Literature Periods
Revolutionary Period
1750-1800“Age of reason”Patriotism growsInstills pride
Thomas Paine
Author, inventor and revolutionaryA founding father of the United StatesCommon Sense
Flickr, cdrummbks, May 4 2010, attribution license
Benjamin Franklin
Author, printer, politician, scientist and inventorA founding father of the United StatesPoor Richards Almanack
Flickr, immugmania, January 11 2008, attribution license
Romanticism
1800-1860complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement “The age of revolution”
Characteristics
Love of natureLove of the common manHeroism Imagination and emotion over logic and reason
George Gordon Byron
Influential British poet She Walks In Beauty When We Two Parted
Many love affairsSelf-imposed exile
Flickr, Ben Sutherland, May 5 2008, attribution license
William Blake
Poet and a painterNot largely recognized during his lifeMost famous English romantic
Realism
1855-1900Civil War and postwar periodAims to change a specific social problem
Mark Twain
Loved by readers and critics alike Known as greatest American Humorist of his ageAdventures of Huckleberry Finn
Stephen Crane
Short stories, poems and journalsLeft school at sixteenThe Red Badge of Courage
The Moderns
1900-1950Pursuit of the American dreamOptimism Importance of the individual
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Regarded as one of the greatest writers of 20th centuryJazz ageThe Great Gatsby
Contemporary
1970-presentBeginning of the new century and millenniumMedia culture interprets values
Maya Angelou
30 honorary degreesActive in Civil Rights movementI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings