A Timeline of American Literature in One Entry

The idea

Fix the dates that the movements hang on. Sixteen twenty, Plymouth and Bradford's history. Sixteen fifty, Bradstreet's poems printed in England. Sixteen ninety-two, Salem. Seventeen seventy-six, independence and the pamphlets around it. Eighteen thirty-six, Emerson's Nature and the start of transcendentalism. Eighteen forty-five, Douglass's narrative and Poe's "The Raven." Eighteen fifty, The Scarlet Letter; eighteen fifty-one, Moby-Dick; eighteen fifty-two, Uncle Tom's Cabin; eighteen fifty-five, Leaves of Grass. Eighteen sixty-five, the war ends and realism begins. Eighteen eighty-four, Huckleberry Finn. Eighteen ninety-nine, The Awakening. Nineteen twelve, Poetry magazine and imagism. Nineteen twenty-two, The Waste Land. Nineteen twenty-five, The Great Gatsby. Nineteen twenty-nine, the crash and The Sound and the Fury. Nineteen thirty-nine, The Grapes of Wrath. Nineteen fifty-two, Invisible Man. Nineteen fifty-nine, Life Studies. Nineteen seventy, The Bluest Eye. Nineteen eighty-seven, Beloved.