Welcome back!
 Please
take out your independent
reading books, your American
Literature Timeline, and a
highlighter.
 Open your notebooks to the Class
and Reading Notes section.
THE BEGINNINGS
OF AMERICAN
LITERATURE
The “BIG IDEAS”

When and in what
ways did AMERICAN
literature first begin to
differentiate itself from
European writing?
The “BIG IDEAS”

How did early
American literature
begin to define
what “American”
means?
The “BIG IDEAS”

Who were the first
influential writers of
American literature?

What did they write?
 Why was their work
important?
 How is it an example of
romanticism?
American Literature Timeline
ROMANTICISM (1800-1855)
 Historical context

Expansion of book publishing, magazines, newspapers
 Industrial Revolution
 Abolitionist movement

Genre/Style
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short stories, novels, poetry
imagination over reason; intuition over fact
Focused on the fantastic of human experience.
Writing that can be interpreted two ways: surface and in depth.
Focus on inner feelings
Gothic literature (sub-genre of Romanticism)

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Use of the supernatural.
Characters have both evil and good characteristics.
dark landscapes; depressed characters
ROMANTICISM (1800-1855)
Major writers (New York)

Washington Irving
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
First famous American writer; called "father of American Literature."
Wrote short stories, travel books, satires.
Legend of Sleepy Hollow terrified and amazed generations of children.
Rip Van Winkle: success from failure; the antihero.
"Devil and Tom Walker": an encounter-with-the-devil tale.
Edgar Allen Poe

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Lousy childhood; substance abuse problems; reviled in his day.
Created the modern short story and detective story.
Poems: "The Raven", "Bells", "Annabel Lee", "Dream"
Attacked two long-standing conventions: a poem has to be long; it must teach a
lesson
 Short stories: "Fall of the House of Usher", "Pit and the Pendulum"
 Inspired future detective/horror stories (e.g., Sherlock Holmes, Norman Bates,
Freddy Kruger).
ROMANTICISM (1800-1855)
Major writers (New England)

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
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Wrote about sin and guilt; consequences of pride, selfishness, etc.
The Scarlet Letter
Short stories ("The Minister's Black Veil")
Herman Melville (1819-1891)

Ranked as one of America's top novelists, but recognized by few in his
own time.
 Moby Dick


Didn't sell: only his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne liked it; not reprinted for 60
years.
Now considered America's greatest prose epic.
ROMANTICISM (1800-1855)
The Transcendentalists (1840-1855)
 Transcendentalism: stressed individualism, intuition,
nature, self-reliance
 Major writers

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

His writings helped establish the philosophy of individualism, an
idea deeply embedded in American culture.

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Nature and "Self-Reliance" important essays
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

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Resisted materialism; chose simplicity, individualism
Walden –Thoreau’s most famous work
Lived on Walden Pond for two years.
A guidebook for life, showing how to live wisely in a world designed
to make wise living impossible.
"Civil Disobedience" - a primer for nonviolent protest
ROMANTICISM (1800-1855)
New Poetic Forms

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
William Cullen Bryant
Oliver Wendell Holmes
James Russell Lowell

“The First Snowfall”
Walt Whitman
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Emily Dickinson
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Her poetry broke with convention: didn't look right; didn't rhyme; too bold; too radical.
Concrete imagery, forceful language, unique style.
Wrote 1775 poems, published only seven in her life.
"Because I could not stop for Death--"
“My life closed twice before its close—“
“The Soul selects her own Society—“
Paul Laurence Dunbar
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
Rejected conventional themes, forms, subjects.
Used long lines to capture the rhythm of natural speech, free verse, everyday vocabulary.
"Song of Myself"
"I Hear America Singing"
"O Captain My Captain"
“We Wear the Mask”
Edwin A. Robinson

“Richard Cory”
“A Growing Nation”
 Vocabulary
from this reading:
(n) – sins; personal weaknesses
literati (plural n) – persons of scholarly
or literary accomplishment
vice
Please retrieve/take out your…
JOURNALS
Journal #6
How is AMERICA (the “New World”) different than
Europe (the “Old World”)?
 What makes America unique when it comes to:
Landscape
Culture
People
Ideas
Attitudes
History
Phrase your responses so as to say how it is in
America as opposed to how it is in Europe.

Washington Irving
“The Father of American
Literature”
First American
fiction
writer to be recognized
and respected in Europe
a
literary “ambassador”
First
great prose stylist of
American romanticism
Less formal
Humorous—first
to
experiment with extravagant
humor (a model which Twain
perfected later)
Wrote to be read for pleasure,
yet people learned from his
writing
Wrote
the first modern
American short stories
and the first great
children’s literature.
Wrote biographies and
histories as entertainment
 Introduced
the “familiar essay”
to American readers
 Famous works:
Knickerbocker’s
History of New
York
The Sketch Book
included
two most famous short
stories: The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow and Rip van Winkle
Satire
 Any form of literature that
blends humor and wit with
criticism for the purpose of
ridiculing folly, vice,
stupidity—the whole range
of human foibles and
frailties—in individuals and
institutions.
Satire
 Satire is a literary technique
of writing or art which
principally ridicules its
subject (individuals,
organizations, governments)
often as an intended means
of provoking change or
preventing it.
Satire
Satire
differs from mere
comedy in that satire
seeks to correct, improve
or reform through ridicule,
while comedy aims simply
to amuse.
Write examples on the board
Phrase your responses so
as to say what is
different in America as
opposed to how it is in
Europe.