literary periods and their characteristics.doc

7/28/2019 Literary Periods and Their Characteristics.doc

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LITERARY PERIODS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS

PERIODS Genre/Style Effect/Aspects HistoricalContext

ExamplesAnd style

PURITAN/COLONIAL1650-1750

Bradford's OfPlymouthPlantationRowlandson's"A Narrativeof theCaptivity"Edward's"Sinners inthe Hands ofan AngryGod"Though notwritten duringPuritan times,The Crucible& The ScarletLetterdepict

life during thetime whenPuritantheocracyprevailed.The plain

style is the

simplest of

the three

classical

forms of

style. In

choosing the

plain style,

Puritanwriters

eschewed

features

common to

the rhetoric of

the day; they

declined to

stuff their

sermons with

the rhetorical

flourishes and

learned

quotations ofthe

metaphysical

style of

sermon,

believing that

to be the

province of

Archbishop

Laud and his

InstructiveReinforcesauthority of theBible and church

Predestination.:

Puritans believed

that belief in

Jesus and

participation in

the sacraments

could not alone

effect one's

salvation; one

cannot choose

salvation, for that

is the privilege of

God alone. Allfeatures of

salvation are

determined by

God's

sovereignty,

including

choosing those

who will be

saved and those

who will receive

God's irresistible

grace. The

Puritansdistinguished

between

"justification," or

the gift of God's

grace given to the

elect, and

"sanctification,"

the holy behavior

that supposedly

resulted when an

individual had

been saved;

according to The

English

Literatures of

America,

"Sanctification is

evidence of

salvation, but

does not cause it"

(434)

A persons fate isdetermined byGodAll people arecorrupt and mustbe saved byChrist

Given our

situation in the

world today, do

we still show

Puritan

influences?

The painful,

modern 86-year

stretch of losing

Boston Red Sox

baseball,epitomized as the

curse of the

Bambino, for the

1918 trade of

Babe Ruth to

New York, which

was broken only

a few days ago,

was taught by the

elders of the Red

Sox Nation in

Massachusetts

and surroundingNew England to

be a lesson in

Calvinism.

This is the notion

that bad things

will happen to

good people

key tenet of

Calvinist belief is

that God so

controls the

world that

everything in it is

pre-ordained,

from Billy (For

Cipriani :all

things connect)

Buckner letting

the ball go

between his legs

to allow the

scoring of the

The Ivy League

schools are the Puritan

product of the Puritan

need to educate inorder to understand

Gods light

America today is a

product of those

Puritans. We need to

know where they

came from and how

they changed from

what came before to

what we are today.

For excellent ideas

providing further

research:

http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.

us:8080/tserve/getbac

k/gbpuritan.htm

Their concern for

education was

important in the

development of the

United States, and the

idea of congregational

democratic church

government was

carried into the

political life of the

state as a source of

modern democracy.

Prominent figures in

New England

Puritanism include

Thomas Hooker , John

Cotton , Roger

Williams , Increase

Mather , and Cotton

Mather .


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winning run in

the 1986 World

Series, down to

the flight of the

smallest sparrow.

God knew this

was going tohappen.

God made it

happen.

God always does

something like

this.

Godpunishes us

for our sins like

this

ROMANTICISM

1800-1860 For allmen live bytruth, and stand

in need of

expression. Inlove, in art, in

avarice, in

politics, in labor,in games, we

study to utter our

painful secret.The man is only

half himself, the

other half is his

expression.

The development of the selfbecame a major theme; self-

awareness a primary

method. If, according toRomantic theory, self and

nature were one, self-

awareness was not a selfishdead end but a mode of

knowledge opening up the

universe. If one's self wereone with all humanity, then

the individual had a moral

duty to reform social

inequalities and relieve

human suffering. The idea

of "self" -- which suggestedselfishness to earlier

generations -- was

redefined. New compoundwords with positive

meanings emerged: "self-

realization," "self-expression," "self-

reliance."

Poems and

essays ofEmerson &ThoreauThoreau'sWaldenAphorisms ofEmerson andThoreauNathanielHawthorne'sThe ScarletLetterPoe's "TheMasque ofthe Red

Death" and"The BlackCat"

Go further

http://www.cs

ustan.edu/eng

lish/reuben/pa

l/chap4/4intro

.html

Value feeling and

intuition overreasoningJourney awayfrom corruption ofcivilization andlimits of rationalthought towardthe integrity ofnature andfreedom of theimaginationHelped instillproper genderbehavior for menand women

Allowed people tore-imagine theAmerican past

Expansion of

magazines,newspapers, andbook publishingSlavery debatesIndustrialrevolution bringsideas that the "oldways" of doingthings are nowirrelevant

Washington Irving's

"Rip Van Winkle"William CullenBryant's "Thanatopsis"Dunbar's "We Wearthe Mask"Poems of EmilyDickinsonPoems of Walt

Whitman Romantic

ideas centered around

art as inspiration, the

spiritual and aesthetic

dimension of nature,

and metaphors of

organic growth. Art,rather than science,

Romantics argued,

could best express

universal truth. The

Romantics

underscored the

importance of

expressive art for the

individual and society.

In his essay "The

Poet" (1844), Ralph

Waldo Emerson,

perhaps the most

influential writer ofthe Romantic era,

asserts:

AMERICAN Writings of Transcendentali Today in


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RENAISSANCE/TRANSCENDENTALISM1840-1860(Note overlap intime period with

Romanticism --some consider theanti-transcendentaliststo be the "dark"romantics orgothic)

Twain,Bierce, CraneThe Narrativeof the Life ofFrederickDouglassThe

Adventures ofHuckleberryFinn(somesay 1

st

modernnovel)Regionalworks like:TheAwakening.Ethan Frome,and MyAntonia(some saymodern)

sts:*True reality isspiritual*Comes from18

th

centuryphilosopherImmanuel Kant

* Idealists* Self-reliance &individualism* Emerson &ThoreauAnti-Transcendentalists:* Usedsymbolism togreat effect*Sin, pain, & evilexist* Poe,Hawthorne, &

Melville

literature we stillsee portrayals ofalluringantagonistswhose evilcharacteristicsappeal to ones

sense of aweToday inliterature we stillsee stories of thepersecuted younggirl forced apartfrom her true loveToday inliterature we stillread of peopleseeking the truebeauty in life andin nature abelief in true loveand contentment

Go further

http://usinfo.state.gov/

products/pubs/oal/lit3.

htm

Thoreau is the most

attractive of the

Transcendentalists

today because of his

ecological

consciousness, do-it-

yourself

independence, ethical

commitment to

abolitionism, and

political theory of

civil disobedience and

peaceful resistance.

His ideas are still

fresh, and his incisive

poetic style and habit

of close observation

are still modern.

REALISM1855-1900(Period of CivilWar and Postwarperiod)

Novels andshort storiesObjectivenarratorDoes not tellreader how tointerpret storyDialogueincludesvoices fromaround the

country As

industrializati

on grew, so

did

alienation.

Characteristic

American

novels of the

period

Stephen

Crane'sMaggie: A

Girl of the

Streets, Jack

London's

Martin Eden,

and later

Theodore

Dreiser'sAn

Social realism:aims to change aspecific socialproblemAesthetic realism:art that insists ondetailing theworld as onesees it

Civil War bringsdemand for a"truer" type ofliterature thatdoes not idealize

people or plac In

1860, most

Americans livedon farms or in

small villages,

but by 1919 half

of the population

was concentrated

in about 12 cities.

Problems of

urbanization and

industrialization

appeared: poor

and overcrowded

housing,

unsanitary

conditions, low

pay (called "wage

slavery"),

difficult working

conditions, and

inadequate

restraints on

business. Labor

unions grew, and

he U.S. Civil War

(1861-1865) between

the industrial North

and the agricultural,

slave-owning South

was a watershed in

American history. The

innocent optimism ofthe young democratic

nation gave way, after

the war, to a period of

exhaustion. American

idealism remained but

was rechanneled.

Before the war,

idealists championed

human rights,

especially the

abolition of slavery;

after the war,

Americansincreasingly idealized

progress and the self-

made man. This was

the era of the

millionaire

manufacturer and the

speculator, when

Darwinian evolution


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American

Tragedy

depict the

damage of

economic

forces and

alienation onthe weak or

vulnerable

individual.

Survivors,

like Twain's

Huck Finn,

Humphrey

Vanderveyde

n in London's

The Sea-Wolf,

and Dreiser's

opportunistic

Sister Carrie,

endure

through inner

strength

involving

kindness,

flexibility,

and, above

all,

individuality.

strikes brought

the plight of

working people

to national

awareness.

Farmers, too, saw

themselvesstruggling against

the "money

interests" of the

East, the so-

called robber

barons like J.P.

Morgan and John

D. Rockefeller.

Their eastern

banks tightly

controlled

mortgages and

credit so vital to

western

development and

agriculture, while

railroad

companies

charged high

prices to

transport farm

products to the

cities. The farmer

gradually became

an object of

ridicule,

lampooned as anunsophisticated

"hick" or "rube."

The ideal

American of the

post-Civil War

period became

the millionaire. In

1860, there were

fewer than 100

millionaires; by

1875, there were

more than 1,000.

es

and the "survival of

the fittest" seemed to

sanction the

sometimes unethical

methods of the

successful business

tycoon.

THE MODERNS1900-1950

NovelsPlaysPoetry (agreatresurgenceafter deathsof Whitman &

In Pursuit of theAmerican Dream--*Admiration forAmerica as landof Eden*Optimism

Writers reflect theideas of Darwin(survival of thefittest) and KarlMarx (how moneyand classstructure control

Fitzgerald's The GreatGatsbyPoetry of Jeffers,Williams, Cummings,Frost, Eliot, Sandburg,Pound, Robinson,Stevens


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Dickinson)Highlyexperimentalas writersseek a uniquestyleUse of interior

monologue &stream ofconsciousness

*Importance of

the Individual The large cultural

wave of

Modernism,

which gradually

emerged in

Europe and the

United States in

the early years of

the 20th century,

expressed a sense

of modern life

through art as a

sharp break from

the past, as well

as from Western

civilization's

classical

traditions.Modern life

seemed radically

different from

traditional life --

more scientific,

faster, more

technological,

and more

mechanized.

Modernism

embraced these

changes.

In literature,Gertrude Stein

(1874-1946)

developed an

analogue to

modern art. A

resident of Paris

and an art

collector (she and

her brother Leo

purchased works

of the artists Paul

Czanne, Paul

Gauguin, Pierre

Auguste Renoir,

Pablo Picasso,

and many others),

Stein once

explained that

she and Picasso

were doing the

same thing, he in

art and she in

a nation)Overwhelmingtechnologicalchanges of the20

thCentury

Rise of the youthculture

WWI and WWIIHarlemRenaissance

Rand's AnthemShort stories andnovels of Steinbeck,Hemingway, Thurber,Welty, and FaulknerHansberry's A Raisinin the Sun& Wright's

Native Son(anoutgrowth of HarlemRenaissance-- seebelow)Miller's The Death of aSalesman(someconsider Postmodern)


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writing. Using

simple, concrete

words as

counters, she

developed an

abstract,

experimentalprose poetry. The

childlike quality

of Stein's simple

vocabulary

recalls the bright,

primary colors of

modern art, while

her repetitions

echo the repeated

shapes of abstract

visual

compositions. By

dislocating

grammar and

punctuation, she

achieved new

"abstract"

meanings as in

her influential

collection Tender

Buttons (1914),

which views

objects from

different angles,

as in a cubist

painting:

A Table A Tablemeans does it not

my

dear it means a

whole steadiness.

Is it likely that a

change. A table

means more than

a glass even a

looking glass is

tall.

HARLEM

RENAISSANCE(Parallel tomodernism)1920s

Allusions to

African-AmericanspiritualsUsesstructure ofblues songsin poetry(repetition)Superficialstereotypes

Gave birth to

"gospel music"Blues and jazztransmittedacross Americanvia radio andphonographs

Mass African-

Americanmigration toNorthern urbancentersAfrican-Americans havemore access tomedia andpublishing outletsafter they move

Essays & Poetry of

W.E.B. DuBoisPoetry of McKay,Toomer, CullenPoetry, short storiesand novels of Hurstonand HughesTheir Eyes WereWatching God


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revealed tobe complexcharacters

north

POSTMODERNISM1950 to presentNote: Many critics

extend this topresent and mergewith Contemporary-- see below)

Mixing offantasy withnonfiction;blurs lines of

reality forreaderNo heroesConcern withindividual inisolationSocial issuesas writersalign withfeminist &ethnic groupsUsuallyhumorlessNarrativesMetafictionPresent tenseMagic realism

Erodesdistinctionsbetween classesof people

Insists that valuesare notpermanent butonly "local" or"historical"

] Vision and

viewpoint

became an

essential aspect

of the modernist

novel as well. No

longer was it

sufficient to write

a straightforward

third-person

narrative or

(worse yet) use a

pointlessly

intrusive narrator.

The way the story

was told became

as important as

the story itself.

Henry James,

William

Faulkner, and

many other

American writersexperimented

with fictional

points of view

(some are still

doing so). James

often restricted

the information

in the novel to

what a single

character would

have known.

Faulkner's novel

The Sound andthe Fury (1929)

breaks up the

narrative into

four sections,

each giving the

viewpoint of a

different

character

Mailer's The Nakedand the Deadand TheExecutioner's SongFeminist & Social

Issue poets: Plath,Rich, Sexton,Levertov, Baraka,Cleaver, Morrison,Walker & GiovanniMiller's The Death of aSalesman& TheCrucible(someconsider Modern)Lawrence & Lee'sInherit the WindCapote's In ColdBloodStories & novels ofVonnegutSalinger's Catcher inthe RyeBeat Poets: Kerouac,Burroughs, &GinsbergKesey's One FlewOver the Cuckoo'sNest

Postmodern literature

argues for expansion,

the return of

reference, the

celebration of

fragmentation ratherthan the fear of it, and

the role of reference

itself in literature.

While drawing on the

experimental

tendencies of authors

such as Ernest

Hemingway and

William Faulkner in

English, and Jorge

Luis Borges in

Spanish - writers who

were taken asinfluences by

American postmodern

authors such as

Norman Mailer,

Thomas Pynchon,

Kurt Vonnegut, Don

DeLillo, John Barth,

William Gaddis,


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(including a

mentally retarded

boy).

To analyze such

modernist novels

and poetry, a

school of "newcriticism" arose

in the United

States, with a

new critical

vocabulary. New

critics hunted the

"epiphany"

(moment in

which a character

suddenly sees the

transcendent truth

of a situation, a

term derived

from a holy

saint's

appearance to

mortals); they

"examined" and

"clarified" a

work, hoping to

"shed light" upon

it through their

"insights."

David Foster Wallace,

and Paul Auster - the

advocates of

postmodern literature

argue that the present

is fundamentally

different from themodern period, and

therefore requires a

new literary

sensibility

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