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LITR 5431 Seminar in American Literature:
Romanticism lecture notes |
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Emerson, Nature
1 original relationship to universe; revelation, not history
2 nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us
3 curiosity inside, order outside
4 to a sound judgment, the most abstract truth is the most practical.
5 Nature / Soul. Will > Art
ch 1 Nature
6 alone, stars, sublime
8 natural objects / mind, influence
9 stick of timber of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the poet; integrity of impression
10 few adult persons can see nature; shines into the eye and heart of the child
11 wild delight
11 every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind,
12 man, child, woods, perpetual youth
13 part or particle of God
14 an occult [mysterious] relation between man and the vegetable [plants]. [<correspondence>]
15 harmony of both [correspondence]
Ch 3 Beauty
16 a well colored and shaded globe
Ch 5 Discipline
[17] . . . every natural process is a version of a moral sentence. The moral law lies at the centre of nature and radiates to the circumference.
17 What is a farm but a mute gospel?
17 catalogs
18 unity in variety [metaphysics]
ch 8 Prospects
19 highest reason
19 Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole.
19 a dream may let us deeper into the secret of nature than a hundred concerted experiments.
20 all thought of multitude is lost in a tranquil sense of unity
20 I cannot greatly honor minuteness in details, so long as there is no hint to explain the relation between things and thoughts
20 a certain occult recognition and sympathy in regard to the most unwieldly and eccentric forms of beast, fish, and insect
"Man is one world, and hath another to attend him." [Romantic metaphysics: x-here & now implies another world; cf. religion]
draws men to science, but the end is lost sight of in attention to the means
22 man = god in ruins
23 understanding alone [cf. mechanics]
24 darkness, gleams of a better light
24 reason as well as understanding
24 a power which exists not in time or space, but an instantaneous in-streaming causing power.
25 restoring to the world original and eternal beauty, is solved by the redemption of the soul.
25 Kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into the creation.
26 see miraculous in common
26 the real higher law
27 the world exists for you
28 Build, therefore, your own world.
28 So fast will disagreeable appearances, swine, spiders, snakes, pests, madhouses, prisons, enemies, vanish; they are temporary and shall be no more seen. The sordor and filths of nature, the sun shall dry up, and the wind exhale.
Thoreau, Resistance
2 government = machinery
4 not no govt, but a better govt
5 majority as power, not right
> conscience? (Romantic individualism)
6 corporation no conscience, but what if conscientious men?
[context of separation of church and state]
7 men as machines [cf. Mr. Gore]
7 conscience = resistance
8 slave’s govt does not equal my govt
9 slavery + Mexican war + 10
11 not politicians but merchants and farmers
11 comparison to Washington and Franklin
12 vote = feeble wish
13 don’t have to fight, but can’t support wrong
13 by their money, furnished a substitute
15
if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the
agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law
17 if God on one’s side, no need for majority
18 refusal to pay taxes > abolish slavery
19 Under a
government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a
prison
19 minority powerful when it clogs
20 voluntary simplicity x property as compromise
20 rich man sold to institution that makes him rich
21 live within yourself, not have many affairs [voluntary
simplicity]
21 riches and honors as subjects of shame
22 "Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do
not wish to be regarded as a member of any society which I have not joined."
23
As they could not
reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come
at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. [state as
organization of violence]
24 I am not responsible
for the successful working of the machinery of society. I am not the son of the
engineer.
24 higher law
24 If a plant cannot
live according to nature, it dies; and so a man.
28 like traveling in a far country
28 romance images
30 cf RVW
30 alienation from society
31 huckleberry party [define]
31 freedom in nature x prison state
33
quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion
38 lower, higher, highest point of view
42 higher; romance journey
44 individual as a higher and independent authority
Add that both
lived in
Voluntary simplicity, counter-Dream
Counter-evolutionary imperatives
Review Woolman
2 iconoclast definition
3
I would not do again what I have done once (invented
pencil) [x-industrial model of replication, mass production, high profit]
4
making every day some new acquaintance with Nature,
though as yet never speaking of zoology or botany . . . incurious of technical
and textual science [cf. Whitman and astronomer]
5 refuse all the accustomed paths and
keep his solitary freedom at the cost of disappointing the natural expectations
of his family and friends
5 probity definition
6
a much more
comprehensive calling, the art of living well.
6 never idle or self-indulgent; few wants
7 drift into the profession of land-surveyor
9 practice define as way of living
9
He interrogated every
custom, and wished to settle all his practice on an ideal foundation
9 [negative catalog]
9
no temptations to
fight against,—no appetites, no passions, no taste for elegant trifles.
10
as if he did not feel
himself except in opposition
11 company of young
people, huckleberry party [cf. Resistance] huckleberry = berry plant kin to
blueberry
11 cf. classic and
popular literature
12 refs to Walden and
Resistance
13
of no consequence if
every one present held the opposite opinion.
14 No truer American
14
The men were all
imitating each other, and on a small mould. Why can they not live as far apart
as possible, and each be a man by himself?
15
abolition of slavery,
abolition of tariffs, almost for abolition of government [negative catalog]
16 wonderful fitness of
body and mind
17
The Betrothed 1825
17
He had always a new resource.
18 only man of leisure
18 anecdote
21
extolling his own town
and neighborhood as the most favored center for natural observation
22
the best place for each is where he stands
23 paths of his own
25 homage solely to the truth itself
26 every circumstance touching the Indian
27 likeness of law throughout Nature [transcendentalism]
29 paltering = insincere talk
29 dangerous frankness
30 instead
of
engineering for all
30 Emerson’s exasperation
31 cities = refinements and artifices
33-41 aphorisms
43 a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world
Fuller (romance) 27 4, 7, 16 (limits), 25 (expansion), 27, 29
Fuller Historical
1
post-Revolutionary
2 the red man, the black man
3 Romanticism / Transcendentalism
Organic metaphor
4 all men equal as ideal, guide, golden certainty
28 negro / woman
One law for all souls
Fuller Formal / Transcendentalism
examples of formal study: gothic conventions, light / dark (relocatable to different historical circumstances)
3 Romanticism / Transcendentalism
Organic metaphor
4 all men equal as ideal, guide, golden certainty
28 negro / woman
Spheres as inherited / transformed form: 7, 16, 27
58 higher grade of marriage, the religious
63 obstructions removed
66 Trans
Reading notes:
1
post-Revolutionary
2 highlight promise of heaven
2 the red man, the black man
3 Romanticism / Transcendentalism
Organic metaphor
4 all men equal as ideal, guide, golden certainty
5 abolition + women
7 lower-font businessman
Correspondence of national union / family union
Sphere; cf head-heart in 8
8 Have you asked her?
Head of my house
16 model-woman, woman’s sphere
19 private action in woman’s favor > legal protection
20 infinite soul in limits (repression, captivity)
Publicly represented by women
21 private influence, pen
22 inner circle
24 Quaker preachers [preview Mott]
25 expansion
27 every arbitrary barrier thrown down
Regulate spheres > ravishing harmony
28 negro / woman
One law for all souls
31 temple of immortal intellect
32 self-dependence; cf. Emerson self-reliance; cf. 34
Faith and self-respect
40 sexes correspond + prophesy
46 equality
47 household partnership
49 intellectual companionship
50 Trans form
54
partners in work and
in life, sharing together, on equal terms, public and private interests
58 higher grade of marriage, the religious
63 obstructions removed
66 Trans
67 old maids
69-72 alternative genders, extended family relations
79 great radical dualism
82 Trans form: too much in relations, renovating fountains
Celibacy
88 men do not look at both sides; women retire within
themselves
90 woman belongs to man instead of forming a whole with him
Discussion for US-Mexican War & Seguin: The American literary canon has expanded and diversified to include different genders, races, and classes, and courses in Multicultural Literature and Contemporary American Literature frequently feature leading Hispanic and Mexican American Authors.
But the further back in American literary history one goes, the more challenging such inclusiveness becomes. Why? What historical factors in American and Mexican literary history? What are the possibilities for including earlier Mexican American literature?
geographical separation--early American literature concentrated in East, esp. Northeast--as far as one can get from the Southwest
language differences--early USA
Is this a problem? Protestantism emphasized personal literacy more than the Catholic church.
limited knowledge: Mexican Americans participated in Southwest journalism in mid- to late-1800s, but how much counts as literature?
Does Seguin count as literature or as history?
Thoreau
9 slavery + Mexican war + 10
Seguin
1 caught in middle, dark intrigues, jealousy
3 Texan war for independence, also many bad men
4 scum of society
4 foreigners x countrymen
5 smuggling
6 elected mayor
6 Republic re-allocates city property
13 Seguin is with us.
16 reports about my pretended treason
16 some Americans were murdering Curbier
17 hiding from rancho to rancho
20 before leaving my country, perhaps forever
21 ungrateful Americans
22 my services paid by persecutions
More explicitly, a generation or two ago Texas school curricula for a majority-white student population would not likely have included Seguin but instead would have elevated Anglo-Texians like Stephen F. Austin or Sam Houston. How has the narrative or characterization of Texas changed with its population? How prepared are teachers to tell a story that includes Anglos, Mexicans, Indians, and African Americans? What about the moral trade-offs involved in such stories?
dangers of defensiveness, retrenchment
lower grades: teach critical thinking or "it's all great?"
border studies
