Transcript Slide 1

History of American Literature
Pre-Columbian Culture
While a rich and varied
culture existed in
America prior to
European
colonization, this is
NOT the origins of the
established tradition
of American Literature
American Literature: Origins
American Literature stems from the meeting
between the land with its usually despised
“Indians” and the discoverers who left
developed, literate Renaissance Europe.
“New World” invented in Europe
Before the New World was discovered and
colonized, it was invented.
America fit into beliefs such as Atlantis,
Avalon, Canaan, Eden, Cities of Gold,
fountain of Youth.
Prior to American Settlement…
Reports of explorers
were combined with
pre-existing ideas of
the idealized vision of
the “new World”
Early reports influenced:
• Montaigne, “Of Cannibals”
• Shakespeare, The Tempest
• Donne, “Elegy 19: To His Mistress Going
to Bed”
• Marvell, “Bermuda”
Modern Authors Revisit This
Lispector in “The Smallest Woman in the
World” is an example of a modern author
who critiques the dynamic of colonialism.
Settlement in America
Once there became an actual settled
America, the imaginary story began to
change.
John Smith: Myth Breaker/Creator
Smith dispels some of
the myths about
America but creates
others.
Gave British names to
land.
Author of 1st English
book written in
America.
Pocohontas: Myth of
The Noble and Remediable
Savage.
Pilgrim Fathers
Another kind of American founding narrative.
The Bible, especially Genesis and Exodus, shape
the Puritan’s vision of the New World.
William Bradford
• His diary was a
record of how God’s
will shaped history.
• All events were
interpreted to decide
whether the events
are determined by
God or Satan.
Mayflower passenger
list from of Plymouth
Plantation
Puritan Style
• Determination to use “the plaine style, with
singular record unto the simple truth in all
things.”
• Development of metaphor/allegory in
connecting daily events to the Divine
• Literary genres: history, travel narrative,
diary, sermon, etc. (not fiction which was
deemed frivolous).
Jeremiad: Prolonged Lamentation
or Complaint
Ideals for new community vs. reality
As time passes, the Puritan community
shows the inevitable failure of ordinary
men to truly live like saints.
New England Settled
By the end of the 17th c. New England was a
dense, settled culture, very bookish, led by
ministers.
Close contact with English and European
thought.
Deliberately excluded those that did not
connect with their ideals: other religions,
Native Americans, Blacks
Ann Hutchinson
on trial.
The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne, in his 1850
novel, returns to the
Puritan world.
Puritan society vs. the
world of nature.
Idea that the Puritan
spirit has not died.
Awakening and Enlightenment
18th c. period of major change in American
ideas/ideals
Puritan ideals refashioned in response to
intellectual and scientific questions of the
Age of Reason
European ideas applied to America
Age of Enlightenment:
• Move from rigid theology to Deism
• Emphasis on natural science and inductive
reasoning
• Liberalism
J. Edwards vs. B. Franklin
Older metaphysical Puritan ideas vs. Yankee
practicality and ingenuity.
Jonathan Edwards
Edwards wanted to make Puritanism vibrant
for the 18th century and to re-establish its
main doctrines on sound philosophical
basis.
Emotional power of his sermons helped
spark the Great Awakening (late 1730’s)
Enlightenment side of Edwards
He was interested in
science and the
observation of the
natural world.
He died at age 55 from
smallpox inoculation
(meant to prove his
faith in science).
B. Franklin: this quote fits him
“He is an American, who, leaving behind all his
ancient prejudices and manners, receives new
ones from the mode of life he has embraced, the
new government he obeys, and the new rank he
holds…The American is a new man, who acts on
new principles; he must therefore entertain new
ideas, and form new opinions.”
--Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer
Secularized Puritan Conscience
• Self help and
individual progress:
moral perfection vs.
spiritual
enlightenment
• He was Puritan in his
self-scrutiny and
desire to improve
himself.
Revolutionary Years
Discourse before the 1776 Revolution called
forth the language of politics rooted in
ancient Greek and Roman states.
John Locke
Locke’s Two Treatises
of Government was
the underpinning for:
Political debate on the
rights and
responsibilities of
citizens and limits and
proper obligations of
governments.
Did it also inspire Lisa Simpson
as she holds the “Model U.N.
Charter”?
Americans again ask themselves:
This is a second birth for Americans, as they
wonder…
What is the meaning of
our errand in America?
Thomas Jefferson
“The Declaration of
Independence”:
• Major act of
intellectual endeavor
• Faith in the power of
pubic speech to
govern sensible men
of good will.
Thomas Paine
• Invited by Franklin to leave England and
settle in Pennsylvania
• “Common Sense” 1776 – gives reasons
for separation from Britain.
• “The American Crisis” 1776-1783. Series
of 16 pamphlets which spoke directly to
current military situation.
Washington Irving
As his name suggests,
he was a child of the
revolution. He
published first
American literary
folktale, Rip Van
Winkle, on topic of
American
independence from
Britain.
Revolution through the 1820’s
• A time of new nationalism, dominated by
practical and political issues (not ideal for
creative imagination).
• At the same time, there is the desire for a
truly American literature.
Romanticism in Europe
Meanwhile, from Europe came Romanticism, a
literary movement that emphasized:
• heightened interest in nature
• emphasis on the individual's expression of
emotion and imagination
• departure from the attitudes and forms of
classicism
• rebellion against established social rules and
conventions.
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
The novel of
Dr. Frankenstein’s
Hubris is an example
of Transcendentalism.
American Naissance
America begins to come to maturity in art
and culture with the fabulous five:
Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville and
Whitman.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
• His book Nature pubished in 1836 is seen
as the start of Transcendentalism and a
uniquely American literary style
• “The Divinity School Address” gives notice
of his grievances with the established
church.
Changing view of Nature
• The Puritans saw nature as wicked and
threatening, a place where the devil might
live.
• Emerson believed God made nature as a
hieroglyph of his spiritual world.
• Nature was not a force to be dominated,
but something to speak to one’s soul.
Thoreau--Walden or Life in the Woods
During Thoreau’s stay at Walden Pond, his
observations of nature and his thoughts,
become an important Transcendentalist
text.
Dark Transcendentalists
Edgar Allen Poe, Hawthorne and Melville
are also influenced by Romanticism and
Transcendentalism, but they have a darker
outlook on life.
Edgar Allen Poe
• Like Emerson, he was
a symbolist
• However his
imagination is more
decadent with no
secure and
redemptive mystery
beyond everyday
reality.
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
The decadent
imagination is clearly
shown in the
gruesome tale of an
entombed twin in a
decaying, incestuous
family!
1840’s: Rise of novel in Europe
In Europe, writers such as Dickens and
Balzac were perfecting the art of the novel.
In America, Hawthorne and Melville were
also developing this form.
Herman Melville
• His symbolic inclination and philosophical
scope are shown in Moby Dick
• “Bartleby the Scrivener” shows a displaced
person thrown into a harsh world of
alienating social forces (anticipating later
trends in American literature and society).
Abolitionist Voices
Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass,
1845, powerful and
deeply felt reversal of
the conventional
images of slave
existence and
sensibility.
Civil War and aftermath
• Esteemed novelists such as Twain and
James had little direct participation in the
war.
• However, war was fully recorded in
memoir and letters.
• The upheaval forced language to new
Realism.
• Old eloquence = New plainspokeness
Abraham Lincoln
In his “Second Inaugural Address,” Lincoln
attempts to unify the nation, while also
hinting at the true causes of the war.
Regionalism/Realism
Regionalism: escape from East Coast
domination.
Sentimentalized American past that was
fading.
Gave voice to new aspects of American life:
immigrants, Blacks, experiences of
women.
Kate Chopin
• Stories of New
Orleans such as “The
Storm”
• Best known for
analytical study of
women’s suffering in
The Awakening
Mark Twain
Gift of humor and moral skepticism in
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).
Henry James: Realism
• “Daisy Miller” is typical in its interest in
contrasting European and American
manners and customs.
Muckrakers and Early Moderns
Europe in the 1890’s: fundamental change
of mood.
“The great task of our time is to blow up all
existing institutions—to destroy.” – Ibsen
(playwrite)
Class Conflict
The rise of wealthy
industrialists with
great commercial
empires was met with
strikes and riots of
class conflict.
Naturalism
• Old standards of genteel morality have no
place.
• Our world is determined by man’s biology,
evolutionary process, and the impersonal
machine-like operations of society.
Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat” is an
example of Naturalism.
Plagiarism Alert
The ideas for this
presentation, as well
as some of the direct
wording, were taken
from Ruland and
Bradbury’s From
Puritanism to
Postmodernism: A
History of American
Literature.
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