Lecture Notes
LITR 4232 American
Renaissance
Lecture Notes
3rd class meeting on The Last of the Mohicans
| assignments & backgrounds: why study literature? attendance & once-a-week meetings Discussion
review midterm web: Nicole Bippen
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Tuesday, 9 September: Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans, through chapter 24 (thru p. 254 in Penguin edition.)
Web highlight (midterms on Mohicans): Nicole Bippen
Course
Objectives:
1. To use "close reading" and "Historicism" as ways of studying classic, popular, and representative literature and cultural history of the "American Renaissance" (the generation before the Civil War).
2. To study the movement of "Romanticism," the narrative genre of "romance," and the related styles of the "gothic" and "the sublime." (The American Renaissance is the major period of American Romantic Literature.)
3. To use literature as a basis for discussing representative problems and subjects of American culture (Historicism), such as equality (race, gender, class); modernization and tradition; the individual, family; and community; nature; the role of writers in an anti-intellectual society.
historical romance
Mohicans set during French & Indian War (before Revolutionary War)
The mixing of real historical characters with fictional characters is a standard formula for the genre of "historic romance"; e. g., The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, Saving Private Ryan, westerns about the Earps, Clantons, James Brothers, etc.
Thursday, 11 September: Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans, complete (thru p. 350 in Penguin edition.)
assignments
finish Mohicans, review Twain, Lawrence on Cooper
Twain: frustrations with Cooper
Lawrence: Cooper's accomplishments,
esp. how does American art and literature deal with race (Indians and African Americans)
emergence of Uncas, tortoise p. 226
+ totems of their tribes
ch. 30, pp. 308-309
"tortoise" as totem of Mohegans (cf. flag for Americans, #3 / #8 for Earnhardt cult)
Tuesday, 16 September: Emergence & repression of minority voices. William Apess (Pequot) 1051-58. The Cherokee Memorials 1263-1268; Sojourner Truth, "Speech to the Women's Rights Convention . . . " 1695-6
Text-Objective Discussion: Karina Ramos
backgrounds & assignments
historical novel
backgrounds
why study literature?
question you don't finish asking and answering, but a few standard-classic lines of thought
1. art imitates reality (from Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, others)
parts of formula variously translated:
art or literature
imitates, reflects, represents
reality, nature, the world
art isn't the same thing as the world or reality but a mirror or reflection that changes according to the angle, etc.
understanding literature or art teaches us how to understand the world
2. Literature entertains and educates (Roman poet Horace)
or engages & uplifts
3. language exercise & critical thinking
so far, no single activity develops intellect like print-literacy
intelligence thinks in language > symbols, categories / classification, and narratives (logic)
most people can speak well enough, but literary studies get beyond instinct and reflex to learn, criticize, explore, enhance
catch: no moment where you get to stop, where you get the answers and get to rest
last class, discussion of symbols
What a symbol like "blood" finally means is not as important as how it means
not to learn answers but questions and how to ask them and refine them and keep learning
Student Companions to Classic Authors, Greenwood Press
Jennifer Montgomery email
Discussion question for concluding Mohicans:
Discussion
earlier application to Irving
classic, popular, and representative literature
popular--appeals to people where they are; confirms attitudes, values; "pushes buttons"
stereotypical characters--
e. g., contemporary action movies:
quiet decent humble but heavily armed American (or representative);
Mexican men as banditos;
Arab men as sniveling or hysterical;
black men as noble sacrifice;
European men as cold masterminds;
women of various races as whole different set of stereotypes, but if the action guy likes her, she's usually just a kinder gentler version of himself who doesn't pick up her gun until her cubs are threatened.
formulas and genres are used more or less unconsciously--
"If this is an action movie, when does the helicopter explode?"
"If this is a gothic thriller, when's the first scream in the night? When's the first turn-around-and-gasp?"
classic--
pop lit tends to throw a lot of such junk as above into a miscellaneous mix--every page has something that soothes or excites,
but classic lit often involves "deferred gratification" and long attention spans,
plus "compositional integrity" (parts aren't just thrown together but fit carefully into larger patterns of meaning)
+ classic lit doesn't just use formulas and genres like the gothic but extends and develops them in new ways, so that a familiar vehicle evokes new meaning
popular writer repeats formula
classic writer varies formula, extends range
Cooper both a popular and a classic writer
popular: sold well--great action scenes and somewhat stereotypical characters; wrote fast, and sometimes his plotting and characterization are clumsy and cumbersome
classic: explored sensitive issues, plus historical knowledge and depth
2. To study the movement of "Romanticism," the narrative genre of "romance," and the related styles of the "gothic" and "the sublime."
| gothic color scheme |
light |
dark |
red/yellow |
| Western Civilization "moral color code" |
white as innocence, purity |
black or darkness as evil, decay |
blood? anger? |
| the races of early North America |
white people (European Americans) |
black people (African Americans) |
the "red man" (American Indians) |
Cora's background
ch. xvi, pp. 158-9
2. To study the movement of "Romanticism," the narrative genre of "romance," and the related styles of the "gothic" and "the sublime."
How would you describe the novel as "Romantic?" (objective 2)
+ 197 Delaware & Mohicans
Tamenund--check reading guide
The mixing of real historical characters with fictional characters is a standard formula for the genre of "historic romance"; e. g., The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, Saving Private Ryan, westerns about the Earps, Clantons, James Brothers, etc.
review romance (obj. 2)
popular uses: Harlequin romance;
“popular literature”; ends with a kiss (etc.); light eroticism, true love
Academic uses:
“Romance” is one of 4 major kinds of
story or narrative (Frye, Anatomy of Criticism 1957)
narrative is easy to recognize but hard to define
synonyms: story, plot, account, relation
analogies: melody in music--moves through time, organizing various voices or instruments in a single direction
similarly narrative can be broadly defined as
a sequence of events
people speaking and acting together in time
4 major kinds of
story or narrative (Frye, Anatomy of Criticism 1957)
Comedy
Tragedy
Satire
Romance
Romance.
This story may open as though all is well, but the action usually begins with a
problem of separation. That is, characters are separated from each other,
as in a true-love romance, or a need arises to rescue someone, as with a
lost-child story; or characters are separated from some object of desire (as
with the pursuit of the Holy Grail or Romancing
the Stone or a lottery ticket).
Action frequently takes the
form of a physical journey or adventure, frequently involving characters
being captured or threatened and rescued. The action may take the form of a personal
transformation or a journey across class lines, as in Cinderella,
Pretty Woman, or An
Officer and a Gentleman.
The concluding action of a
romance narrative often takes the form of “transcendence”—“getting away
from it all” or “rising above it all.” The characters “live happily ever
after” or “ride off into the sunset” or “fly away” from the scenes
of their difficulties, in contrast with the social engagement of tragedy or the
restored unity of comedy.
Characters in a
romance tend to be starkly good or bad, in contrast with the “mixed”
characters of tragedy. The problem that starts the romance is usually
attributed less to a flaw in the hero than to a villain or some villainous
outside force.
(Most Hollywood movies are
romances, but some independent movies involve tragedy.)
The Last of the Mohicans
could be characterized as a “tragic romance.”
How / why?
Characters are more mixed than in typical hero-villain romance; e. g., Magua has some reason for revenge, feels some regard for Cora
End of novel is generally tragic but a glimpse of transcendence
Romance "tags" in Mohicans
110-11 Romance plot as pursuit, capture, escape / rescue
118 a minstrel of the western continent
129 dreaming that he was a knight of ancient chivalry . . . a recaptured princess
handout
knights of forest
cf. Batman and Robin--"Dark Knight"
Western movies: cowboys as mounted knights, white hats and
black hats as good guy-bad guy color code
codes of honor, chivalry towards women
Country & Western music: are singers troubadours?
point about literature and history: the romance narrative is programmed into our minds as a standard narrative of peril and survival / success, with civilized virtues withstanding attack.
*assignments for Thursday & Tuesday
Thursday:
finish Mohicans
How would you describe the novel as "Romantic?" (objective 2)
look at fates of characters, resolutions re "couples" + message about ethnicity and gender in USA
couples:
Cora and Uncas
Heyward and Alice
Hawkeye and Chingachgook (read Lawrence handout)
+ Magua, David Gamut
Next Tuesday—shorter reading assignment
three American Indian authors from American Renaissance period + one African American woman (+ Stowe)
why read them right after Mohicans?
title: The Last of the Mohicans
what’s Romantic about the title?
what does it imply about Indians?
(disappearing race, romanticize loss)
Apess,
Boudinot, & Seattle—fighting not to disappear—what other changes from
Romantic Indian identity?
+ Sojourner Truth for women & blacks—emerging voices
Last of the Mohicans as popular and classic literature
>
Objective
1: Representative literature--i. e., literature that may not fit either
"classical" or "popular" categories but instead recognizes
the voice(s) of "under-represented" groups
*political & cultural content; stylistic differences; often "oral" or "spoken" rather than "written" or "literate"
*What are upsides, downsides of reading, teaching representative literature?
*Religious content often foremost
As far as possible, need to make all voices part of one story
| gothic color scheme |
light |
dark |
red/yellow |
| Western Civilization "moral color code" |
white as innocence, purity |
black or darkness as evil, decay |
blood? anger? |
| the races of early North America |
white people (European Americans) |
black people (African Americans) |
the "red man" (American Indians) |
race in Mohicans
use assignment handout
gothic mechanisms > correlate with content
style & culture merge
to some extent, just standard gothic junk, and by the end of the semester all of you will be able to spot the gothic
But why? Break through enchantment, get to meaning
Indian as ghost—cf. Lawrence handout
other meanings later in semester
Hawthorne: past as Puritan; light / dark as innocence / guilt + shades of gray
Poe: past as loss; gothic space as unconscious mind; house as head
Gothic
as repressed, returning past
Lawrence
on ghosts
102-103 Magua's story
223 possessed of an evil spirit
Cora's background
ch. xvi, pp. 158-9
*Twain & Lawrence on Cooper
Jefferson 1743-1826, Declaration of Independence on hinge of Age of Reason and early Romanticism
Cooper
1789-1854 (Romantic era, American Renaissance)
Twain
1835-1910 (Realistic era, late 19c)
Lawrence 1885-1930 (Modernism, early 20c)
Romanticism in relation to other
periods:
Renaissance
400-1600
Columbus, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Shakespeare
Enlightenment, Age of Reason, Neo-Classical Period
late 1600s-1700s
Newton, Voltaire, Jonathan Swift, Benjamin Franklin
Romantic era
Late 1700s-1800s
Goethe, Hugo, Wordsworth, Keats, Brontes, Emerson, Whitman
Victorian era (Great Britain) / Realism (USA)
Late 1800s
Dickens, Tennyson, Browning, George Eliot, Hardy, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, Mark Twain
(especially in England the Victorian era may be increasingly seen as a later development of the Romantic era)
Modernist period
First half of 20th century (World War 1-World War 2?)
Picasso, Stravinsky, Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf (see The Hours), Robert Frost, D. H. Lawrence
Post-Modernist period
Since 1945? Since early 70s?
Latin American Magic Realism, Salman Rushdie, Thomas Pynchon
Twain & Lawrence on Cooper
Cooper
1789-1854 (Romantic era, American Renaissance)
Twain
1835-1910 (Realistic era, late 19c)
Realism: literature should represent the here and now, not the long ago and far away; dialogue should resemble normal or possible speech instead of "flowery book talk"; characters should act from real motivations (e. g., greed, lust, conscience) rather than on "codes of honor"
186 [stage tricks as woodcraft]
Lawrence 1885-1930 (Modernism, early 20c)
Modernism:
mistrusts limits of Realism > interest
in symbolism, primitive powers, myth, literature as creation of truth rather
than reflection of reality
Significance
of Twain in American literature
Hemingway:
“fountainhead of American literature”
Realistic
tradition that Hemingway continued: characters as real people with real
motivations, limits, desires; fiction as tough, gritty, spare
Romanticism:
characters as types of people with extreme motivations, limits, desires; fiction
as fuzzy, lush, anything’s possible, heroic
Twain criticizes Cooper for not being a Realist writer
*Obj.
1: New Historicism & Close Reading
1. To use critical techniques of "close reading" and "New Historicism" as ways of studying classic, popular, and representative literature and cultural history of the "American Renaissance" (the generation before the Civil War).
Close Reading or "New Criticism"
In broader terms, "close reading" pays attention to formal aspects of literature, such as images, metaphors, diction (word choice), poetic forms or stylistic genres (including the Gothic and the Sublime), while
"New Historicism" opens to cultural and historical
Midterm offers choice of approaches.
formal / stylistic: objective 2
cultural / historical: objectives 1 & 3
But overlap: literary criticism works best when both "formal" and "cultural" interpretations are possible.
Student presentations: try to return to the text.
Notice that neither approach indulges "biographical interpretations" or "just my personal opinion." You can involve the author's experience or your personal reaction, but either matters only insofar as it represents a broader cultural attitude.
35 cross in the blood
2 Lenni Lenape = "unmixed people"
76 "we are men without a cross"
136 [land defined by violence]
138 scalp
234 skin red, or black, or white
Dominant
culture: all white = all pure, good, virtuous
Minority
cultures: darkness = sin?
Reality neither dark nor light but mixing of dark and light
176 sublime? + 179
*Obj. 1: classic, popular, and representative?
Novel as voices
102-103 Magua's story
103
Cora: "whose shades of countenance may resemble mine?"
21 "Should we distrust the man, because his manners are not our manners, and that his skin is dark!" coldly asked Cora.
142 Cora: "we are equal"
78 "Why die at all!" . . . "There is reason in her words!"
Contrast Katrina van Tassel
Why does the novel involve so many voices?
Answer formally and historically
disrupts traditional romance, writes a new romance
Objective 3. To use literature as a basis for discussing representative problems and subjects of American culture (New Historicism), such as equality; race, gender, class; modernization and tradition; the family; the individual and the community; nature; the writer's conflicted presence in an anti-intellectual society.
Opening day definition of American Renaissance: "first maturity" of American literature
Also maturation of American culture in generations following American Revolution (1776-1782)
from
The Declaration of Independence, 1776
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the
laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all
men are created equal; that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . .
Our reaction:
Yeah, cool, that's us, we've all got rights and standing before the law . . . .
"All men?"--that means "all people."
When the Declaration said "all men are created equal," who did it mean?
As far as the Founding Fathers could imagine, the phrase applied to people like themselves: white men of the upper class
Possible reactions?
Declaration as a sham? Many Founding Fathers were slaveholders who couldn't imagine women or people of color having the same rights or privileges as themselves. And most of the ones who thought differently would have been branded as "Massachusetts liberals."
Alternative to cynicism:
The Declaration establishes a goal and a process for American history.
The goal might be that "equality" will someday be available to all.
The process might be the extension of rights to previously excluded groups.
Analogous cycle: just as the Founding Fathers claimed their rights from the powers of Europe, so women and people of color claim rights from the great white fathers.
Question: Can this process or story-line of American history be interpreted as a romance?
Student comments:
Question: Can the Declaration of Independence be studied with texts like The Last of the Mohicans as literature?
Student comments:
