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lecture notes |
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Hawthorne
Set up homepage, lecture, final exam
Thanks for midterms,
good set, generally high grades
how much has to go right in writing an essay for classes like ours
everyone did at least most of it right
learn to extend and develop what you're doing right
minimize or counter-balance what you're doing wrong
all good writers
most of you have probably been your teachers' favorites, or at least your teachers liked that you could take writing assignments seriously and meet the requirements
mental-emotional challenge of being praised, getting high grades
then stepping up to next level and a teacher seeing your work and not feeling blown away
happened to me at every stage of school
learning to write and think never ends, and you can actually get better at it, or at least understand it better, across your whole life
life of a lifel-long learner and working writer
but requires putting your writing out there for other people to read and not assuming they'll love it but hoping they can show you how it can be better
students do get better
strongest set was Web Highlights
7 weeks till final
not easy submitting to more prof-time, but sometimes a few minutes can illuminate more than a note
my practice teaching, but also good students, respectful listening and participation
question about discussion?
standard advice
depersonalize > return to text
know where you're going to land before you start talking
can you say it in one sentence?
What's the question? (i.e., What's the question we're trying to answer?)
Assignments
research project due in 5-6 weeks
reading assignments for rest of semester
shift somewhat from recognizing Romantic style or forms to identifying Romanticism's role in history
why study literature?
something to think about, write about, play with, as a way of learning forms of representation, thinking, reflection, expression
formal styles--learn to make connections, compare and contrast different expressions of similar characters, situations, symbols
>
literature as cultural history
broaden category of literature
Romanticism not just literature, "age of revolution"
Civil War as 2nd American Revolution
Dickinson poem
Poe,
Dickinson, Whitman styles compared
Emily Dickinson, [Dare you see a soul at the White Heat?]
formal or free verse: starts formal, then becomes freer
not perfectly exclusive
Governor of NY: "when you fan the flames of racism and division, you can create a fire that is out of control."
answer to metaphor question:
crucible; use of old-fashioned metaphors for old-fashioned concept of soul?
Minister's Black Veil presentation
open to questions or comments
opening of story
review Hawthorne's style
para 6
para 21-22
M's Black Veil 6, 14, 16, 21, 28, 31, 52, 66-7, 68 > Puritan, Wilderness gothic
Hawthorne reworks light and dark symbol system of European color code and gothic
Black and white neither absolutely good or evil, but cross and interpenetrate > "shades of gray"
What is meant by "shades of gray?"
How does the concept use symbols in a system or code of meaning?
How else does Hawthorne use symbols in relation to each other.
31 that piece of crape, to their imagination, seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them.
37 this veil is a type and a symbol,
correspondence in Hawthorne
28 catching a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed all others. His frame shuddered, his lips grew white, he spilt the untasted wine upon the carpet, and rushed forth into the darkness. For the Earth, too, had on her Black Veil. [<correspondence]
43 a new feeling took the place of sorrow: her eyes were fixed insensibly on the black veil, when, like a sudden twilight in the air, its terrors fell around her.
1 sabbath sunshine
[54] Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one desirable effect, of making its wearer a very efficient clergyman. [<irony] By the aid of his mysterious emblem—for there was no other apparent cause—he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves, affirming, though but figuratively, that, before he brought them to celestial light, they had been with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections.
YGB
13 uncertain light
20 communion wine
Minister's Black Veil
1 Sabbath sunshine
6 a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things
14 secret sin (original sin)
15 correspondence
16 A sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and flickered about his mouth, glimmering as he disappeared.
[22] A person who watched the interview between the dead and living, scrupled not to affirm, that, at the instant when the clergyman's features were disclosed, the corpse had slightly shuddered,
27 her deathlike paleness caused a whisper that the maiden who had been buried a few hours before was come from her grave to be married.
28 catching a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed all others. His frame shuddered, his lips grew white, he spilt the untasted wine upon the carpet, and rushed forth into the darkness. For the Earth, too, had on her Black Veil. [<correspondence]
[29]
The next day, the whole
31 that piece of crape, to their imagination, seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them.
[32] But there was one person in the village unappalled [unshaken] by the awe with which the black veil had impressed all beside herself.
37 this veil is a type and a symbol,
43 a new feeling took the place of sorrow: her eyes were fixed insensibly on the black veil, when, like a sudden twilight in the air, its terrors fell around her. [<correspondence]
[54] Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one desirable effect, of making its wearer a very efficient clergyman. [<irony] By the aid of his mysterious emblem—for there was no other apparent cause—he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves, affirming, though but figuratively, that, before he brought them to celestial light, they had been with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections.
[56] Several persons were visible by the shaded candlelight, in the death chamber
56 All through life that piece of crape had hung between him and the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman's love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of eternity.
[65] "Dark old man!'' exclaimed the affrighted minister, "with what horrible crime upon your soul are you now passing to the judgment?''
68 veiled corpse, with a faint smile lingering on the lips. Still veiled, they laid him in his coffin, and a veiled corpse they bore him to the grave. The grass of many years has sprung up and withered on that grave, the burial stone is moss-grown, and good Mr. Hooper's face is dust; but awful is still the thought that it mouldered beneath the Black Veil!
Young Goodman Brown
4, 6 pink ribbons
[8] With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind.
[9] ”There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree,'' . . . the devil himself [sources of wilderness gothic]
[13] It was now deep dusk in the forest
13 his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted by the uncertain light.
[17] “My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians since the days of the martyrs; and shall I be the first of the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept''—
[18] ” I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans;
[20] The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; . . . state secrets.'' [gothic secrets combine with conspiracy theory]
27 so far in the wilderness at nightfall
34 a nice young man to be taken into communion to-night
38 gloomy hollow of the road
41 deepening gloom
45 heathen wilderness
47 confused and doubtful sound of voices
51 the heart of the dark wilderness
53 all the sounds of the benighted wilderness pealing in awful harmony together.
54 As the red light arose and fell, a numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary woods at once. [<phantasmagoria effect]
56 Either the
sudden gleams of light flashing over the obscure field bedazzled Goodman Brown,
or he recognized a score of the church members of
58 The four blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely discovered shapes and visages of horror on the smoke wreaths above the impious assembly. At the same moment the fire on the rock shot redly forth and formed a glowing arch above its base, where now appeared a figure.
60 a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart
63 behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot. Far more than this. It shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery of sin
[67] A basin was hollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water, reddened by the lurid light? or was it blood? or, perchance, a liquid flame?
Luke 18.11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with
himself, God, I thank you, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
Hawthorne as "classic" author--perfection of style, moral seriousness + wit, historical depth, symbolic power
popular + teaching Hawthorne: application of gothic to American past + moral depth
Exceptions:
 1940 |
 1963 |
 1979 |
 1995 |
