Topic outline
- General
- The Colonial Period
The Colonial Period
Lecture Description: American literature began with the first English colonies in Virginia and New England. The first settlers came to the New World to find religious freedom and economic prosperity. They came as Englishmen, bringing with them the literary heritage of the British Renaissance, and were loyal to the Crown. They did not even call themselves Americans.
By the end of the lecture, the student will be able to discern the different types of Colonial period (1607- 1776) writing that mainly range from promotion, in Captain John Smith's A Description of New England (1616), to the search for religious freedom in the Puritan writings of William Bradford and Edward Taylor.
- The Revolutionary Period
The Revolutionary Period
"Yesterday the greatest question was decided which was ever debated in America, and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided upon men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that those United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states" John Adams
- Romantic Period (1800-1865): Building the Nation's Identity
Romantic Period (1800-1865): Building the Nation's Identity
Lecture's description:The Romantic Period of American literature witnesses the birth of literature that can truly be called "American"-- the themes, characters, and setting were authentically American. Emersonian philosophy, as displayed in the essay "Nature", immensely contributed to the sharpening and galvanizing of the American identity in literature and other aspects of life.
- Modernism in American literature
