THE FIRST AMERICAN NOVEL

• William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy (1791)

The characters' struggles illustrate the dangers of seduction and the

pitfalls of giving in to one's passions, while advocating the moral

education of women and the use of rational thinking as ways to

prevent the consequences of such actions. It is a sentimental novel

written in epistolary form.

• Hannah Webster Foster's The Coquette
(1797)
A fictionalized account of the much-publicized
death of a socially elite Connecticut woman after
giving birth to a stillborn, illegitimate child at a
roadside tavern. Foster’s novel highlights the social
conditions that lead to the downfall of an otherwise
well-educated and socially adept woman.
 ROMANTICISM (AMERICAN ROMANTIC
PERIOD)

A period of rapid expansion and growth of the

United States which filled:

• Intuition
• Imagination
• Individualism
 HISTORY OF ROMANTICISM (AMERICAN
ROMANTIC PERIOD)
• 1830 (50 years after the Revolutionary War)
- Americans were anxious to create their own identity and
not so reliant on European values.
AMERICAN ROMANTIC MOVEMENT
CHALLENGED RATIONAL THINKING IN
AGE OF REASON.
-fewer instructional texts and more stories,
novel and poetry.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICAN
ROMANTIC PERIOD
1. Imagination and Escapism
2. Individuality
3. Nature as a source of spirituality
4. Looking to the past for wisdom
5. Seeing the common man as a hero
 CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICAN
ROMANTIC LITERATURE
1. Imagination
and Escapism
-related to
Industrial
Revolution.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICAN
ROMANTIC LITERATURE
Escapism
-where the mind allows you to escape harsh
conditions by taking you to a place that is
purely beautiful.
Ex. (characters in romantic literature are often
journeying away from the city and into the
countryside)
-the author uses imagery.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICAN
ROMANTIC LITERATURE
WASHINGTON IRVING (FATHER OF AMERICAN LITERATURE)

-He wrote RIP VAN WINKLE.

 CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICAN
ROMANTIC LITERATURE
EXAMPLE OF ESCAPISM:
2. INDIVIDUALITY
-People are not creating identity for themselves, the
country creates its own identity.

(Americans wanted to distance themselves from

Europe and become intellectually independent)
2. INDIVIDUALITY
Example of Individuality: Characters living on
the outskirts of society.
Ex. 1: An old-school American cowboy who's
not following the norms that have come over
from Europe.
3. NATURE AS A SOURCE OF SPIRITUALITY
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT “THANATOPSIS”

“DEATH IS JUST A CHANCE

TO GO BACK TO NATURE”
4. WISDOM FROM THE PAST

•Romantic authors use old legends to

create new stories (form and techniques
are the same, but content is unique.)
4. WISDOM FROM THE PAST

•FIRESIDE ROMANTIC POETS

 ROMANTICISM

• Prefers the medieval rather than the classical.

• It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the

aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of
Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of
nature—all components of modernity.
TO A WATERFOWL (American Romantic Poetry)

-Described the flight of a beautiful seabird and also takes time to

reflect on what this experience has taught him as the bird departs.
REALISM
REALISM

-popular from around 1865-1900

-was challenged to look past:

REALISM

-To depict the world in this way, realist writers turned away from grandiose
subject matter and instead focused on the lower middle classes depicting
daily life in gritty.

-The assumption behind this strategy was that literature had the power to
change society and that by depict life warts-and-all writers could improve
the world without being too preachy about it.
 REALISM

• Historically, this effort to depict the world in

an honest objective terms found its roots in
the invention of photography and
proliferation of newspapers throught the US.
 REALISM
• Whereas painting made it fairly easy to romanticize subjects like war,
photography offered stark depictions of its subject matter.
 MARK TWAIN
• Real name Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was an American
writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.
Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
(1875) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(1885),[2] the latter often called "The Great American
Novel".
 REALISM

• What all realist authors had in common was

an interest in truth and a belief that by
honestly depicting the gritty details of
everyday life, good writing could change the
world.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF REALISM
• Character is more important than action and plot; complex ethical
choices are often the subject.
• Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament and
motive; they are in explicable relation to nature, to each other, to
their social class, to their own past.
• Class is important; the novel has traditionally served the interests and
aspirations of an insurgent middle class.
• Events will usually be plausible. Realistic novels avoid the sensational,
dramatic elements of naturalistic novels and romances.
• Diction is natural vernacular, not heightened or poetic; tone may be
comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact.
Difference between English Literature and
American Literature
• Literary works written and published in Great Britain and British colonies are referred by
the term English literature while American literature refers to literary works written and
published in America.

• English literature is written in British English while American literature is written in

American English.

• English literature mainly reflects the English culture, English mannerisms while American
literature mirrors American culture, its history, and revolutionary concepts such as
relationships with the church, the state, supernatural elements that emerged in the
country. E.g. Massachusetts battle.
Difference between English Literature and
American Literature
• English literature is older than the American English.

• American literature is often known as a much more realistic in

portraying characters while English literature is known for its wit and
portrayal of theme in plots and characterization.

• Judging by the above distinct and subtle differences, it is

comprehensible that English literature and American literature are
two different notions although American literature was once part of
the English literature.