LITR 4533:
TRAGEDY

Genre Presentation 2000

Doris Herrmann

The Great American Novel

Definitions:

    • Novel - Extended fictional prose usually in narrative form. Realism is expected within a novel. The novel should be considered a literary genre in itself. (Example: Daniel Defoe; Robinson Crusoe (1719) ..... –Chris Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. NY: Oxford UP, 1990.
    • American Renaissance - pertaining to literature before the civil war.

(Example: Nathaniel Hawthorne; Scarlet Letter)....–Chris Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. NY: Oxford UP, 1990.

    • Transcendentalism - in both philosophy and literature it is a belief in a higher reality than found in human experience, or a higher kind of knowledge than that achieved by human reason. The transcendentalist doctrine stems from the division of a realm of spirit and the realm of matter. Encarta Encylopedia On-line. http://encarta.msn.com/find/concise.asp?ti=0351c000

 

Related genres: Action, drama, romance (chasing the object of desire), epic.

Representational genre: Novel = dialogue + narrator.

Narrative genre: Tragedy (the action is surrounded by an attempt to discover the truth about a problem), Romance (One is separated from the object of desire)

Example: Herman Melville, Moby- Dick (1851)

Highlights of Example: underlying theme (good vs. evil; man vs. nature) Symbolism, Action packed, multi-cultural cast, dark uncontrollable oceans, psychological study, transcendentalism.

Additional examples of genre: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.

Research Sources: See above, plus

White Ph, D., Genre Handout; Baym, Nina, Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 5th ed. NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1998.

Questions:

    1. What aspects of this novel make it American?
    2. Now that you know a definition of Transcendentalism, how do you see that pertaining to Moby Dick?