English 11:American Literature

Mr. Cooper

AIM: What is American Literature?

• Define: AMERICA• Name 20 American Authors• Name 5 American literary movements

Can’t do it, can you?

Define: AMERICA

Define: AMERICA

Define: AMERICA

Definition

• “America” is a country founded on a constitution, a system of fundamental laws and principles that govern us

• Is that really a definition of this country, though?

• Perhaps through analysis of American literature, we can define ourselves within America’s own story.

Native AmericansArrived 40,000 – 20,000 BCE

• How could Columbus have discovered America? People were already here!

• “oral tradition” – stories passed on by word of mouth

• Emphasis on respect for nature / animals• Lots of figurative language

Colonialism & Puritanism1600-1800

• Diaries and histories, emphasizing connection between God and everyday lives

• Religion is a personal, inner experience• Plain style of writing• Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an

Angry God”

The Revolutionary Period1750-1800

• Political Pamphlets• Speeches & Rhetoric• “The Declaration of Independence”• “Speech to the Virginia Convention” (Give me

liberty, or give me death!)• “The Crisis” (Thomas Paine)

Romanticism1800-1860

• Valued feeling, idealism• The power of the imagination – especially

poetry• “unspoiled nature”• Individualism• Gothic style – think Edgar Allan Poe

Transcendentalism1840-1860

• Everything in the world is a reflection of “The Divine Soul”

• They love nature because it’s spiritual• They hate conformity• Henry David Thoreau: Walden, “Civil

Disobedience”• Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Self Reliance”, Nature

Civil War & American Realism1850-1900

• Realism: the opposite of Romanticism• Civil War causes feelings of disillusionment• Presents everyday life and ordinary people as

realistically as possible• “Regionalism”• Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry

Finn• Kate Chopin: “The Story of an Hour”

Modernism1900-1950

• Loss of faith in the “American Dream”• More disillusionment!• Experimental styles favored over traditional

literature• “inner workings of the human mind”• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald• “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot• The poetry of Langston Hughes• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Postmodernism & Contemporary1950 - Present

• Media and information technology• Sense that culture constantly duplicates itself

– nothing is unique• No real definitive style; a lot more variety• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger• Beloved by Toni Morrison• The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Where do we begin?

• In the beginning, of course!

• Let’s read an excerpt from “The Iriquois Constitution” (textbook page 21)

• Serves as a basis of the United States Constitution hundreds of years later