AMERICAN LITERATURE AND
CULTURAL HISTORY
SEMINAR ONE
WHAT IS LITERATURE?
• works of the creative imagination, including works of
poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction
• represents a language or a people: culture and
tradition
• we may even grow and evolve through our literary
journey with books
• we may discover meaning in literature by looking at
what the author says and how he/she says it
• Do you read?, Did you have a formative reading
experience?
• How about reading a book and seeing its film version
after?
APPROACHES TO LITERATURE
• What is the message?
• What do we learn from the work?
• How is the life of the author reflected in the
given work?
• What historical, social, or political background
is reflected in the given work?
• What is the structure of the given work:
introduction, exposition, conflict, resolution
PURPOSES OF LITERARY CRITICISM
• Resolving a question or problem concerning a
reading
• Deciding between conflicting readings
• Helps to make informed judgments about
literature
LITERARY CRITICISM
• Skylar Hamilton Burris
• Work itself: formalist, deconstructionist
• Author’s world, author’s life: historical
biographical, psychological (psychoanalytic)
• Audience: reader response
• Other literature: intertextual
• Real world: feminist, mimetic, minority reading
• Beyond the world: symbolic, archetypal
MORAL, INTELLECTUAL
• Concerned with the content and values of the
work
• What is the message?
• How can the reader apply it to his or her life?
• How can the reader make his life better by the
message?
FORMALIST APPROACH
emphasizes the form of a literary work to
determine its meaning, focusing on literary
elements and how they work to create
meaning
– Examines a text as independent from its time
period, social setting, and author’s background. A
text is an independent entity
– Focuses on close readings of texts and the analysis
of the effects of literary elements and techniques
STRUCTURALIST APPROACH
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Attempts to discover forms unifying all literature
Protagonist:
-active, submissive
-fail, pass code
-fail, pass encounter
Language: Saussurian linguistics: langue: deep
structure, a basic systematic structure of
language, parole: surface
PSYCHOANALYTICAL APPROACH
Psychoanalytical Criticism views a text as a
revelation of its author’s mind and personality.
It is based on the work of Sigmund Freud.
– Also focuses on the hidden motivations of
literary characters
– Looks at literary characters as a reflection of
the writer
PSYCHOANALYTICAL APPROACH
• Repressed sexual drives in the subconscious
influence the conscious
• Oedipus/Electra complex
• Sexuality vs. Ambiguity
• Revealing the textual unconscious
• Treating the text, or the author as a patient
• Exploring childhood traumas
SOCIOLOGICAL
Sociological criticism argues that social contexts
(the social environment) must be considered
when analyzing a text.
Focuses on the values of a society and how
those views are reflected in a text
Emphasizes the economic, political, and
cultural issues within literary texts
Core Belief: Literature is a reflection of its
society
FEMINIST
Feminist Criticism is concerned with the role,
position, and influence of women in a literary
text.
Asserts that most “literature” throughout
time has been written by men, for men.
Examines the way that the female
consciousness is depicted by both male and
female writers.
• 1) Feminine Stage - involves "imitation of the
prevailing modes of the dominant tradition" and
"internalization of its standards."
(2) Feminist Stage - involves "protest against
these standards and values and advocacy of
minority rights...."
(3) Female Stage - this is the "phase of selfdiscovery, a turning inwards freed from some of
the dependency of opposition, a search for
identity."
• Elaine Showalter
4 Basic Principles of Feminist Criticism
1. Western civilization is patriarchal.
2. The concepts of gender are mainly cultural
ideas created by patriarchal societies.
3. Patriarchal ideals pervade “literature.”
4. Most “literature” through time has been
gender-biased.
FEMINIST APPROACH
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Fighting against stereotypical descriptions
Promotion of essentialism
Ecriture feminine v . Male writing
Expansion of the canon
Female archetypal patterns: Magna Mater
(Ma Joad, Mrs. Baradlay) Virgin ( virtuous
woman), Repulsive Witch (Hansel and Gretel),
Temptress (Eve, Catherine Trask)
HISTORICAL-BIOGRAPHICAL
• The work is a reflection of an author’s life and
times
• The political, economical, and sociological
aspects of the author’s life must be
understood in order to fully appreciate the
given work
• Danger: intentional fallacy, the reduction of a
given work to a manifestation of
autobiography
ARECHETYPAL, MYTH CRITICAL
• Archetypes: located in the collective unconscious (Jung)
• Critic searches for archetypal patterns, Northrop Frye: Master archetype,
master story: The Bible (Anatomy of Criticism, The Great Code)
• water - creation, birth-death-resurrection, purification, redemption,
fertility, growth
• garden - paradise (Eden), innocence, fertility
• desert - spiritual emptiness, death, hopelessness
• red - blood, sacrifice, passion, disorder
• serpent - evil, sensuality, mystery, wisdom, destruction
• hero archetype - The hero is involved in a quest (in which he overcomes
obstacles). He experiences initiation (involving a separation,
transformation, and return), and finally he serves as a scapegoat, that is,
he dies to atone. –Joseph Campbell, The Hero with the Thousand Faces)
DECONSTRUCTIONISM
• Language does not refer to any external reality.
• There are several contradictory interpretations of
a given text.
• Each text contains the exact opposite of its
professed meaning Jacques Derrida
• Dismantling the ground, the text stands on
• Due to a continuing interplay between text and
meaning, one can never fully understand a text
NARRATOLOGY (A. Julien Greimas)
• The novel as a narrative J.R. R. Tolkien The Lord
of the Rings
• Main motif: transfer of an object of value from
one actant to another
• Actant (aspects of narrative)
Subject-Object: project (Frodo wants to return the
Ring)
Sender-Receiver. Communication (Saruman to Orks)
Helper-Opponent: conflict (Gandalf, Smeagol)
ACTANT interaction
• Performative: test, struggle
• Contractual: honoring or dishonoring a
contract or agreement
• Discjuctional: departure, return
LITERATURE AND THE AMERICAN
DREAM
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A city upon a hill
The Declaration of Independence
America as cornucopea
Freedom, equality, opportunity,
Success
Making it
SEMINAR TWO
• John Smith (1580-631) Biographical information:
• Grew up in Lincolnshire, shopkeeper’s apprentice,
mercenary from 1601-1605
• Captured, sold into slavery, returns to London
• 1606: The London Trading Company receives a patent
(charter) from the Crown
• Sails to Virginia, aboard 144 people, 39 die
• Charged with mutiny, excluded from government until
1607
• Main issues at the colony: health, dealing with the
economic crisis, survival
JOHN SMITH
• Main activities: exploring the territory
• Captured by Powhatan
• Pocahontas episode appears in The General History
(1624)
• Redemption of a captive by a child of nature
• 1608: elected as governor
• 1609: returns to England after a gunpowder explosion
• 1614: returns to the coast of Maine, Names the area
New England
• 1620: rejected by Pilgrims but they use his map of New
England
THE GENERAL HISTORY….
• Nothing is more honorable than the discovery
of things unknown, creating towns, peopling
countries, informing the ignorant, reforming
things unjust, teaching virtue and making a
gain to our mother country (A Description of
New England 1616)
• History, Relations, Relación—mostly a report,
a journal, not a professional history writer
GENERAL QUESTIONS
• What were the circumstances of the journey to America?
• Were the colonists given clear instructions from the beginning of
the expedition?
• Was the trip an uninterrupted one?
• How does he describe America, especially the Caribbean region?
• Can you find any elements in the text referring to Puritan values?
• What happened to the settlers upon arrival?
• Why was Smith not included among the potential leaders or
members of the council?
• What difficulties did the colonists face?
• Describe his meeting with Openchancanaugh
• How does he describe Powhatan?
THE POCAHONTAS EPISODE
What happened to John Smith in Powhatan’s
camp?
Why was he sentenced to death and how did he
escape?
How could the episode be interpreted?
Nature v. culture
Male v. female
Self v. other
THE POCAHONTAS EPISODE (group
work)
• Find archetypal elements in the story
• How could you give a feminist interpretation
of the story?
• How could you apply the psychoanalytic
method
• How could you apply the sociological method?
INTERPRETING CRUCIAL LINES
• the company was not a little discomforted
seeing the mariners had three days passed
their reckoning and found no land
• That night was the box opened and the orders
read
• Now falleth ever man to work
• The President’s overweening jealousy
• The new President committed the managing
of all things abroad to Captain Smith
INTERPRETING CRUCIAL LINES
• When no entreaty could prevail
• Powhatan, having disguised himself in the
most fearfulest manner he could
• To have him put to death by Levitical law
CULTURAL TERMS
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Patent
Hull
Sail unfurled
Council
Overweening jealousy
Palisade
Pinnace
Commonwealth
Shallop
Tuftaffety humorists
Culverine
Levitical law
IMAGE OF POCAHONTAS
• Paula Gunn Allen: medicine woman, spy,
entrepreneur, diplomat
• Charles Larson: Every Indian, the archetypal
Noble Savage
• First Lady of Virginia
• The Virgin Queen of the West
• The Indian Ceres
• Our Lady of the James
THE MYTH AND ITS FUNCTION
• Myth: self-justifying intellectual construct fusing
falsehood with reality
• Projection
• Rationalization
• Justification
• Creation myth
• Leslie Fiedler: Symbol of the White Man’s
reconciliation with our land and its first
inhabitants
THE BAPTISM OF POCAHONTAS
POCAHONTAS MATOAKA REBECCA
• Pocahontas: naughty one, spoiled child
• 1612: taken prisoner by the English
• 1614: In return for her freedom she married
John Rolfe
• Used in a propaganda campaign to popularize
the Virginia Colony
• Rebecca: captivating, wife of Isaac, son of
Abraham, mother of the Israelites through her
son Jacog, and the Edomites, through Esau
PRACTICE EXERCISES
• Write an SMS for John Smith
• --captured by Indians (to a friend)
• --rescued by Pocahontas (to the governor of
Jamestown)
• --refused to be taken to New England by the
Pilgrims (to William Bradford)
SEMINAR THREE JOHN WINTHROP
(1588-1649)
• Raised on an estate (Groton, England)
purchased from Henry VIII
• Studied at Cambridge University
• Married at age 17
• Practiced law
• Congregationalist, wants to reform the church
from within
• 1620: Severe economic depression
• Company of Mass. Bay in N. England receives
a charter
• Winthrop is chosen for governor
• Aboard Arbella delivers his sermon
• A Model of Christian Charity
A MODEL OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY
• The formation of a Christian community
• Mission concept
• General model of society: some must be poor,
some must be rich
• Features of an ideal Christian community:
• --keep the common good at the front
• --preservation and good of the whole
• --glorify God, moderate and restrain the wicked
• --social harmony: rich should not eat up the poor,
poor should not eat up the rich
WHAT RULES SHOULD ONE ABIDE BY
• Build bonds of brotherly affection
• Justice and mercy
• Obey the moral law: Love thy neighbor as
thyself
• Be like the two angels, the old man from
Gibbeah offering shelter to a travelling priest
HOW DOES THE COVENANT WORK?
• We live according to the teaching of God
• The Lord expects strict performance of the
terms
• What to do to avoid the Lord’s wrath:
• --not to prosecute carnal intentions
• --not to be selfish
• --follow the counsel of Micah: do justly, love
mercy, walk humbly
A CITY UPON THE HILL
• Matthew 5:14 For wee must Consider that
wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill
• A city that is set on the hill cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a candle and put it under
a bushel, but on a candlestick.
• What happens if we do not follow God’s
teachings?
• Typology, the pattern of Moses
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A foundational document
Compact made among Americans
Covenant with the Supreme Being
A community united in charity
THE AMERICAN JEREMIAD
• Sacwan Bercowitch: a sermon creating tension
between ideal social life and reality
• --provide a biblical or spiritual standard for
individual activity or public life
• --describe how people fail to meet this standard
• --describe and ideal public life following a return
to religious standards
• Hope v. fear, ideal v. real
• Reagan’s city upon a hill
PRACTICE EXERCISES
• How does the speech of Winthrop make you feel?
• Does society meet his standards? Provide concrete
examples
• Do you do to others as you would to yourself?
• Provide examples when America or Americans acted
according to an inhabitant of a city upon a hill
• How is the tension between hope and fear, individual
and community manifested in the text?
• Put Winthrop’s message into modern terms
• Is Hungary meeting Winthrop’s criteria?
REVIEW
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What is the significance of Winthrop’s text?
What ideas does he express?
How does he describe the ideal society?
What are the main elements of the jeremiad?
INTERPRETING THE JEREMIAD
• Possible scenario: Group work
• You lent money to a friend, he did not pay it back
• Although you saw a man lying on the ground, you
walked by
• Your friend is cheated on by her partner
• Make a sermon:
• Biblical quote, doctrine, explaining the doctrine
application, show examples, you can use fictional
examples
SEMINAR FOUR
CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES
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Historical background
The worsening of settler-Indian relations
Aggressive expansion of whites
Undermining Indian spirituality
Aggressive expansion of Christianity
Encroachment on Indian land
CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES
• Indian wars
• 1622-1632: Powhatan war
• 1637: Pequot war
• 1675-76: King Philip’s (Metacomet) War
CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES
• Conflicts at the Frontier—contact zone
• Captives are taken for making them work as
slaves
• For ransom
• For making up a loss in the family
• For being sold to other tribes
THE INDIAN CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE
• 1528-1903
• Basic theme: separation, transformation,
return (staying with Indians)
• Narratives of confinement: Barbary coast
captivity, slave narrative, convent captivity
narratives, captured by UFO narratives
• Indian captivity narrative: forerunner of the
American novel
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INDIAN
CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE
• Roy Harvey Pearce:
• Religious confessional
• Propaganda (Indian, or French as the
archenemy)
• Penny dreadful—dime novels
• Self-fashioning (Ogushi) –establishment of
identity
MARY ROWLANDSON (1682)
• Attack on Lancaster, Mass. 1675, February 10
• Captured with injured six year old daughter,
Sarah
• Self-fashioning, rebuilding identity
• Motherhood-loses Sarah, yet figurative
mother to Indian children
• Sewing clothes
• Biblical patterns, typology, Loth’s wife, Job
HANNAH DUSTAN
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1657-post 1700
1697 March 15-April 29
Convalescing with child
Indian attack, captured with nurse, newborn is
killed
• Violent self-liberation, scalps captors for proof
• Transformation turns into Indianization
• Female violence—self fashioning (Ogushi)
HANNAH DUSTAN
-Passive witness: lain in about a week, attended by nurse
-Husband: hastened from his Employments abroad, saves
children, gives up on wife
-Jael upon Sisera-typology
-Murders are motivated by: fear of the gauntlet, death of
child, ”she thought she was not Forbidden by any Law”
-“female variant of spiritual autobiography” as observed by
Patricia Spacks commemorates ”a spiritual call to an
achievement and accomplishment in no other way
excusable in a female self”
SEMINAR FIVE
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
• Review
• What factors made the captivity narrative
possible?
• What are the main sections of the plot?
• What is the significance of Rowlandson’s
Narrative?
• How typology and the concept of the covenant
are represented in the text?
• What is the reason behind the popularity of
captivity narratives?
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790)
• Father: Josiah, tallow chandler, soap maker
• Mother. Abiah Folger (her father: teacher of
Indians)
• Left school early, but loved books and reading
• First essay written under the name: Silence
Dogood
• 1723: breaks out of being a printer’s
apprentice, becomes well-versed in the
printing trade
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790)
• Success in business: owner of a printing shop by
age 24, editor of the Pennsylvania Gazette
• 1732-1758: Poor Richard’s Almanack
• Inventions: Franklin stove, lighting rod, bifocal
glasses
• 1751: Publishes his research on electricity in
London
• Political and public career:
• Diplomat, statesman
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790)
• Represents the colonies in England
• Serves in the Continental Congress
• Serves on a committee drafting the Declaration of
Independence
• Promotes the Franco-American Alliance
• A signer of the Treaty of Paris
• Represents Pennsylvania at the Constitutional
Convention
• One of the most loved people of his age, at his
funeral 20,000 mourners attend
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790)
• Franklin and the Internet?
• The inventor of the hoax
• 1761: England settling prisoners on the
colonies, he offers sending snakes to the king
in return
• 1790: speaks up against slavery through an
imagined North African prince
• The ancestor of the gadgeteer (fin, french
fries)
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790)
• Main views: Man is naturally innocent,
education can transform lives by liberating the
individual from the tyranny of the church and
the monarch
• I should have no objection to a repetition of
the same life from its beginning only asking
the Advantage Authors have in a second
edition to correct some Faults of the first
AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN GENERAL
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Early examples: St. Augustine, Rousseau
The term is first is used by Robert Southey
Before that: self-biography, self-character
George Gusdorf: what are the foundations of the
rise of autobiography?
• the elimination of the mythical perspective
• Man finds pleasure in describing his own portrait
• Writers believing that their life experience is
worth publishing
AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN GENERAL
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Requirements: the presence of three selves
Author, narrator, and the narrated self
Philippe LeJeune: Autobiographical pact:
Author, narrator, narrated self are identical
Thomas Couser: the degradation of the
autobiographical self:
• I, eye, one
• Susanna Egan: Autobiographies contain four basic
elements: innocent childhood (gaining experience),
youth (journey) maturity (adult crises) old age
(confession)
THE LITERARY SIGNIFICANCE OF
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
• The first writer to break from the colonial Puritan
ideology, promotes the values of the middle class
• Did not produce literary works
• Writings serve didactic purposes
• Poor Richard’s Almanack: most popular book of his
age, published in 10,000 copies
• Contents: calendars, time of low tide, high tide ,
agricultural advice, astrology, aphorisms, general
wisdom
• 1757: The Way to Wealth: collection of aphorisms,
promoting middle class values: industry, thrift,
independence
THE LITERARY SIGNIFICANCE OF
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
• The Autobiography (1791)
• Early model of the self-made man, rejection of predestination, he
achieved success and fame through hard work and virtue
• Not a spiritual journal
• Man is not a sinner, can be improved via education (forerrunner of
Transcendentalists)
• Wrote mock captivity narratives, and heavily criticized the slave trade
• Influenced by Swift (criticism is based on a pretended identification with
the given position, and then taken to the extreme to demonstrate the ill
effects) Defoe, Addison.
• Style: simple, clear, easily understandable language
• A secular version of the Puritan spiritual narrative
• A parallel between Franklin and the young republic (rebellion against
brother, my first errata)
• The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer (like
the cover an old book, its contents worn out
and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here,
food for worms. Yet the work itself shall not
be lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once
more. In a new and more beautiful edition,
corrected and amended by its Author
SEMINAR SIX WASHINGTON IRVING
• 1783-1859
• An American with a feather in his hand, and not on his head
• The first American literary figure with international reputation and
acceptance
• Widely read during his youth, influences: Shakespeare, Oliver
Goldsmith, Laurence Sterne
• 1804: two year trip to Europe
• 1807: Salmagundi, a satirical magazine,
• Persona: Mustapha Rub a Dub Keli khan: captain from Tripoli, offers
a criticism of American society, of Jefferson
• 1809: The History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker
• 1815-1832: lives in Europe
• 1819: The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon (short story collection)
WASHINGTON IRVING
• Rip Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• 1828: Life and Voyages of Christopher
Columbus
• Later turns to American topics: Astoria,
• 1855: The Life of George Washington
WASHINGTON IRVING
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Not a writer of classic or traditional fiction
Limited social criticism
Does not describe the tragic aspects of society
Main genre: short story
Describes everyday events
Uses elegant language
Satirist, humorist, influenced Dickens
RIP VAN WINKLE
• Reference to Diedrich Knickerbocker
• Story takes place at the Catskills
• Rip: simple, good-natured fellow, ancestors
fought in a war against the Swedes, he is not a
fighter
• Obedient, hen-pecked husband
• Popular in the village
• Ready to attend anybody’s business, but his own
• Rather starve on penny, than work for a pound
RIP VAN WINKLE
• His house is in the worst condition in the
neighborhood
• Termagant wife, virago
• Escapes into nature, goes squirrel shooting
• Encounter with a supernatural being, falls asleep
for 20 years
• Sleeps through the American Revolution
• Achieves independence from petticoat
government
DAME VAN WINKLE
Fiery furnace of domestic tribulation
A sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows
sharper with constant use
The character is Irving’s invention
Stereotypical image of women
THE CHARACTER OF RIP
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Underdog, a loser we want to see „win”
A negation of the Puritan work ethic
An opposite of Franklin’s self-made man
Parallel with America: upon return from woods
he is uncertain, confused, he earns his respected
place in society
• Personal identity is fused with national identity
• A unique version of the American dream: a
peaceful living in the lap of nature (Thoreau:
Walden)
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An escapist fantasy
Ineffectual male hero, does not face problems
An American anti-hero
Failed as a husband, father, breadwinner
Moral teaching, didactic value: husbands
should be more industrious and attentive,
wives: less antagonistic, more accepting
MAJOR THEMES
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Imagination v reality
Individual v. community
Personal history v. national history
Supernatural elements: ghosts, dream potion,
sleeping 20 years
• Romantic element: glorifying rural setting
compared to city life
LITERARY CRITICISM
• Is there a theme of rejection of women,
domesticity, domestication?
• Is the portrayal of Dame Van Winkle fair?
• Is he a mythological hero (Campbell)?
• Prototype of Natty Bumppo, Tom Sawyer
• The frontier in literature
SEMINAR SEVEN FREDERICK
DOUGLASS
• 1818-1895
• Born a slave in Maryland, escaped to Massachussetts,
disguised himself a sailor
• A noted newspaper editor, abolitionists, diplomat
• The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
(1845)
• 1855: Revised, edited version: My Bondage, My
Freedom
• 1881: The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
• A champion of human rights: fought against slavery, for
women’s suffrage
THE SLAVE NARRATIVE
• Part of the myth of origination of American culture
• Slavery as a test for the chosen people of God “The
Almighty seizes upon superior nations and by mingled
chastisement and blessing, gradually leads them to
greatness” Alexander Crummell
• The slave thrown into Heideggerian nothingness (Houston
Baker) and natal alienation (Orlando Patterson) writes
himself into being
• Apart from captivity narrative the most important aspect of
autobiographical literature (John Barbour)
• Role of religion, race, individuality, and healing
• Via writing the slave establishes his identity, a quest for
being, description of the life of Africans in an alien world
THE SLAVE NARRATIVE
• Vivid description of suffering, slave as Christ
• Connections to sentimental literature, luxury of
sorrow
• Briton Hammon (describes Indian captivity)
• Olaudah Equiano, James Albert Gronniosaw.
Educated black
• Noble Afric
• An authentic description of the slavery
experience
THE SLAVE NARRATIVE
• An effort to refute and destroy stereotypical images of
blacks
• Exotic primitive
• Brutal savage
• Natural slave
• Wreched freeman
• Tragic mulatto
• Autobiographical acts: transfer from object to literate
subject (Elizabeth Bruss)
• Ownership, control of the slavery experience via
writing
THE SLAVE NARRATIVE
• Olaudah Equiano:”O, ye nominal Christians!
might not an African ask you—Learned you this
from your God, who says unto you, Do unto all
men as you would men should do unto you?”
(318). Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a
Slave Girl (1861) : “A human being sold in the free
city of New York! The bill of sale is on record, and
future generations will learn from it that women
were articles of traffic in New York, late in the
nineteenth century of the Christian religion”
(1748).
THE NARRATIVE
• THE NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERIC
DOUGLASS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE
CHAPTER ONE
• It is the wish of masters to keep their slaves
ignorant
• Not able to tell his birthday
• Mother: Harriet Bailey: darker complexion
• Father: white man, miscegenation
• Refuting the Hamian curse
• Description of the whipping of Aunt Hester
• I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any
authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves
know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the
wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves
thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who
could tell his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than plantingtime, harvest- time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of
information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me
even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I
could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I
was not allowed to make any enquiries of my master con- cerning
it. He deemed all such enquiries on the part of a slave improper and
impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit.
• Every year brings with it multitudes of this class of slaves. It was
doubtless in consequence of a know- ledge of this fact, that one
great statesman of the south predicted the downfall of slavery by
the inevitable laws of population. Whether this prophecy is ever
fulfilled or not, it is nevertheless plain that a very different- looking
class of people are springing up at the south, and are now held in
slavery, from those originally brought to this country from Africa ;
and if their in- crease will do no other good, it will do away the
force of the argument that God cursed Ham, and therefore
American slavery is right. If the lineal descendants of Ham are
alone to be scripturally enslaved, it is certain that slavery at the
south must soon become unscrip- tural ; for thousands are ushered
into the world, annu- ally, who, like myself, owe their existence to
white fathers, and those fathers most frequently their own masters.
After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope, and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose. He made her get upon the sto
• After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope,
and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in
for the purpose. He made her get upon the stool, and tied
her hands to the Hook. She now stood fair for his infernal
purpose. Her arms were stretched up at their full length, so
that she stood upon the ends of her toes. He then said to
her, Ci Now, you d d b h, I'll learn you how to disobey my
orders !" and after rolling up his sleeves, he commenced to
lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood
(amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths
from him) came dripping to the floor. I was so terrified
and horror-stricken at the sight, that I hid myself in a
closet, and dared not venture out till long after the bloody
transaction was over.
CHAPTER 6
• The dehumanizing impact of slavery
• The fatal poison of irresponsible power was
already in her hands, and gradually commenced
its infernal work. That cheerful eye, under the
influence of slavery, eventually became red with
rage ; that voice made all cf sweet accord,
changed to one of harsh and horrid discord ; and
that angelic face gave place to that of a demon.
Thus is slavery the enemy of both the slave and
the slaveholder.
• Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs, Auld, she very
kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this,
she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters.
Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going
on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her,
among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to
teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said, " If
you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know
nothing but to obey his master to do as he is told to do. Learning
would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now/' said he, " if you
teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be
no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave, He would
at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to
himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would
make him discontented and unhappy."
CHAPTER SEVEN
• I LIVED in Master Hugh's family about seven years.
During this time, I succeeded in learning to read and
write. In accomplishing this, I was compelled to resort
to various stratagems. I had no regular teacher. My
mistress, who had kindly commenced to instruct me,
had, in compliance with the advice and direction of her
husband, not only ceased to instruct, but had set her
face against my being instructed by any one else. It is
due, however, to my mistress to say of her, that she did
not adopt this course of treatment immediately. She at
first lacked the depravity indispensible to shutting me
up in mental darkness.
• In the same book, (The Columbian Orator) I met with
one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on and in behalf of
Catholic eman- cipation. These were choice documents
to me. I read them over and over again with unabated
interest. They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of
my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my
mind, and died away for want of utterance. The moral
of AMERICAN SLAVERY. which I gained from the
dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience
of even a slaveholder. What I got from Sheridan was a
bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful
vindication of human rights.
• Symbolic death: I often found myself regretting my
own existence, and wished myself dead; and but for
the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I
should have killed myself, or done something for which
I should have been killed.
• The desire to learn: During this time my copy-book
was the board fence, brick wall, and pavement ; my
pen and ink was a lump of chalk. With these, I learned
mainly how to write. I then commenced and continued
copying the italics in Webster's Spelling Book, until I
could make them all without looking on the book.
CHAPTER NINE
• Religious sanction for cruelty:In August, 1832, my
master attended a Methodist camp-meeting, held in
the Bay-side, Talbot county, and there experienced
religion. I indulged a faint hope that his conversion
would lead him to emancipate his slaves, and that if he
did not do this, it would, at any rate, make him more
kind and humane, I was disappointed in both these
respects. It neither made him to be humane to his
slaves, nor to emancipate them. If it had any effect on
his character, it made him more cruel and hateful in
all his ways ; for I believe him to have been a much
worse man after his conversion
CHAPTER TEN
• I lived with Mr. Covey one year. During the first six months of that
year, scarce a week passed without his whipping me
• You are loosed from your moorings and are free, I am fast in my
chains and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale
and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom’s swift
winged angels, that fly round the world, I am confined in bands of
iron!
• You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a
slave was made a man
• This battle with Mr. Covey was the turning-point in my career as a
slave. It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and
revived within me a sense of my own manhood. My long crushed
spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place and I
now, resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form,
the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact
• Chiasmic statements: verbal pattern in which
the second half of an expression is balanced
against the first with the parts reversed
(antithesis)
• Individual, personal declaration of
independence
• Conativity: belief in the power of the written
word to change reality, willing a new world
into being
SEMINAR EIGHT NATHANIEL
HAWTHORNE (1804-1864)
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Born on Independence Day, Salem Mass.
Descendant of Puritan immigrants
One ancestor was judge in Salem witch trials
Father died early
Influences: Henry Fielding, Sir Walter Scott,
friendship with Franklin Pierce (president of
U.S.)
• Studies at Bowdoin College
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864)
• 1837: Twice-Told Tales Shakespeare, King
John: ”Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull eare of a drowsie man”
• Psychological themes, guilt, selfishness, pride
• The impact of the Puritan past on the present
• 1839-40: Works at Boston Custom House as a
salt and coal measurer
• 1846: Mosses from an Old Manse
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864)
• 1850: The Scarlet Letter
• 1852: Supports Pierce’s campaign
• 1853-1857: American consul in Liverpool,
travels in Italy
• 1860: The Marble Faun
YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN
• Young Mr. Anybody
• Wife: Faith, pink ribbon
• Leaves wife for the first time in three months
after wedding
• Errand in the wilderness
• Wife: blessed angel on earth
• He had an evil purpose, he had to take the dreary
road darkened by the gloomiest trees of the
forest
• A devilish Indian behind every tree
YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN
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Meets the devil
They might have been father and son
The stranger carried a snake-like staff
Having kept covenant: made a deal with the
devil
• Past guilt: lashing a Quaker woman, setting
fire at an Indian village
YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN
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In the forest he sees everyone without a mask
Goodwife Cloyse, devil worshiper witch
Heathen wilderness
Sees all his towns people at a black mass
Forced with Faith into a communion with the
Devil
• Unhallowed altar
• Evil nature of mankind
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBecM3CQV
D8
YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN
• The weakness of public morality
• Faith is based on other people’s faith, he is
religious, because those around him are also
religious
• The loss of innocence, Brown’s own Fall
• The dark side of one’s self
• The fear of the wilderness
• Female purity pink ribbon v. snake headed staff
SEMINAR NINE
TRANSCENDENTALISM
• Romantic reaction to rationalism and
materialism
• A newer form of old Puritan perspectives
• Establishment of a new world of truth,
intuition against the real world
• Mind over matter, extremes are close to
mysticism
TRANSCENDENTALISM
• Background: Jacksonian democracy
• Unitarianism : the oneness and benevolence of
God
• The inherent goodness of mankind
• Man can be improved with education
• Humans are not depraved and all are eligible for
salvation
• A rational religion
• Leading figures: William E. Channing, Ralph
Waldo Emerson
TRANSCENDENTALISM
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Philosophical, literary, social movement
Emphasizing the importance of nature
Basis: Kant, Swedenborg’s philosophy
A philosophy and religion
Belief in the Oversoul
Leading figures: Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau
Margaret Fuller: The Dial
REFORM MOVEMENTS
• Amos Bronson Alcott: Fruitland (1842-43)
• Brook Farm: against profit-orientedness,
promoting plain living, high thinking
• Dietary reform
• Prison reform
RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882)
• A respectable, conventional life, a solid citizen
• Unitarian family background, father is a
minister
• Father leaves the family in poverty
• Aunt Mary Moody Emerson: deprivation as an
ecstatic self-denial
• Ralph studies at Harvard, becomes a Unitarian
minister, later resigns from the Church
RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882)
• Major influence: European trip, meeting with the
Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle
• Upon return moves to Concord
• Participates in the Lyceum movement,
popularizes literature, culture, science
• Seeks a balance between religious mysticism and
modern natural science
• Absolute supporter of individualism
• Hitch your wagon to a star
MAIN WORKS
• 1836: Nature (looking at nature with a
spiritual eye)
• Nature is the embodiment of a divine
principle, the manifestation of the Oversoul
• 1837: The American Scholar ( we have listened
too long to the courtly muses of Europe)
• 1841: Essays
• 1850’s: supporter of abolitionism
SELF-RELIANCE
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Importance of self-reliance
Self-reliance of the individual
Sel-reliance and society
Promotion of individual experience over
knowledge gained from books or formal
education
• Expression of individualism, trust thyself
• Do not imitate
SELF-RELIANCE
• Be a non-conformist, reject the pressures from
society
• A true man is a non-conformist, marches to
his own drummer
• Live life to the fullest
• Do not worry about what people think
• The price of non-conformity is condemnation
• Don’t be consistent, dare to be misunderstood
SELF-RELIANCE
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A true man is close to nature
An institution is a lengthened shadow of man
God is in nature
Nature is self-reliance
Man-centered, Anglo-Saxon superiority
Our age yields no great and perfect persons
Travel is a fool’s paradise
Man must go back to basics, a romantic rejection
of civilization
SEMINAR TEN WALT WHITMAN 18191892
WALT WHITMAN 1819-1892
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Born in Long Island (May 31, 1819)
Father: Democrat, carpenter
Mother: Quaker
Second of nine children (other brothers:
Washington, Jefferson, Jackson)
• Self-educated
• Family tragedies, (death of one brother, other
brother mentally handicapped, one sister marries
and alcoholic ship builder, oldest son,
WALT WHITMAN 1819-1892
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Influences:
-working class America
-a distant, alcoholic father
-a fear of becoming a father
A lifelong bachelor
Jobs held: journeyman printer, school teacher,
newspaperman
WALT WHITMAN 1819-1892
• Founder of Long Islander, editor of New York
Aurora
• 1848: embarks upon a poetic career
• 1855: Leaves of Grass
• Preface: past beliefs should be incorporated into
newer ones
• American geography, occupation, people are
incorporated into a transcendental unit
• 1855-59: Raises his voice in editorials in the
slavery crisis
WALT WHITMAN 1819-1892
• 1859: Calamus, Children of Adam—accused of
obscenity
• 1860: family tragedies, realization of homoerotic tendencies
• Civil War activities
• 1862:wound dresser
• 1865: Drum Taps, When Lilacs in the Dooryard
Last Bloomed
WALT WHITMAN 1819-1892
• 1870: Democratic Vistas-re-enforced
commitment to democracy
• 1873: Suffers a stroke, moves to Camden
• Discovered by the British
• March 26, 1892: death
SONG OF MYSELF
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Main themes:
Body, soul
Americana
Individualism
Optimism
Celebration of the self
Self/external world
Physical aspects of love
Hair, beard, grass
Homoeroticism
County, city life
SONG OF MYSELF
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Expression of the American Ideal
Myself: Author, America, God, Oversoul
The Greatest American Poet
Innovator: free verse, flows like the ocean, or
an operatic aria
SONG OF MYSELF
• Expression of collective beginning
• Transcending the body, becoming one with God
• Free verse—irregular rhythm, no conventional use of
meter, written in paragraphs
• Conventional unit is foot or line, in free verse it is the
paragraph
• Projection of the self
• The projective verse
• American culture and literature reaches adulthood
• A lyrical autobiography, the discovery of the self
• The first true American poet