American Literature Glossary

A narrative in which characters and events represent abstract ideas or moral qualities, used extensively by Hawthorne and Melville.

The national ethos of the United States promising opportunity, upward mobility, and the pursuit of happiness, frequently explored and critiqued in American literature.

The period from roughly 1830 to 1865 when American literature produced many of its most enduring masterworks and achieved a distinctive national identity.

A 1950s literary movement rejecting mainstream values and experimenting with spontaneous prose and poetry, led by Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs.

A coming-of-age novel tracing the protagonist's moral and psychological growth, as in 'The Catcher in the Rye' or 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.'

A poetic movement of the 1950s-1960s focused on intimate, autobiographical subject matter, pioneered by Robert Lowell and practiced by Plath and Sexton.

A literary subgenre emphasizing human fallibility, the darker aspects of nature, and the presence of evil, exemplified by Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville.

Poetry without regular meter or rhyme scheme, pioneered in American literature by Walt Whitman in 'Leaves of Grass.'

Literature employing horror, mystery, and the supernatural. American Gothic includes works by Poe, Hawthorne, and later Southern Gothic writers.

A 1920s-1930s cultural movement celebrating African American artistic expression, centered in Harlem, New York City.

Hemingway's narrative technique of omitting most of the story beneath the surface, relying on spare prose and implication rather than explicit exposition.

A literary style emphasizing the distinctive features of a particular region, including dialect, customs, and landscape, prominent in post-Civil War American fiction.

A cohort of American writers disillusioned by World War I who often lived as expatriates in Paris, including Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein.

The nineteenth-century belief that American expansion across the continent was inevitable and divinely ordained, a theme explored in frontier literature.

Fiction that self-consciously addresses its own conventions and artifice, a hallmark of postmodern American writers such as John Barth and Donald Barthelme.

An early-twentieth-century literary movement characterized by experimentation with form, stream of consciousness, and a break from Victorian conventions. American Modernists include Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald.

A literary movement depicting characters as products of heredity and environment, influenced by Darwinism. American Naturalists include Crane, Dreiser, and Norris.

Early American writings by Puritan settlers emphasizing religious devotion, moral instruction, and divine providence, including sermons, diaries, and poetry.

A post-Civil War literary movement focused on depicting everyday life truthfully, using vernacular language and ordinary characters. Led by Twain, James, and Howells.

An autobiographical account written by an enslaved or formerly enslaved person, such as those by Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs.

A subgenre using grotesque imagery, flawed characters, and dark humor to examine social issues in the American South, practiced by Faulkner and O'Connor.

A narrative technique presenting a character's continuous flow of thoughts and sensory impressions, used by Faulkner in 'The Sound and the Fury.'

A philosophical movement emphasizing individualism, intuition, and nature as a path to spiritual truth, led by Emerson and Thoreau.

A narrator whose credibility is compromised, requiring the reader to question the account. Examples include Humbert Humbert in Nabokov's 'Lolita' and Nick Carraway in 'The Great Gatsby.'

The everyday language spoken by ordinary people in a particular region, used by Twain and Hurston to lend authenticity and voice to their characters.