Prior to the last decades of the 20th century, American literature was largely the story of dead white men who had created Art and of living white men doing the same. The history of literature is often divided by students and literary critics into eras, or movements, which broadly categorize prominent styles of writing from different time periods. Art produced during this time was centered around the Church. Apr 16, 2014 - The Literature Network created a graphical timeline representing literary periods and movements, as well as major events and authors, from literature history. She received a Nobel Prize in 1993. Phillis Wheatley, an African woman enslaved in Boston, wrote the first African American book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). American Literature Timeline Period Dates Period Name Period Characteristics Famous Authors and Works Arrived 40,000 - 20,000 B.C Native Americans 1. The 19th-century literature is merged with three ages. Period marked by intellectual opposition against Puritanism and America’s revolution against England. Here are some of the most commonly agreed upon periods of American literature from the colonial period to the present. of English literature spans over six decades, the year 1870 is often used to divide the era into "early Victorian" and "late Victorian." Edgar Allan Poe most vividly depicted, and inhabited, the role of the Romantic individual—a genius, often tormented and always struggling against convention—during the 1830s and up to his mysterious death in 1849. This was the earliest American literature: practical, straightforward, often derivative of literature in Great Britain, and focused on the future. Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, which he wrote during the 1770s and ’80s, told a quintessentially American life story. Elizabethan era (c. 1558–1603): A flourishing period in English literature, particularly drama, that coincided with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and included writers such as Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sidney, and Edmund Spenser. PROPAGANDA LITERATURE – reformatory in objective. Some of his notable works include, Major novels: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Travel narratives: The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), Life on the Mississippi (1883), Short stories: “Jim Baker’s Blue-Jay Yarn” (1880), “The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg” (1899). He refused the traditional constraints of rhyme and meter in favor of free verse in Leaves of Grass (1855), and his frankness in subject matter and tone repelled some critics. Literary Period Introductions Tracing the evolution of literature through time scholars often group works from a certain timeframe together and label it as a period or movement. Literary Periods of British and American Literature - SUMMARY For ease of study, literary scholars divide British and American Literature into segments referred to as "periods." Below, you’ll find a list of the major movements and eras of English literature; look them over. Advances in science and technology in Western countries rapidly intensified at the start of the 20th century and brought about a sense of unprecedented progress. The human cost of the Civil War in the United States was immense: more than 2.3 million soldiers fought in the war, and perhaps as many as 851,000 people died in 1861–65. I'm going to do this all from the comfort of this armchair, which I bought at a yard sale for $11, so here we go! Zora Neale Hurston told the story of a black woman’s three marriages in Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). They are: 1. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (1956) pushed aside the formal, largely traditional poetic conventions that had come to dominate American poetry. Literary Period Introductions Tracing the evolution of literature through time scholars often group works from a certain timeframe together and label it as a period or movement. /* 728x90, created 5/23/10 litnet homepage top leader */ While the exact number, dates, and names of these periods vary, the following lists conform to widespread acceptance. Victorian Period. The majority of writings were historical, practical, or religious in nature. Poe invented the modern detective story with “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes were the most prominent of the upper-class Brahmins, who filtered their depiction of America through European models and sensibilities.