LITR 4232 American Renaissance

LITR 4232 2006 copy of final exam

(Final version--posted 4:20pm, 1 May 2006.)

LITR 4232: American Renaissance, UHCL, spring 2006

Official date: Thursday, 4 May 2006; Time: 2 hours & 50 minutes.

·        If you take the exam in-class, you have from 10am until 12:50pm.

·        If you take the exam by email, you may use any convenient time through Thursday, but spend only 2 hours & 50 minutes total. Keep a log of when you start, stop, or pause.

Format—In-class & email

·        This exam is open-book and open-notebook.

·        Some questions are comprehensive for the semester, but you are welcome to discuss more fully our post-midterm texts.

·        Avoid copying out long quotations unless you’re commenting very comprehensively on them.

·        You need not give page numbers for familiar quotations.

·        After your first reference to an author and title, you are welcome to use abbreviated titles, like "Veil" for "The Minister's Black Veil."

Format—In-class

·        Write in blue or black ink in a bluebook or on paper of your choice. You may write on fronts and backs of pages. Don’t bother erasing anything you don’t want read—just draw a line through it.

Format—email

·         Please try both of the following approaches.

·         Type out your essays in a word processing file and attach the file to an email to me at whitec@uhcl.edu

·         Paste the contents of your answer directly into an email message and send it to me at whitec@uhcl.edu. This option is especially preferable if you're writing in Microsoft Works or on a Mac computer. Or save your word processing file in a “text only” or “read” format and send it to me in an attachment.

·         If you work within designated time-lines, I should acknowledge receipt of your exam through email within 24 hours. If you haven't heard from me by then, check the email address. If still no response, leave me a phone message at 281 283 3380.

Content:

·        Write two essays in response to two of the following questions.

·        Spend at least 1 hour on each answer.

·        Please indicate which questions (by number) you’re answering.

Standards: Your work is graded chiefly on a combination of the following:

·        Your ability to form a well-organized and clearly-expressed essay in which the texts support and develop ideas; and,

·        Your comprehension & expression of major themes from the course.

My attitude in reading a timed writing exercise like this is not to watch like a hawk for minor errors but rather to see how far you go in developing our shared ideas. Occasional careless errors don’t count against you, but you may lose credit for chronic problems such as run-on sentences or fragments, or a repeated inability to use apostrophes or divide paragraphs.

Essay Question 1. Describe the characteristics, variations and meaning of the Gothic in several course readings.  To what different purposes do various authors use the Gothic? (Objective 2, the Gothic)

·        Briefly review Irving’s and Cooper’s use of the Gothic

·        Refer more extensively to Poe and Hawthorne

·        Additionally refer to at least one other text or author (The Gothic may appear only briefly or tangentially, and we may not have discussed these possibilities, but there are plenty of examples).

·         Conclusion: consider the purposes or significance of the Gothic.

*****************************

Essay question 2. A constantly changing society like America constantly stimulates questions of appropriate moral insight and behavior. Like Rip Van Winkle, we wake up every day to a world whose fashions, values, and rules have changed (and, aside from self-isolation, there seems to be no going back to an earlier, simpler time).

            Most Americans react in two extreme ways:

·        moral absolutism--“A woman’s place is in the home,” “It’s their fault,” and “Just say no”

·        or, moral relativism: "Live and let live," "You are not the judge of me," "As long as you feel all right about it . . . ."

            In contrast to this choice between intense narrow-mindedness or careless open-mindedness, classic writers like Hawthorne, Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville or great leaders like Lincoln seem to recognize that human morality is both important and complicated.

            Referring to writings by at least two of these five writers (and to any others for comparison or contrast), describe how human problems of good and evil are depicted vividly and significantly but without a simple, reductive moral judgment of who is right or wrong, or innocent or guilty.

·        Give a picture of the moral situation in which characters or people find themselves.

·        What does a reader learn from the moral situation, and what pleasure or benefit may a reader take from such a scene or story?

·        What are the responsibilities, rewards, and risks of studying complex moral issues in public schools as we do here?

*****************************

Essay question 3.  Here are two lyric poems, one by Whitman and another by Dickinson.  Identify which author wrote which poem and how you can tell.  Referring to these poems (and briefly to others?), describe, compare, and contrast Whitman's and Dickinson's unique styles and subjects.

·        Comment on what aspects of the poem are characteristic of Whitman and Dickinson, and also comment in what ways these poems may not be characteristic—that is, in what ways may they surprise your expectations about Whitman and Dickinson?

·        Identify characteristic (or non-characteristic) subject matter and stylistic devices on the parts of the two poets.  Details and definitions are welcome, plus locate examples in the poem.

·        Conclusion possibilities:

·        How does each poem meet and vary the definition of a lyric poem?

·        Compare Dickinson and Whitman in relation to each other—What do you gain, learn, or experience from one in contrast to the other?

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a promontory it stood isolated,
Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

***********

There's been a death in the opposite house
As lately as today.
I know it by the numb look
Such houses have alway.

The neighbours rustle in and out,
The doctor drives away.
A window opens like a pod,
Abrupt, mechanically;

Somebody flings a mattress out,— 
The children hurry by;
They wonder if It died on that,—
I used to when a boy.

The minister goes stiffly in
As if the house were his,
And he owned all the mourners now,
And little boys besides;

And then the milliner, and the man
Of the appalling trade,
To take the measure of the house.
There'll be that dark parade

Of tassels and of coaches soon;
It's easy as a sign,—
The intuition of the news
In just a country town.

*****************************

Essay question 4. Write an essay comparing classic, popular, and representative authors and literature in terms of their differing (or overlapping) styles, values, audiences, and appeals (Objective 1).

·        Define and give examples of classical, popular, and representative literature from our course and beyond.  (Suggestions from our course below. Don’t just rename but describe them in ways that fit your definitions.)

·        Some authors may fit more than one category.

·        What different pleasures, benefits, and challenges does each category offer a reader in our time?  How were they received in their own time and by periods following their publication?

·        For what different purposes are these types of literature written?

·        What may one learn from reading across these different categories of literature?

·        What different readers might be attracted to the different categories?

·        Which balance of categories, is most appropriate for a college literature class like ours?  What about other literature classrooms?

As usual in an essay like this, do a lot of comparing and contrasting from start to finish, for the sake of sparking ideas and weaving organization.

Examples: (not an exhaustive list—you’re welcome to develop your own)

“Classic” authors and texts: Melville; Dickinson; Hawthorne

“Popular” authors and texts: Irving, Poe, Cooper; plus feel free to refer to popular authors with whom you’re familiar beyond this course.

“Representative” texts and authors: William Apess; Elias Boudinot; Chief Seattle; Frederick Douglass; Sojourner Truth; Harriet Jacobs.

(In the second part of the semester we concentrated less on this category, so your treatment of this category may or may not be equal in length to the other two categories.)

*Also consider authors who combine or cross categories: Poe, Douglass, Stowe, Irving, Fuller.

*****************************

Essay question 5. Develop a relevant essay topic of your own. Your topic may involve elements from the four questions above. Either make fresh combinations of the materials, or extend into new territory, or both.

The following restrictions apply.

·        Your personal topic must definitely relate to our course’s texts, objectives, or general framework, or to similar materials in other situations (as in teaching at another grade-level). Your subject’s relevance must be recognizable to a hypothetical member of our class.

·        Refer to two or three authors or texts.

Other ways to consider this topic: (Not a checklist, only sparks . . . )

·        What did you learn in this course that you didn't expect to learn? How did you learn it? What texts, objectives, or student or teacher comments apply? How were you prepared to learn this by what you knew before our course? What thoughts have you developed in relation to this special subject? What applications would your insight have to the study or teaching of literature of the American Renaissance or beyond?

·        From the graduate version of this course (LITR 5535: American Romanticism): Write an essay concerning some persistent or occasional issue, problem, or theme significant to the course but overlooked by the previous four questions. You are welcome to use aspects of the course objectives. Your choice for this question may overlap with other questions above. If your topic appears to range beyond the course's evident subject matter, defend or rationalize your topic. Relate your topic to the larger subject of American Romanticism--what relevant insights does your discussion reveal or suggest? Refer to at least three writers and their texts.

·        Especially for students taking LITR 4236: The Romantic Movement in English Literature, another possibility may be to write an essay focusing on what you’ve learned about Romanticism as a result of taking these courses together. (Or, even if you didn’t take LITR 4236, you may know about Romanticism from other sources.)

Welcome to email or otherwise discuss with the instructor your potential choice of a topic before taking the exam. (Welcome also to confer on the other questions.)