Literature3

Literary Time Periods Project

By breezyxx
  • Period: Jan 1, 1450 to

    Native American Literature

    The first Native American literature texts were implied orally and often linked the human people with the plants/animals, the rivers/ rocks, and is very oriented around nature. The texts speak of the spiritual kinship Native Americans deeply believe there is between man and nature and the living and dead relatives. Native American literature enforces individuality and is meant to bring awareness upon the world around them and its ways.
  • Period: Apr 8, 1472 to

    Puritan Literature

    Puritan literature consisted of religious ideas that stressed individual ambition to be saved. These ideas were expressed through histories, journals, personal poems, sermons, and diaries. Most of this literature is either utilitarian, very personal, or religious. This time period was considered Puritan because the majority of the writers during this period were strongly influenced by Puritan ideals and values, hence advocating Protestant principles and strict religious discipline.
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    Gothic Literature

    Gothic refers to the use of primitive medieval, wild, or mysterious elements in literature. Gothic elements offended eighteenth-century classical writers but appealed to the Romantic writers who followed them. Gothic novels feature places like mysterious and gloomy castles, where horrifying, supernatural events take place; it combines elements of horror and romance together. The setting of Gothic literature stories often portrayed buildings with sharp edges and many arches all around. Gothic li

  • The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

    The Phantom of the Opera belongs to the category of Literature, which combines equals parts of horror and romance. Set in the Paris Grand Opera house, which exists to this day, it is a most unusual plot and quite unique from that of any other story.

  • The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

    The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is impressed by Dorian's beauty and becomes infatuated with him, believing his beauty is responsible for a new mode in his art.
    Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than he. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, and when he subsequently pursues a life of debauchery, the portrait serves as a

  • Dracula by Bram Stoker

    Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.

  • The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

    This short story is about an unnamed protagonist who is summoned to the remote mansion of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher. Filled with a sense of dread by the sight of the house itself, the Narrator reunites with his old companion, who is suffering from a strange mental illness and whose sister Madeline is near death due to a mysterious disease.

  • Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

    This novel is about is about a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll and the evil Edward Hyde. There are two personalities within Dr Jekyll, one apparently good and the other evil; completely opposite levels of morality. The novella's impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the very phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" coming to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation t

  • To My Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet

    "To My Dear and Loving Husband" is a poem that begins by describing the compatibility between the speaker and her husband. The speaker then describes how much she values her husband's love, how strong their love is, and how she will never be able to repay her husband for his love. The poem concludes with the speaker urging herself and her husband to "persevere" in their love for another so that they can live forever.

  • Huswifery by Edward Taylor

    In Edward Taylor's poem, "Huswifery", a man describes his longing to be closer to God, and to be used as a vessel to further the Lord's kingdom. Taylor describes the many ways he would like to be used by God as well as going into detail as to how he wants to be used.

  • Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford

    Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647 is a work of non-fiction. The book, often recognized as one of the most accurate and valuable historical references in American history, details the arrival and settlement of the Puritans at Plymouth Plantation in 1620 and the subsequent years and hardships.

  • "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Jonathon Edwards

    "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is a typical sermon of the Great Awakening, emphasizing the belief that Hell is a real place. Edwards hoped that the imagery and message of his sermon would awaken his audience to the horrific reality that awaited them should they continue without Christ. The underlying point is that God has given humanity a chance to rectify their sins. Edwards says that it is the will of God that keeps wicked men from the depths of Hell. This act of restraint has given h

  • From the Secret Diary of William Byrd by William Byrd

    William Byrd was a gentleman from Virginia who is representative of the southern landed aristocracy. His diary was kept in a secret shorthand and discovered only in the twentieth century. It provides insight into the mind of a southern gentleman. Byrd's diary also lets us see the daily schedule and the thoughts of a gentleman. Byrd committed to his diary some of his most private thoughts and actions. These entries focus especially on Byrd's relationship with his wife, his treatment of servants,
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    Enlightenment Literature

    The Enlightenment period was due to the influence of science and logic. It revolved around practicality and often tended to stray away from religious ideas. Genres included political documents, speeches, and letters. The Enlightenment is referred to as the Age of Reason since it was a confluence of ideas and activities that took place throughout the eighteenth century in Western Europe, England, and the American colonies. Scientific rationalism, exemplified by the scientific method, was the hal

  • Principia by Isaac Newton

    Newton summarized his discoveries in terrestrial and celestial mechanics in this book and became one of the greatest milestones in the history of science. In it he showed how his principle of universal gravitation provided an explanation both of falling bodies on the earth and of the motions of planets, comets, and other bodies in the heavens.

  • Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

    Robinson Crusoe, set ashore on an island after a terrible storm at sea, is forced to make do with only a knife, some tobacco, and a pipe. He learns how to build a canoe, make bread, and endure endless solitude. That is, until, twenty-four years later, when he confronts another human being.

  • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

    This work is the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin; however, Franklin himself appears to have called the work his Memoirs. Although it had a tortuous publication history after Franklin's death, this work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written. Franklin's account of his life is divided into four parts, reflecting the different periods at which he wrote them.

  • Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathon Swift

    This is a novel by Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travelers’ tales" literary sub-genre. It is Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature.

  • Common Sense by Thomas Paine

    Common Sense presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when the question of seeking independence was still undecided. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style that common people understood. He structured Common Sense as if it were a sermon, and relied on Biblical references to make his case to the people. He connected independence with common dissenting Protestant beliefs as a means to present a distinctly American political identity.
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    Romantic Literature

    Romanticism was a literary and artistic movement of the nineteenth century that placed a premium on fancy, imagination, emotion, nature, individuality, and exotica. Romanticism is concerned with the individual more than with society. The individual consciousness and especially the individual imagination are stressed; altered states of consciousness were often sought after in order to enhance one’s creative potential. It undermined the power of reason, clearly a reaction against the Enlightenment
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    Regionalism Literature

    An outgrowth of Realism, Regionalism in literature is the tendency among certain authors to write about specific geographical areas. Regional writers present the distinct culture of an area, including its speech, customs, beliefs, and history. Local-color writing may be considered a type of Regionalism, but Regionalists, like the southern writers of the 1920’s, usually go beyond mere presentation of cultural idiosyncrasies and attempt, instead, a sophisticated sociological or anthropological tr

  • Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth

    This is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature. The immediate effect on critics was modest, but it became and remains a landmark, changing the course of English literature and poetry.

  • Moby Dick by Herman Melville

    The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab has one purpose on this voyage: to seek out Moby Dick, a ferocious, enigmatic white whale. In Moby-Dick, Melville employs stylized language, symbolism, and the metaphor to explore numerous complex themes. Through the journey of the main characters, the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God are all exami

  • The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake

    This work is a series of texts written in imitation of biblical prophecy but expressing Blake's own intensely personal Romantic and revolutionary beliefs. Like his other books, it was published as printed sheets from etched plates containing prose, poetry, and illustrations.

  • "The Moon is Distant from the Sea" by Emily Dickenson

    This is a love poem emphasizing on life through a strong use of personification.

  • Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

    Mocked and shunned for his appearance, the “hunchback of Notre Dame” is pitied only by Esmerelda, a beautiful gypsy dancer to whom he becomes completely devoted. Esmerelda, however, has also attracted the attention of the sinister archdeacon Claude Frollo, and when she rejects his lecherous approaches, Frollo hatches a plot to destroy her, that only Quasimodo can prevent. Victor Hugo's sensational, evocative novel brings life to the medieval Paris he loved, and mourns its passing in one of the g

  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

    This is a novel written by Mary Shelley about a creature produced by an unorthodox scientific experiment. It contains some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement and is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. It is considered the first true science fiction story, because unlike in previous stories with fantastical elements where the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantas
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    Transcendentalism Literature

    Transcendentalism was an American literary and philosophical movement of the nineteenth century. It was founded upon the belief that intuition and the individual conscience “transcend” experience hence making them better guides to truth than the senses and logical reason. Transcendentalism was influenced by Romanticism and, like Romantics, respected the individual spirit and the natural world. It expresses the idea that divinity was present everywhere, in nature and in each person.

  • Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

    The book was written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. The novel follows the lives of four sisters – Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March – and is loosely based on the author's childhood experiences with her three sisters.

  • Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

    This work is a poetry collection by Walt Whitman.

  • Walden by Henry David Thoreau

    The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self-reliance. Published in 1854, it details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts. By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through personal introspection. Simple livin

  • Self-Reliance and Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

    This work contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"

  • The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an adulterous affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.
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    Realism Literature

    Realism is a reenactment of life. Realism was also a literary movement that began during the nineteenth century and stressed the actual reality as opposed to the imagined or the fanciful. The objective of Realism was to write truthfully and objectively about ordinary characters in ordinary situations; in other words portray a real life scenario. It is in great contrast with Romanticism, whereas instead of encouraging heroic, adventurous, unusual, or unfamiliar subjects, they present realistic ev
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    Naturalism Literature

    Naturalism was a literary movement among novelists at the end of the nineteenth century and early decades of the twentieth century that was influenced by Realism and Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. The Naturalists tended to view people as hapless victims of immutable natural laws. It used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character. It aimed at replicating an everyday reality, as opposed to such movements a

  • History of the Dividing Line by William Byrd

    The History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina is an account by William Byrd II of the surveying of the border between the U.S. states of North Carolina and Virginia in 1728. Byrd's account of the journey to survey the contentious border with his chief surveyor William Mayo included such nuggets as the derivation of the name of "Matrimony Creek," so named because of its 'brawling' waters.

  • Swallow Barn by John Pendleton Kennedys

    Swallow Barn is a novel of antebellum life on a tidewater Virginia plantation, described by the author as "variously and interchangeably partaking of the complexion of a book of travels, a diary, a collection of letters, a drama, and a history.

  • Overland Monthly Bret Harte

  • Dialect Tales by Sherwood Bonner

  • I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition by Twelve Southerners (John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren, etc.)

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    Imagism Literature

    Imagism was a literary movement that flourished between 1912 and 1927. 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. It favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. As a poetic style it gave Modernism its early start in the 20th century. Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry.

  • The Portrait of A Lady by Henry James

    The Portrait of a Lady is the story of a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer, who "affronts her destiny" and finds it overwhelming. She inherits a large amount of money and subsequently becomes the victim of Machiavellian scheming by two American expatriates. Like many of James's novels, it is set in Europe, mostly England and Italy. This novel reflects James's continuing interest in the differences between the New World and the Old, often to the detriment of the former. It also treats

  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is about a young boy, Huck, in search of freedom and adventure. The shores of the Mississippi River provide the backdrop for the entire book.

  • The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells

    This literary work is about the materialistic rise of Silas Lapham from rags to riches, and his ensuing moral susceptibility. Silas earns a fortune in the paint business, but he lacks social standards, which he tries to attain through his daughter's marriage into the aristocratic Corey family. Silas's morality does not fail him. He loses his money but makes the right moral decision when his partner proposes the unethical selling of the mills to English settlers.

  • Daisy Miller by Henry James

    This book tells about the courtship of the beautiful American girl Daisy Miller by Winterbourne, a sophisticated compatriot of hers. His pursuit of her is hampered by her own flirtatiousness, which is frowned upon by the other expatriates they meet in Switzerland and Italy.

  • A Modern Instance by William Dean Howells

    This novel explores the deterioration of what could have been an otherwise healthy marriage through industrial enterprise and capitalistic greed.
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    Modern Age Literature

    The Modern Age was an age of disillusionment and confusion. The period was marked by sudden and unexpected breaks with traditional ways of viewing and interacting with the world; experimentation and individualism became virtues. Modernism was set in motion, in one sense, through a series of cultural shocks such as the Great War and World War I. Modernism is characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional styles of poetry and verse. The modernist literary movement was driven by a desire
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    Harlem Renaissance Literature

    The Harlem Renaissance was part of the Modern Age. It occurred during the 1920’s and was a time of African American artistic creativity centered in Harlem, in New York City. It was a celebration of African-American heritage and culture which manifested through an outpouring of new business, art, literature, music and dance. This boom of expression, also called the New Negro Movement, had long-lasting, positive effects on the social, intellectual and economic standing of African Americans.

  • "In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound

  • "Garden" by Ezra Pound

  • "Sea Rose" by Hilda Doolittle

  • "Paterson" by William Carlos Williams

  • Pictures From Breughel and Other Poems by William Carlos Williams

  • Nigger Heaven by Carl Van Vechten

  • Weary’s Blues by Langston Hughes

  • Quicksand by Nella Larsen

  • Cane by Jean Toomer

  • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

  • The Story of a Country Town by E. W. Howe

    E. W. Howe established his reputation as an American realistic novelist with The Story of Country Town, an engrossing and vivid portrait of Midwestern Puritanism. Semi-autobiographical and enormously successful when published, the book tells the tale of Ned Westlock and his family, who live in a small Midwestern farming community.

  • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

    The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the American muckraker journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968). Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the lives of immigrants in the United States. In it he also exposed practices in the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century. The book depicts poverty, the absence of social programs, unpleasant living and working conditions, and the hopelessness prevalent among the working class, which is contrasted with the deeply rooted corr

  • The Awakening by Kate Chopin

    Set in New Orleans and the Southern Louisiana coast at the end of the nineteenth century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century South. It is one of the earliest American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism, causing varied reactions among readers at the time an

  • The Hoosier School-Master by Edward Eggleston

    This is an 1871 novel by the American author Edward Eggleston. The novel originated from a series of stories written for Hearth and Home, a periodical edited by Eggleston, and was based on the experiences of his brother, George Cary Eggleston, who had been a schoolteacher in Indiana.The novel is noted for its realistic depictions of 19th-century American rural life and for its use of local dialect.

  • The Cliff-Dwellers by Henry Blake Fuller

    The Cliff-Dwellers takes place in the developing city of Chicago. Henry Blake Fuller's depiction of social climbing and human depravity among the "cliff-dwelling" residents and workers in the new Chicago skyscrapers shocked readers of the time, and influenced many American writers that followed. With its frenetic pace and many interrelated stories, it remains a compelling document of Chicago's social history, as well as a searing indictment of modern American life at the close of the nineteent

  • The Sleepwalkers by Hermann Broch

  • The Waste Land by T.S. Elliot

  • Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce

  • The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

  • Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann

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    Contemporary Literature

    Contemporary literature is literature generally written after World War II. It portrays both poetry and prose, where prose includes works of fiction such as novels and novellas, essays, and dramatic works. The literature upholds the highest writing standards and contain a particular beauty and style. Many of these literary works became socially relevant and had the power to influence the public.

  • A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

  • Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

  • Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

  • Lord of the Flies by William Golding

  • The Color Purple by Alice Walker

  • Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims by Sarah Winnemucca (Paiute)

    This autobiographical work was written by Sarah Winnemucca, who was a Paiute princess. Life Among the Piutes deals with Winnemucca's life and the plight of the Paiute Indians. Life Among the Piutes is Winnemucca's powerful legacy to both white and Paiute cultures. Following the oral tradition of Native American people, she reaches out to readers with a deeply personal appeal for understanding. In the book she also records historical events from the Native American viewpoint of whites settling th

  • House Made of Dawn by N.Scott Momaday (Kiowa/Cherokee)

    House Made of Dawn by N.Scott Momaday (Kiowa/Cherokee)Momaday's novel also incorporates elements of the culture and tradition that tribes have managed to sustain on reservations, portraying the strength that can be drawn from these traditions.

  • A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses, Paul , and an Indianby Samson Occom (Mohegan)

    This piece of literature is said to be the very first piece of Native American literature ever recorded. The author, Samson Occom, was a Mohegan chief who had converted to Christianity amidst the sermons of Jonathon Edwards and the Great Awakening. He eventually became ordained as a minister and began traveling around the world expressing powerful sermons all over the place. This piece of literary works is one of the many sermons he expressed and his most famous sermon; it was so popular that it

  • A Son of the Forest, the Experiences of William Apes by William Apes (Pequot)

    "A Son of the Forest," is the first published autobiography by a Native American in 1828.The life and writings of William Apes are a window onto the little known and little understood world Native American lived in. Ape was converted into Christianity in 1813 and ever since was a devoted Christian strong in his faith. At a time when society in general scorned Methodism and Native Americans, Apes proudly embraced the faith and his race in this literary work. In his autobiography he wrote and spok

  • Coyote Stories by Mourning Dove (Okanogan)

    This is book full of short coyote stories. The coyote figure runs through the folklore of many American Indian tribes. He can be held up as a "terrible example" of conduct, a model of what not to do, and yet admired for a careless. anarchistic energy that suggests unlimited possibilities. Mourning Dove, an Okanagan, knew him well from the legends handed down by her people. She preserved them for posterity in Coyote Stories, originally published in 1933.