LITR 4232 American Renaissance: Lecture Notes
Meeting 1: introduction to the American Renaissance--
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course content semester assignments & presentations |
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webpage
Two courses inhabit our webpage
Undergraduate course: LITR 4232 American Renaissance
Graduate seminar: LITR 5931 American Romanticism
content and syllabus
TEXTS:
Nina Baym, ed., The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 7th ed., volume B: 1820-1865. 2007.
James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans. 1826. NY: Penguin Classics, 1986.
Issues with syllabus:
office hours announced next week & updated--this week, call or look for me
changes:
presentations:
"reader" > "text-objective discussion"
"web-highlighter" > "web highlight"
Concept of the American Renaissance
*semester assignments & presentations
Link to "Model Assignments" subpage
presentations pp. 8-12
*ID cards + email
ID cards
Name (as you want it to appear on
schedule)
email(s)
phone(s)
---Presentation preferences?---("No preference"
acceptable.)
Reading or web highlight preference?
Any preferred days or authors?
Any bad days?
Anything you need to tell me about your semester or situation?
Volunteers for Thursday and Tuesday?
Before Thursday's class I will email everyone a draft of the presentation assignments.
If any problems with assignment, reply quickly.
Thursday review of presentation assignments + model of web highlight
assign Irving & Cooper + review course objectives
Thursday, 28 August: Washington Irving 951-985 (“Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”)
Reader:
Web-highlighter:
Tuesday, 2 September: conclude Irving, begin James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans, chapters 1-3 (pages 1-35 in Penguin Classics edition.)
Reader:
Web-highlighter:
Email from instructor to class by sometime Wednesday:
Draft copy of presentation
schedule--check for your name &
email me back if any problems.
(Paper copy of presentation schedule handed out Thursday)
assign Irving & Cooper--locate in history
reference points in history are usually wars or revolutions
Our two main reference points:
late 1700s: American Revolution
1860s: American Civil War
lifespans:
Washington Irving, 1783-1859 (born at end of American Revolution, died just before Civil War)
James Fenimore Cooper, 1789-1851 (born year of Constitution . . . )
These authors are like the "children" or "first generation" of the Founding Fathers: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, etc.
Most of this semester's authors are more like the "grandchildren" or "second generation" after the Founding Fathers.
Assignments for Irving's
"Rip Van Winkle" & "Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
Objective 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).
Objective 1 applied to Irving: classical and popular literature:
In what ways are these "classic" texts?
In what ways are they "popular?"
About their "popularity," why do people know these texts, even if they haven't read them? How do they keep a special place in the minds of Americans?
(Compare Robinson Crusoe, Romeo & Juliet)
***
Objective 2. To study the movement of "Romanticism,"
the narrative genre of
"romance," and the related styles of the "gothic" and "the sublime."
Objective 2 applied to Irving: Romanticism and the
Gothic
How does the Gothic appear in "Rip Van Winkle" & "Legend
of Sleepy Hollow?"
What is the gothic's significance to Romanticism?
Introduction to the Gothic
****
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.
Objective 3: typical issues, problems, or
themes in American literature and culture: "modernity" or
"modernization" vs. tradition
"change" vs. "traditional values"
"Modernization" is the ongoing revolution in
values and material life that began in Ancient Greece and was reborn in modern
Europe with the Renaissance approximately 500 years ago. Modernization is a
sociological concept involving
many aspects of human and natural life:
human equality (in opportunity or possibility if not in fact)
secularization
urbanization (farms > city)
rise of middle class
nationalism (i. e., identification of a person as "an American" rather
than a member of a tribe, family, or state)
authority of tradition is replaced by authority of empirical science and
observable human behavior
pace of change constantly accelerates, with occasional pauses (e. g., the 1950s)
lifespans lengthen; population increases
in most material terms, modern life offers a better standard of living than the past did
reactions against modernization include fundamentalism, "family values,"
nostalgia for earlier times
Standard contrast with "modern" is "traditional"--modernity threatens tradition; it disrupts and unsettles older ways of life
Modernity and change are confusing, disorienting--desire for simplicity of past (which wasn't really simple, just familiar)
> popularity of occult or supernatural + conspiracy during rapid change: people want to understand in familiar, personal terms
"Modernization" is relevant to study of the American
Renaissance because
The American Renaissance is the period when Americans first began moving to
cities in large numbers and experiencing the other changes listed above on a
large scale.
Some literature of the period shows changes of intellect,
lifestyle, and nature that resulted and how people adjusted. (Literature as
engagement)
Much "Romantic" literature (such as "The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow" and The Last of the Mohicans or The Scarlet Letter) is set in an earlier or more
rural time and place.
(Literature as escape)
The Social Psychology of Modernization
