* AMERICAN

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LITERATURE

Colonial literature
Post independency
First american novels
Unique America styles
Realism: Twain and James
Turn of the 20 th century
Depresion era literature
The post war novel

* COLONIAL

LITERATURE

*NEW ENGLAND COLONIES: THE CENTER

OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
*Large inmigration to Boston in the 1630s}
*The puritans: Highly religious:Bay Psalm
Book
*The first printing press. Cambridge

* INFLUENCE

OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE
BEFORE THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

*The first item printed in Pennsylvania was in German.

*Spanish ad french exerted strong influence on
literary tradition.
*English become lingua franca.
*Captain John Smith is considered the first american
author.

* The revolutionary period also contained

political writigs: Benjamin Franklin.

* During the 18 th century writing shifted form

the Puritanical ideas to the power of human
mind ad rational thought. Laws of physics

* POST

INDEPENDENCE

Thomas JefFerson United States

Declaration of Independence, his
influence on the United States
Constitution, his autobiography, the
Notes on the State of Virginia and his
many letters make him the most talented
early American writer.
*The search for an american voice in
existing literary genre.

* FIRST

AMERICAN NOVELS

*Late 18th and early 19th: First novels were

published.
*First American novel: The power of sympathy
published in 1791 by William Hill.

*Charlotte: A Tale of Truth published by Susana

Rowson in 1791.
*Uncle Toms Cabin published by Harriet
Beecher Stowe

*The coquette was published in 1797 by

Hannah Webster Foster.

* UNIQUE

AMERICAN STYLE

*Washington Irving: The first author

to be able to support himself

through the income generated by his
publications. He completed his first
major book in 1809 entitled A
History of New York from the
Beginninng of the World to the end
of the Dutch Dynasty.

*Edgar Allan Poe. The Masque of the Red Death,

The pit and the pendulum, The Fall of the House
of Usher, the Murders in the Rue Morgue.