American literature ALL CHAPTERS 3-5-9.pdf

— The interest of poe’s poetry is in its sound, rather than its content. — Poe felt that the real goal of poetry is "pleasure, not truth". But for him, "pleasure" did not mean happiness. Rather, a good poem creates in the reader a feeling of gentle sadness. Chapter five : The Boston Brahmins 1- L...

— The interest of poe’s poetry is in its sound, rather than its content. — Poe felt that the real goal of poetry is "pleasure, not truth". But for him, "pleasure" did not mean happiness. Rather, a good poem creates in the reader a feeling of gentle sadness. Chapter five : The Boston Brahmins 1- Longfellow: — Long fellow turned to more religious themes later in his life — Longfellow was the most famous member of a group of aristocratic Boston writers called the "Brahmins". Most Brahmins came from rich, old Boston families. Although they looked to England for "excellence and often copied English literary styles, they considered Boston "the thinking center of the (American) continent. ( definition of Brahmins) — their membership included: 1- Longfellow 2- Holmes 3- James 4- Lowell 2- Holmes : “ Light verse “ — he invented the name "Brahmins" for this group. Chapter six : The Civil War and the “ Gilded Age “ 1- Whitman : “ Leaves Of Grass “ ( was his life work ) — through Whitman, American poets finally freed themselves from the old English traditions. 2- Emily Dickinson : — she was another New England woman who wrote during the Civil War Era. But we found no mention of the war or any other great national event in her poetry. 3- Mark Twain: “The glided Age “ ( novel) \ “ The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn” ( novel) —The work of Mark Twain is the best example of this new era. —Charles Dickens, the English novelist, had described the Mississippi River as a "horrible ditch". With Twain, however, it became "all existence and an important symbol of "the human journey". —The period of the Civil War was a time when a small number of millionaire businessmen held great power in American society. The city homes of the very rich looked like palaces and many people thought of this period as a new "Golden Age". But the gold was only on the surface. Underneath, American society was filled with crime and social injustice. It was, in fact, only a "Gilded Age": the gold was just a thin layer. Mark Twain created this phrase for his next novel, “The Gilded Age” Chapter 10 Chapter seven : - American writers were moving toward realism in literature. - WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS : created the first theory for American realism. Under him, realism became the "mainstream" of American literature. - Realism is a literary movement concerned in presenting reality as it is with its negativity and positivity with no justification - Naturalism is a literary movement which uses detailed realism to suggest that social conditions and environments shapes human characters (they justify based on science) - Every naturalism is a realism, but every realist is not necessarily a naturalist - Howells hated the romantic literature such as Frank Stockton and such historical romances. -Howells state Such novels "make one forget life and all its cares and duties", he wrote. Novels "should make you think and shame you into wishing to be a more helpful creature than you are" - Howells state The good realist should be interested in "the common feelings of commonplace people". - many realists became "naturalists". Naturalism was a term created by the French novelist, Emile Zola, In studying human life, the naturalist used the discoveries and knowledge of modern science. He believed people were not really "free". Rather, their lives, opinions and morality were all controlled by social, economic and psychological causes. —naturalism, is the idea that art and literature should present the world and people. - STEPHEN CRANE: the first American literature - HENRY JAMES: “The Portrait of a Lady” is the best novel of James's "middle period" —He was a realist, but not a naturalist. Unlike Howells and the naturalists, he was not interested in business, politics or the conditions of society. —He was an observer of the mind rather than a recorder of the times..— His realism was a special kind of psychological realism. Chapter eight : at the turn of the century - By the mid-188os, the happy, well-educated world of the Boston Brahmins was dead and gone. Rich businessmen had replaced the old "aristocrats of literature" as the leaders of Boston life. This change deeply saddened HENRY ADAMS, one of the youngest members of the Brahmin group. Both his grandfather and his great-grandfather had been Presidents of the United States. - The present world has too many "meanings". Nineteenth-century education cannot explain this new world. To Adams, the naturalist, inhuman and uncontrollable forces rule our lives: "Chaos is the law of nature; order, the dream of man." — Traditional values had been based on the idea of individual responsibility: the individual can and must choose between good and evil. But now writers were asking whether the individual could really make such a choice. When they looked at the many outside forces influencing a person, the area of individual choice and responsibility seemed quite small. — Nietzsche suggested that there were also other forces which worked inside the individual. Each person, he said, has a "will to power". This "will" or desire to control oneself, other people and the world around one is “beyond good and evil" - like Norris, was deeply influenced by Darwin's ideas of constant struggle in nature and "the survival of the fittest". —The Turn of the Century was an exciting moment in American intellectual history. American novelists and poets were no longer simply copying British and European writers. They were now sharing ideas with the whole world. America was about to become an important contributor to world literature. Chapter nine : the turning point of American literature: - As the new century entered its second decade, the forward movement of American literature seemed to have stopped. The realist novels of W. D. Howells (and others) the seemed old-fashioned - People were again asking what was wrong with American literature - the critic VAN WYCK BROOKS opened a period of "self criticism", in which writers looked at what was wrong with the nation and its literature. - Brooks knew that such literary criticism would "sooner or later become social criticism because the future of our art and literature depends upon the complete reconstruction of social life", American society was "united in a sort of conspiracy against the growth and freedom of the spirit". - Young writers took notice of Brooks's criticism. The result was the “new realism" which lasted up to the 1950s. It made American literature one of the most exciting and most influential literatures of the world. - Around this time, the new critics Brooks and others , began celebrating the death of "puritanism". "Until recently, "American fiction was so moral as to be immoral, because it had no place for truth." Truth, in this case, included truth about sex. Hiding the truth about human sexuality and punishing those who tried to talk about it, was part of America's “puritanical” morality. — In the nineteenth century, there was a “ double standard" in both public and private morality: people had to “talk one way while acting in a completely different way” Sigmund Freud : the great Austrian psychologist, had given a famous lecture series in America. This series was both a liberation and an inspiration for American artists. But even before Freud's arrival, two American novelists were starting to destroy the "double standard" of America's puritanical morality. - The upper classes claimed to be highly moral ( World War One) : - Half a million young Americans died in World War I. President Woodrow Wilson had called it "a war to make the world safe for democracy". But afterwards, many younger Americans were not so sure that American democracy was worth saving. A new mood of anger entered the work of young writers. - The 1920s was the decade of a "Lost Generation" of American writers. Many of the nation's best minds were moving away to foreign countries. Those who stayed at home were also deeply disappointed with American society. They knew American society did not value its artists and intellectuals. This made them lonely and angry Chapter ten : poetry from 1900 through the 1930s ROBERT FROST: Most of Frost's well-known poetry is nature poetry, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “The Road Not Taken” - "Aloneness" is a common theme in the poetry of ROBERT FROST - T.S. ELIOT and EZRA POUND were “traditionalists". —The poetry of T.S Eliot is certainly much greater than the poetry of Ezra Pound.