History of American Literature

History of

American
Literature
A Report for E.A. Literature

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Reporters:
Kimberly B. Dela Cruz
Jonathan Ace Robles
Jhoanna Rose Tenorio

Member of the Asscoiated
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history, America
was a series of British colonies on
the eastern coast of the present-day
United States. Therefore, its literary
tradition begins as linked to the
broader tradition of English
literature. However, unique
American characteristics and the
breadth of its production usually
now cause it to be considered a
separate path and tradition.

the earliest forms of American
literature were pamphlets and writings
extolling the benefits of the colonies to both
a European and colonist audience.
John Smith
Captain John Smith could be considered the
first American author with his works: A True
Relation of … Virginia (1608).
The revolutionary period also contained
Samuel Adams
political writings, including those by
colonist Samuel Adams. Two key figures
were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine.
Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac and The
Benjamin Franklin
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are
esteemed works with their wit and
influence toward the formation of a
budding American identity.
Thomas Paine

the post-war period, The Federalist essays
by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison,
and John Jay represented a historical
Alexander Hamilton
discussion of government organization and
republican values. Thomas
Jefferson’s United States Declaration of
Independence, his influence on the
James Madison
Constitution, and the mass of his letters
have led to him being considered one of the
most talented early American writers.
John Jay
The first American novel is sometimes
considered to be William Hill Brown’s The
Power of Sympathy (1789). Much of the
early literature of the new nation struggled
Thomas Jefferson
to find a uniquely American voice. European
forms and styles were often transferred to
new locales and critics often saw them as
inferior
W.H. Brown

the War of 1812 and an increasing desire
to produce uniquely American work, a
number of key new literary figures
appeared, perhaps most prominently
Washington Irving
Washington Irving, James Fenimore
Cooper, and Edgar Allan Poe.
Irving, often considered the first writer to
develop a unique American style (although
James Fenimore
this is debated) wrote humorous works
Cooper
in Salmagundi and the well-known satire A
History of New York, by Diedrich
Edgar Allan Poe
Knickerbocker (1809).
Anti-transcendental works from Melville
(Moby-Dick), Hawthorne (Scarlet Letter),
and Poe (The Fall of the House of Usher) all
comprise the Dark Romanticism subgenre of
Hawthorne
literature popular during this time.

Poetry
America’s two greatest 19th-century poets could hardly have
been more different in temperament and style. Walt
Whitman (1819-1892) was a working man, a traveler, a selfappointed nurse during the American Civil War (18611865), and a poetic innovator. His magnum opus was Leaves
of Grass, in which he uses a free-flowing verse and lines of
irregular length to depict the all-inclusiveness of American
democracy. Taking that motif one step further, the poet
equates the vast range of American experience with himself
without being egotistical.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), on the other hand, lived the
sheltered life of a genteel unmarried woman in small-town
Amherst, Massachusetts. Within its formal structure, her
poetry is ingenious, witty, exquisitely wrought, and
psychologically penetrating. Her work was unconventional
for its day, and little of it was published during her lifetime.
Many of her poems dwell on death, often with a
mischievous twist.

Walt Whitman

Emily Dickinson

the Mississippi and the 
novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain’s style 
changed the way Americans write their language. 
His characters speak like real people and sound 
distinctively American, using local dialects, newly 
invented words, and regional accents.
Henry James (1843-1916) confronted the Old WorldNew World dilemma by writing directly about it. 
Among his more accessible works are the 
novellas Daisy Miller, about an enchanting 
American girl in Europe, and The Turn of the Screw, 
an enigmatic ghost story.

Mark Twain

Henry James

Century
At the beginning of the 20th century, American novelists 
were expanding fiction’s social spectrum to encompass 
both high and low life and sometimes connected to the 
naturalist school of realism. 
More directly political writings discussed social issues and 
power of corporations. Some like Edward
Bellamy in Looking Backward outlined other possible 
political and social frameworks. Upton Sinclair, most 
famous for his meat-packing novel The Jungle, 
advocated socialism. Henry Adams’ literate 
autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams also 
depicted a stinging description of the education system 
and modern life.
Experimentation in style and form soon joined the new 
freedom in subject matter. 

Edward Bellamy

Upton Sinclair

Henry Adams

Century
American writers also expressed the disillusionment 
following upon the war. The stories and novels of 
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) capture the restless, 
pleasure-hungry, defiant mood of the 1920s. Fitzgerald’s 
characteristic theme, expressed poignantly in The Great
Gatsby, is the tendency of youth’s golden dreams to 
dissolve in failure and disappointment. 
Depression era literature was blunt and direct in its social 
criticism. John Steinbeck (1902-1968). His style was 
simple and evocative, winning him the favor of the 
readers but not of the critics. The Grapes of Wrath, 
considered his masterpiece, is a strong, socially-oriented 
novel that tells the story of the Joads, a poor family from 
Oklahoma and their journey to California in search of a 
better life.

Scott Fritzgerald

John Steinbeck

period in time from the end of World War II up until,
roughly, the late 1960s and early 1970s saw to the
publication of some of the most popular works in American
history.
The poetry and fiction of the “Beat Generation,” largely born of
a circle of intellects formed in New York City around
Columbia University and established more officially some
time later in San Francisco, came of age. The term, Beat,
referred, all at the same time, to the countercultural rhythm
of the Jazz scene, to a sense of rebellion regarding the
conservative stress of post-war society, and to an interest in
new forms of spiritual experience through drugs, alcohol,
philosophy, and religion, and specifically through Zen
Buddhism
Regarding the war novel specifically, there was a literary
explosion in America during the post-World War II era.
Some of the most well known of the works produced
included Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead (1948).

Norman Mailer

1700s

1800s

Colonia
l
Period

Early US
Literatur
e

Unique
American
Style

Post
WorldWar II

st

1950s-21
century

Turn of
the
Century
th

20
century

19 th
century
American
Poetry

Realism
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