LITR 4232 American Renaissance
Harriet Beecher Stowe, selections from Uncle Tom’s Cabin
post-midterm assignments midterm--questions? Beecher family, American Renaissance discussion: Shanna discussion: Emily Stowe as artist or advocate?--close reading and historicism (obj. 1) |
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Tuesday, 21 October: Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1698-1751, 1780-1792: introduction + selections from Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Text-Objective Discussion: Shanna Farmer
Thursday, 23 October: midterm exam
Tuesday, 28 October: Edgar Allan Poe 1528: Introduction; “Sonnet—To Science”; "To Helen" 1534-6: “The City in the Sea”; 1542: “Annabel Lee.”
Text-Objective Discussion: Josh Hughey (poem[s] besides "Annabel Lee")
Text-Objective Discussion: Alicia D. Atwood ("Annabel Lee")
Thursday, 30 October: Poe's fiction 1543-1565: “Ligeia”; “The Fall of the House of Usher”
Text-Objective Discussion: Natalie Walker
Tuesday, 4 November: Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1272-76 introduction + 1311-20: “The Minister’s Black Veil.”
Web highlight (final exams on gothic with Hawthorne or Poe): Cheryl Romig
Thursday, 6 November: Hawthorne continued 1289-98: “Young Goodman Brown.”
Text-Objective Discussion: Veronica Nadalin
Tuesday, 11 November: Walt Whitman first meeting: introduction 2190-95 + “There Was a Child Went Forth” + selections from Song of Myself : sections 1-5 (pp. 2210-13), 19 (p. 2223), 21 (pp. 2224-5), 24 (pp. 2227-9), 32-34 (pp. 2232-9), 46-52 (pp. 2249-54).
Text-Objective Discussion: Alicia D. Atwood
Thursday, 13 November: Whitman continued: “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” 2263-7
Text-Objective Discussion: Cortney Kaighen
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.
Stowe as member of great American evangelical-educational family, the Beechers
Harriet, Lyman, & Henry Ward Beecher
(contrast the Beechers' "hotter" evangelical Christianity with the Transcendentalists' "cooler" Unitarianism.)
But both are still New England religion, progressive and educated
Contrast with southern US religion--Douglass on slaveholding religion, reaction against modernity (slavery, segregation, women's rights, gays, immigrants, evolution--questionable support for public education)
Thoreau influential world-wide for a century and a half
Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) widely considered the most politically influential novel ever written
President Lincoln on meeting Stowe: "So you're the little woman who started this big war?"
How?
themes (both days)
Poe as "most Romantic" of our authors, but "least American?"
"catalogue of Romanticism"--if it's Romantic, Poe does it!
Leftover Notes from Previous Classes
problem of separating Poe's life from Poe's literature
"popular mind" runs things together; academic mind distinguishes similarities and differences
theme of love and loss in both life and literature
Romance narrative: Desire and loss
Gothic + European
Poe's life--what's Romantic, what's not?
Poe as "Byronic" figure typical of Romantic era--?
Style: Musicality--among most "musical" of poets; compare Tennyson
Midterm arrangements
LITR 4232:
American Renaissance Midterm preview
Date: 2 March 2006
copy of midterm posted on course webpage
schedule for returning midterms
email midterms will be returned by email
possibly by Monday afternoon 6 March
if not, then by later next week
in-class
midterms returned at class next Tuesday or Thursday
What you'll receive from me
note + grade
No internal marks unless indicated in note
Any student is always welcome to an in-person review of midterm, or phone or email for more details.
attendance report included
Samples from this semester will be posted on the course webpage.
Warning: Do not submit pre-written answers. Write your answer during the allotted time. You may practice and use notes, but you are not expected to deliver a “perfected” answer as with a take-home assignment. I ask the class to regard this as an issue of honor. If you see fellow students cheating or hear them speak of cheating, please let me know in as much detail as you like.
None of this is meant to sound dire or threatening.
The reason it's not just a take-home exam on which you can spend unlimited time is simply to keep the midterm from getting too big.
It's an exercise! 80 minutes is about right for writing what's required.
(I've given this exam at least a half-dozen times and have refined it based on feedback from students.)
So limit your writing to 80 minutes.
But take advantage of the general situation to prepare and think and re-think as much as you find helpful.
Welcome to choose passages and topics ahead of time.
Welcome to outline, practice writing some passages.
These kinds of approaches aren't cheating, aren't taking advantage of me, the situation, or your fellow students.
Good honest work can give you a good learning experience.
Most of the time I succeed in reading midterms in the spirit in which they were written.
Warning regarding essay question: Pay close attention to the question and write your essay to answer it. A common mistake in an exam like this is that students will make up their minds what they’re going to write before they see the exam. They may write well, but if they don’t pay attention to the question as it is written, they can lose credit.
Advice for both parts: Keep your eye on the clock.
· Keep the objectives in mind, but don’t simply repeat objectives and don’t simply quote texts; interpret, explain, explore, connect.
· Don't copy out long quotations. Quote briefly, and always comment on quotations, highlighting their language and meanings.
review, preview
Thoreau influential world-wide for a century and a half
Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) widely considered the most politically influential novel ever written
President Lincoln on meeting Stowe: "So you're the little woman who started this big war?"
How?
What is "the intellect?"
Not the same thing as intelligence.
intelligence 2. The power of meeting any situation . . . . Intelligent people seem to work closely with the world and its phenomena, receiving and processing input rapidly on many fronts.
Mechanics, office managers, secretaries . . . .
"Intellect" often involves not an engagement but a separation from phenomena
>>>imagination, memory, reason, understanding
Insofar as you're developing ideas, symbols, identifications, recognition patterns for the sublime, Romanticism, the gothic, etc., you're living the intellectual life
"Critical thinking" is an acceptable synonym for intellectual activity
Most people regard it as magic, and to some degree it is inborn . . . just guessing, it usually seems as though about 10% of the population is intellectually inclined, and the rest just want to be left alone.
One of the main vehicles for intellectual action in common life is religious experience: symbols, rituals, abstractions, ideas, ethics
Shifting to Stowe and her difference from Thoreau . . .
Not all readers are "intellectuals"
"Classic literature" appeals to intellectual side: problem-solving, interpretation of symbols
But many good readers never care to go there, and a student-teacher of Literature must be able to work with all kinds of readers
Popular literature: "I like a good story."
How does Stowe develop "a good story?"
How essential is a story-line for social or political change?
2 clues: family and religion
Stowe as member of great American evangelical-educational family, the Beechers
Harriet, Lyman, & Henry Ward Beecher
(contrast the Beechers' "hotter" evangelical Christianity with the Transcendentalists' "cooler" Unitarianism.)
transition to Stowe
Thoreau appeals to unattached people--people who can withdraw from society, stand apart
Stowe appeals to families, family interests, connections between people, care, concern
Thoreau largely unknown beyond educated readers, activist traditions
"First
serialized in the National Era, an abolitionist paper, in forty weekly
installments between June 5, 1851, and April 1, 1852, and published as a book on
March 20, 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin was an enormous success. Tolstoy
deemed it a great work of literature 'flowing from love of God and man,' and
within a year the book had sold more than 300,000 copies. When Uncle Tom's
Cabin appeared in Great Britain Queen Victoria sent Mrs. Stowe a note of
gratitude, and enthusiastic crowds greeted the author in London on her first
trip abroad in 1853. In an attempt to silence the many critics at home who
denounced the work as vicious propaganda, Mrs. Stowe brought out A Key to
Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1853, which contained documentary evidence
substantiating the graphic picture of slavery she had drawn."
http://www.ebookmall.com/alpha-authors/Harriet-Beecher-Stowe.htm
Uncle Tom's Cabin read by hundreds of thousands if not millions,
people waited for next chapters to come out (cf. Dickens),
translated into at least 23 languages
became the original for numerous stage plays and movies
Lincoln to Stowe: "So this is the little lady who made this big war?"
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Anna Leonowens, and Anna & the King of Siam
background
on Stowe
many
threads of American culture converge
evangelism
+ education, civilization, progress
cf.
early Civil Rights movement
family
source
of gender oppression or source of morality?
technological
progress
America as
Moral and idealistic (slaves have souls)
Economic & practical (slaves = property)
(cf.
Environmental movement now)
alliance of outsiders (white woman + Af Am)
Questions for discussion of Stowe
Stowe: Popular, classic, or representative writer?
Stowe as artist / advocate?
Compare / contrast Thoreau, civil disobedience
Christianity / family values as reform or regression?
Literary Issues
Stowe: Popular, classic, or representative writer?
Popular
2477
sold like wildfire, translated, stage versions
2486
If it were your Harry, mother, or your
Willie
classic
2479
honest, niggers, religion, $ (how many issues she involves at once)
2483
[Haley & Shelby share identity]
2513-14 allegory of Tom as Christ is not as heavy-handed as might first appear--some delicacy, subtlety--cf. Melville in "Billy Budd"
representative
2475
“If Harriet were a boy”
cf. Fuller 1626 disappointed at girl, but education, class; four languages
cf. Stanton 2039 gender stereotyping (contrast Fuller)
2477
God wrote it
2476
vision of slave beaten to death
2477
American literature for most of the nineteenth century bore the imprint of the
evangelical Protestant culture
2477
racial stereotypes
2485
[religious woman, secular man]
2485 Mrs. Shelby, being entirely ignorant of her husband’s embarrassment
2487
so white as not to be known as of colored lineage . . . her child was
white also
Douglass 1826 a very different-looking class of people rising up in the South
Jacobs 1962
nearly white, Anglo-Saxon ancestors
Jacobs 1967
secrets of slavery, father of eleven slaves
Jacobs 1968
children of every shade of complexion
Compare / contrast Thoreau, civil disobedience
handout on civil disobedience / passive resistance
2488
Sam contrived . . . [passive resistance]
2490 slaves as tricksters, cf Brer Rabbit [passive resistance not always a sober affair; cf. Gandhi’s wit]
simplicity of Quakers (i. e., passive resistance often goes with voluntary simplicity lifestyle)
2512
higher voice
2513
hurt you more than me
2517
I will do what one man can
Christianity / family values as reform or regression?
2485
[religious woman, secular man]
2485 Mrs. Shelby, being entirely ignorant of her husband’s embarrassment
2486
"But stronger than all was maternal love . . ."
2486
If it were your Harry, mother, or your
Willie
2487
so white as not to be known as of colored lineage . . . her child was
white also
2487
Ohio River = River Jordan
2489
"Oh, Mr. Symmes, you've got a little boy."
2500
“my daughter” [family values put to inclusive rather than exclusive uses]
2502
“If I didn’t love John and the baby, I should not know how to feel for
her.”
2504
the first time that ever George had sat down on equal terms at any white man’s
table
2504
the light of a living Gospel
2504
[Simeon willing to be jailed]
2513
Oh my country! O, Christ! Thy church
[cf.
Jesus and thieves]
Literary Issues
2486
sublime
2500
[dialect > realism]
Notes on Stowe
Stowe
2475
Beecher family
2475
“If Harriet were a boy”
2475
education under Catharine
2475
Cincinnati, Lane Theological Seminary
2476
underground railroad
2476
gradualist x “Immediate Emancipation”
2476
local color and didactic flavor
2476
Fugitive Slave Law
2476
vision of slave beaten to death
2476
edification
2477
cf. sermon
2477
American literature for most of the nineteenth century bore the imprint of the
evangelical Protestant culture
2477
mainstream moral and religious beliefs
2477
God wrote it
2477
sold like wildfire, translated, stage versions
2477
racial stereotypes
2478
sanctity of family and redemption through Christian love
2478 souls and social fabric
2478 most powerful book ever written by an American x literary canon
from
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
2478
gentlemen [class]
2479
honest, niggers, religion, $ (how many issues she involves at once)
2480
hard necessity
2480
[slave trader, lust, slave girl]
2481
[slave trader down on women]
2481
These critters an’t like white folks, you know; they gets over things, only
manage right. . . . hardening to the feelings [cf. Douglass]
2483
[Haley & Shelby share identity]
2483
in debt
2484
the shadow of law . . . so many things
belonging to a master
2484
speculated largely and loosely—key to preceding conversation
2485
a woman of high class, both intellectually and morally
2485
[religious woman, secular man]
2485 Mrs. Shelby, being entirely ignorant of her husband’s embarrassment
"The
Mother's Struggle"
2486
"But stronger than all was maternal love . . ."
2486
If it were your Harry, mother, or your
Willie
2486
brutal trader = bogeyman
2486
sublime
2487
so white as not to be known as of colored lineage . . . her child was
white also
2487
Ohio R = Jordan
2488
Sam contrived . . . [passive resistance]
2489
"Oh, Mr. Symmes, you've got a little boy."
2489
large white house, which stood by itself, off the main street of the village
2490 slaves as tricksters, cf Brer Rabbit [passive resistance not always a sober affair; cf. Gandhi’s wit]
“The
Quaker Settlement”
2499
domestic detail
2500
beauty of old women
2500
[dialect > realism]
2500
“my daughter” [family values put to inclusive rather than exclusive uses]
2500
dream [threatening]
2502
“If I didn’t love John and the baby, I should not know how to feel for
her.”
2503
she dreamed of a beautiful country
2504
sunny radiance
2504
the first time that ever George had sat down on equal terms at any white man’s
table
2504
the light of a living Gospel
2504
[Simeon willing to be jailed]
“The
Martyr”
2512
higher voice
2513
hurt you more than me
2513
Oh my country! O, Christ! Thy church
[cf.
Jesus and thieves]
XLI
“The Young Master”
2516
sublime change
2517
the testimony of colored blood is nothing
2517
I will do what one man can
conclusions about passive resistance--not necessarily intellectual, but folk sources