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