Rationalism / Age of Enlightenment period of American Literature - 1750-1800

Content:

• national mission and American character
• democratic utopia
• use of reason
• history is an act of individual and national self-assertion

Genre/Style:

• political pamphlets
• travel writing
• highly ornate writing style
• fiction employs generic plots and characters
• fiction often tells the story of how an innocent young woman is tested by a seductive male

Effect:

• patriotism grows
• instills pride
• creates common agreement about issues
• shows differences between Americans and Europeans

Historical Context:

• tells readers how to interpret what they are reading to encourage Revolutionary War support
• instructive in values

To find out more about a particular literature time period, click on the links below:

• American Literature through Time
• Puritan Times
• Rationalism/Age of Enlightenment
• American Renaissance/Romanticism
• Gothic
• Realism
• Naturalism
• Modernism
• Harlem Renaissance
• Postmodernism
• Contemporary