American Literature
Some important historical facts and dates to keep in mind:
1492: The Discovery of the United States
1776: The Independence
1789: The American Constitution
Americans longed for a national identity and a national
literature to express the history and culture of the newly
formed nation
Early 19th century
During this period, there was no support for literary
production in America; European literature was more
popular
Literature had a place in American life, with readers,
literacy, but relatively little native production
“The American Renaissance”
1820s and 1840s: Transcendentalism was an important
movement in the first half of the 19th century
A mixture of religion, philosophy and literary movement
Main exponents: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David
Thoreau, and Walt Whitman
Mid-19th century
By the mid century, national literature was finally established
Literature as a paid activity, as well as a source of power and
prestige
Boston as the literary center in the United States
Mid-19th century
It is important to highlight the contribution of popular fiction
by women in the 1850s
Women writers spoke to a new world created for women
and for family life, often writing pieces about domestic life
An important event was the appearance of the ‘penny
press’ (inexpensive publications) and mass journalism
(newspapers published fiction)
Still in the 19th century…
1861-1865: American Civil War
The South became economically poor, but flourished
literarily
In the second half of the 19th century, American literature
witnessed the development of regionalism/local color
literature and urban realism
20th Century Literature
Several events influenced the development of literature in the
20th century:
Waves of immigration of different backgrounds (Jewish,
Chinese, Latin Americans, among others)
World War I (1914-1918)
World War II (1939-1945)
20th Century Literature
Other important events that also influenced the literary
production were:
The Civil Rights Movement
The Vietnam War (1956-1975)
The election and murder of JFK
The Cold War
Not to mention women’s rights, pop music, the Beatles, the
hippie movement, a criticism of authority and of the American
Dream…
FICTION
In the beginning of the 20th century, the literary production
of fiction was mostly associated with Realism (more an
urban tendency) or Regionalism (more rural)
Major names in literature: Theodore Dreiser, Kate Chopin,
Henry James, Edith Wharton
Some elements found in literature were determinism, no
individual choice, naturalism, unromanticized observation
of life
20th century
World War I as a sort of dividing line between the legacy of
the 19th century and new tendencies in literature and arts
Industrialization and mechanization of society
Increase in population size, especially in urban centers
The rise of the American Dream
The Harlem Renaissance: a movement in black arts
The Modernist Movement was introduced in the United
States
“The Lost Generation”
Some characteristics:
faithlessness, disillusionment
sense of failure and sterility
alienation from civilization
hopelessness, loss, destruction
disbelief in the prosperity brought about by the war
industry
disbelief in materialism
the failure of the American Dream
“The Jazz Age”
Some characteristics of the Jazz Age are:
celebration of post-war prosperity and the economic boom
drinking and partying; social outragings
breaking up with patriarchal society
life of no commitments, life of dissipation
easy money
And the background to it was the Prohibition law, in effect
from 1920 to-1933 (alcoholic beverages were prohibited)
“The Great Depression”
The stock exchange market crashed in 1929 and the
economy collapsed
This period produced literary works of political and social
criticism (example: John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath)
Post-World War II period
An important movement in literature was “The Beat
Generation”, formed around Columbia University and
established later in San Francisco
Sense of rebellion against conservative society
Interest in new forms of spiritual experience
Some of the main names are J.D. Salinger, Sylvia Plath, Jack
Kerouac, Allen Guinsberg, among others
Contemporary American fiction
(from the 1970s on)
The development of Postmodernism, whose main
characteristics were:
Decentering (breaking away from the division between
center and margin)
Denarrativization (breaking up with narrative rules)
Pop culture
The representation of mass media
The use of parody and pastiche
Some of the major names in literature are Thomas Pynchon,
Don DeLillo, Robert Coover, and Joyce Carol Oates
