English III: Historical Contexts in American Literature

18th Century Artistic and Literary Currents: 1700-1800s

• Colonial Literature (The Age of Reason; The Enlightenment) Authors: Crevecoeur, Ben Franklin, Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson and Abigail Adams, Jonathan Edwards. Click here to learn 18th & 19th Century currents together on one page. Click here for a powerpoint on Colonial literature.

19th Century Artistic and Literary Currents: 1800-1900s

• Europeanrom Romanticism: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
• American Romanticism, Gothic (Poe, Hawthorne, Washington Irving, et al.)
• Hudson River School, Transcendentalism
• New England Renaissance (Transcendentalism: Emerson, Fuller, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville)
• Dickinson, Whitman
• 19th Century European Realism and Naturalism (Doll House)
• American Realism, Regionalism and Naturalism (Dunbar, Robinson, Stowe, Twain, James, Jewett, Cather, Chopin, (Glaspell)

20th Century Artistic and Literary Currents: 1900-present

• Modernism (Prose), Fitzgerald, Hemingway & Faulkner.
• Modernism (Poems)Pound, Williams, Eliot, Cummings, Stevens.
• Harlem Renaissance: Hughes, Toomer, Cullen, Johnson, and Brown.
• Twentieth century Drama: Arthur Miller
• Post World War II Poets: Sexton, Plath, Rich.
• Beat Generation
• Modern Multiculture Authors and Poets (Wilson, Walker, Morrison)
• New York City Poets (Whitman)
• Post Modernsim
• Feminism: Bradstreet, Margaret Dial, Chopin, Hurston, Sexton

Literary Influences and Residues

• Emerson's Self Reliance & Nature (Dickinson, Whitman)
• Hawthorne (Jewett, Cather & Morrison)
• Women's Authors (Bradstreet, Dickinson, Rich, Sexton)
• Whitman (Beats, Kinnell, Hall)
• Dickinson (Rich, Who else?)

 Nota Bene:

• Bloom's Anxiety of Influence
• New Historicism
• The Best Link
• Want a great web page for Whitman?:

This image of Whitman in his first edition of Leaves of Grass caused a good deal of controversy in his day. Do you recognize any nineteenth century dress code violoations? Whitman was a major influence for many poets writing after WW II. The Beat Generatoin were inspired by Whitman.