AMERICAN LITERATURE AND
CULTURE: AUTHORS AND
MILESTONES
LITERARY CULTURE IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
LECTURE 1-2
• A period of transition, maturation, the birth of
modern America
• Economic, industrial, cultural growth
• Rise of an indigenous national literature
TRANSITIONS AND CONTINUITIES
• Major cities: Philadelphia, New York, Boston,
Baltimore
• Territorial increase:
• -1803 Louisiana Purchase
• -1820s-1848: Westward Expansion
• -1898: Spanish-American War
INFLUENCES ON AMERICAN THOUGHT AND
NATIONAL CHARACTER
• Puritanism: man is inherently evil, threat of
eternal damnation, predestination
• Enlightenment: belief in the power of rational
thought: optimism, man is improvable
• Religious revivals, Evangelical Protestantism,
camp meetings, bringing religion out of the
church
• Romantic movement: American version:
Transcendentalism
THE LEGACY OF NEW ENGLAND
PURITANISM
• One of the main expressions of Puritan
doctrine: Cambridge Platform (1646):
reinforcement of Calvinism
• Triumphalist, Bible-inspired religio-political
ethnocentrism: Promised Land, American
Jerusalem, Chosen People, Redeemer Nation
• Jeremiad: laments by prophet Jeremiah in Old
Testament
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 an ideal public life following a return to
religious standards
• Hope v. fear, ideal v. real
• Reagan’s city upon a hill
THE ROOTS OF PURITANISM
• German Reformation: 1517 Martin Luther: 95
Theses , salvation through direct relationship
with God, indulgences
• Calvin in Geneva, Predestination, Puritans
• English Reformation: Henry VIII 1534 Act of
Supremacy
DEMANDS OF PURITANS
• eliminate church hierarchy,
• establishment of independent church
• membership should be based on
predestination
IMAGES OF PURITANS
• H. L. Mencken: ”The haunting fear that
someone, somewhere may be happy.”
• Rejection of ascetism
• Calvin: ”God intended to provide not only for
our necessity, but likewise for our pleasure
and delight.”
• Cotton Mather: ”The wine is from God, but
the drunkard is from the Devil.”
• Most important value: moderation
ABOUT PURITANISM IN GENERAL
• Total Depravity - through Adam and Eve's fall, every person
is born sinful - concept of Original Sin.
• Predestination-only a few are selected for salvation
• Limited Atonement - Jesus died for the chosen only, not for
everyone.
• Irresistible Grace - God's grace is freely given, it cannot be
earned or denied. Grace is defined as the saving and
transfiguring power of God-covenant of grace.
• Covenant: agreement between God and the individual
• Grace cannot be refused
• Perseverance of the "saints" –only visible saints can
interpret divine intent.
ABOUT PURITANISM IN GENERAL
• Typology
• Establishment of parallels between secular
history and the Bible
• John Winthrop, the American Moses
• Viewing the Old Testament as a forerunner of
the New Testament, Moses preparing the way
for the rise of Christ
ACHIEVEMENTS OF PURITANISM
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Emphasis on education, public schools system
1636: Harvard College
Learning is necessary to understand the Bible
High level of literacy
Material culture: churches, ships, houses
Sense of nationhood
Common law
PRE-ROMANTICS IN AMERICA
• Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810): first
important novelist, first to be appreciated in
Europe
• Forerunner of the Gothic novel Wieland
(1798) combination of the psychological novel
and the gothic romance, transformation of
Theodore Wieland from a ”religious maniac”
to a ”man of sorrows”
PRE-ROMANTICS IN AMERICA
• J. Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur (1735-1813)
• America as an agrarian Paradise
• What then is the American, this new man? He is either an
European, or the descendant of an European, hence that strange
mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could
point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman,
whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and
whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations.
He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient
prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode
of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the
new rank he holds He becomes an American by being received in
the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all
nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and
posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.
QUEST FOR AN INDEPENDENT CULTURE
• Until mid 18th century: cultural
dependence on Europe
• 1820:”In the four quarters of the globe, who
reads an American book,or goes to an
American play? Or looks at an American
picture or statue? What does the world yet
owe to American physicians and surgeons?
What new substances have their chemists
discovered? Or what old ones have they
analyzed? What have they done in
mathematics? Who drinks out of American
glasses?” Sydney Smith
QUEST FOR AN INDEPENDENT
CULTURE
• Henry James: ”No State, in the European sense of
the word, and indeed barely a specific national
name. No sovereign, no court, no personal
loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no
army, no diplomatic service, no country
gentlemen, no palaces nor manors, nor oldcountry houses, nor parsonages, nor thatched
cottages, no ivied ruins, no cathedrals, nor
abbeys, nor little Norman churches, no great
Universities, nor public schools, no Oxford, nor
Eton.”
ROMANTICISM IN AMERICA
• English Romantics: William Wordsworth, Samuel
Coleridge
• Appears in America in the 1820s
• Main features: greater personal freedom for the
individual
• Emphasis on imagination, emotion
• Roots: European Romanticism, Kant’s philosophy
• Man has affections, disinterested affection, Earl of
Shaftesbury
• Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther
• Emphasis on the self
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
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
DIVISIONS WITHIN AMERICAN
CULTURE
• Yea sayers: optimism, affirmation, celebratory
attitude: Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman
• Romantic emphasis on the self
• Nay sayers: Poe, Melville, Hawthorne,
Dickinson: negative view of humanity: innate
depravity, moral, existential dilemmas
• Paleface v. Redskin (Philip Rahv 1949)
PALEFACE
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Patrician
Emphasis on allegory, symbolism
High-brow
Religious norms, refined estrangement from
reality
• Genteel, pedantic, snobbish
REDSKIN
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Plebeian energy, glorification of Americanism
Naturalism, realistic descriptions
Low-brow, emotional, spontaneous
More rebellious, yet accepts social
environment
• Vulgar, aggressive, frontier mentality
• Throughout 19th century paleface dominated,
20th century on: redskin prevails
WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859)
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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
RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882)
• A respectable, conventional life, a solid citizen
• Unitarian family background, father is a
minister
• Father’s death 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
Self-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
LECTURE 3-4 THE SLAVERY ISSUE
• 1860: 4 million slaves in the South, total
population 12 million
• 1858: Abraham Lincoln, A house divided against
itself cannot stand
• 1776: Declaration of Independence, postpones
the issue
• 1787: Constitutional Convention: 3/5th
compromise, outlawing slavery as of 1808
• 1820: Missouri compromise, slavery prohibited
north of latitude 36 30
ABOLITIONISM
• David Walker: Appeal (1829) ”we are the most
degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that
ever lived since the world began”
• William Lloyd Garrison: The Liberator (1831)
• Frederick Douglass Narrative (1845)
• Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
(1861)
• Frances Harper Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects
(1854)
• William Wells Brown Clotel (1853)
FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1818-1895)
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Born a slave: Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
Served in Hugh Auld’s house
Taught to read and write by Mrs. Auld
Continues to teach himself
1838: escapes, changes his name to Douglass
Works for the Massachussetts Anti-Slavery Society
1845: Publication of the Narrative
Founder of the abolition magazine: North Star (1851)
U.S. marshal, consul-general to the Republic of Haiti
THE NARRATIVE
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A success story
Declaration of personal independence
Expression of a journey of self-discovery
Survival story
Structure:
Early life
Struggle toward self-hood
Personal rebellions
Escape attempts
Achievement of life goal
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 concerning 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 knowledge 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 increase 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 unscriptural ; for thousands are ushered into the
world, annually, 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 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 of 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 emancipation. 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
UNCLE TOM’S CABIN (1852)
• Harriet Beecher Stowe: strict Puritan upbringing
• Father: Lyman Beecher, reverend
• Teacher at theological seminary, marries Calvin
Stowe. Professor, Biblical scholar, family has 7
children
• UCT at first appears in serial form, after
publication 300 000 copies are sold
• Main characters: Uncle Tom, Eliza, George, Topsy,
Eva, Simon Legree, Quimbo, Sambo
LITERARY CRITICISM ON UCT
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A Christian book
A sentimental novel
An example of domestic fiction
Matriarchal vision emphasizing love, culture,
morality
• Southern view: a vicious attack on the divinely
ordered system of slavery
• White version of black life
LECTURE 5-6: 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
an alcoholic ship builder)
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
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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
• Description of American geography, occupations,
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: Works as a 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, the lines flow 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, not a 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 poem as projective verse (the lines transfer energy to
the reader)
• American culture and literature reaches adulthood
• A lyrical autobiography, the discovery of the self
• The first true American poet
EARLY FEMINIST FICTION
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Local color movement
Sarah Orne Jewett The Country of Pointed Firs,
First person prose: Dunnet Landing
Mary Wilkins Freeman: A New England Nun
Kate Chopin: The Awakening
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Yellow
Wallpaper