LITR 5535 American Romanticism

Monday 7 March: Nathaniel Hawthorne, N 579-584, 610-635 (“Young Goodman Brown,” “May-Pole of Merry Mount,” & “Minister’s Black Veil”)

Monday 9 October: Nathaniel Hawthorne, N 579-584, 610-635 (“Young Goodman Brown,” “May-Pole of Merry Mount,” & “Minister’s Black Veil”)

selection reader / discussion leader: Angela Douglas

poetry: Sylvia Plath, "Blackberrying," N 2783

poetry reader / discussion leader: Jo Lynn Sallee

What's Romantic?

assignments from last class:

Hawthorne: add N 89-93

Poe: gothic as sensation / psychology

Hawthorne: past as Puritan; light / dark as innocence / guilt + shades of gray

Poe: past as loss; gothic space as unconscious mind; house as head

both "Byronic"

dark, handsome, haunted men of "genius"

How do Poe, Byron, others fit model of Byronic Hero?

What significance of the Byronic hero?

Other possible topics:

Hawthorne's style, highly identifiable--when you read a Hawthorne story or novel, how can you tell it's Hawthorne?

Additional questions for today

What's Romantic about Hawthorne?

Why does the question seem counter-intuitive? What do we know or study about Hawthorne that doesn't seem Romantic?

Synthesis?

 Instructor's notes

What's Romantic about Hawthorne?

Period—Hawthorne lives 1804-64

Discussion of "romance" in prefaces to novel

Byronic affectations in author profile

Uses of gothic, especially to describe past and socially marginal or counter-cultural

Why does the question seem counter-intuitive? What do we know or study about Hawthorne that doesn't seem Romantic?

Effects muted compared to Poe (possible exception: witches' coven in "Young Goodman Brown")

Psychological realism previews James (after Civil War, later in our course)

Elements of psychological realism

Shifting viewpoint

Synthesis?

Style ahead of its time > timeless

Elements of psychological realism

gothic shading

midterms

model assignments

Difficulty of criticizing criticism, critics accepting criticism

No matter how carefully you wrote and I read and then wrote, there's almost always some collision.

My inevitable reaction upon reading anything other than glowing praise: "S/he didn't get it."

With experience, pain gets normalized

Nobody exactly gets what you're trying to do, ever, but important to try, important to continue. No final word in discourse, but only people continuing to read and write with each other. 

research proposals

consider continuing / developing midterm topic

"Make work pay twice"

importance for literary scholars of developing some lines of thought, ideas they have developed and can trot out and apply in various situations

Monday 16 October: Research Proposal Due (within 72 hours of class). Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, N 812-834. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life . . . , N 939-973.

selection reader / discussion leader: Tish Wallace

poetry: Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays," N 2669

poetry reader / discussion leader: Anuruddha Ellakkala

(from syllabus)

Research Project

Examples on webpage: Students should review examples of previous student research proposals and projects on the “Model Assignments” sub-page of our course webpage.

Students may choose from two options for their research projects.

·        Option 1: 12-15 page traditional analytic / research essay relevant to course.

·        Option 2: 15-20 page journal of research and reflections concerning a variety of materials relevant to the course.

Weight: approximately 40% of final grade

Due dates:

·        proposal due via email within 72 hours of 16 October

·        project due via email due within 72 hours of 13 November

Research proposal: Due via email within 72 hours of 16.

Write at least two paragraphs containing the following information:

·        Indicate which option—Option 1 (essay) or Option 2 (journal)—your research project will take. (If you’re stuck between the options, or trying to choose between different subjects, explain and explore the situation—I’ll reply as helpfully as I can.)

·        If Option 1, list the primary text(s) you intend to work with. Explain the source of your interest, why the topic is significant, and what you hope to find out through your research. Describe any reading or research you have already done and how useful it has been.

·        If Option 2, mention your possible choices of topics and areas of research for categories listed in Option 2 (journal) requirements.

·        Explain the source of your interest, why the topic matters, and what you want to learn.

·        Mention the types of research you intend, e. g., Background (encyclopedias, handbooks, critical digests, etc.), Secondary (advanced scholarly articles or books exploring a particular question, or reviews of scholarly books), etc.

·        For either option, conclude by asking the instructor at least one question about your topic, possible sources for research, or the writing of your research project.

·        Email or otherwise transmit an electronic version of your proposal to me at whitec@uhcl.edu.

·        Research report proposals will be posted on the course webpage.

·        If you want to confer about your possible topic before submitting a proposal, welcome to confer in person, by phone, or email.

Response to Paper Proposal

·        The instructor will email you a reaction okaying the proposal and / or making any necessary suggestions.

·        You are welcome to continue going back and forth with the instructor on email until you are satisfied with your direction.

·        Student does not receive a letter grade for the proposal, only a “yes” or instructions for receiving a yes. Students will not lose credit for problems in reaching a topic as long as they are working to resolve these problems.

·        The only way you can start getting into trouble over the proposal is if you simply don’t offer very much to work with, especially after prompts from instructor. An example of a really bad proposal is one sentence starting with “I’m thinking about” and ending with “doing something about Poe,” then asking, “What do you think?” In these cases, a bad grade won’t be recorded, but the deep hole the student has dug will be remembered. Notes regarding the paper proposal may appear on the Final Grade Report.

Model assignments

biggest issues for my new students:

difference / choosing between essay and journal

What's expected in a journal? (it's not a diary or a junk-book)

Answers:

Review explanation in syllabus (as I'll begin to do next week)

Look at examples on Model Assignments page

assignments--"American Renaissance"

Monday 16 October: Research Proposal Due (within 72 hours of class). Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, N 812-834. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life . . . , N 939-973.

selection reader / discussion leader: Tish Wallace

poetry: Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays," N 2669

poetry reader / discussion leader: Anuruddha Ellakkala  

Monday 23 October: Abraham Lincoln, N 757-760. Harriet Beecher Stowe, selections from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, N 771-806. Thoreau, N 837-853 (“Resistance to Civil Government”).

selection reader / discussion leader: Leigh Ann Moore

poetry: Theodore Roethke, "I Knew a Woman," N 2641

poetry reader / discussion leader: Elizabeth Ann Davis

Next two classes, shift to historical emphasis

Objective 1b. The Romantic Period

·        To note the concentration of Romanticism in the late 18^th and 19^th centuries and its co-emergence with the rise of the middle class, the city, industrial capitalism, consumer culture, and the nation-state.

American Romantic period a. k. a. "American Renaissance"

1820s-1860s

ends with U. S. Civil War, 1861-65

coincidence of American Renaissance with a number of historical movements

Manifest Destiny, expansion westward, Mexican War (mentioned by Thoreau)

Expansion of southern tier of states meant expansion of slavery, which meant that slavery wasn't dying but vital, growing

Abolition movements

Women's rights movements (Seneca Falls 1848, Margaret Fuller)

Utopian or communal  movements (Shakers, Brook Farm, Fruitlands, Oneida)

(Hawthorne lived at Brook Farm for a few months, Fuller and Emerson visited; Alcott family started Fruitlands)

millennial movements: Millerites ( > 7th Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses), Latter-Day Saints, Shakers

Evangelical movements--"Second Great Awakening" ("Great Awakening"--i. e., the "First Great Awakening") was approximately a century earlier, following Jonathan Edwards
(Rise of Methodism: John Wesley, George Whitefield. Rise of Baptistry.)

Questions for Douglass and Jacobs:

Monday 16 October: Research Proposal Due (within 72 hours of class). Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, N 812-834. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life . . . , N 939-973.

selection reader / discussion leader: Tish Wallace

poetry: Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays," N 2669

poetry reader / discussion leader: Anuruddha Ellakkala  

both texts are slave narratives, extraordinary historical genre, highly developed during period of American Renaissance

inclination to read slave narratives as history rather than literature

but as literature . . . 

What's Romantic about the slave narratives?

What's not romantic? Where does reality or history intrude?

Hawthorne

Byronic hero

Poe, Hawthorne as "Byronic Hero"

How do Poe, Byron, others fit model of Byronic Hero?

What significance of the Byronic hero?

characteristics of the Byronic Hero (from a Jane Eyre site)

blurbs on recent scholarly book on Byronic Hero

course syllabus on Byronic hero

Poe & Byron as Byronic?

looks: handsome, troubled, brooding image

identified with literary subjects (cf. Plath: people can't read their works without reading the authors into them--contrast Cooper, James, Irving)

secrets? secret sin? incest? (last taboo besides cannibalism)

Byronic hero

Character type named for English poet Lord Byron, 1788-1824

dark, handsome appearance

"wandering," searching attitude

haunted by some secret sin or crime

modern culture hero: appeals to society by standing apart from society, superior yet wounded

compare: Magua, Hawthorne, Claggart in "Billy Budd"

contemporary examples: James Dean, Kurt Cobain, Trent Reznor

suggestions from girls in coffee shop:

Brandon Lee in The Crow

LeStat in The Vampire Chronicles

Johhny Depp?

Layne Staley of Alice in Chains

Alan Rickman

Sean Connery

members of Sublime--died early, "danger to society"

Sting

Tupac Shakur

Rufus Sewell in Dark City

from literature:

Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights

Rochester in Jane Eyre

Women manifesting Byronism?

Cora in Mohicans

Question: What is the significance of the Byronic hero as a "culture hero?"

Why does the paradigm, image, or symbol continue to recur and / or evolve?

What's ironical about the significance?

significance: culture hero who is dangerous to the culture for which he is a hero

beware sexism? How about a Byronic heroine?

Term isn't current except as a turn on a familiar figure.

Similar associations may appear through 

"fair lady - dark lady" paradigm

Cora as Byronic? femme fatale figure? Ligeia (vs. Rowena)

If women appear in pairs, maybe men do too

If in Mohicans Magua is a Byronic figure, then what is Uncas? "Golden Boy"

possible significance of Byronic hero as contemporary culture-hero:

culture-hero doesn't support (or fit into) culture of which a part

This could be a working response to the Rip Van Winkle syndrome; i. e., society changes so fast that to be invested in society is to lose currency? (But then this is my answer to everything . . . .)

Two final questions re Hawthorne:

gothic

personal style

Ultimately inseparable.

Both contribute to answering the style question: How can you tell you're reading a Hawthorne text?

Hawthorne's gothic

610 [wilderness gothic]

635 corpse sits up

635 decay

gothic as light and dark = states of mind

(+ intrusion of red, pink, other lurid or passionate colors)

622 shadows of forest mingle gloomily

623-4 fading light > black shadows

626 deepening twilight

633 a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin and sorrow

633 shaded candlelight

634 deepen the gloom

film noir definition

"Research page"

Hawthorne uses their moral seriousness as a way of exploring complex problems of human psychology, conscience, community, etc.

Hawthorne incorporates gothic in a new way

takes advantage of appearance of Puritans, typically dressed in sober dark garments with some white clothing.

Here's our earlier scheme from Cooper's Mohicans

Now let's change the patterns and subjects for Hawthorne

 (Look for contrast with this in African American writings, for whom these identifications are threatening.)

620 [Gothic imagination of Puritans; correspondence]

623 prayers before daylight, evening prayer time

Hawthorne's individual style

Hawthorne's style, highly identifiable--when you read a Hawthorne story or novel, how can you tell it's Hawthorne?

style as both literary techniques and subject matter

Review Poe's Style

Poe's literary techniques:

Musicality, dreaminess, sensory pleasure in language

European gothic: ancient buildings, family curses, esoteric learning

Gothic color scheme: black and white + red or other lurid color ("blood-red moon" at conclusion of "Usher," "drop of ruby fluid" in "Ligeia")

romance narrative as desire & loss

"Excess": Poe piles on superlatives ("the most . . . ") in effort to push consciousness to extremes of fear, sublime, etc.

Oxymoron: "verdant decay"

Poe's subject matter:

Origination and development of popular genres: detective story, science fiction, gothic / horror

death of beautiful woman

Gothic as psychology: haunted castle as haunted mind (correspondence between internal and external worlds)

literary techniques

correspondence

615 [correspondence]
630 [romantic correspondence between interior and exterior]

shifting viewpoint

627 [viewpoint]

628 viewpoint

truth as evanescent, ephemeral, transient, elusive: "flickering," "glimmering"

"something"--

symbols

qualifiers—may have, could have

equality in sin

critical favorite because reader participates; Hawthorne's style builds in a lot of interpretation on part of reader

subject matter

Hawthorne’s themes

Brotherhood in sin, humility 

vain, delusionary, obstinate man; sensible, flexible woman who resists categories, fantasies

616 [democracy of sin < equality > redemption]

stylistic idiosyncrasy of Hawthorne: use of "qualifiers"

What does it mean to "qualify" one's speech?

"So-and-so is stupid, evil, and wrong!"

(Anyone who can speak thus is extreme in their expression.)

"You need to qualify what you're saying."

back it up?

"I have seen so-and-so in many situations, and in all of them s/he has acted in such a way that no reasonable person could regard them as intelligent, moral, and just."

This is a qualified statement. Leaves wiggle room, room for disagreement, leaves room to keep talking and thinking.

Webster's definition:

1a. to reduce from a general to a particular or restricted form: modify

1b. to make less harsh or strict: moderate

1c. to alter the strength or flavor of

d. to limit or modify the meaning of

qualifiers—may have, could have

611 though [qualifier], likeness, almost, uncertain light

616 Either . . . or [qualifier]

617 no slight similitude [indirect language, heavily qualified]

symbols

example of flag

Symbol must first of all be an image, something that can be seen or otherwise sensed. 

cultural example: A flag is a piece of colored cloth.

literary example: the minister's black veil

But an image becomes a symbol by accessing or providing meaning(s) beyond the mere fact of the image.

cultural example: The flag stands for patriotism, military honor, the American Dream.

literary example: 

Symbols gain power by resisting reduction to a single meaning.

cultural example: The flag can mean different things to different people. If it only means one thing, fewer people salute (or jeer).

literary example: 

The various meanings transmitted by symbols become perceptible from different audiences or perspectives.

cultural example: 

literary example: 

Bedford Glossary of Critical Terms

symbol: something that, although it is of interest in its own right, stands for or suggests something larger and more complex--often an idea or a range of interrelated ideas, attitudes, and practices.
    Within a given culture, some things are understood to be symbols: the flag of the United States is an obvious example, as are the five intertwined Olympic rings. More subtle cultural symbols might be the river as a symbol of time . . . . [W]riters often create their own symbols by setting up a complex but identifiable web of associations in their works.

A Handbook to Literature

Symbol A symbol is something that is itself and also stands for something else . . . as a flag is a piece of colored cloth that stands for a country. All language is symbolic in this sense . . . .

All-American Glossary of Literary Terms (research links)

symbol (sim-bol): a symbol is a word or object that stands for another word or object. . . . For example a dove stands for Peace. The dove can be seen and peace cannot. . . . Misty Tarlton, Student, University of North Carolina at Pembroke

Virtual Salt Glossary of Literary Terms

Symbol. Something that on the surface is its literal self but which also has another meaning or even several meanings. For example, a sword may be a sword and also symbolize justice. A symbol may be said to embody an idea. There are two general types of symbols: universal symbols that embody universally recognizable meanings wherever used, such as light to symbolize knowledge, a skull to symbolize death, etc., and constructed symbols that are given symbolic meaning by the way an author uses them in a literary work, as the white whale becomes a symbol of evil in Moby Dick.

631 symbol of a fearful secret

632 perhaps a symptom of mental disease

635 symbol

635 What, but the mystery . . has made this piece of crape so awful