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Last Week

Last Week. Benjamin Franklin III. Lit. of the New Republic (1776-1837) Noah Webster Washington Irving James Fenimore Cooper. Edgar Allan Poe Nathanel Hawthorne Herman Melville. ( Literature of the American Renaissance ). This Week. Washington Irving (short fiction) James F. Cooper

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Last Week

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  1. Last Week • Benjamin Franklin III. Lit. of the New Republic (1776-1837) • Noah Webster • Washington Irving • James Fenimore Cooper

  2. Edgar Allan Poe Nathanel Hawthorne Herman Melville (Literature of the American Renaissance) This Week

  3. Washington Irving (short fiction) James F. Cooper (novel) Willam Cullen Bryant (poetry) European forms American environment Historical emphasis Lit of the New Republic – The Big Three

  4. Edgar Allan Poe • Born 1809 • Raised by foster parents • Spent 5 years in school in England • Married cousin • Published poetry & criticism • Died 1849

  5. E.A. Poe • Belongs to no region of country • Doesn’t strictly fit into categories • None of his writings take place in U.S. • Suffered from real poverty, not genteel poverty

  6. E.A. Poe - Achievements • Reputation suffered at his death • Revered in Europe • Opinion split in U.S. • Psychological writer, or • ”Jingle man”

  7. Misinformation • Some caused by friends • Some caused by own writings -artist or money-maker? • Not a drug addict

  8. Literary work • Detective story (”Murders in the Rue Morgue”) • Horror tales (Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque) • ”The Fall of the House of Usher” • ”The Tell-Tale Heart” • Handful of poems • Literary critic (”Philosophy of Composition”)

  9. ”The Philosophy of Composition” • Written as explanation of ”The Raven” (1845) • Articulates theory of short story • Unity of effect • Read at one sitting

  10. The Raven Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-                  Only this, and nothing more."

  11. The Raven Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.    Eagerly I wished the morrow;- vainly I had sought to borrow    From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore- For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-                  Nameless here for evermore.

  12. Major themes • Fear of death • Death of young woman as beautiful • Doppelgänger • Collapse of personality • Perversity of human nature

  13. Contradictions • Chaotic personal life, but writing highly structured. • Romantic writer who helped developed the detective story • Used realism in gothic scenes (often accused of having horrible taste)

  14. Nathaniel Hawthorne • Born in Salem, MA (1804) • Ancestors Puritans • Lived in Salem & Concord • Worked in Custom House in Boston & Salem • Scarlet Letter made him independent • Died 1864

  15. Literary works • Twice-told tales (1835) ”Young Goodman Brown” ”Ethan Brand” ”My Kinsman, Major Molineux” • Scarlet Letter (1850)

  16. Major themes • Nature of sin & guilt • Puritan past • Isolation & alienation • Human heart • Effects of a personal calamity • Self-trust vs. authority

  17. Scarlet Letter Characters • Hester Prynne • Arthur Dimmesdale • Roger Chillingworth • Pearl

  18. Meaning of letter… Adultery Angel Able Pride Community’s shame Hidden shame Scarlet Letter A

  19. But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed, from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was altogether foreign to the clergyman. She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness. . . . The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.

  20. Symbols in Scarlet Letter • forest vs. town • rose vs. prison • Pearl

  21. “Mother,” said [Pearl], “was that the same minister that kissed me by the brook?” “Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!” whispered her mother. “We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.”

  22. Herman Melville • Born 1819 in NYC • Sailed in whaling ship as young man (1840s) • Began writing upon return in 1845. • Most works focused on sea

  23. Literary works- novels • Typee (1846) • Omoo (1847) • Mardi (1849) • White-Jacket (1850) • Moby Dick (1851) • Pierre (1852) • The Confidence Man (1857)

  24. Melville – short works • ”Bartleby, the Scrivener” • ”Benito Cereno” • ”Billy Budd”

  25. Melville - Themes • sea & life on ship • man & God • native peoples • indeterminancy

  26. Hawthorne & Melville • Admired & respected each other • Both probed metaphysical questions and dark side of human soul • Hawthorne recognized during lifetime • Melville rejected by public after Moby Dick • Neither in keeping with spirit of times

  27. Next week: • Literature of the American Renaisance • Transcendentalism -Ralph Waldo Emerson -Henry David Thoreau

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