1. Colonial Writing in America
The major forms of colonial writing are diaries, histories, journals, letters, sermons, commonplace books and travel books. John Smith is the first America writer. His descriptions are filled with myths, images, scenes, characters and events that were a foundation for the nation’s literature, which are simple, direct and readable.
2. American Puritanism
American Puritanism appeared in the colonial period in America. It stresses predestination, original sin, total depravity, and limited atonement from God’s grace. They go to America to prove that they are God’s chosen people who will enjoy God’s blessings on earth and in Heaven. Finally, they build a way of life that stresses hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety.
3. Enlightenment in America
The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement originating in France, which attracted widespread support among the ruling and intellectual classes of Europe and North America.
It characterizes the efforts by certain European writers to use critical reason to free minds from prejudice, unexamined authority and oppression by Church or State.
4. Autobiography（as a literary genre）,
The literary form of autobiography is a person‟s account of his or her own life. An autobiography is generally written in narrative form and includes some introspection, such as The Autobiography written by Benjamin Franklin.
5. American Dream
American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough. It usually implies a successful and satisfying life. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. Nowadays the American Dream has led to an emphasis on material wealth as measure of success or happiness
6. Romanticism in America
It appeared in the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil War, and it was strongly influenced by European culture. Romanticism is a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. .For romantics, the feelings, intuitions and emotions are more important than reason and common sense. They emphasize individualism, placing the individual against the group, against authority. 
7. Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism flourished in the New England from about 1836 to 1860. Believe people can learn things both from the outside world by means of the 5 senses and from the inner world by intuition; it places spirit first and matter second; it takes nature as symbolic of spirit or God. It emphasizes the significance of the individual.
8. American Realism
In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. Realism is the theory of writing in which familiar aspects of contemporary life and everyday scenes are represented in a straightforward or mother-of-fact manner. It often uses the open ending, focuses on the lives of the common people, and emphasizes objectivity. 
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9. The Gilded Age
The Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The Gilded Age is most famous for the creation of a modern industrial economy. The end of the Gilded Age coincided with the Panic of 1893, a deep depression.
10. Free verse
Free verse is a form of poetry that does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech. Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free verse displays some elements of form.
11. American Naturalism
Naturalism is a literary trend prevailing in Europe, especially in France and Germany. And, Charles Darwin stresses the struggle of existence, survival of the fittest, natural sele
ction. Humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment. The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires.
12. Modernism
American Modernism is a cultural movement.  Its key elements are experimentation, anti-realism, individualism and a stress on the cerebral rather than emotive aspects. It was a movement of artists and designers who rebelled against late 19th century academic and historical tradition,and embraced the new economic, social and political aspects of the emerging modern world. 
13. Imagism
Imagism is a literary movement, which is prevalent in the Western world and is a branch of the Symbolist literary movement. In a sense, imagism is equivalent to naturalism in fiction. It produces free verse without imposing a rhythmical pattern. Imagism tries to record objective observations of an object or a situation without interpretation or comment by the poet.
14. Lost Generation
The term “lost generation” is coined by Gertrude Stein, a lost generation writer herself, after World War I. The Lost Generation is a term used to describe a group of American writers who were rebelling against what America had become by the 1900’s. It aims to seek the bohemian lifestyle and reject the values of American materialism and means this generation had lost the beautiful sense of the calm idyllic past.

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