Development of literary styles and major authors in American literature to Realism

American Literature: From Colonialism to Realism

Some of the first American literature was authored in the Colonial period. Both European visitors and Colonists authored pamphlets and brochures explaining life in the colonies during this period. Captain John Smith is thus considered to be the first American author. Other major writers from this period include George Percy, William Penn, and John Lawson.

Central to the Colonists' concern were the religious disputes that had prompted them to re-locate to America. John Winthrop describes the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in great detail in a journal. Chief among the early American poets were Michael Wigglesworth and Anne Bradstreet.

After the Revolution, the Federalist papers - essays penned by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay - would become a classic of American political literature. Thomas Jefferson is also considered to be one of the most talented and prolific authors of this era, having penned the Declaration of Independence, Notes on the State of Virginia, and countless letters.

The post-Revolutionary period produced more than just political writing, however. It also gave birth to the first American novel - the Power of Sympathy by Hill Brown. American writers had yet to discover a distinctly American style, though. Many of the earliest American novels are heavily derivative of the Gothic style that was popular in England at this time.

It was not until the early 19th century that a distinctly American style of writing emerged in the works of such prolific authors as Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving, and James Fennimore Cooper. In the middle of the century, Ralph Waldo Emerson's non-fiction works would give rise to a movement known as Transcendentalism that was both literary and philosophical. Writers such as Poe, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne became known as the key figures in the Dark Romantic sub-genre that emerged out of Transcendentalism.

American literature also found its voice through poetry during the 19th century, particularly in the works of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. The two poets produced remarkably dissimilar bodies of work. Whitman rose to prominence during the American Civil War with his free verse extolling the virtues of democracy and the freedom of finding oneself in the world. Dickinson, on the other hand, lived a sheltered, introverted life, and her verse reflects this. She was more obsessed by morbid, unusual themes than Whitman, and she utilized a distinctive style of punctuation that continues to beguile critics and scholars to this day.