1. AMERICAN LITERATURE

2.  Characteristics of Romanticism:  contemplates nature and
 values feeling and intuition over nature's beauty as a path to
reason spiritual and moral development
 places faith in inner experience  looks backward to the wisdom of
and the power of the the past and distrusts progress
imagination  finds beauty and truth in exotic
 despises the artificiality of locales, the supernatural
civilization and seeks unspoiled realm, and the inner world of the
nature imagination
 prefers youthful innocence to  finds inspiration in
educated sophistication myth, legend, and folk culture
 champions individual freedom  delves into the psychological
and the worth of the individual aspects of good and evil and the
workings of the inner mind

3.  The CIVIL WAR  CONNECT: in a school of
 Began at Fort Sumter in 1000 students, about 120-
1861 and ended at the 150 would have been
Appomattox Courthouse wounded or died during
in 1865, the 4-year period
 Over 600,000 people  Everyone was affected
died from battle, disease,  During and after the
or poor medical care War, many writers were
disillusioned with
Romantic ideals

4.  GROWING MIDDLE CLASS  A MORE COMPLEX
(more literate public to read) WORLD called for more
 URBAN realistic literature and art
INDUSTRIALIZATION  A REJECTION OF
 UPHEAVAL IN SOCIAL IDEALISM and
STRUCTURE and changing ESCAPISM – no clearly
class values defined lines of good and
evil
 A DESIRE to understand and
give a voice to the suffering in  -- less interest in escaping
the real world – to document into supernatural and
the reality of their imaginative stories
culture, history, society  REFLECTED THE
CHANGING CULTURE
OF AMERICA

5.  THE SWELL OF  The prominence of
IMMIGRANTS in the PSYCHOLOGY and the
latter half of the 19th theories of Sigmund
century, which led to a Freud
larger lower class and  Publication of Charles
INCREASED POVERTY Darwin’s Origin of the
IN THE CITIES Species
 PESSIMISM in the  A growing literacy and
wake of Reconstruction interest in fiction and
and journalism
 CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUES

6.  An attempt to be a true and faithful representation of
reality
 VERISIMILITUDE
 It comes from Latin verum meaning truth
and similis meaning similar
 An attempt to present a semblance of truth, to be true or
real

7.  Subject matter—ordinary people and events;
 Purpose—Verisimilitude, the truthful
representation of life;
 Point of View—omniscient and objective
 Characters—middle class (class is important)
 Plot de-emphasized
 Focus on everyday life
 Complex ethical choices often the subject
 Events are made to seem the inevitable result of
characters’ choices

8.  Use of the vernacular – or real language .
The language usually reflects social class,
educational background, culture
 Events will usually be plausible, believable
 Often an emphasis on the psychological
turmoil or nature of the character
 Setting is important – characters are
connected to place and time, other
characters

9.  Humans control their destinies
 characters act on their environment
rather than simply reacting to it.
 Slice-of-life technique
 often ends without traditional formal
closure, leaving much untold to
suggest man’s limited ability to make
sense of his life.

10.  Prominent from 1865-1895.
 Coincided with Realism and sharing many of the same
traits.
 Focuses on physical setting / landscape , putting
fictional characters into a real settings

11.  Very specific details about the environment and how
the characters interact with that setting (Twain’s Huck
Finn)
 the more specific they become with details of settings,
the stronger and more believable the characters
become – this allows the writer to tie in universal
themes and values held by the character that were
caused by the setting they are in to a certain region
(eg. the South, the West)

12.  Characters are often STOCK or
STEREOTYPES
 Use of dialect, or language specific to a
particular region or setting
 Uses details that describe local food, living
conditions, dress, architecture, transportati
on, etc.

13.  Narrator-- an educated observer from
the world beyond who’s often
deceived
 Plot—nothing much happens,
revolves around the community
and its rituals

14.  Dislike of change, nostalgia for an
always-past Golden Age;
 Triumphant trickster or trickster
tricked;
 Tall tale-tradition, conflicts
described humorously, larger than
life

15. Definition: A literature that depicts social
problems and views humans as victims of
larger biological, psychological and social
and economic forces.
NATURE or ENVIRONMENT determines
fate of a character
 Scientific determinism
 Psychological determinism
 Historical determinism

16.  Man has no direct control over who or what
he is. His fate is determined by outside
forces that can be discovered through
scientific inquiry;
 Humans respond to environmental forces
and internal stresses and drives, none of
which can be fully controlled or understood
 People are driven by fundamental urges like fear,
hunger, sex
 The world is a “competitive jungle,”

17.  Man is a victim of his inner and
subconscious self (Freud).

18.  Man is fundamentally an animal,
without free will;
 Governed by determinism
 External and internal forces,
environment or heredity control
behavior;
 Characters have compensating
humanistic values which affirm life;
 Struggle for life becomes heroic and
affirms human dignity
 Pessimistic view of human
capabilities—life is a trap

19.  Realism, Regionalism, and Naturalism
are intertwined and connected.
 Their influence has dominated most
literature created since 1920, though
the movement itself is dated to roughly
that point.
 They are truly American modes of
writing.