Questions:
Development of American literature from the colonial period
This solution traces the development of American literature from the colonial period through the Romantic era.
1. Trace the development of American literature from the colonial period through the Romantic era by writing an essay of four (4) paragraphs. Include specific writers and works to prove your statements. Use the following topic sentences for your paragraphs.
• the earliest Colonial literature was utilitarian
• The eighteenth century, a time of new men and new ideas, brought about a new type of literature.
• Romanticism was the dominant literature in the nineteenth century.
• Transcendentalism added a special significance to Romanticism.
2. Henry Seidel Canby, an American critic (1878-1961) places the work of Thoreau, Emerson, Poe, Whitman, and Hawthorne among the most remarkable writing in the nineteenth century. Develop an essay the supports or rejects Canby's opinion.
3. Discuss Hawthorne's and Melville's literary themes and their relevancy to today's society. Two paragraphs will be adequate for an essay.
4. Explain why the Brahmins (schoolroom poets) were popular during the lifetime but are not in the mainstream of today's literature.
5. Make a brief statement about the connection between history and literature.