American Literature

Literature has been a huge part of American Culture dating back to the beginning of the United States. Over the years, literature has emerged and each movement has different qualities that make them different from each other and set them apart from each other. Each and every movement of American Literature has its own qualities and pieces that stick out from the crowd. From the New England Renaissance to the Contemporary Movement, American Literature has shaped our culture and plays an important role in the United States’ changes over the years.

The New England Renaissance is one of the first movements that swept the nation. American Literature grew into something never expected, and influenced many writers. Nature and European methods were used as key factors in writing with authors such as Longfellow, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Dickinson. Longfellow shows characteristics of the New England Renaissance movement in his writing because he writes very much like European styles. As the author of “The Skeleton in Armor”, he uses techniques that are very similar to the Fireside Poets, and tries to capture the American heritage in the 17th through the 24th lines of the poem. Because of its narrative form, you can tell that Longfellow did not try to move away from the majority of writers, but instead took a style that was already very common at the period in history. Emerson, the next author, who wrote both “Nature” and “Self-Reliance”, shows characteristics of Transcendentalism in his writing. Church, state, and society were key factors in the Transcendentalists’ writing. Emerson showed both all these qualities in his writing. In “Nature” he wrote about the spiritual state he was in writing this book. He truly started the change between European-based writing formats, and American Literature. One of Emerson’s fellow authors, and fellow transcendentalists’ was Henry David Thoreau, the author of “Walden”. He wrote this book which expressed the individualism of Americans and their character. Maybe the most influential writer of this time would be Hawthorne. There being transcendentalists, meant there were also anti-transcendentalists. Nathaniel Hawthorne may be the single most memorable one. He made a huge impact on American Literature for the single fact that he went way off normal European topics. In “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” it says, “But it was well known to be a book of magic.” Magic is usually something not talked about because many European authors valued the hereafter. These transcendentalists and anti-transcendentalists contributed new elements for American culture and literature, and all distinctly have qualities in their writing that belonged in the New England Renaissance movement.

After the New England Renaissance came Realism. In Realism, science plays a role, along with war, nature, and just general real life. Both Naturalism and Regionalism are part of this movement. In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, characteristics of realism can be easily identified. Twain captures real life in the South by writing in Southern dialect. He also found meaning in the commonplace and observed things about the Southern way of life that only a Realist could discover. Like earlier stated, naturalism is one part of the Realism movement. Naturalism focus’s on forces of nature and the environment. Most of the Naturalistic writers didn’t “look on the bright side” and were very pessimistic. Both short stories, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “To Build a Fire” are focused on, or around nature. “To Build a Fire” is focused around a man who is fighting with nature. In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” nature is mentioned many times as the man is standing, awaiting his death. In “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” one very important characteristic of Realism is expressed; the characters are more important than the setting, action, and plot. In this story Harte focused a lot on the characters and describing them. In the story he states, “Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young woman familiarly known as the “Duchess”; another, who had on the title of “Mother Shipton”; and “Uncle Billy,” a suspected sluice