American Literature Eras

In the realm of American literature, a rich tapestry of stories, poems, and dramas spans from the oral traditions of Native peoples to the contemporary works created in the United States today. This journey through time and culture is as diverse as the nation itself, with influential figures shaping the literary landscape at every turn.

One of the earliest American writers was Phillis Wheatley, an African woman enslaved in Boston, who became the first Black poet of note in the United States. Her work paved the way for other African American writers like Paul Laurence Dunbar, who wrote poetry in Black dialect, and Richard Wright, whose autobiography Black Boy and novel Native Son had a profound impact on contemporary literature written by African Americans.

The history of American literature is also deeply intertwined with the experiences of the early colonists. John Smith, an English explorer and president of the Jamestown Colony, wrote histories based on his experiences, while Nathaniel Ward and John Winthrop authored books on religion, a topic of central concern in colonial America.

As the United States headed towards civil war, more and more stories by and about enslaved and free Black people were written. Among these were William Wells Brown's Clotel, often considered the first Black American novel, and Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative, an early slave narrative and a forceful argument for abolition.

The 19th century saw the rise of the Romantic period, with important American writers such as Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. These authors are known for their significant works exemplifying Romantic themes such as individualism, nature, and emotion.

Edgar Allan Poe most vividly depicted, and inhabited, the role of the Romantic individual during the 1830s and up to his mysterious death in 1849. His poem "The Raven" is a gloomy depiction of lost love, while Poe invented the modern detective story with "The Murders in the Rue Morgue".

During the 1850s, the Harlem Renaissance began to take shape, producing a rich coterie of poets, among them Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Alice Dunbar Nelson. This movement continued into the 1930s, with Lillian Hellman, Clifford Odets, and Langston Hughes writing plays that exposed injustice in America.

The 20th century brought about a sense of disillusionment and loss, which pervades much American Modernist fiction. Ernest Hemingway's early novels The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929) articulated the disillusionment of the Lost Generation, while T.S. Eliot's fragmentary, multivoiced The Waste Land (1922) is the quintessential Modernist poem.

Willa Cather told hopeful stories of the American frontier, set mostly on the Great Plains, in O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918). John Steinbeck depicted the difficult lives of migrant workers in Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939).

In the contemporary period, literature written by African Americans was significantly shaped by Richard Wright, whose autobiography Black Boy was published in 1945. Gwendolyn Brooks became, in 1950, the first African American poet to win a Pulitzer Prize.

The Black Arts movement, grounded in the tenets of Black nationalism, sought to generate a uniquely Black consciousness. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), by Malcolm X and Alex Haley, is among its most-lasting literary expressions.

The oral traditions of the Pueblo peoples include stories about kachinas, the ancestral spirit-beings that exist among humans and actively shape their environment. Among the Native peoples of the Plains, a wide range of creation myths explain how the world came into existence. Coyote was the central figure of the age before humans were created, with Raven being Coyote's counterpart for the Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast.

In the modern era, J.E. Luebering serves as Vice President, Editorial at Encyclopaedia Britannica, ensuring that the rich history and diversity of American literature continues to be celebrated and studied. From the works of early colonists to the novels, poetry, and drama created today, American literature stands as a testament to the nation's cultural evolution and the resilience of the human spirit.