American Literature Questions

• Puritanism's main tenets:

• The sovereignty of God

• Man is evil

• Man is redeemed solely by God's grace

• Predestination

• The elect and the damned

• The unpardonable sin

• The first accounts of America were written by:

• John Smith

• William Bradford

• Samuel Sewall

• John Smith was the governor of Virginia

• "A Description of New England" published in 1616 portrayed the New World as a fertile land with abundant resources and plenitude.

• William Bradford was a religious refugee of ‘Pilgrims’

• He coined the name ‘Pilgrims’

• The Pilgrims set out from Southampton on the Mayflower and landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620.

• Bradford wrote "Of Plymouth Plantation", a detailed history in journal form about the founding of the Plymouth Colony and the lives colonists

• Mayflower Pilgrims, or Separatists, believed people should be free to gather with like-minded Christians to form independent churches, and shouldn’t be bound to their local parish church

• "The Mayflower Compact" was the 1st governing document of Plymouth Colony

• Written by men aboard the Mayflower, including Separatist Puritans, adventurers, and tradesmen.

• Samuel Sewall was a judge in the Salem Witchcraft Trials (1692-1693) who repented and wrote a diary.

• Jonathan Edwards was active during the Great Awakening (15 years beginning in 1734) a series of religious revivals in American Christian history

• He was a missionary among Indians

• Some of his works include 'Personal Narrative' and sermons such as 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God' and ‘A Divine and Supernatural Light'

• Puritan poets include Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, who was a metaphysical poet

• Puritan Literature includes the use of the First-Person Point of View, focuses on religious themes, a simple writing style and biblical allusions, instillment of fear in the reader.

• Anne Bradstreet was an unorthodox Puritan and the first poet from an American colony to publish her work in England.

• Her works include meditations and poems about everyday life

  • 'Before the Birth of One of her Children'
  • 'To my Dear and Loving Husband'
  • 'Upon the Burning of Our House'

• She had religious doubts, and believed God's existence derived more from Nature than theology

• Edward Taylor a ‘metaphysical poet', wrote highly intellectualized poetry marked by bold and ingenious conceits, and was rediscovered in the 20th century

• Some of his works include 'Huswifery' ('Make me, o Lord, Thy Spinning Wheel, 'Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold' and “Upon a Spider Catching a Fly"

• Founding Fathers of America include Benjamin Franklin

• He was an inventor of things like the Franklin stove, a lightning rod, and bifocals.

• Also an activist/organizer who co-authored of The Declaration of Independence on 4th July 1776 with Thomas Jefferson

• Some of his works include Authobiography (hard-working, keen to improve) and essays

  • Essays: 'The Way to Wealth'
  • 'Rules by Which a Great Empire May be Reduced to a Small One.'
  • 'Remarks Concerning the Savages in North America' (tolerance, appreciation of the other)

• Poor Richard's Almanac tenets (principles) of the American Dream include:

  • 'God helps those who help themselves'
  • ‘Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him.'
  • 'Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship'.

• Thomas Paine was a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist who advocated abolishing slavery and freeing slaves and also wrote THE AGE OF REASON (DEISM)

• Common Sense, a pamphlet, urges independence from Britain.

• He believed it is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things, to all examples from former ages, to suppose that this continent can long remain subject to any external power.

• "Rights of Men" argues against hereditary monarchy.

• The Federalist (85 essays) was written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay

• THE CONSTITUTION (1787) has seven articles, has been amended 27 times, ensures that individuals have a natural right to 'liberty, dignity and happiness.

• Government must ‘secure the public good, and private rights against the dangers of a majority'

• Philip Freneau was the poet of the American Independence

• Some of his works include: 'On Paine's Rights of Man', 'On the Religion of Nature', 'On the Rising Glory of America' - religious elements in the poem on the next slides: the references to the Book of Revelation (America is the New Earth, the new Promised Land)

• Washington Irving, wrote 'Rip van Winkle' (story, the anti-Franklinian hero)

• He was the 1st American to achieve an international literary reputation, wrote satirical essays, A History of New York - a parody of a pompous work, written by Dietrich Knickerbocker the alleged author

• Walter Scott influenced Rip van Winkle - Rip is an 'antihero', who is lazy, fishes, hunts instead of working, and neglects his kids. There is a theme of mutability and change

• Some of his other works include The True Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus which was research into old documents, Astoria & A Tour of the Prairies- to refute accusations of turning too European, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' , The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, a pen name

• James Fenimore Cooper wrote the Natty Bumppo series embodying the idea of the Frontier)

• THE LEATHERSTOCKING SERIES tells the story of Natty Bumppo, a frontiersman, and his lasting friendship with Chingachgook, who portrays a splendid example of a friendly white frontier.

• The Leatherstocking series:

• The Pioneers (1823)

• The Last of the Mohicans (1826)

• The Prairie (1827)

• The Pathfinder (1840)

• The Deerslayer (1841)

• The American Democrat – political essay

• Transcendentalism's key concepts: individualism, idealism, and the divinity of nature

• It goes against John Locke's idea of the passive mind, for Coleridge's view of the Creative Mind, against Unitarianism dogmas.

• For individual search of the spiritual dimension and against the scientific perception of nature.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote "The Over-Soul" which explores the idea of a spiritual unity that transcends individual existence.

• Representatives of transcendentalism:

• Ralph Waldo Emerson: poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century and lived in Concord.

• Works: "Nature", The Dial magazine, Essays, Poems, Journals

• He advocated for abolitionism, was banned from Harvard for 30 years, and encouraged authors

• Henry David Thoreau wrote "Walden”, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings

• In the text you can see a declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, manual for self-reliance

• Walden details Thoreau's experiences in a cabin he built near Walden Pond amidst woodland owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson for two years, two months, and two days.

• A protest against Yankee pragmatism, Thoreau believed in frugal life to make man sensitive and closer to nature, and against Benjamin Franklin who believed in frugal life to accumulate wealth

• "Civil Disobedience” espouses the need to prioritize one's conscience over the dictates of laws.

• "Life without Principle” analyzes the power of money can be, and how people limit their opportunities.

• Margaret Fuller – American journalist, editor, critic, translator, and women's rights advocate, wrote 'Woman in the Nineteenth Century' which stated than men enforce the definitions of those norms, and both sexes are imprisoned in social norms

• Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, and other novels. -Twice-Told Tales (1836) brought him fame -His works include: 'Young Goodman Brown', The Scarlet Letter (1850)', The House of the Seven Gables (1851)

• He focused on: the consequences of pride, selfishness guilt, the conflict between light-hearted and somber attitudes to life, isolation leading to the coldness of heart, the impingement of (Puritanism) on the present and the futility of comprehensive social reforms, and the impossibility of eradicating sin from the human heart

• Edgar Allan Poe was the author of poems, stories of horror, and the first detective stories and also wrote 'Philosophy of Composition' and 'The Raven'

• His detective stories include: The Murders in the Rue Morgue.', 'The Mystery of Marie Rôget.', 'The Purloined Letter.'.

• C. August Dupin solves the problems in these stories; his motivations for solving mysteries change throughout the three stories.

• Poe used "ratiocination", combining intellect & imagination, putting himself in the mind of the criminal.

• POE'S writing method in ‘Philosophy of Composition' calls for:

• One sitting

• EFFECT

• Beauty as topic & melancholy as tone

• Use of refrain, special word

• Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick

• THE YOUTH CONFRONTED WITH THE REALITIES AND EVILS FOR WHICH HE IS UNPREPARED is its prominent theme

• Redburn is a semiautobiographical novel where a genteel youth suffers among brutal sailors

• Moby Dick symbolism & more

• A whaling ship, Pequod, in pursuit of a white whale which crippled the captain. A conflict between GOOD & EVIL

• MOBY DICK symbolizes EVIL for Ahab and NATURE

• STARBUCK symbolizes GOOD

• CAPTAIN AHAB symbolizes GOOD that is destroyed by EVIL

• Characteristics of 'Fireside Poetry': Standard forms, regular metre, easy to memorize and recite

• Representatives – Bryant and Longfellow

• William Cullen Bryant wrote 'To a Waterfowl' and ‘Thanatopis', which express a sense of reconciliation with death, calling death part of Nature

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has bust in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, his poetry explores themes like home, family nature, religion, and the past in works like -Paul Revere's Ride

• Tennessee Williams wrote The Glass Menagerie 1944 and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1955, A Streetcar Named Desire 1947

• Innovative techniques of Emily Dickinson:

• Richard Wilbur called it ‘Sumputuous Destitution'

• Writing style uses Neither 'natural flow of speech', nor elaborate literary devices but does use Dashes and ellipses.

• Focuses on: Death, inner life, Concise and Compressed Language

• Dickinson often conveyed complex ideas through metaphors

• The Scarlet Letter

• Walt Whitman wrote as the poet of America. Characterisitics of his work and of the poetry: Free verse, The Leaves of Grass, Song of Myself, Celebration of the Self and Individualism, EQUALITY, DEMOCRACY, AMERICA, BEAUTY OF NATURE

• An ordinary person who pretends to have, or dreams about having, a life that is more interesting or exciting is a 'Walter Mitty', such as in James Thurber's “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

• Samuel L. Clemens = MARK TWAIN focused on realism, humour, clash of the Old and the New World, and the adventures of Huckleberry Finn

• Twain used two fathoms (12 feet) deep comic realist- realism when the use of dialects in huckleberry

• And the boyhood rebellion (adventures, and growing up)

• Stephen Crane was the author of the anti-war novel (The Red Badge of Courage) and Other Works: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, & The Open Boat

• Crane examined the psychological effects of war through Henrys' POV, using a realistic, antiheroic presentation

• The Open Boat

• Arthur Miller wrote All my Sons 1948, Death of a Salesman 1949, The Crucible 1953

James – Realist, historian of the American Psyche, The Portrait of a Lady

• Jack London focused on naturalism in works such as, stories about wolves: The Call of the Wild, White Fang, Martin Eden, and The Unparalelled Invasion & Kate Chopin

• Edith Wharton - THE MAIN THEME: cultural dislocation, the nouveau riche vs the old artistocracy. Novel: The House of Mirth 1905

• The jazz age was on the roaring 20's, term by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jazz had a big cultural movement during the 19th century that changed the way of life

• "Lost Generation" The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway – Gertrude Stein first used it,'lost' - without purpose and orientation, Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway

• "Iceberg Theory" The story itself has a whole meaning to what the author means when there are hidden imagery

• Harlem Renaissance created a movement through music, art, and also literature

Steinbeck - Tortilla Flat, East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath, Timshel, Cathy Faulkner - Yoknapatawpha Connoer & The Southern Grotesque - Good Man Very Hard to Find

American Dramatic Art - Little Theatre Eugene O’Neill Pulitzer - Long Day Journey's Into Night

William Carlos Williams - Imagism

Poetic Movements

• -Confessional 50-60 -Beat 40-50's - Allen Ginsberg's , and
• William S. Burroughs “Naked” Jack Kerouac' The Road