Characteristics
- lack of continuity (Oxford English Dictionary)
- drastic shift in trend (Pepperrell)

- change in common behavior or attitude (Drucker)

Resources about Discontinuity in Early American Literature

1. "Discontinuity." Oxford English Dictionary. 17 June 2007.
The purpose of the website is to act as a guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It provides words, pronunciation, spellings and others from the English-speaking world all over. The aim of the website is to provide a record of how the English language is and has been used in writing and in speech. The page is credible because its committee is compiled of editors, authors, and researchers who are scholars and educated. The website is based on the first American reference work to offer a complete dictionary and thesaurus entries.
The website provides the definition of discontinuity as "the quality or state of being discontinuous." Discontinuity is the separation from the whole, "interrupted sequence," the inability to continue, "failure of continuity." Discontinuity is a theme that could be applied to the vision of the transcendentalism period where these visions seek the supernatural. The definition of discontinuity provided by the website suggest an idea of Jones Very and Walt Whitman's views, the separation from the physical world in to the divine. For example, as Whitman portrays discontinuity in "Song of Myself" from his "Leaves of Grass" by his continuous dive into his actual and into his assumed self. An example in "Song of Myself" is his question, "What is a man anyhow," to which I assume he answers with "I know I am solid and sound," his actual self, then he continues to answer, "I know I am deathless," this would be his assumed and abstract self. -D.R

2. Drucker, Peter. "Discontinuity." bob embry time life navigation, 1978. Web. 19 Jun 2010. <http://homepage.mac.com/bobembry/studio/biz/conceptual_resources/authors/peter_drucker/discontinuity.html>.
This website is a preface to a paperback edition. Drucker describe the social and cultural change occurring to define the term discontinuity. His book, The Age of Discontinuity, is a guideline to the changing society. As for the literary theme, this website helps me interpret the word as “major changes in the underlying social and cultural reality” (Drucker). A list of the content of the book are; Society of organizations (new pluralism, how can the individual survive, and new industries), World economy (making the poor productive) to name a few. The website is credible because the preface written here for the book is about discontinuity. The theme is “the continental drifts that form new continents, rather than the wars that form new national boundaries” (Drucker).

3. Foucault, Michel. “Introduction.” The Archaeology of Knowledge. Routledge, 1972. Web. 24 June 2008. < http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/foucaul2.htm > This site reproduces the introduction and first 3 chapters of Michel Foucault’s book The Archaeology of Knowledge. The book discusses our changing interpretations of literature, history, and other disciplines. Foucault states that the study literature has moved away from “unities” of thought to examine the discontinuity of individual insight. Foucault defines discontinuity as a break in the status quo of thought, a transformation of thought into new directions. The site gives general analysis of and guidelines for examining literature. Using Foucault’s definition as a base, discontinuity in American literature would include writings that moved from convention and tested new frontiers. Anti-slavery discourse, for instance, would demonstrate a discontinuity in that it rebelled against the convention of its era and showed the author’s dissention from widely held or practiced thought. This source reproduces portions of a previously published book; therefore, it is a reliable source.

4. Ivic, Christopher. "Review of Discontinuities: New Essays on Renaissance Literature and Criticism." Early Modern Literary Studies 5.2 (September, 1999): 8.1-6 Web. 18 June 2008. URL: <http://purl.oclc.org/emls/05-2/ivicrev.htm>. Discontinuity is defined as the lack of continuity or logical sequence. This website is a critical look at a piece of work that discusses discontinuity. Although this is focused of English Literature rather than American Literature it is good to understand it in a different setting. Perhaps looking at it in this critical form will help in understanding it as a literary theme in literature. This critique is a published essay for Early Modern Literary Studies.

5. Pepperrell, Robert. “Posthuman Condition : Consciousness Beyond the Brain”. Intellect Books 2003. Web. 17 June 2008 <http://site.ebrary.com.ezp.mc.maricopa.edu/lib/mesa/Top?channelName=mesa&cpage=1&docID=10039894&f00=text&frm=smp.x&hitsPerPage=20&layout=document&p00=discontinuity+in+literature&sortBy=score&sortOrder=desc>. This page is about Pepperrell’s book on human nature and the difference between order and disorder and continuity and discontinuity. It describes discontinuity as being very similar to chaos. It is when something changes so drastically that the outcome changes the data and knowledge by large amounts. It is useful because it gives good examples of discontinuity to help the reader understand the meaning of the theme. It is a recently published book that is presented and supported by an educational website for non-profit reasons.

6. "Discontinuity," Oxford English Dictionary, 1989. < http://dictionary.oed.com.ezp.mc.maricopa.edu/cgi/entry/50065410?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=Discontinuity&first=1&max_to_show=10>
This site is credible because the MCC database recommended that students use it.
According to the site, discontinuity means The quality or state of being discontinuous; want or failure of continuity or uninterrupted sequence;
interrupted condition.

7. "Continuity (fiction)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Web. 16 Jun 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Continuity_(fiction)&oldid=296656817>.
Although the main purpose of this article is geared toward defining the exact opposite of discontinuity (continuity), it was a great help in my understanding of discontinuity. It helped give me examples of what discontinuity would be, the formats in which it would be used, errors that can occur, as well as real life examples. The criteria that this website would use to define discontinuity would be the inconsistency of the characteristics of persons, plot, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer. This is a credible website because it lists links to further readings, posts numerous references, provides several in text citations, and gives an external link to real life examples.