LITR 4232 American Renaissance

Harriet Beecher Stowe, selections from Uncle Tom’s Cabin

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.”

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

The Beecher Tradition

Harriet, Lyman, & Henry Ward Beecher

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

(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

The Beecher Tradition

Harriet, Lyman, & Henry Ward Beecher

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

(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?"

Anna and the King

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 (cf. Uncle Tom & character in King's Green Mile

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 (cf. "higher law")

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 [liberation narrative of Exodus]

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] (Stowe as "grandmother" of Local Color or Regionalism, later 19c literary movement representing authentic rural details, dialect; cf. Twain, but also a number of other New England women writers, esp. Sarah Orne Jewett)

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