Federal/Age of Reason period (leading to "Enlightenment")

Ben Franklin's Autobiography beginning from "Leaving Boston"

REVOLUTIONARY AGE

-As the Americans fight their independence from Britain, prose remained primarily religious in its endeavors to make sense of what still seemed a decidedly new world.

-As the century wore on, political thought, especially regarding the relationship between the colonies and the mother country occupied the American writers.

-Travel narratives have been influential too. This served as a source of courage and achievement for the Americans.

-Journalism has also started. They were primarily concerned about the political issues and events.

-Women also organized their own literary circle; they worked on the equality between men and women.

AGE OF REASON/AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

-Many 18th-century thinkers believed in the ability of reason to control human destiny and improve the human condition, an enormous change from the belief in predestination that broadly speaking characterized the 17th century. In America as well as in Western Europe, the 18th century was known as the Age of Enlightenment. In the American colonies Enlightenment thought was expressed chiefly through political discourse. American thinkers asserted a growing belief in the supremacy of reason over church doctrine; they also emphasized the importance of the individual and freedom over and above established authorities and institutions. America's great Enlightenment writers—Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson—also played major roles in the American Revolution.