Which Literary Movement Began After World War Ii and Continues Today

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American Literary Movements

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American Literary Movements

American Literary Movements

How are the novels of Ernest Hemingway different from the short stories of Edger Allen Poe? What do Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman have in common? In addressing these questions, it is crucial to understand the difference between movements in American literature. For a relatively young country, the United States is home to a wealth of important literature representing a diverse array of writers and literary movements. Studying these movements will help you understand the development of American literature as well as the influences and relationships among writers.

Timeline of American Literary Movements:

The following timeline shows the period of each American literary movement and its duration.

• Pre-colonial: Native American Literature
• 1620-1750: Puritan Literature
• 1607-1775: Colonial Literature
• 1775-1783: Revolutionary Age
• 1775-1830: Early National Literature
• 1830-1865: American Romanticism
• 1865-1914: Naturalism
• 1914-1940: Modernism and Experimentation
• 1945- Present: Postmodernism

What is an American Literary Movement?

Assorted classic books, pixabay.com

The term American literary movement refers to the periods of evolution in American literature and the characteristics that literature from different time periods shares. Factors that unify literature within a particular movement might include the style of the authors' writing, common themes or ideas, and the influence of the era's social and political climate.

History of American Literary Movements

The following is a brief history of American literary movements.

Native American Literature - Early National Literature (Pre-colonial-1830)

The first recognizable American literary movement is, of course, the pre-colonial period of Native American literature. Before the arrival of Europeans in what is now the United States, Native Americans had a vibrant literary tradition with a strong focus on oral storytelling. These stories were of high cultural value, including creation stories and other myths and folktales.

With the arrival of European settlers, the first period of English language literature began. As Puritans settled in New England, they used literature, not for entertainment, but rather to explore religious themes and biblical teachings. Puritan literature was generally non-fiction and included letters, diary entries, and other details of daily activities.

At the same time, Colonial literature was also developing in America. Like Puritan literature, the literature of the Colonial period was mostly non-fiction and geared towards descriptions of daily life. The major difference, however, was the religious content of Puritan literature, while Colonial writers like Captain John Smith focused on describing the process of colonization for those back home in Europe and Great Britain.

The American Revolution in 1775 marked the start of the Revolutionary and Early National literary movements. As you might guess, this literary movement was strongly influenced by the development of the new nation and the fight for independence. As a result, much of the literature from this period was political in nature. These texts included political essays discussing the formation of the new government as well as propaganda pamphlets supporting the revolutionaries' cause.

Some of the most important writers of this period were also well-known political figures, such as Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), and Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804).

Influenced by the Enlightenment in Europe, American authors in the Revolutionary and Early National periods also embraced the literary movement of Rationalism. A preference for rational thought and deductive reasoning shaped texts of the era, including The Declaration of Independence (1776) and Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason (1794)

American Romanticism and Naturalism (1830-1914)

American Romanticismpixabay.com

The year 1830 marks the beginning of American Romanticism. This is arguably the first uniquely American literary movement and gave rise to some of the most important authors in the history of American literature. With the American Revolution behind them, authors in the United States had the extraordinary opportunity to participate in the process of nation-building by creating truly American literature.

This was the first time American authors tried to separate themselves from the literary traditions of Europe and Great Britain. Authors such as Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melville wrote novels and poetry inspired by the American landscape and the ideals of freedom and individuality.

American Romanticism was also the first literary movement in the United States that split into several sub-movements. These sub-movements included Transcendentalism, Dark Romanticism, American Gothic, and the poetry of the Fireside Poets.

Towards the middle of the 19th century, American literature began to move away from Romanticism as authors embraced the literary movements of Realism and Naturalism. The horrors of the Civil War had changed the mood of the country and the idealism of Romanticism was no longer applicable.

Instead, American authors such as Stephen Crane and Mark Twain sought to depict life as it really was, even the parts that might have been ugly or unpleasant. This movement was also exemplified in the proliferation of slave narratives that were published in the wake of the Civil War, including Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) by Harriet Jacobs.

Towards the end of the 19th century, Mark Twain became one of the most important writers associated with the literary movement known as regionalism or local color fiction. His novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin (1884) paid special attention to regional specifics, including dialect, landscape, and customs.

Can you think of some reasons why slave narratives would be classified as Naturalist literature?

Modernism, Experimentation, and the Modern Era (1914-Present)

At the beginning of the 20th century, American literature moved into the Modernist literary movement. Authors like William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway began to focus more on the structure and style of writing, making a conscious effort to break long-established literary conventions. This evolved into the even more unconventional movement of Experimental literature, as well as individual groups of writers, such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston of the Harlem Renaissance, and Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald of the Lost Generation.

The term "Lost Generation" was coined by American writer Gertrude Stein to describe the generation reaching young adulthood during World War I. The term was also applied more specifically to describe the group of expatriate writers and artists living in Paris in the 1920s, including Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound.

Following World War II, Modernism began to shift into Postmodernism, a literary movement that eschewed meaning and embraced disorder and fragmentation. Postmodern authors such as Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick wrote playful, distorted texts that often relied heavily on metafiction and intertextuality.

By the mid to late 20th century, American literature had begun to resemble the diverse body of work that we see today. American drama grew in importance, with the first performances of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949). American poets as diverse as Sylvia Plath and Allan Ginsberg established a variety of literary movements including the San Francisco Renaissance, New Formalism, the Confessional Poets, and the Beat Generation.

The urge towards experimentation and the breaking of literary conventions that began during the Modernist and Experimental periods continue to influence American literature, which represents a broad variety of literary themes, styles, and genres.

What common themes or styles can you identify in contemporary American literature?

Characteristics of American Literary Movements

The following list explains some of the key characteristics of each American literary movement.

Native American Literary Movement

• Focus on oral storytelling traditions, songs, and poetry.
• Themes included creation stories, myths, and folktales.
• Examples include trickster myths, often featuring a coyote as the troublemaker, and creation myths to explain how various aspects of the world came into being.

Puritan Literature (1620-1750):

• Focus usually on religious subject matter.
• Non-fiction materials, including journal and diary entries or letters. Literature was not for entertainment but for religious instruction.
• Examples include Of Plymouth Plantation (1651) by William Bradford and the poetry of Anne Bradstreet.

Colonial Literature (1607-1775)

• Focused on describing the process of colonization and daily life in the colonies.
• Non-fiction materials that included journal and diary entries or letters.
• Examples include A True Relation of Virginia (1608) and The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624) by John Smith.

Revolutionary Age (1775-1783)

• Focus on political ideology and the use of literature to further the cause of independence.
• Popular literary forms included political essays and propaganda pamphlets.
• Examples include The American Crisis (1776-1783) by Thomas Paine and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1773).

Early National Literature (1775-1830)

• Focus on political ideology and the use of literature to build national identity.
• Popular literary forms included political essays and most literature remained non-fiction in nature.
• Examples include the Federalist Papers (1787-1788) and The Declaration of Independence (1776).

American Romanticism (1830-1865)

• Focus on themes of individualism, the beauty of nature, and conveying strong emotions.
• A great increase in the writing of novels and poetry.
• Sub-movements of American Romanticism include Transcendentalism, Dark Romanticism, American Gothic, and the Fireside Poets.

Transcendentalism

• Focus on the inherent goodness of the individual.
• Individuals can "transcend" the world around them.
• Examples include Walden (1854) by Henry David Thoreau and the poetry of Walt Whitman (1819-1892).

Dark Romanticism

• Focus on the fallibility of the individual and the tendency towards self-destruction.
• Opposite of Transcendentalism: the individual cannot transcend the world around them.
• Examples include Moby Dick (1851) by Herman Melville and The Scarlet Letter (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

American Gothic

• Focus on the uncanny and macabre.
• Includes the use of supernatural elements such as ghosts and monsters.
• Examples include the short stories "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) by Edgar Allan Poe and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820) by Washington Irving.

Fireside Poets:

• Focus on themes of domesticity and national identity.
• Used poetic conventions that made their work easy to memorize.
• Examples include William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882).

Naturalism (1865-1914)

• Related to Realism and the use of literature to depict everyday life.
• Focus on determinism, including the effects of environment and circumstance on characters.
• Examples include Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) by Stephen Crane and To Build a Fire (1902) by Jack London.

Slave Narratives

• Accounts that were written by enslaved Africans detailing their experiences.
• Focus on simple language to realistically and matter-of-factly portray the horrors of slavery.
• Examples include A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) by Frederick Douglass, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) by Harriet Jacobs.

Modernism and Experimentation (1914-1940)

• Emphasis on style and how a story is told.
• Experimentation with structure and point of view in both poetry and prose.
• Sub-movements within Modernism and Experimentation include the Harlem Renaissance and the Lost Generation.

The Harlem Renaissance:

• Focus on the African American experience.

• Experimentation with style and structure.

• Examples include the poetry of Langston Hughes (1901-1967) and Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) by Zora Neale Hurston.

The Lost Generation:

• Rebellion against established American cultural ideals.
• Themes of disillusionment and critiques of the American Dream.
• Examples include The Sun Also Rises (1926) by Ernest Hemingway and The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Modern American Prose

• Novels and essays that were published after World War II.
• Authors employ a wide variety of themes and styles to describe the experience of the contemporary world, usually following the themes and arguments seen in Postmodernism.
• Examples include To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee and Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison.

Modern American Drama

• Emphasis on plays with realistic settings.
• Focus on the depiction of American life and society.
• Examples include A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) by Tennessee Williams and Death of a Salesman (1949) by Arthur Miller.

Modern American Poetry

• American poets use a variety of styles and explore a variety of themes.
• Sub-movements within Modern American Poetry include the San Francisco Renaissance, New Formalism, Confessional Poetry, The New York School, the Beat Generation, the Black Mountain Poets, and Poetry Slam.

San Francisco Renaissance

• Avant-garde poetry movement based in San Francisco.
• Shunning the poetic mainstream.
• Examples include the poetry of Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) and William Everson (1912-1994).

New Formalism

• Poetry movement that sought to re-embrace poetic conventions of the past.
• Poets rejected free verse and instead returned to traditional forms of rhyme, meter, and verse.
• Examples include the poetry of Charles Martin (1942-present) and Molly Peacock (1947-present).

Confessional Poetry

• Poetry movement centered on personal poetry.
• Focus on private, intimate themes and personal history.
• Examples include the poetry of Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) and Anne Sexton (1928-1974).

New York School

• Poetry movement based in Manhattan.
• Focus on depicting everyday life while embracing humor and references to popular culture.
• Examples include the poetry of John Ashbery (1927-2017) and Alice Notley (1945-present).

Beat Generation

• Poetry movement related to the San Francisco Renaissance.
• Focus on questioning social conformity and challenging traditional literary conventions.
• Examples include the poetry of Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) and Jack Kerouac (1922-1969).

Black Mountain Poets

• Avant-garde poetry movement based at Black Mountain College in North Carolina.
• Focus on the use of conversational language and turning away from poetic conventions of the past.
• Examples include the poetry of Charles Owen (1910-1970) and Larry Eigner (1927-1996).

Poetry Slam

• Poetry movement that explores the performance of poetry.
• Focus on competition and high-energy performances.
• Examples include the poetry of Taylor Mali (1965-present) and Anis Mojgani (1977-present).

American Literary Movements - Key takeaways

• The first American literary movement was pre-Colonial Native American literature.
• Puritan literature focused on religious teachings and non-fiction accounts of daily life.
• Writers of Colonial literature described life in the colonies for those back home in Europe and Great Britain.
• Revolutionary and Early National authors focused on political ideas.
• Romanticism was the first truly American literary movement.
• In the period following the Civil War, Romanticism gave way to Realism and Naturalism.
• Authors of the Modernism and Experimentation periods focused on style and point of view in their writing.
• Modern-day American literature is not defined by any single literary movement.

Frequently Asked Questions about American Literary Movements

Some of the major movements in American literature are Romanticism, Naturalism, and Modernism.

There are eight identifiable literary movements in American literature ranging from pre-colonial Native American literature to the modern era. There have also been numerous sub-movements within these movements. For example, Transcendentalism is considered a sub-movement of Romanticism.

Each American literary movement has its own name to distinguish it from others. These include large movements, such as American Romanticism or Naturalism, and smaller movements, such as the Harlem Renaissance.

During the Modernist and Experimental literary movements in the early- to mid-20th century, authors experimented with the structure of their writing. They considered the way the story was told to be the most important part of writing. Therefore, these writers experimented with style, structure, and point of view.

There are many components that separate the different American literary movements. These include writing style, themes, and the impact of the social and political situation of the era.

Final American Literary Movements Quiz

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What is the first American literary movement?

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Native American literature

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What is the difference between Puritan and Colonial literature?

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Puritan literature usually focused on religious themes and Colonial literature described life in the new colonies.

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What literary movements occurred during the American Revolution?

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The Revolutionary and New National movements.

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What literary forms were popular during the Revolutionary and New National movements?

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Political essays and propaganda pamphlets.

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What is generally regarded as the first uniquely American literary movement?

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Which was NOT a sub-movement of American Romanticism?

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What literary movement followed the American Civil War?

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What writers are associated with the Lost Generation?

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Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Which century was most significant for American Drama?

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With which literary movement is the writer Henry David Thoreau associated?

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Which literary movement is considered the opposite of Transcendentalism?

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What kind of poetry did Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton write?

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What is Dark Romanticism?

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an American literary movement that focuses on human fallibility and the human tendency to turn to sin and self-destruction, especially in the face of social reforms.

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What is Dark Romanticism a subgenre of?

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a literary movement that focused on subjectivity and imagination to emphasize the individual and the sublimity of nature. It was marked by a devotion to beauty, worship of nature, and the superiority of imagination over logic and reason.

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Why is Romanticism optimistic?

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It focuses on the positive sides of the human condition

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Why is Dark Romanticism pessismestic?

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It focuses on the negative qualities of the human condition

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What does fallibility mean?

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The tendency to make mistakes

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What is trascendentalism?

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a group of writers and philosophers who believed in the purity and goodness of an individual and believed that institutions corrupted the individual.

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English Protestants who wanted to purify the Church of England in the 16th and 17th centuries. Because of religious persecution, many Puritans fled England and established themselves in New England

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What are the four key elements of Dark Romanticism?

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an individual who is prone to sin and self-destruction, the anthropomorphization of Evil, nature as sinister and spiritual, an individual's inability to make changes for the better.

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Who is an example of a Dark Romantic author?

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Edgar Allen Poe, Emiy Dickenson, Herman Melville, and Nathanial Hawthorne

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What is the difference between Gothic literature and Dark Romanticism?

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Dark Romantics want to emphasize the fallibility of human beings. Gothic literature wants the reader to feel an intense emotion while focusing on the sublimity of decay and an element of horror.

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Having so much beauty as to inspire awe and admiration.

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What is Anthromorphization?

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The act of giving non-human entities human characteristics, personalities, and forms.

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When did Dark Romanticism begin?

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Dark Romanticism began in the 19th century and grew in popularity between 1836 and 1840.

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Who was a major figure in the origins of Transcendentalism

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What isWalden by Henry David Thoreau about?

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Walden is about Thoreau's experience of living the simple life, away from society, and contemplating nature.

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What did Transcendentalists believe about human nature?

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Transcendentalists believe that humans are inherently good and can experience the divine without an organized religion.

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What was the Transcendentalist view of self-reliance?

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The Transcendentalists believed following one's intuition would lead a person to complete independence, with no need for reliance on others.

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What did Margaret Fuller write?

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Summer on the Lakes, an autobiographical account of her travels that include spiritual contemplation and social commentary.

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A symposium is a gathering of people to discuss intellectual ideas.

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What famous nineteenth century poet did Ralph Waldo Emerson inspire?

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What is a major theme of Emerson's essay 'Self-Reliance'?

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What modern-day book written by Jon Krakauer contains similar themes and values to Walden?

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What literary movement was in direct opposition to Transcendentalism?

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American Gothic (or Dark Romanticism)

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Who is the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate?

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What book is cited as the start of the Native American "renaissance" in the '60s and '70s?

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House Made of Dawnby N. Scott Momaday

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Who wrote American Indian Stories,published in 1921?

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What does 'intersectionality' mean?

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'Intersectionality' is the overlapping of social categorizations, such as gender, class, and race.

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What does 'assimilation' mean?

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The process in which a minority culture is replaced by a dominant culture.

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Why was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indianchallenged and banned across the United States?

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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was challenged and banned because of its acknowledgement of alcoholism, poverty, racism, and sexuality and for its profanity and anti-religious viewpoints.

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Why can't we view Native American Literature as a 'singular' literature?

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Native American literature comprises the various cultures and traditions among the distinct Native American tribes. There is no one singular Native American culture.

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Who is cited as a significant writer in the second wave of Native American literature?

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What roles do the natural world and landscape play in many works of Native American literature?

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Landscape and the natural world serve to provide an identity and sense of belonging for characters in Native American literature.

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What is a source of tension for characters in many Native American texts?

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A character is caught between two worlds.

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When did Confessional Poetry begin as a literary movement?

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Who are four of the most famous Confessional Poets?

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Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, and W.D. Snodgrass

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What is Confessional Poetry?

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a literary movement born in the late 1950s that honestly and directly spoke about the poet's own life experiences, often remarking on the psychological battles they have faced.

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What is the difference between a narrator and a speaker in literature?

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In longer books and novels, the one who tells the story is the narrator but in poetry, the one who tells the poem is the speaker.

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