American Literary Periods: Key Authors and Characteristics

The Colonial Period

Characteristics: Consisted of journals, travel logs, letters, and elegies about human experience. Prominent themes included witchcraft and religion. Puritan writing was often of low quality and discussed mundane events.
Authors:
- Cotton Mather: Magnalia Christi Americana
- William Bradford
- Anne Bradstreet

Characteristics: Marked the consolidation of the USA as an independent country. The novel became popular. Writing from this period reflected attempts to create new, original American literature, while also showing traces of British roots and aiming for universal appeal.
Authors:
- Washington Irving: Rip Van Winkle
- James Fenimore Cooper: Afloat
- Henry David Thoreau: Important works include Walden (focusing on solitary living and closeness to nature) and A Yankee in Canada.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne: Explored moral and spiritual conflicts, author of The Scarlet Letter.

Context: Scientists and philosophers valued reason over faith. Science was seen as integral to human progress.
Literature: Primarily political documents and speeches.
Authors:
- Benjamin Franklin: Considered a Founding Father of the USA, contributed to the Constitution, wrote an unfinished Autobiography. Invented the lightning rod, stove, and bifocals.
- Thomas Paine: Used a plain style to engage people, author of American Crisis.
- Thomas Jefferson: Helped write the Declaration of Independence.

Characteristics: Rapid growth in transportation and industry. Emergence of social movements advocating for women’s rights and child labor rights; people began to demand more rights. Literature valued feelings and nature over reason. Imagination was seen as capable of providing answers that rationality could not. Works often featured powerful emotions associated with nature and individual feelings, which held more value than reason or logic. The power of imagination was paramount, with poetry considered its highest expression.
The Romantic Hero: Youthful, innocent, intuitive, close to nature, possessing a strong sense of honor, loving nature, and avoiding town life.
Romantic Techniques: Improbable plots, unlikely characterization, and an informal writing style.
Writers:
- Washington Irving: Rip Van Winkle
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Romanticized American history, author of The Song of Hiawatha.
- Edgar Allan Poe:
  - Themes: Mystery, the macabre, gothic elements, deep analysis of human psychology.

Biography: Lived in isolation for 12 years, from a wealthy family, believed in the Bible, and considered her house sacred.
Themes: Love, isolation, depression, religion, faith, nature, time.

Worldview: Characterized by a negative and realistic view of the world. It was a reaction by artists to industrialization.
Major Influence: World War I, with its new weapons, political corruption, and manifestations against the law, brought an end to the sense of optimism.
Themes:
- Real life
- The American Dream (as seen in The Great Gatsby)
- Violence and alienation
- Individualism versus collectivism
- Race and gender relationships
- Uncertain feelings
- Conflicts increasingly centered on society.
Characteristics: Chaotic, futile, pessimistic, fluctuating, loss of faith, values, and morality, and a confused sense of identity.
Historical Context: The Jazz Age, Prohibition (alcohol), women’s suffrage, the Great Depression, and the New Deal.
Writers:
- Robert Frost: Suffered significant family loss. Used contradictions and everyday speech.
  - Subjects: Wood, stars, houses.
  - Notable Works: The Wood-Pile, The Road Not Taken.
- W. H. Auden: Used vernacular speech; his poems often recounted journeys and quests.

Scope: Encompasses a wide range of developments in philosophy, film, architecture, literature, and culture. It emerged as a reaction to Modernism.
Literature: Contains responses to technological advances, cultural diversity, and a reconceptualization of society and history.
Themes: Irony, playfulness, black humor, metafiction, paranoia.
Authors:
- Allen Ginsberg: Homosexual, associated with drug use.
  - The Beat Movement: A leader and voice, which celebrated non-conformity, spirituality, and creativity.
  - Style: Wrote in free verse, though some poems included rhyme.
  - Themes: Dislike of American conformity and selfish desires, protested the Vietnam War, anti-nationalism.
  - Notable Poems: Howl (reflected his liberal views), Kaddish (about his mother and her mental health issues), A Supermarket in California.

Biography: Experienced a difficult childhood, including parental divorce, rape, and a period of not speaking for many years. Faced discrimination for being white.
Setting (in her works): Racism, violence against Black people, the social Black movement.
Notable Works: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Prisoner (written with wisdom).