Early US literature falls into two distinct periods: colonial writing of the 1600s–1770s, largely dominated by the Puritans, and post-Revolutionary literature from the 1780s, when the ideal of US literature developed, and poetry, fiction, and drama began to evolve on national principles. Early 19th-century Romanticism contrasted sharply with the social realism of subsequent post-Civil War writing. 20th-century US writers continued the trend towards realism, as well as developing various forms of modernist experimentation.