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Skript Survey of Anglophone Lit. Focus America
Survey of Anglophone Literatures: Focus America (552.270)
Universität Klagenfurt
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UF EnglischText Vorschau
Survey of Anglophone Literatures:
Focus America
1 Narratives and Colonial Literature
Central Questions and Concerns
What is the American literary canon? How has it developed over
time? Why do we need to be critical of it?
List of volumes which are considered to be important The academic people (universities, literary people) decide – they select what comes into the canon It is not about what is popular (not what the reader likes best), but about what is high quality (particularly wealthy, powerful, worth, special, etc. volumes) Includes great work of literature (list)
Margins of the American canon (who decides):
Women and minorities (ethical, racial) are marginalized The people who decide were the people who were in power during the very periods In the 1960s, 70s, and 80s dead, white males were the literary canon (then it was revolutionized and got a broader canon, however, still many of these works are on the margin of the canon or even on the outside) Assumption for a long time was that the man in power (white males) chose white males for the literary canon and that women and people of color can’t write (they are not smart enough; they don’t know enough; just can’t do this)
Early discovery narratives envisioned America as a both a
paradise-like place of promise and a dangerous place full of
cannibals => Why?
Greco-Roman and medieval texts had anchored the Far East of Asia and the West of the Atlantic as utopian places in the European imagination. Jewish-Christian belief located the earthly paradise in the East of Asia. first description of the people living in America given by Christopher Columbus and his people set foot on an unknown and mostly unexplainable territory. gaps in knowledge about this territory filled with the mentioned utopian fantasies They thought it to be a wonderful land (like the land of milk and honey), because it provided everything that it necessary for life (food, mineral resources, good climate conditions) In many of these early travel reports, the Natives get not depicted as solely positive. They often distinguish themselves through gruesome cannibalistic practices. An early representation, a woodcut, shows this bipolar dimension. The representation features a female Native in the pose of a “nourishing mother” >> this must be seen on an allegorical level -> like a mother, the
American continent provides everything for its inhabitants. However, cannibals are lurking in the background, we see inhabitants who either consume humans or are preparing humans for consumption. Amerigo Vespucci’s account of an incident during one of his voyages shows that a group of female Natives receives a young European sailor very positively, almost seductively, only to consequently kill, roast and devour him before the eyes of the rest of the crew. >> America gets again represented as a female figure, then she turns into a man-eating monster
The new discovered land should be portrayed in the best way possible. However, it could not be portrayed as too perfect and ideal. “Cannibals” were clearly better suited as the inevitably victims of colonial politics than benevolent “noble savages”. Both dimensions depend upon one another and make America prone to European colonial power. The tension between paradise and wilderness has remained a popular motif in literature and cultural history of the US.
Comment on the difference between the depiction of the Roanoke
colony in Thomas Harriot’s Brief and True Report and the actual
state of affairs. Why was the text so important?
The report included things such as “what they experienced, what’s to be found in the new land or what the world was like”, but in a propaganda- like narrative, it was a form or Marketing The richness of the colony attracted settlers. Long lists of raw material and fruits were available there (but they weren’t reliable). Thomas Harriot compares the Native Americans to the ancient British inhabitants (instead of capitalistic savages you now have the early version of us) The Roanoke Colony is also known as the “Lost Colony” (irony) because the Native Americans weren’t the main people, but the Ancient Britain were. However, they couldn’t maintain the colony and died, but the reports survived. They were so to speak an early version of the American dream this written piece has arrived in England (reality is the power of a narrative)
different to other countries and is leading in liberty and democracy, being special). That is why America is often seen as a political power and that’s why they also very often fail. They think they are better than anybody else.
Anne Bradstreet as first literary figure in North America, poetry
between mundane and deeply religious concerns
She was the first female to produce literary texts not confined to religious formats. She wrote poetry. She combined Elizabethan lyrical forms with her colonial experiences. Her poems give insight into the psyche and daily life of a woman and mother in a colonial society, marked by extreme sacrifice. She focuses on inner debates over personal tragedies, like fire disasters or the death of children. She devotes herself to the colonial everyday life from a woman’s point of view. Many of her poems start with a real event.
Without her knowledge, her brother-in-law took her poems with him to England and published them under the title “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America” (1650). This collection is considered to be the first printed publication of poems written on American soil.
e. “Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 10th, 1666” >> first she is mourning the loss, later she turns to religion >> god gave her the house and took it away >> inner dialogue between personal reality and religious interpretation
Phillis Wheatley as the first black poet of North Ame rica, had to
defend her ability in court => Why? Use of religious voice and
double discourse => Why?
She was the earliest African-American poet in the second half of the 18th century. She was born in Africa, came to America on a slave ship and bought by the Wheatley family. The family supplied her with an above-average schooling. Black people were not considered human back then, that’s how the settlers legitimated slavery. When non-humans start doing human-like things (writing poetry), you have a problem. She had to justify herself for writing. Her talent was showcased as something exotic and sensational. A very prominent motif in her texts is her African origin.
She uses a “double-voiced” discourse, a typical feature of the literature of oppressed groups in general. On the one hand, she uses the dominating language of the oppressor, on the other hand she questions this very discourse (e. “On Being Brought from Africa to America” >> discusses the ambivalence of her own identity between pagan roots and a Christian philosophy of salvation) The Christian doctrine of salvation was bestowed on her through her enslavement. The very same doctrine is in utter contrast to the Christian racist attitudes that deny human equality to blacks.
2 of the Early Republic - Central Questions
and Concerns
Who was Michel-Guillaume-Jean De Crèvecoeur and what is his
vision of America in the third letter of Letters from an American
Farmer? How is it different from Europe?
He was born in France in an aristocratic family and immigrated to the United States of America. He became a farmer and only returned to Europe during the Revolutionary War. He then published his “Letters from an American farmer” (1782). He considers America an idealized alternative to the European forms of monarchy and aristocracy and praises American agriculture as an exemplary model for a nation rooted in equality. He links anti-aristocratic and antimonarchic views with major political questions of the time. His writings had an influence both on the European image of America as well as on America’s self-conception. He praises America as the land of (European) immigrants, the idea of leaving everything behind at the door and the thought that everybody is equal is already in here >> American dream.
Who was Benjamin Franklin and how does his Autobiography
encapsulate on the one hand the Protestant work ethic and on the
other hand the transition from Puritan colonial America to the
Early Republic?
Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers and signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He was an autodidact with only two years of former school education and had worked in several jobs. He was one of the most important politicians of his era and gained international recognition as a scientist and the title “The First American”.
His autobiography is one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written. It offers insights into the psyche and the world-view of Franklin. It shows Franklin’s conflicting character traits: on the one hand, it displays the deeply rooted traditions of colonial America, on the other it shows the desire to embrace the secular ideas of the Enlightenment (prevailing in the 2nd half of the 18th century). Passages of his work read like textbook examples of a Protestant work ethic. His self-portrayal has remained a classic instance of Puritan self-realization and self-analysis, typical for the successful “homo Americanus”. In a passage he lists the 13 virtues for each day of the week in a specifically devised grid. Other examples would be his to- do lists or regulating his daily routines into strict time windows. For generations his combination of introspection and self-regulation became a role model for what Americans should strive for in order to become good citizens and at the same time, excel economically. Until today his Autobiography has held the status of a “how-to” manual for achieving the American dream of the “self-made man”.
Notions of Protestant self-education and ideas of the Enlightenment visibly contributed to Franklin’s role in the American Revolution. In his revisions of the Declaration of Independence, in the sentence “we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable”, he replaced “sacred and undeniable” with “self- evident”. It seems like he wanted to distance himself from the Puritan religious
because prior to the sentimental tradition, novels were thought to be dangerous for fostering moral corruption, particularly in female readers.
e. William Hill Brown “The Power of Sympathy” (1789), Hannah Foster “The Coquette, or the History of Eliza Wharton” (1797)
What are the typical characteristics of the gothic novel and which
problems did its typical European setting pose for American
authors?
The uncanny and spooky novels go back to Horace Walpole’s “The Castle of Otranto” (1764). They are originally set in European medieval castles. This presented challenges for American authors since the typical European settings of the Gothic novel were not available in the United States.
An example for the American Gothic Novel would be Charles Brockden Brown’s “Edgar Huntly, or, Memoirs of a Sleepwalker” (1799). He manages to adapt the English gothic novel for American settings (being attacked by Native Americans, being trapped in the dark of a maze-like cave) and also anticipates elements of the dark aesthetic of Edgar Allen Poe >> introduces unusual, psychological dimensions to the genre; explores near-death and extreme situations and dwells on the abnormal and the psychological exceptional.
Washington Irving‘s “Rip van Winkle“ is a transitionary tale that
covers both the colonial period and the time after the American
Revolution. How does the story imagine the transition from one
period to the other? What are the differences? (Summarize the
story of Washington Irving‘s “Ryp van Winkle“ and explain why it
is a transitionary tale about the American Revolution.)
He was one of the first American fiction writers to gain full international recognition. Numerous journeys to Europe (Grand Tour) and multiyear stays brought him in contact with European scientists and artists.
“Rip van Winkle” (1819) tells the story of a Dutch-American villager who loves to wander in the wilderness with his dog, Wolf, in order to escape his nagging life. He meets a funny-looking old Dutch man, which is the ghost of the old Dutch founding father of the Hudson River. He ends up drinking way too much and soon falls asleep. He wakes up and thinks he’s slept the whole night and that his wife will be angry, but when he returns to the village, everything has changed. He actually slept for 20 years and woke up in the U.S. His oppressive wife is dead, and the North American colonies have gained their independence. Rip van Winkle, similar to Irving himself, becomes a character of transition and of a new beginning, still rooted in the traditions of the colonies and depending on European authorities, but with a new self-confidence awakening in them.
Being the first major American short story, Irving’s story renders the new beginning of American literature also on a metafictional level by making its protagonist embody this very notion of transformation and reorientation.
3 - Central Questions and
Concerns
What are the central beliefs of American transcendentalism? Why
is it such an important period in American literary history?
Transcendentalism started happening in the first half of the 19th century in New England and is a philosophy that shares a lot of traits with a religion. It was the first, and maybe the most important (indigenous) American intellectual movement. It was genuinely new and developed in America, but the children who did that were the children of the European settlers.
Connected to Transcendentalism is a strong belief in the inherent goodness of both humanity and nature. They believe that individuals need to look inside themselves in order to find the truth (self-reliance). Transcendentalists think that man’s greatness is found in the individual, not in the group – it is considered a weakness if you follow the group.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The American Scholar” has been called
America’s “Intellectual Declaration of Independence.” What is the
central message of the text?
He almost has the status of a saint in American intellectual history; he came up with the idea that America can be independent.
After the death of his wife the Harvard graduate and priest experienced an existential crisis with profound religious doubts, forcing him to abandon priesthood, because he feels like this is too limited, he can’t really be himself.
“The American Scholar” is a speech given to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at the First Parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He develops the idea of self-reliance: if God is in you, you cannot be wrong. trust yourself, get back to the idea of self-reliance, listen to what God says.
An “American scholar” is a man thinking and trusting himself. He is building a new, distinctly American cultural society.
Quote: “we will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds”
individual example of cosmic harmony in nature (all this is an application of Emerson’s beliefs expressed in nature).
“If we all knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point.”there is this belief that there are these laws of nature and entities. Just by understanding some part of nature you can infer and understand the whole. You only understand that when you know that everything is infused by God.
For Thoreau, intense sensual perception (=understanding) is used to arrive at larger insights (=reason), becoming a “transparent eyeball”.
Who was the most prominent female member of the American
transcendentalists? What was her important critique of the
dictum in the American Declaration of Independence that “all men
are created equal”? Why is she considered an early feminist?
The most prominent female member the Transcendentalists was Margaret Fuller. She was raised by her father according to the standards of a boy’s education in order to turn her into an intellectual. Her father thought she should know the same things as boys.
In 1845 she publishes “Women in the Nineteenth Century”. She was the first woman who wrote about the conditions of women and asks the crucial question whether the dictum “all men are created equal” that is found in the Declaration of Independence also applies to women. She was the first major feminist critic of American society. She was the first one who wrote a whole book about the condition of women in this young republic from a feminist perspective: We women need to emancipate. She inspired many later American feminists, among them Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s romantic writing style is in many ways
opposed to the transcendentalists. What are the typical elements
of the romances he wrote and how was his thinking different from
that of the transcendentalists?
Hawthorne was Emerson’s neighbour in Corcorde and was very familiar with the ideas of transcendentalism, but often directly opposed to them. Instead of focusing on the present, as the transcendentalists did, he deliberately positioned his texts (which are fictional texts) within American history, including 17th century American Puritanism. His texts were highly symbolic and allegorical. Unlike Transcendentalists, he questions the adequacy of sensory perception and emphasizes the importance of the imagination don’t just trust your own perception,
Perception > comes from the outside; senses take it in
imagination > comes from the inside. You can close your eyes, shut out the noise, what you create yourself you create with your imagination
He defines the literary genre of the romance. Typical for romances are dreamlike, allegorical and supernatural elements. An allegory is an extended metaphor, a rhetorical device that conveys hidden meanings through symbolic figures, actions, imagery or events. In romances, extravagant characters, remote and exotic places, highly exciting and heroic events, passionate love and mysterious experiences are the themes.
Novel Romance Characterized by a strong emphasis in realism (giving you a picture of reality, a novel a piece of fiction can be as true as reality)
Earlier than novel
Picture of real life and manners, and of the times in which it was written (says “I show you reality and I can even better do that than reality can”)
What Hawthorne produced – this is what romanticism produced
Incorporates dreamlike, allegorical and supernatural elements Extravagant characters, remote and exotic places, highly exciting and heroic events, passionate love, mysterious experiences Not bound to reality Hawthorne: The Romance “sins unpardonably, so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart”; yet it has, he insisted, “a right to present that truth under circumstances to a great extent, of the writer’s own choosing or creation
In how far is the scarlet letter “A” in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The
Scarlet Letter” a typical element of a romance?
It is an impressive example of his literary reorientation. In the preface to the text, Hawthorne stylizes himself as the fictional publisher of a found manuscript (The Scarlet Letter) from the early days of Puritan New England during Colonial times. He sketches out his theory of fiction. The preface is almost as famous as the novel itself.
The romance itself tells the story of Hester Prynne who is convicted for adultery and the birth of an illegitimate daughter and sentenced to wearing the scarlet letter “A” for adultery on her clothing to brandish her. Everybody can see it and knows that she has committed a crime. This must be seen in the context of the extremely close, religious community of that time. She refuses to tell who the father is and is the one suffering, though it happened consensually. She protects the father of the child, the reputable priest Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester submits to her social role as outcast, the priest suffers from his undisclosed sin and develops a mysterious letter “A” on his chest. He has to hide it, but Hester’s husband sees it and for him it is clear that the priest is the father.
detailed, highly realistic observations on whaling techniques, he looks at nature and perceptions very clear (transcendentalism). Another element would be a transcendental understanding of human-nature relationships, a belief in cosmic knowledge within every human being. Melville also uses symbols, metaphors and parables (like Hawthorne).
In his short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” Melville explores
“otherness” within the American nation. How is the behaviour of
the protagonist an absurd version of self-reliance and civil
disobedience?
In the story a company owner on New York’s Wall Street (first-person narrator) meets the screwed scrivener Bartleby (scrivener: someone writes or copies written material). Bartleby denies a number of American societal norms: He always answers “I would prefer not to” and refuses to do any kind of work. The narrator is helpless at this form of resistance and eventually moves the whole company to get rid of the man.
Meeting otherness within American culture Attack on Puritan work ethic (Franklin) Embrace of civil disobedience (Thoreau) Bartleby is portraying absurd behavior: influence on the theatre of the absurd and postmodern literature
In what way do Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories use elements of
the gothic, the macabre and the absurd? What does Poe mean by
the “unity of effect”?
Poe devoted himself to the dark and deviant side of the human mind and can be seen as the inventor of the detective story. His “short stories” illustrate his fascination with the dismal, morbid and abnormal, he uses bizarre and macabre themes. Being buried alive, returning from the dead, falling into the deep and even necrophilia are the ingredients of his narratives.
e. “The Tell-Tale Heart” >> The first-person narrator develops a strange fascination with a physical defect of his landlord, which ultimately compels the disturbed narrator to kill the old man. After hiding the dismembered body under the floorboards, and while being questioned with the police, the murderer believes he hears the dead man’s heartbeat loud and clear. The protagonist finally screams out a confession.
Poe’s psychological interest included also the detective. In “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), the detective Dupin has to solve a gruesome murder. The first-person narrator is not the protagonist; we have an unreliable narration. It is not a classical “whodunit” scheme. Poe is interested in the psychological process of how to deduce meaning from a chain of evidence. The readers are led to misinterpret the events up to the point where the detective’s deductions are revealed in a bombshell revelation. It is a mind-tricking narrative. With this, Poe founded the genre of psychological detective fiction.
By “unity of effect” Poe means that all compositional elements of a text/story work towards the common goal of achieving a unity of effect for the readers.
The text should be read in one sitting and all formal elements support the content level of the poem or story.
In what relations stands Walt Whitman’s poetry in Leaves of
Grass to Emersonian transcendentalism? Why is Whitman “the
American bard”?
Whitman was influenced by transcendentalist philosophy and followed the dogma of self-experience and self-reliance. He manages to express transcendentalist ideas in a completely new format. He expands Emerson’s concept of nature to all aspects of life, including material culture. Whitman revolutionized American poetry and created a new, genuinely American style. He casts himself in the role of the “American bard”, reciting epics and associated with a particular oral tradition. He aspires to romantic notions of the poet as an advocate for all people. In list-like chants, Whitman celebrates all possible manifestations of life.
His “Leaves of Grass” is a collection of 12 poems, Emerson was one of the early readers of the 1st edition. In the preface he writes “The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth have probably the fullest poetical nature. The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem”. Being the American bard, he feels that he himself embodies American geography and nature. Whitman takes the transcendentalist ideas to its extreme and fashions himself as mediator between nature and intellect. In “Song of myself”, he uses the idea of the transparent eyeball, the glorification of the human body and pansexuality, encompassing both heterosexuality and homosexuality.
What are the unconventional formal and thematic elements of
Emily Dickinson’s poetry? Why is she considered a belatedly
recognized forerunner of modernism and postmodernism?
She was born in a renowned family of lawyers and politicians, received a good education and was marked by Puritan traditions. She lived withdrawn from public life and wrote around 1,800 poems. Her sister published her poems after her death, less than a dozen of them were published during her lifetime. She received full recognition only in the 1950s by literary scholars belonging to the tradition of New Criticism.
Her poetry is directed inward, very focused, concentrated and condensed. Her poems were all untitled. She used unconventional innovative imagery and innovative punctuation. She gives deep insights into human nature and translates emotional experience into words. Dickinson shows an obsession with mortality and death and addresses issues of patriarchal oppression and sexuality. She anticipates modernist and postmodern features and elements of the absurd. Today she is to be one of the most significant of all the American poets. >> “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun”, “I felt a funeral, in my Brain”
Explain the historical and socio-cultural context of Frederick
Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Who was
Frederick Douglass and what are the central points he makes in
this speech?
Frederick Douglass was born in 1818 as a slave in Talbot County, Maryland. He was separated from his mother when still an infant and given to Lucretia and Tomas Auld. He was sent to work for Hugh Auld in Baltimore, where Sophia Auld told him the alphabet at the age of 12. He then teaches other slaves to read (the bible). At the age of 20, his third attempt to escape is successful, he carries false identification papers with him. He marries and settles down in New Bedford and starts attending abolitionist meetings. In 1848 he publishes “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” which becomes an immediate bestseller. He calls for the use of Black troops to fight the Confederacy in the Union Army and serves as an advisor to Abraham Lincoln. In 1872 he becomes the first African American nominated as a Vice Presidential candidate in the US. Douglass died in 1895.
“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” was a speech given on July 5th, 1852 and was addressed to the Ladies of the Rochester Anti-Slavery Sewing Society. He was very bold with his speech and worked with the Declaration of Independence. He reminds the abolitionists that the Fourth of July, though a day of celebration for white Americans, was still a day of mourning for slaves and former slaves like himself, because they were reminded of the unfulfilled promise of equal liberty for all in the Declaration of Independence. It contains a very strong indictment of hypocrisy, as he claims that they celebrate the day but don’t live up to it.
Harriet Jacobs’s “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” was the
first American slave narrative authored by a woman. How does it
differ in content and form from the slave narratives authored by
men?
Jacobs was born a slave in 1813 and was unaware that she was a slave until the age of 6. Her mistress, Margaret Horriblow, taught her to read and sew. After Horriblow’s death, Jacobs (11-y-o) was bequeathed to her niece Mary Norcom (age 3). Jacobs was sexually assaulted by Norcom’s father. She had a clandestine liaison with Samuel Sawyer, a white attorney by whom Jacobs had two children. Hoping that by seeming to run away she could induce Norcom to sell her children to their father, she hid herself in a crawl space above a storeroom in her grandmother’s house and remained there for 7 years. She escaped to the North in 1842 to reclaim her children. For years, she lived the tense and uncertain life of a fugitive slave. She died in 1897.
Harriet Jacobs was the first woman to author a slave narrative in the United States. “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” is the only 19th century slave narrative whose genesis can be traced. It breaches a new and at the time highly sensitive topic: the sexual abuse of slave women by their white owners. Male authors of slave narratives had said little about how slave women resisted such exploitation and tried to exercise a measure of freedom within the
restrictions of their oppression. Jacob refused to suppress the truth about her sexual exploitation in slavery. She turns her autobiography into a unique analysis of the myths and the realities that defined the situation of the African American woman and her relationship to the 19th century “cult of true womanhood”. It remained in obscurity until the Civil Rights and Women’s movement of the 1960s/70s spurred a reprint.
Abraham Lincoln reportedly claimed that Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” started the Civil War. Why was the novel so
influential in its time and how can we relate this to the content
and style of the novel?
Harriet Beecher Stowe was born in 1811 into a very religious family. She was a devout Christian, a teacher and an abolitionist activist. She wrote about 30 books, from which only “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is famous.
The novel’s portrayal of the effects of slavery on individuals captured the nation’s attention, though it is a fictional novel. It was published in 1852 and is a sentimental anti-slavery novel depicting the harsh life for African American under slavery. It was targeted at women and had a strong emphasis on emotion. The novel includes idealized characters; the bad guys are bad, and the good guys are good a Christian. It was the Bestselling American novel of the 19 th century and reached millions of Americans. It was first published serialized in 40 parts in an abolitionist newspaper, only in 1852 it appeared in book form.
It helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War. Lincoln is said to have acknowledged the novel’s role in intensifying the tensions between North and South that led to the Civil War.
The novel bears the direct influence of the slave narrative and is nerved with Christian values and mythology. Beecher Stowe uses (positive) racial stereotypes. Uncle Tom can be seen as a self-sacrificing Christ figure; Eliza is the typical tragic mulatta. The novel itself has two stories: Uncle Tom going South and Eliza running North with her children to meet with her husband. Tom has a tragic ending but forgives the people who kill him; Eliza manages to escape.
Racial passing and the so-called “one-drop rule” play a major role
in Charles Chesnutt’s “The House Behind the Cedars”. What was
the one-drop rule and what are the psychological consequences of
racial passing as depicted in the novel?
The “One-drop rule” was a social and legal principle of racial classification asserting that any person with even one ancestor of sub-Saharan-African ancestry (“one drop” of black blood) is considered black (Negro). This led to “racial passing” – people pretended to be white because they were light-skinned enough to do so, even though they had black ancestors. It was considered a criminal act, but you could live a more comfortable and privileged life.
6 Age - Realism Central Questions and
Concerns
In how far was Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn revolutionary in
style and content in its time? Why is it nevertheless one of the
most frequently banned novels in American history?
Mark Twain was one of the few American authors who openly addressed the antagonism between North and South.
“Huckleberry Finn” is a nostalgic reminiscence of happy and innocent childhood. It pretends to be just child literature, though it actually was never meant for children. It is a multi-layered analysis of American culture and the country’s real racial politics. Twain gives a realistic depiction of living conditions and local dialect. The story was criticized and often banned for coarse language and use of the n-word (nigger). Twain includes transcendentalist values: an unspoiled immediacy in approach to and experience of social and natural environment.
Twain’s use of the first-person narrator Huck Finn was ground-breaking. He uses the perspective of a child and social outcast. Huck is an uneducated quasi- orphan who teams up with the runaway slave Jim. Huck lacks cultural acquired racial prejudice. He interacts with Jim in an immediate and unbiased manner and approaches him as a man.
According to William Dean Howells, what are the typical
characteristics that distinguish the realist novel?
Characteristic of the realist novel is the negation of the romance. There are no supernatural elements (ghosts, dead people...) and it focuses on the ordinary and quotidian, everyday life. Round, complex characters are typical for the realist novel. The realist novel includes relatively simple, clear, everyday language. It contains nonmelodramatic plots without standard happy endings. There is a reduction of the authorial voice – the narrator tries to stay outside and see the world through a character. It emphasizes “showing” over “telling” -> times moves slowly, just like in reality, it is easy to visualize and have the scene in your mind.
What is the “international theme” in many of Henry James’s
novels? Explain its characteristics and name one example from
James’s oeuvre.
The international theme deals with young Americans (often rich/women) with little experience who come into conflict with European culture (often refined European men). They fail to understand the culture, the manners and intentions of the Europeans. They confuse manners with moral integrity. European sociocultural etiquette is seen as a trap for those who lack this cultural finesse. Americans mostly try to learn it but often don’t get it.
Examples: “The Portrait of a Lady”; “The European”
What are the defining characteristics of Henry James’s
psychological realism?
He is especially interested in how human consciousness processes sensory impressions of experience. Realism is not only a question of realist depiction of reality, but also of realistically showing how sensory perceptions are being processed >> psychological realism The readers are exposed to the learning process of experience, they learn about a new environment together with the character. James tries to have readers participate in the perception of the character without interposing a narrative voice as filter or explicator. He developed a figural point of view/focalization: The whole narrative is vocalized through the consciousness of a character.
What are the defining characteristics of American naturalism?
Name one example for a naturalistic novel.
American naturalism focuses on heredity and outer circumstances. The focus is on social milieu. Milieu has a deterministic function; it determines how successful you will be in life. Naturalistic novels have an urban, working class setting. They are often brutal, bleak, sad and tragic. Mostly there are female protagonists and typical themes are determinism, violence and survival. American naturalism is strongly influenced by “muckraking” (investigative) journalism. Literature gets seen as a social critique and has the intention to change reality. Example: Steven Crane – “Maggie a Girl of the Streets”
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” the
protagonist observes a woman creeping inside the wallpaper of
her room. Explain how the short story critiques 19th-century
gender roles from a feminist perspective.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is an important early work of American feminist literature. It illustrates 19th century attitudes towards women’s health, both physical and mental. It is a first-person narration and consists of journal entries. Gilman uses subtle irony. The protagonist suffers from postpartum depression and a “slight hysterical tendency”. Her husband, who is a doctor, prescribes her a “rest cure” and rents an old mansion for the summer. She gets completely isolated from the world in a room with a richly patterned yellow wallpaper. She then descends into psychosis. At the beginning, she personally thinks she needs to work but her husband forbids her. At the end, she sees a woman creeping behind the wallpaper – it is a metaphor for the women being caught behind bars. As her state of mind worsens, she starts to scratch the yellow wallpaper off the wall with her fingernails in order to liberate the woman who is seemingly imprisoned by the outlines of the design. The wallpaper is thus a metaphor for Victorian femininity, which equally trapped women as ornament objects in a patriarchal society.
Skript Survey of Anglophone Lit. Focus America
Kurs: Survey of Anglophone Literatures: Focus America (552.270)
Universität: Universität Klagenfurt
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