Alana Nesteruk

4 May 2010

Looking Back on Early America through Literature

          As I had mentioned on the midterm, when I first saw the syllabus I was unfamiliar with most of the readings, so now looking back on all of the authors and their works, I feel that I have learned an immense amount of Literature and I have a broader understanding of Early America.

          I honestly enjoyed the first part of the semester the most because I found that the readings were more interesting to me, for example, I really enjoyed reading about the Salem witch trials, the origin stories, and the captivity narratives. Columbus’s letters and Mary Rowlandson’s Indian captivity narrative were of such interest to me that I chose those two to do my research posts on. The research posts were a nice way to learn more about a subject that we enjoyed, and I appreciated being able to choose my own topic. The research posts allowed me to learn more about Columbus and his voyages and the Indian captivity narrative as a genre.

          I found many of the texts from the second half of the semester to be very difficult like The Constitution, The Mayflower Compact, and The Declaration of Independence. However, all three of these are not just important to Literature, but to American history as well. Despite the readings being difficult, it’s nice to have some familiarity with such major American works of Literature.

          I found Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards to be a difficult read as well; however, it was a nice introduction to the Enlightenment period and the first Great Awakening—both of which I knew very little about.  It was interesting to see the approach that Edwards took in his sermon. I was very shocked by the idea that men are wicked and God is Angry: “He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell but he can most easily do it…We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so it is easy for us to cut or single a slender thread that anything hangs by: thus easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell.” I had never been introduced to sermons like this so it was very interesting to read one and see how the 4^th generation puritans were being preached to. I also thought this sermon was a great way of introducing the sublime because Edwards really creates an image of God that is both awesome and something to fear.

          Jonathan Edwards’s biography was very sermon-like and hard to read so I especially enjoyed reading Jonathan Edwards’s note on his future wife Sarah Pierrepont. It was easy to read with beautiful language and it really encompassed the concept of Romanticism and what was beautiful in a woman in the early 18^th Century.

          I feel that I now have a mental timeline of Early America due to reading the Literature of the time. Despite many of the readings being difficult, I feel that I have gained something by being familiarized with these influential texts. Not only were these texts rich in a literary sense, but they were also very educational, historically.

The Structure of the Course

I loved the fact that the readings were online. It made it simple and cost effective for everyone. Thank you!  I really enjoyed being able to just pull the readings up on the computer and in class it was nice that everyone could see the text that we were discussing. I think that a room with computers would be hard to monitor, and the students would be less engaged. The reading up on the screen works great for group discussion; however, I think that discussion would be better if there were tests on the reading because then more people would be prepared to discuss the material. I think that one problem was that our class was too spread out considering that there weren’t that many students. Maybe it would be helpful to encourage students to move towards the front so that they are closer together and hopefully that will spark more participation.

          I really appreciated all of your notations in the reading—they were extremely helpful and I absolutely loved the music, it was a really nice touch and it helped to give a clearer understanding of the timeline that we were learning about. I really enjoyed the set up of the class and I especially liked that each day there was a new presenter because it gave every student the chance to participate and it helped teach the class as a whole.

          I think that the readings you chose were interesting, and although some of them were tough to get through, they were great texts of early America, and hence, fitting. I really enjoyed the class, and I love that you encourage so much discussion. Hopefully, making students more responsible for the readings with quizzes, etc. will increase participation. Thank you for a great semester!

Literature as History

          I have never been good with history or been able to grasp a history timeline in my mind. Most literature classes have focused on texts but left out the time period so I’ve never really gotten the whole picture. I found that the way the texts were organized based on time period gave me an entirely different and better understanding of literature as a whole. I found myself using your timeline to connect texts from other classes into a historical framework. I never thought of history having so much to do with literature until now. The way that history influences literature was something that I felt you emphasized greatly in your class, and I found that it helped me to understand the nature of different texts even in my other literature classes. This historical framework has helped me understand the history of America in a whole new way. I have never liked history, but through the use of interesting texts I was able to learn about something I didn’t like through the use of something I do like (literature). If only someone could teach me math this way!

          I really enjoyed learning about the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. Through reading texts, and even listening to music from these time periods, I was able to acquire a better understanding of the history of America. From writings of Columbus and the puritans, to the constitution, to Jonathan Edwards and Edgar Huntly, I was able to grasp a history of America and terms such as American exceptionalism, romanticism, sublime, and gothic.

          I had the hardest time reading Edgar Huntly by Charles Brockden Brown but I can definitely appreciate it as an attempt at creating a novel. I had never thought of the birth of the novel and that there wasn’t a prototype for such a thing. Charles Brockden Brown’s novel was the first serious American attempt at serious literary fiction and something must be said for that. It may not be appreciated as a great literary work but it can be appreciated as history because it was the beginning of such works.

          I definitely enjoyed Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson better than Edgar Huntly and I very much enjoyed reading them together and being able to compare two works, one popular and the other not, that were written close to the same time.

          I liked seeing the beginning of the gothic in Edgar Huntly and then seeing it flourish a generation later in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and then again, another generation later, in William Wilson. It was interesting to see the lack of dialogue and the abundance of description in all of these. Literature was really growing as an art form and it’s very fascinating to see how it has evolved over the years. I was surprised to see so much description and so little dialogue, but the literature of a time reflects the people’s wants and needs of that time, and with no television or entertainment like we have today, a lot description would have been interesting, and to people living in today’s society, we want the story now or some will even simply settle for the movie!

          Literature tells so much about the time that it was written in and I think that this course has really emphasized that, and due to that emphasis, I have a more complete understanding of history and literature together, when I never really put them together before—but interestingly, they really can’t be separated.