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Period: Apr 16, 1472 to
Puritan Literature
Most of this is histories, journals, personal poems, sermons, and diaries. Most of this literature is utilitarian, very personal, or religious. We call it Puritan because the majority of the writers during this period were strongly influenced by Puritan ideals and values. Jonathan Edwards continues to be recognized from this period. -
Apr 1, 1492
America discovered
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Oct 21, 1492
from Journal of the First Voyage to America
Native Lit; Author Christipher Columbus -
Jan 1, 1500
The Earth on the Turtles Back
Native American Lit; Author unknown -
Jan 1, 1500
When Grizzlies Walked Upright
Native Lit; Author Unknown -
Jan 1, 1500
Navajo Origin Legend
Native Lit; Author Unknown -
Period: Jan 1, 1500 to
Native American Literature
The dates for this period are very unclear because we have absolutely no idea when they started. Much of the literature of this period was myths, and, of course, the Native Americans still write today. Most of what our we call Native American myths were written long before Europeans settled in North America. -
Jan 1, 1525
The Iroquois Constitution
Native Lit; Author Dekanawidah -
from The General History of Virginia
Puritan Lit; Author John Smith -
Jamestown Founded
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Pilgrims arrive
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from Of Plymouth Plantation
Puritan Lit; William Bradford -
To my dear and loving husband
Puritan Lit; Anne Bradstreet -
Huswifery
Puritan Lit; author Edward Taylor -
Salem Witch Trials
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Poor Richard's Almanac
Enlightenment; Benjamin Franklin -
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
Puritan Lit; Johathan Edwards -
Period: to
Enlightenment
Called the Enlightenment period due to the influence of science and logic, this period is marked in US literature by political writings. Genres included political documents, speeches, and letters. Benjamin Franklin is typical of this period. There is a lack of emphasis and dependence on the Bible and more use of logic and science. There was not a divorce from the Bible but an adding to, or expanding of the truths found there. -
A hymn to the evening
Enlightenment; Author Phillis Wheatley -
To his excellency, General Washington
Enlightenment; Phillis Whetley -
Speech in the Virginia Convention
Enlightenment; Patrick Henry -
The Crisis
Enlightenment; Thomas Paine -
United States of America founded
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Letters from an American Farmer
Enlightenment; author Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur -
Period: to
Transcedentalism
The Transcendentalists, who were based in New England, believed that intuition and the individual conscience “transcend” experience and thus are better guides to truth than are the senses and logical reason. Influenced by Romanticism, the Transcendentalists respected the individual spirit and the natural world, believing that divinity was present everywhere, in nature and in each person. The Transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott and W.H. Channing. -
Period: to
Romanticism
Romanticism was a literary movement century that arose in reaction against Neoclassicism and valued fancy, imagination, emotion, nature, and individuality. There was a movement from religious documents to entertaining ones. Purely American topics were introduced. Romantic elements can be found in the works of American writers such as Cooper, Poe, Thoreau, Emerson, Dickinson, Hawthorne, and Melville. Romanticism is particularly evident in the works of the New England Transcendetalists. -
War of 1812
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The Devil and Tom Walker
Romanticism; Washington Irving -
Thomas Jefferson Dies
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Indian Removal Act
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Abolitionist Movement
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The minister's Black Veil
Romanticism; Nathaniel Hawthorne -
Nature
Transcendentalsim; Ralph Waldo Emerson -
The Concord Hymn
Transcendentalism; Ralph Waldo Emerson -
The Fall of the house of Usher
Edgar Allen Poe; romanticism -
Self-Reliance
Ralph Waldo Emerson; Transcendentalsim -
The snow storm
Transcendentalism; Ralph Waldo Emerson -
The Raven
Romantisism; Edgar Allen Poe -
Mexican American War
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Civil Disobedience
Transcendentalism; Henry David Thoreau -
Gold Rush Begins
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Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
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The Scarlet Letter
Puritan Lit; Author Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hester Pryne commits a sin and has an illegitimate daughter named Pearl. This book focuses on the guilt and shame of Hester and other main charachters in this book -
Moby Dick
Romanticism; Herman Mellvile -
From my bondage and my freedom
Realism/Naturalism; Fredrick Douglass -
Walden
Transcendentalism; Henry David Thoreau -
My life closed twice before it close
Transcendentalsim; Emily Dickinson -
Leaves of Grass
Transcendentalsim; Walt Whitman -
Song of Myself
Transcendentalism; Walt Whitman -
When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Transcendentalism; Walt Whitman -
The interesting life of Olaudah Equiano
Realism/Naturalism; Olaudah Equano -
There's a certain slant of light
Emily Dickinson; Transcendentalism -
Letter to His Son
Realism/Naturalism; Robert E. Lee -
Civil War
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Mary Chesnut's Civil War
Realism/Naturalism; Mary Chesnut -
An Account of the Battle Of Bull Run
Realism/Naturalism Stonewall Jackson -
Homestead Act
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I heard a fly buzz when I died
Transcendentalsim; Emily Dickenson -
The sould selects its own society
Transcendentalism; Emily Dickinson -
Emancipation Proclamation
Realism/Naturalism; Abraham Lincoln -
Raction to the Emancipation Proclamation
Realism/Naturalism; Reverend Henry M. Turner -
Willie has Gone to the War
Realism/Naturalism; Cooper and Foster -
Recollections of a Private
Realism/Naturalism; Warren Lee Goss -
A Confederate Account of the Battle of Gettysburg
Realism/Naturalism; Randolph McKim -
The Gettysburg Address
Realism/Naturalism; Abraham Lincoln -
The Brain- is wider than the sky
Transcendentalism; Emily DIckinson -
The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calveras County
Regionalism; Mark Twain -
Period: to
Realism/Naturalism
The Realists tried to write truthfully and objectively about ordinary characters in ordinary situations. They reacted against Romanticism, rejecting heroic, adventurous, unusual, or unfamiliar subjects. The Realists, in turn, were followed by the Naturalists, who traced the effects of heredity and environment on people helpless to change their situations. American realism is evident in the writings of major figures such as Mark Twain. -
An Account of an Experience with Discrimination
Realism/Naturalism; Sojourner Truth -
The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Regionalism; Bret harte -
Period: to
Regionalism
Regionalism in literature is the tendency among certain authors to write about specific geographical areas. Regional writers like Willa Cather and William Faulkner, present the distinct culture of an area, including its speech, customs, beliefs, and history. Regionalists usually go beyond mere presentation of cultural idiosyncrasies and attempt, instead, a sophisticated sociological or an thropological treatment of the culture of a region. -
Water is taught by thirst
Transcendenatalism; Emily Dickinson -
I will fight no more forever
Regionalism; Cheif Joseph -
There is a solitude of space
Transcendentalism; Emily Dickinson -
Life on the Mississippi
Regionalism; MArk Twain -
Because I could not stop for death
Transcendtalism; Emily Dickinson -
A noisless patient spider
Transcendentalism; Walt Whitman -
Ellis Island Opens
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Yellow Wallpaper
Imagism -
The Story of An hour
Imagism; Kate Chopin -
An Episode of War
Realism/Naturalism; Stephen Crane -
To Build A Fire
Regionalism; Jack London -
Spanish-American War
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By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame
Transcendentalism; Walt Whitman -
I hear America Singing
Transcedentalism; Walt Whitman -
Go Down Moses
Realism/Naturalism; spiritual -
Period: to
Imagism
Led by Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell, the Imagist poets rejected nineteenth-century poetic forms and language. Instead, they wrote short poems that used ordinary language and free verse to create sharp, exact, concentrated pictures.
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Douglass
Imagism; Paul Lawrence Dunbar -
Wright Brother Fly
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A Wagner Matinee
Contemporary; Willa Cather -
We Wear the Mask
Imagism; Paul Lawrence Dunbar -
Swing Lo sweet Chariot
Realism/Naturalism; Unknown -
World War One
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Period: to
Modern Age
An age of disillusionment and confusion—just look at what was happening in history in the US during these dates—this period brought us perhaps our best writers. The authors during this period raised all the great questions of life…but offered no answers. Faulkner, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Frost are all examples. -
The Corn Planting
Regionalism; Sherwood Anderson -
Birches
contemporary; Robert Frost -
Jazz Age
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Period: to
Harlem Renaissance
Part of the Modern Age, The Harlem Renaissance, which occurred during the 1920’s, was a time of African American artistic creativity centered in Harlem, in New York City. Writers of the Harlem Renaissance include Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, and Arna Bontemps. -
Women get the right to vote
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The Great gatsby
Modern Age; Ernest Hemingway
A man sees the shallowness of the upper class in the East Coast in the '20's -
The Great Depression
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A rose for Emily
regionalism; William Faulkner -
Worn Path
Harlem Renaissance; Eudora Welty -
World War II
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The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
Randall Jerrel; modern age -
Period: to
Contemporary
great stuff, but not a clear philosophy. -
From- Hiroshima
John Hersey; Modern Age -
Cold War
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Losses
Modern Age; Randall Jarrell -
1984
Post modernism; George Orwell
A man lives in a socialist society that tries to control his every move. He struggles with what love, freedom of thought and other similar ideas mean in this society. -
Korean War
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The Old Man and the Sea
Regionalism; Ernest Hemmingway
A man spends three days attempting to catch a fish without a reliable body or food -
Farenhiet 451
Post modernism; Ray Bradbury
A man lives in a futuristic society where no books are allowed and he has to try to deal with that fact -
To kill a mocking bird
Modernism; Harper Lee
A nine year old girl watches racial segregation and a rape case. This book was from her perspective to show the stupidity of it all. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
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Letter from Birmingham Jail
Contemporary; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. -
The Outsiders
Contemporary; S.E. Hinton
A group of boys deal with a cultural bias because they are poor. A few of the characheters die as a result -
Vietnam War
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Moon Landing
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Watergate Scandal
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The Brown Chest
contemporary; John Updike -
Hunger in New York City
Contemporary; Simon Ortiz -
For My Children
Colleen McElroy; contemporary -
Iranian Hostage Crises
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Freeway 280
Lorna Dee Cervantes; Contemporary -
What For
Garrett Hongo; Contemporary -
Cats
Contemporary; Anna Quindlen -
First Web Pages
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Ambush from the thigs they carried
Contemporary; Tim O'Brien -
Gulf War
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Who Burns for Perfection of Paper
Contemporary; Martin Espada -
Mother Tongue
contemporary; Amy Tan -
Camouflaging the Chimera
Yusef Komunyakaa; contemporary -
9/11 terrorist attacks
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Iraq War
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American Lit starts
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