Students Copy Lesson 4 2nd Grading

Objectives
At the end of the lesson, the students will be able to:

a. define American literature
b. explain the literary text of American literature from
different periods;
c.show understanding of American literature, culture
and history through a storyboard presentation of an
American literary piece.
Let’s know more about American
Literature
Refers to a body of written works produced in the

English language in the United States. Like other
national literatures, American literature was
shaped by the history of the country that
produced it.
Samuel Langhorne
Clemens, better
known by his pen
name, Mark Twain,
is known as "the
father of American
literature."
Literary Periods in American Literature
1.The Colonial and Early National Period

th
(17 Century – 1830)
A. The Colonial Period
*Majority of the writings are religious,
historical and practical.
MAJOR WRITERS AND THEIR WORK
 William Bradford – wrote Of Plymouth and
Mayflower Compact
 Edward Taylor – a poet and teacher who sailed to
New England in 1688
 Anne Bradstreet – wrote the Tenth Muse Lately
Sprung Up in America
 Jonathan Edwards - wrote the Sinners in the Hands
of an Angry God
B. The Early National Period
*Writers are devoted to the ideals of justice,
liberty and equality as natural rights of the man.
*Benjamin Franklin – known as the “Great man of

Letters”. He also wrote the Autobigraphy.
*Thomas Paine – “The Pamphleteer“ and “The
Crisis”.
 Philip Freneau – “ Poet of American Revolution” .
He wrote “The Wild Honeysuckle”.
 Washington Irving – wrote the Sketchbook of
Geoffrey Crayon.
2. The Romantic Period (1830-1870)
*The Transcendentalist movement begins

*The movement was based on the belief of
unity of world and God.
*Individualism and self-reliance were
developed.
*Ralph waldo Emerson – The Rhodora
*Henry David Thoreau - Walden or Life in

Woods and Civil Disobedience
*Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass

*Emily Dickinson – wrote 1, 775 poems but only
published one in her lifetime. Her work includes
“Hope is the Thing with Feathers” and “ I Could not
Stop for Death”.
*Edgar Allan Poe- Anabel Lee, The Raven, The Cask

of Amontillado
*Harriet Beecher Stowe- Uncle Tom’s Cabin
*Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter
*Herman Melville – Moby-Dick

3. Realism and Naturalism Period (1870-1910)
*Most of the literary works depict real-world scenes.

*Naturalism, like realism, was a literary movement
that drew inspiration from French authors of the 19th
century who sought to document, through fiction, the
reality that they saw around them, particularly among
the middle and working classes living in cities.
*Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) – The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn
*Henry James – The Portrait of a Lady
*Theodore Dreiser – An American Tragedy

4. The Modernist Period (1910- 1945)
*The most productive period of American

literature. It addresses topic such as race, gender and
human conditions.
*F. Scott Fitzgerald skewered the American Dream in
The Great Gatsby (1925).
*Richard Wright exposed and attacked American
racism in Native Son (1940).
*Zora Neale Hurston told the story of a black
woman’s three marriages in Their Eyes Were Watching
God (1937).
*Ernest Hemingway’s early novels The Sun Also Rises
(1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929) articulated the
disillusionment of the Lost Generation.
*Willa Cather told hopeful stories of the American frontier,
set mostly on the Great Plains, in O Pioneers! (1913) and My
Ántonia (1918).
*William Faulkner used stream-of-consciousness
monologues and other formal techniques to break from past
literary practice in The Sound and the Fury (1929). He Also
wrote the Rose for Emily.
*John Steinbeck depicted the difficult lives of migrant
workers in Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Grapes of Wrath
(1939).
5. The Contemporary Period (1945- Present)
*Written after World War II

*reflect a society's social and/or political
viewpoints, as evidenced by realistic characters,
current events connections, and socioeconomic
messages.
*Richard Wright – Black Boy
*Sylvia Plath- The Bell Jar
*John Steinbeck- The Grapes of Wrath
*Tennessee Williams- The Glass Menagerie
*Maya Angelou- Phenomenal Woman

Students Copy Lesson 4 2nd Grading

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Students Copy Lesson 4 2nd Grading

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Students Copy Lesson 4 2nd Grading

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Objectives

At the end of the lesson, the students will be able to:

Refers to a body of written works produced in the

1.The Colonial and Early National Period

*Benjamin Franklin – known as the “Great man of

*The Transcendentalist movement begins

*Henry David Thoreau - Walden or Life in

*Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass

*Edgar Allan Poe- Anabel Lee, The Raven, The Cask

*Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter

*Herman Melville – Moby-Dick

*Most of the literary works depict real-world scenes.

*Henry James – The Portrait of a Lady

*Theodore Dreiser – An American Tragedy

*The most productive period of American

*Written after World War II

You might also like