Transcript Unit 11

Unit 11 New England Transcendentalism and
Romantic Age （2）
Washington Iving (1783-1859)
Achievements:
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1. Irving is the first belletrist in
American literature, writing for pleasure
at a time when writing was practical and
for useful purposes.
2. He is the first American literary
humorist.
3. He has written the first modern short
stories.
4. He is the first to write history and
biography as entertainment.
5. He introduced the nonfiction prose as
a literary genre.
6. His use of the gothic looks forward to
Poe.
Study Questions
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1. Compare and contrast Freneau's and
Irving's uses of the historical situation
as the subject of imaginative literature.
What makes Irving more successful,
and why is he more successful?
2. Discuss several different ways in
which "Rip Van Winkle" addresses
versions of the American dream.
3. Compare Rip Van Winkle with
Franklin's Father Abraham in The Way
to Wealth. What do the two have in
common?
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4. 'Rip Van Winkle" is an early
work that casts the American
woman as the cultural villain.
Analyze the character of Dame
Van Winkle in the story and
discuss the significance Irving
attributes to her death.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1807-1882)
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Primary Works
Voices of the Night, 1839; Ballads and
Other Poems, (includes "The Wreck of
the Hesperus" and "The skeleton in
Armor") 1841; Poems on Slavery, 1842;
The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems,
1845; Evangeline, 1847; Kavanagh
(fiction), 1849; The Song of Haiwatha,
1855; The Courtship of Miles Standish,
1856; Tales of a Wayside Inn, 1863;
Poems, 1886; The Poems of Henry
wadsworth Longfellow, 1961.
Melville - A Brief Assessment
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For twenty years before his death in 1891,
Herman Melville was a forgotten man. This is
best reflected in a couple obituary notices:
"He won considerable fame as an author by
the publication of a book in 1847 (actually
1846) entitled Typee. ... This was his best
work, although he has since written a number
of other stories, which were published more
for private than public circulation. ... During
the ten years subsequent to the publication of
this book he was employed at the NY Custom
House." - NY Daily Tribune, September 29,
1891
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"Of late years Mr. Melville probably because he had ceased
his literary activity - has fallen
into a literary decline, as a result
of which his books are little known.
Probably, if the truth were known,
even his own generation has long
thought him dead, so quiet have
been the later years of his life." The Press, September 29, 1891
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Soon after his death, there was a short
revival of interest in Melville's work. Many of
his works were published again and so were
many appreciative scholarly evaluations. A
second Melville revival took place about 1919
coinciding with the centennial of Melville's
birth. Still unpublished was Melville's last
work (Billy Budd, 1924) considered by many
to be as important as Moby Dick. By 1930s
Melville scholarship became prominent (Hugh
Hetherington completed the first doctoral
dissertation on Melville at the Univ. of
Michigan in 1933), and, soon after the second
world war, a Melville society was organized.
Through the next two decades Melville and
his writing attracted more research and
scholarship than any other American author.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
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Major Themes
1. Love - usually of a mourning
man for his deceased beloved.
2. Pride - physical and intellectual.
3. Beauty - of a young woman
either
dying
or
dead.
4. Death - a source of horror.
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Influence of Poe
1. Influenced writers of split
personality.
2. Influenced literary criticism.
3. Influenced writers dealing with
the disintegration of personality.
Poe's Four Types of Short Stories
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1.Arabesque - strange; use of the
supernatural; symbolic fantasies of the
human condition; (Example - "The Fall
of the House of Usher").
2.Grotesque - heightening of one
aspect of a character (Example - "The
Man Who Was Used Up").
3.Ratiocinative
detective
fiction
(Example "The Purloined Letter").
4.Descriptive
(Example
"The
Landscape Garden").
Poe's Aesthetic Theory of Effect
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1. "Unity of effect or impression" is of
primary importance; the most effective
story is one that can be read at a single
sitting.
2. The short story writer should
deliberately subordinate everything in
the story - characters, incidents, style,
and tone - to bringing out of a single,
preconceived effect.
3. The prose tale may be made a vehicle
for a great variety of these effects than
even the short poem.
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Poe's main concern focused upon matters of
design, proportion and composition; his use of
effect meant the impact which a short work
would make upon a reader. In reviewing
Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales, he pointed out the
writer's obligation and reward: "If his very initial
sentence tend not to be the outbringing of this
effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the
whole composition there should be no word
written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect,
is not to the one pre-established design. And by
such means, with such care and skill, a picture is
at length painted which leaves in the mind of him
who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense
of the fullest satisfaction."
Paradoxes in Poe
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1. His life - basically insecure and highly
emotional, but his writing is structured.
2. He reflects the paradoxical time - there was
the apocalyptic sense of doom combined with the
romantic innocence of childhood.
3. Poe was a romantic writer, but he emphasized
rationality.
4. He presents realistic details in gothic settings.
5. There is a paradox in Poe's critical thinking he believed in individual creativity but advocated
classical norms - the ideal length of a poem,
suggested Poe, is 100 lines.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)
Study Questions
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1. What makes a literary work "good"? Can
ideas of what is good change over time? Why
in our own century was Stowe ignored in
favor of writers like Hawthorne and Melville?
2. What's the role of emotion in
understanding a work of literature? Is Stowe's
writing too emotional?
3. From its origins in Harriet Beecher Stowe,
regionalism as a genre took women
characters and women's values seriously.
Analyze Stowe's portraits of Eliza in the
excerpt from Uncle Tom's Cabin and Huldy in
"The Minister's Housekeeper," and discuss the
values explicit in Stowe's work.