Handout 103
Outline of American
Literary Periods
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The most significant authors are presented in bold type
[e.g., Homer]. |
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Authors in brackets pre or post-date slightly the
movement they are listed under, but are usually associated with that
movement |
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Longer lists are divided into genres by slashes (/). |
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Authors are "keyed" to the genre they are
MOST associated with, as follows:
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(p):
poetry, incl. epic & lyric ~ |
|
(d):
drama, incl. tragedy & comedy |
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(f):
fiction, incl. the novel & short story |
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(hb):
history or (auto)biography |
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(pp):
philosophy or political propaganda |
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(r):
religious polemics |
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(s):
science or social science |
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(pr):
miscellaneous prose (general essays, criticism, etc.) |
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I. Colonial Period (ca. 1607-1765):
Bradstreet(p), Edwards(r), Taylor(p), Franklin(hb)
II. Revolutionary & Early National Period
(ca. 1765-1830)
| Revolutionary
Age (ca. 1765-1790): Paine(pp), Jefferson(pp), Freneau(p) |
| Federalist
Age (ca. 1790-1830): Brown(f), Irving(f), Cooper(f), Bryant(p) |
III. Romantic Period (ca. 1830-1865):
Hawthorne(f), Longfellow(p), Holmes(pr), Poe(p), Melville(f), Whitman(p)
| Transcendentalism:
Emerson(pr), Thoreau(pp) |
IV. Realistic Period ("Gilded Age")
(ca. 1865-1900): p: Dickinson, Lanier / f: *Twain*, Howells, Bierce, O. Henry
| Local
Colorists (ca. 1870-1900): Harte(f), Harris(f), Jewett(f), Chopin(f),
Freeman(f) |
| Naturalism
(ca. 1890-1930): Norris(f), Crane(f), Dreiser(f), London(f) |
V. Modern(ist) Period (ca. 1900-1945): pp: W.
James, Dewey, Santayana(p): Masters, Robinson, Frost, Sandburg, Stevens, M.
Moore, Cummings, H. Crane / f: Cather, Stein, S. Anderson, Lewis, Porter, Dos
Passos, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, Wolfe, Steinbeck, West / d: O'Neill, M.
Anderson, Wilder
| Imagism
(fl. 1910's): p: A. Lowell, W.C.
Williams, Pound, |
| Harlem
Renaissance (fl. 20's): McKay(p), Toomer(f), Hughes(p), Cullen(p) |
VI. Post-Modern(ist) Period (ca. 1945-): f:
Nabokov, R. Wright, Ellison, Bellow, Salinger, Vonnegut, Mailer, O'Connor, Barth,
Barthelme, Updike, Brautigan, Roth / p: Roethke, Jarrell, Wilbur, Merwin / dd:
T. Williams, A. Miller, Albee
| Black
Mountain School (fl. 50's): p:
Olson, Duncan, Levertov, Creeley |
| Beats
(fl. 50's&60's): Burroughs(f), Ferlinghetti(p), Kerouac(f), Ginsberg(p),
Snyder(p) |
| Confessional
Poets (fl.50's&60's): p:
Berryman, R. Lowell, Snodgrass, Sexton, Plath |
| New
York Surrealists (fl. 50's&60's): p:
Koch, O'Hara, Ashbery |
| Deep
Imagists (fl. 60's&70's): p:
Bly, J. Wright, Simic |
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