American Literature Timeline
Period Dates
Period Name
Period Characteristics
Famous Authors
and Works
Arrived 40,000 -
20,000 B.C
Native Americans
1. Oral literature: epic narratives, creation
myths, stories, poems, songs.
2. Use stories to teach moral lessons and
convey practical information about the natural
world.
3. Deep respect for nature and animals
4. Cyclical world view
5. Figurative language/parallelism
1600-1800
First “American”
colonies
established
Salem Witch Trials
Puritanism
1. Wrote mostly diaries and histories, which
expressed the connections between God an
their everyday lives.
2. Sought to “purify” the Church of England
by reforming to the simpler forms of worship
and church organization described in the New
Testament
3. Saw religion as a personal, inner
experience.
4. Believed in original sin and “elect” who
would be saved.
5. Used a plain style of writing
William Bradford (“Of
Plymouth Plantation”),
Anne Bradstreet (poetry),
Jonathan Edwards
(“Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God”), Edward
Taylor (“Huswifery”)
1750-1800
Revolutionary War
The Constitution,
The Bill of Rights,
and The
Declaration of
Independence
were created.
Rationalism
“The Age of
Reason”
“The Enlighten-
ment”
1. Mostly comprised of philosophers,
scientists, writing speeches and pamphlets.
2. Human beings can arrive at truth (God’s
rules) by using deductive reasoning, rather
than relying on the authority of the past, on
religious faith, or intuition.
Benjamin Franklin
(Autobiography), Patrick
Henry (“Speech to the
Virginia Convention”),
Thomas Paine (“The
Crisis”), Phyllis Wheatley
(poetry)
1800-1860
Industrialization
War of 1812
California Gold
Rush
Romanticism
1. Valued feeling, intuition, idealism, and
inductive reasoning.
2. Placed faith in inner experience and the
power of the imagination.
3. Shunned the artificiality of civilization and
seek unspoiled nature as a path to spirituality.
4. Championed individual freedom and the
worth of the individual.
5. Saw poetry as the highest expression of
the imagination.
6. Dark Romantics: Used dark and
supernatural themes/settings (Gothic style)
Washington Irving (“Rip
Van Winkle”), Emily
Dickinson (poetry), Walt
Whitman (Leaves of
Grass), Edgar Allan Poe
(“The Raven”), Nathaniel
Hawthorne (The Scarlet
Letter)
1840-1860
Abolitionist,
Utopian, and
Women’s Suffrage
Movements
Transcendentalism
“The American
Renaissance”
1. Everything in the world, Including human
beings, is a reflection of the Divine Soul
2. People can use their intuition to behold
God’s spirit revealed in nature or in their own
souls.
3. Self-reliance and individualism must
outweigh external authority and blind
conformity to tradition
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Nature, “Self-Reliance”),
Henry David Thoreau
(Walden, Life in the
Woods).
Louisa May Alcott (Little
Women)
