic drugs and sexual liberation