| A | B |
|---|
| Puritanism | All men are sinners and require the grace of God to be saved. These authors were motivated by a dep and abiding belief in God as they faced the challenges of the new world |
| Age of Reason | The literature produced during this period was practical and most dealt with the coming revolutionary war. Speeches and political pieces were common during this time. |
| Romanticism | A literary movement which emphasized the beauty of nature and used dramatic incidents from our early history as standard literary material. |
| Abolitionists | The authors in this movement expressed their hate of slavery and worked diligently to end the practice. |
| Fireside Poets | wrote on subjects which appealed to families |
| Realism | truthful imitation of actual life |
| Noah Webster | sought a uniform set of principles for pronunciation and spelling which would reflect a new American standard. |
| Naturalism | the authors in this movement protrayed the world accurately and many times created characters who were victims of environmental forces and internal drives |
| Frontier Humor | stories in this group were absurd, wild, rough, hilarious, and existed for a generation as oral literature before they were ever recorded |
| Transcendentalism | The authors in this movement urged strongly the essential divinity of man and the theory of the Oversoul. |
| Local Color | was popular in the late 1800's and tried to record the present and near past of a particular section of the country |
| Lyceums | began as a humble effort to enlighten an informal, serious-minded, and spontaneous gathering of villagers by offering lectures, debates, and scientific demonstrations. |
