ENG 241: Survey of American Literature I

Judy Riggin

Week 10

[Introduction] [Your Responsibility] [Syllabus] [Assignments] [Exams] [Resources]

Week 10

Read: Text Assignment

Watch: Program Eight

Text Assignment :

Edgar Allen Poe & Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Program Eight :

The following link is to an outline of the main ideas in Program Eight. Use this interactive outline to guide you through the video. Print off a copy of this outline and add your own notes. Using this link requires a broadband connection and Windows media player 8 or higher.

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Journal # 4 :

Directions:

  1. Using MS Word, Write a discussion approximately 300 words in length ( no more than ONE typed page) on ONE of the following topics:
    • A. In the first paragraph of "Rip Van Winkle" (p. 2082, "Whoever has...."), the natural setting is described. List the wording which describes nature. Circle words in your list which connote or imply that nature has human, even royal, qualities. Explain how giving nature such qualities in this paragraph relates to the role of nature in the entire story.
    • B. Explain two major qualities of the personality of the narrator/character in “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Explain how his personality, with these qualities, shapes the meaning of the story.
    • C. State the theme of “Young Goodman Brown” (by following the two-step method). Explain how this theme is connected to the question of whether or not Brown's experience was a dream.
    • D. State and explain the theme of "Rip Van Winkle" (by following the two-step method ). Speculate on how the story's theme is an "American" idea. Include, if relevant, how the theme is connected to Rip's waking up to find a new America .
  2. Save your file as: [your last name]_journal4.doc (example: Riggin_journal4.doc)
  3. Attach document to an email and email as directed below:

    Email instructions:

    subject line should read:
    [your last name] Journal # 4
    Example: Riggin Journal # 4

Grading Criteria:

This writing will earn thirteen (13) points when submitted, regardless of content or style. It will earn an additional seven- (7) points if it meets these criteria:

•  The central idea has been narrowed to a thesis that responds to one of the topics and that can be explained in some detail in approximately 300 words.

•  The thesis is supported or illustrated by at least three brief quotations from the literary work(s) being discussed. (Quotes from the editor's introductory materials don't count!)

•  Your writing is virtually free of errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Review 'How To: Read, Watch, and Write About Literature'

 

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What To Study for Exam #3:

In the TEXT introductions, the editors provide a very thorough background to your readings. In particular, you should study these topics for Exam #3:

•  Changes in publishing, pp. 1358-1362

•  Romantic writing, pp. 1361-1362, 2046-2048

Also study the following explanation:

Although your text discusses Romantic writing, I will elaborate on this aspect of American writing here. Romanticism is not so much a systematic approach to philosophy or art as it is a group of characteristics linked loosely by certain values shared by Romantic writers.

Those shared values are basically three: (1) a belief in the supremacy of individualism , (2) an idealistic approach to the truths of life, and (3) the advocacy of the imagination and emotional and intuitive knowledge over rational and experiential knowledge.

These three values are manifested in a number of characteristics of Romantic writing (not all of which appear in any one writer). Look for several of the following characteristics in each writer you read for this week:

•  anti-intellectualism: distrust of the completely logical and rational, in favor of following one's heart and intuition

•  democracy: belief in human equality and dislike of authority

•  humanitarianism: belief we are our brother's keeper and should seek to provide necessities and opportunities for all people

•  idealization of common man, of children, of "noble savages" of any kind: belief anyone not corrupted by society is likely to be moral, innocent, and intuitively wise

•  interest in the picturesque past: sense of the past as providing a distant, often ideal, world for examining human experience

•  interest in the remote: sense of exotic, distant places as evocative settings to reveal human experience

•  interest in the supernatural and mysterious: belief in experiences and truths which lie beyond the "everyday" and the rational

•  love of natural beauty and the simple life: enjoyment of the beauty of wild landscape and a belief nature offers sympathy and truths for human existence

•  orientalism: interest in the distant, exotic East and in the philosophical wisdom of its thinkers

•  originality (including innovative literary techniques): admiration of the "new" and different, from reverence for the individual. A novel concept, making "imitation" and "traditional" negative terms.

•  primitivism: conviction that a less advanced stage of culture allows for more happiness and knowledge of truths than a civilized, complex society does

 

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