American Literature Book Unit3

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    Unit 3

    ROMANTICISM AND THE AMERICAN

    RENAISSANCE 1820 1865z Define Romanticism

    as a literary movement.Which representatives ofRomanticism in English andother literature do youknown?

    z What were the leading genresfor the Romanticists?

    It does not follow because many books are

    written by persons born in America that there

    exists an American literature. Books which

    imitate or represent the thought and like of

    Europe do not constitute an American literature.

    Before such can exist, an original idea must

    animate this nation and fresh currents must call

    into life fresh thoughts along its shores.

    Margaret Fuller

    American Romanticism

    coincides chronologicallywith European Romanticism.The longing for harmoniouspersonality (Cooper,Chateaubriand), the searchfor Truth in Beauty (Poe,Keats), the perception ofthe world in a grain of sandand eternity in an hour(Melville, Blake) paralleledeach other. But theEuropeans had manycentury old traditions, whilethe American Romanticwriters had to replace theprinter with the writer, andpersuade their countrymenthat literature was ashonorable an occupation ascorn harvesting. On theother hand there were all

    the basic requirements foran independent nationalliterature in America:enthusiastic writers,attractive subjects, anincreasing number of printingpresses, book stores,schools and libraries. Kindered Spirits, 1849

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    DavyCrockett

    At the beginning of the 19th century American cultural and intellectual life was framedby the ever-expanding southern and western frontiers, culminating in 1853, when thecontinental boundaries of the US were completed. Geographical expansion came to be

    part of broadening the nations literary horizon. Aspiring literary minds turned to personalaccounts of life west of the Allegheny Mountains. Widely publicized literary works by W.Irving and J. F. Cooper attracted still greater attention to the frontier, especially in coastalcities of the Atlantic. But the settlers literary interests centered on practical books suchas various guides to farming, medicine, agriculture, horsemanship and everyday problems.

    A controversial aspect of American life was the displacement of a large number of Indiansas white settlers conquered the wilderness. Even though the white newcomers used theIndians knowledge of agriculture and medicine for their own benefit, they wrote booksabout Native Americans like The American Savage: How He May Be Tamed by the Weaponsof Civilization. Most readers were still fascinated with captivity narratives, a literary genreexemplified in the 17th century by A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs.

    Mary Rowlandson (1682). Eventually, they gave way to the heroic deeds of the legendaryfrontier figures like Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett. Their popularity paved the way for theeven more celebrated tradition of the tall tale and local color fiction later in the 19th

    century.

    Davy Crocketts Legendary Shooting

    Match with Mike FinkMike was a boatman on the Mississip, but he had a little cabbin on the head of the

    Cumberland, and a horrid handsome wife, that loved him the wickedest that ever you see.

    Mike only worked enough to find his wife in rags, and himself in powder, and lead, and

    whiskey, and the rest of the time he spent in nocking over bar and turkeys, and bouncing

    deer, and sometimes drawing a lead on an injun. So one night I fell in with himin the woods, where him and his wife shook down a blanket for me in

    his wigwam. In the morning sez Mike to me, Ive got the handsomest

    wife, and the fastest horse, and the sharpest shooting iron in all

    Kentuck, and if any man dare doubt it, Ill be in his hair quicker

    than hell could scorch a feather. This put my dander up, and

    sez I, Ive nothing to say agin your wife, Mike, for it cant be

    denied shes a shocking handesome woman, and Mrs. Crocketts

    The American pioneer Daniel Booneguiding the new settlers from Virginia through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky

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    in Tennessee, and Ive got no horses. Mike, I dont exactly like to tell you you lie about

    what you say about your rifle, but Im dd 1 if you speak the truth, and Ill prove it. Do

    you see that cat sitting on the top rail of your potato patch, about a hundred and fifty

    yards off? If she ever hears agin, Ill be shot if it shant be without ears.

    1833 (11)

    Still, the quest for truly national literature remained a topical issue. The North American

    Review(founded in 1815), the first journal that printed exclusively American material, calledfor American writers to put an end to imitating British and continental stereotypes, and bythe end of the 1820s, Americans could celebrate the publication of Washington IrvingsSketch Book (1819), William Cullen Bryants Poems (1821), some of James FenimoreCoopers Leather-Stocking Tales, Edgar Allan Poes Tamerlane and other Poems (1827),and Noah WebstersAmerican Dictionary(1828). The fame of the Knickerbocker School (J.K. Paulding, J. H. Payne, W. Irving, and briefly W. C. Bryant and J. F. Cooper), addedbrilliance to the American literary scene and made New York the national literary capital.It was also the time when many literary clubs were founded. In 1824, Cooper, together withWilliam Bryant, Samuel F. B. Morse, and Thomas Cole, the English born painter, organizedthe Bread and Cheese Club. Among the members of the Saturday Club were Emerson, J.

    R. Lowell, H. W. Longfellow, O. W. Homes and the historians John L. Motley and WilliamH. Prescott. The Authors Club united dominant magazine editors of the early 19 th century.The literature of the United States is a subject of the highest interest to the civilized

    world, wrote Cooper, for when it does begin to be felt, it will be felt with a force, a directness,and a common sense in its application, that has never yet been known.... I think the timefor the experiment is getting near. As if according to this prophesy, Irving adapted Europeanliterary heritage to American settings, Cooper turned Natty Bumppo into the Americanarchetype of individual freedom and self-reliance, which served the fictional predecessor ofcountless mountain men and wilderness cowboys. Though they were writing in Europe,these two writers paved the way for the great flowering of American literature.

    In 1823, knowing that the British Navy would be involved in defending Latin Americafrom the Holy Alliance of Russia, Prussia and Austria, President Monroe pronounced his

    refusal to tolerate any further extension of European domination in the Americas: TheAmer ican cont inents.. . are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for futurecolonization by any Euroupean powers...

    The Monroe Doctrine expressed solidarity with the newly independent republics of LatinAmerica. It was the time, when democracy, with its good and bad, did flourish, when customsand people themselves were changing. Hair wigs and waistcoats were being replaced byloose overalls. The sewing machine, telegraph, and the assembly line were invented. It wasthe time of the Second Great Awakening and liberating of the church, when the Baptists,Methodists, Protestants, Mormons and the Seventh Day Adventists appeared. America wasbecoming a very diverse nation, and the times, when only one path to God was officiallyrecognized, seemed far back in the past. It was also the time when the first large estates,

    accompanied by trickery and corruption, came onto the scene. The Americans may havesomewhat forgotten the testament of the first settlers, but the providence idea was stillglowing and it acquired a new form pioneer-frontiersman grew into the AmericanPrometheus, and the wilderness path to the Appalachians turned into the road.

    The American Renaissance (1836-1865) was marked by two turmoils, the Panic of1837 and the Civil War, as well as by two presidents Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln.The former, from the backwoods of Tennessee, seemed a prosaic leader, falling off from1 damned, darnedadj., interj. both swearing or taboo words, are used as an exclamation, or a sound expressing anemotional reaction rather than any particular meaning

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    the daring age of the founding Fathers. The latter ruled with unprecedented authorityduring a long and brutal Civil War. An idiomatic Western genius, as Whitman called him,Lincoln left behind a legacy of his spoken and written prose, colloquial, expressive,modest and always to the point. For 30-year-old Mark Twain, Lincolns style proved thatsimplicity was one of the secrets of eloquence.

    Address at Gettysburg, pennsylvania

    Four score and seven-years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation,conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

    Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so

    conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that

    war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those

    who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that

    we should do this.

    But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate we can not consecrate we can not hallow

    this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it , far

    above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what

    we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to bededicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly

    advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us

    that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave

    the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not

    have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and

    that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.(19)

    Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) commemorates the vict ims of the battle at Gettysberg.

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    William Lloyd Garrison

    Transcendentalists . George Ripley in his Letter to the Church in Purchase Street(1840) wrote: There is a class of persons who desire a reform in the prevailing philosophyof the day. These are called Transcendentalists, because they believe in an order oftruths which transcends the sphere of the external sense. Their leading idea is thesupremacy of mind over matter. Hence they maintain that the truth of religion does notdepend on tradition, nor historical facts, but has a faithful witness in the soul. Having

    absorbed the philosophical essence of Kant, Goethe, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Carlyleand other European thinkers, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Reverend Theodore Parker,Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller declared in the 1830s that God could beknown through Nature and mans own soul, not only in church. As if in support of thisidea H. D. Thoreau spent more than two years in a cabin at Walden Pond in isolationin the midst of natural beauty.

    This movement had a very loose structure. Founded as an informal club in 1836,it generated The Dial, a quarterly journal (1840-1844). Though it was often ridiculedfor what was considered excessive fantasies, it inspired two experiments of cooperativeliving and high thinking: Brook Farm (1841-1847) and Fruitlands (1843), both nearBoston. The Transcendentalists opposed materialism, rationalism, conformity, the

    stereotypes of religion and society, and tried to erect the temple of the Living God inMans soul.Abolitionism. It was also the time when antislave tensions were running high. To the

    Southerners, slavery was as natural a condition as their English speech. The North opposedslavery and its extension into the Western regions. To add to the plight of the slaves, afterthe 1830s, slave owners began to employ professional overseers, whose status dependedon their ability to extract a maximum amount of work from slaves.

    An earlier antis lavery movement had its important victory in 1808 when Congressabol ished the slave trade wi th Afr ica. The ear ly 1830s saw theuncompromising actions of William Lloyd Garrison who wrote in the firstissue of The Liberator: I shall strenuously contend for the immediate

    enfranchisement of our s lavepopulation... On this subject I do not wishto think, or speak, or wr i te wi thmoderation... I am in earnest I will notequivocate I will not excuse I willnot retreat a single inch, AND I WILL BEHEARD. He was joined by the powerfulvoice of Frederick Douglass, an escaped

    slave and the eloquent editor of the abolitionist weekly,Northern Star, and author of The Narrative of the Life ofFrederick Douglass (1845), and later by Harriet BeecherStowes Uncle Toms Cabin (1851).

    The cluster of events around 1849 contributed to themorality of trade and wild luck. The discovery of Californiagold in the Sacramento Valley in 1848 profoundly changedthe population spread, railroad connections, and exposedmuch mercantilism, greed, desire for quick enrichment. Itstamped the nation with something more than Yankee luck,and was seen as an event of Providence, a confirmation ofnational favor and mission.

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    Expanding Your Knowledge

    PERSONAL RESPONSE

    1. What kind of literature was in high demand at the frontier?2. What literary schools were set up in the first quarter of the 19 th century?3. Briefly characterize the speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln.4. How did the Transcendentalists influence the public mind?

    5. Name the leaders of the abolitionist movement.6. What was the national impact of the Gold Rush in 1849?7. Complete the sentences:

    a) Books about Native Americans b) By the end of the 1820s America could celebrate c) The contemporary inventions were d) Lincoln was called by Whitman.e) The Transcendentalists did not accept f) The Civil War was fought between ...g) The morality of trade and wild luck was boosted by

    PERSONAL WRITING

    z Make an additional redearch on one of the authors mentioned in this unit and writeabout him/her.

    z Find an original work by an American Romanticist, and analyze it in an essay.

    CROSSWORD

    With the help of the dictionary and one letter provided, fill in the crossword. Try torevive the original context of the words.1. The theory, practice, and style of romantic art, music, and literature of the late 18 th and

    early 19th centuries, usually opposed to classicism.2. Partially cleared, sparsely populated forests.3. A mental attitude or point of view.4. 16th president of the U.S. His fame rests on his success in saving the Union in the Civil

    War (1861-1865).5. A person who revises books,

    periodicals, films etc.6. Make a prisoner of, overcome7. To force one to leave home

    or country.8. A standardized image or idea

    shared by all members of asocial group.

    9. The edge of the settled areaof a country; borderline.

    10. Anything that has beentransmitted from the past orhanded down by tradition.

    11. Member of a primitive tribeliving by hunting or fishing;wild man.

    12. To increase in size or area;add to or enlarge.

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    Washington Irving

    z Have you ever traveled to wondrousplaces that strongly impressed yourimagination? How did it enrich youroutlook?

    z What feature of character does thequotation reveal?

    I scarcely look with full satisfaction

    on any [of my works]. I often wish I

    could have twenty years more, to take

    them down from the shelf one by one,

    and write them over.

    Washington Irving

    WASHINGTON IRVING

    Both home and abroad Washington Irving is considered the first trulyAmerican man of letters, whose stories entered school and universitycurricula during his lifetime. His best known and first American shortstories The Legend of Sleepy Hollowand Rip Van Winkle are still amongthe favorite classics.

    The youngest of 11 children of a cordial mother and a more

    domineering father, Washington Irving (April 3, 1783, New York City Nov. 28, 1859,Tarrytown, New York) was brought up in an easy-going and carefree atmosphere. A storyhas it that George Washington himself met Irving and blessed him. It could have been thereason for writing the monumental biography The Life of George Washington later in hislife. Irving avoided a college education, but studied law himself, mostly in the office ofJosiah Hoffman, with whose daughter he soon fell in love.

    In 1802, Irving produced a number of satirical essays under the signature of JonathanOldstyle, Gent., made several trips up the Hudson river, another into Canada for his health.He also took an extended tour of Europe in 1804-1806. Later, together with other enthusiasts,he published satirical pamphlets on the faults of New York society in a periodical entitledSalmagundi, which still remains a guide to the social environment of the 1810s. Irvings

    History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809) is a satire of the Dutch regime inNew York, and one of the earliest humorous histories. The name was adopted for the firstAmerican school of writers, the Knickerbocker Group, with Irving as the leader.

    In 1815, after his mothers death, Irving went to Liverpool to attend to the interests of hisbrothers hardware firm. On the way there he met Sir Walter Scott in London, who encouragedhim in his creative efforts. The result was The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-1820), a collection of stories and essays that mix satire and eccentricity with fact and fiction.

    Most of its 27 pieces relate Irvings impressions of England, but six stories deal withAmerican subjects. Though under the heavy influence of German folktales, they are alreadyconcerned with American life in a Dutch settlement after the War of Independence. Theoverwhelming success ofThe Sketch Bookreassured Irving that he could live by his pen,and in 1822 he produced Bracebridge Hall, a sequel to The Sketch Book.

    In 1826, he accepted an invitation to join the American diplomatic mission in Spain,where he wrote Columbus (1828). Meanwhile, Irving had become absorbed in the legendsof the Moorish past and wrote A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (1829) and TheAlhambra (1832), a Spanish counterpart of The Sketch Book.

    After a 17-year stay in Europe Irving was warmly welcomed to New York in 1832 asthe first American author of international acclaim. Irving spent the remainder of his life athis home, Sunnyside, in Tarrytown, on the Hudson River, where he devoted himself toliterary pursuits.

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    Rip Van Winkle

    1Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill mountains.

    They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the

    west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country.

    Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces

    some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded

    by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and

    settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear

    evening sky; but, sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather

    a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will

    glow and light up like a crown of glory.

    2At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the light smoke

    curling up from a village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue

    tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little

    village, of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists; in the

    early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter

    Stuyvesant, (may he rest in peace!) and there were some of the houses of the originalsettlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland,

    having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weather-cocks.

    3In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise truth,

    was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while the country

    was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van

    Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous

    days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. He inherited,

    however, but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was

    a simple good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient hen-

    pecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spiritwhich gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt to be obsequious

    and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.

    4Rips sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much hen-pecked as his

    master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and even looked

    upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his masters going so often astray. True it is,

    in all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever

    scoured the woods but what courage can withstand the everduring and all-besetting

    terrors of a womans tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail

    dropped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air,

    casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of abroomstick or ladle, he would run to the door with yelping precipitation.

    5Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on;

    a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows

    keener with constant use. For a long while he used to console himself, when driven from

    home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle

    personages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench before a small inn, designated

    by a rubicund portrait of His Majesty George the Third.

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    6Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative, to escape from

    the labor of the farm and clamor of his wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into

    the woods. Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the

    contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in

    persecution. Poor Wolf, he would say, thy mistress leads thee a dogs life of it; but

    never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee! Wolf

    would wag his tail, look wistfully in his masters face, and if dogs can feel pity I verilybelieve he reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart.

    7In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had unconsciously scrambled

    to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill mountains. He was after his favorite sport of

    squirrel shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and reechoed with the reports of his

    gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, covered

    with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice.

    8As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance, hallooing, Rip Van

    Winkle! Rip Van Winkle! He looked round, but could see nothing but a crow winging its

    solitary flight across the mountain. He thought his fancy must have deceived him, and

    turned again to descend, when he heard the same cry ring through the still evening air;Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle! at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and

    giving a low growl, skulked to his masters side, looking fearfully down into the glen. Rip

    now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked anxiously in the same direction,

    and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight

    of something he carried on his back. (The stranger was dressed after the antique Dutch fashion and was carrying a large barrel

    of liquor. With Rips help and without speaking they got to a hollow where they saw a companyof similar looking men. Though they were playing ninepins, they kept grave silence. Rip havingapproached nearer, they eyed him fixedly and suspiciously. Obeying his companions signs,Rip helped serve the drink, took a few draughts, and fell into a deep sleep.

    Waking on a bright sunny morning, he found no men or liquor, or dog, either; and hisgun, he thought, had been replaced by an old rusty one. Hungry, with a heavy heart,anticipating an outburst of fierce rage from his wife, he trudged homeward.)

    9As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he knew,

    which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with every one in

    the country round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that to which he was

    accustomed. They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast

    their eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this gesture

    induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to his astonishment, he found his beard

    had grown a foot long!

    10He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had always kept inneat order. It. was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame

    all his connubial feats he called loudly for his wife and children the lonely chambers

    rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again was silence.

    11He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village inn but it too was gone.

    A large rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of them

    broken and mended with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, The Union

    Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle. Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch

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    inn of yore, there now was reared a tall naked pole, with something on the top that looked like

    a red night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of stars

    and stripes all this was strange and incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however,

    the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe; but even

    this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a

    sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat,

    and underneath was painted in large characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON.

    12There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none that Rip recollected. The

    very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone

    about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for

    the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering

    clouds of tobacco-smoke instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster doling

    forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow,

    with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of citizens

    elections members of congress liberty Bunkers Hill heroes of seventy-six

    and other words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle.

    13At this critical moment a fresh comely woman pressed through the throng to get apeep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at

    his looks, began to cry. Hush, Rip, cried she, hush, you little fool; the old man wont

    hurt you. The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened

    a train of recollections in his mind. What is your name, my good woman? asked he.

    Judith Gardenier.

    And your fathers name?

    Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but its twenty years since he went away

    from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since his dog came home without

    him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell.

    I was then but a little girl.Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering voice:

    Wheres your mother?

    Oh, she too had died but a short time since; she broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion

    at a New-England peddler.

    There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The honest man could contain

    himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. Im your father!

    cried he Young Rip Van Winkle once old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody

    know poor Rip Van Winkle?...

    14He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr. Doolittles hotel. He was

    observed, at first, to vary on some points every time he told it, which was, doubtless,

    owing to his having so recently awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale I haverelated, and not a man, woman, or child in the neighborhood, but knew it by heart. The

    old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally gave it full credit. Even to this day

    they never hear a thunderstorm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say

    Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of nine pins; and it is a common wish

    of all henpecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that

    they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkles flagon1819 (21)

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    Expanding Your Knowledge

    PERSONAL RESPONSE

    IRVINGS LIFE1. What is Irvings significance for American literature?2. Search for the hidden meaning of the name Tarrytown. How does it fit into Irvings

    literary portrait?

    3. Replace these subtitles by subdividing Irvings biography into the coherent parts: In theFamily Circle, Toward a Mature Writer, Welcome Back Home.

    RIP VAN WINKLE1. What epithets are chosen to describe the Kaatskill mountains? What details tie the

    story to a certain historical period?2. What traces of military language can you find in the story? What could be the reason

    for their inclusion?3. What else could we have expected from Rip Van Winkle besides the mysterious twenty-

    year sleep? Do you sympathize with, criticize or feel otherwise toward him?4. Why is the expression sole domestic adherentused to refer to a dog in paragraph 4?

    What other more natural synonyms can you think of? What else does the least flourish

    of a broomstick or ladle stand for? What is ironic in Rips address to Wolf in par. 8?5. What was his first surprise on approaching the village? How important is the portrait

    of King George III? What did Rip think had happened? How did Rip Van Winklesfamily change over the years?

    6. What is the narrators point of view? How does he treat his characters?7. Compare W. Bradford and W. Irving according to theirstyle of writing. How would you

    define the authors purpose for both of them?8. Single out all the plot phases. Which one is most informative? Amusing? Descriptive?9. How do you imagine the speaker? To what degree is his presence felt in the narrative?10. Order the Events from the story:

    a) Rip Van Winkles daughter recognizes him.

    b) In despair Rip goes squirrel hunting in the mountains.c) Rip sees a strange looking man with a barrel.d) Rip helps to wait on the party of ninepins players.e) He tastes the liquor in the flagon.f) On the way back to the village Rip became aware of his foot-long beard.g) Rip Van Winkle is reunited with his children and community.h) He falls asleep.i) With difficulty Rip finds his house.

    WRITING WORKSHOP

    z Make use of available resources to write a short essay on what social life was like inthe American Colonies in the 18th century.

    z Write a personal letter, as if you were Rip, telling about this unusual experience.

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    James Fenimore Cooper

    z Recall yourimpressions ofreading Cooperbefore. What

    strength does hepossess as a writer?

    Few men exhibit greater diversity, or, if we may

    so express it, greater antithesis of character than the

    native warrior of North America. In war, he is daring,

    boastful, cunning, ruthless, self-denying, and self-

    devoted; in peace, just, generous, hospitable, revengeful,

    superstitious, modest, and commonly chaste.

    James Fenimore Cooper

    JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

    An American novelist, historian, and social critic, Cooper is mostfamous for the Leather-Stocking Tales, of which the best known isThe Last of the Mohicans. Modern readers are fascinated with hisdramatizations of the long-lasting American conflicts betweennature and law, order and change, wilderness and civilization;

    all of these are best revealed at the American frontier.James Fenimore Cooper (Sept. 15, 1789, Burlington, NewJersey Sept. 14, 1851, Cooperstown, New York), the son ofQuakers Judge William Cooper and Elizabeth Fenimore Cooper,was about a year old when the Coopers moved to the frontier village of Cooperstown,founded by Judge Cooper. James delighted in the freedom of wealth and wilderness, andso marked was this effect that later he was expelled from Yale University for frivolity andpranks. As a common seaman he was then sent to Europe to prepare for a naval career.

    On his return in 1808, Cooper entered into the Navy. Three years later he marriedSusan Augusta De Lancey from a powerful New York Tory family, and shortly thereafter,due to a large inheritance from his father, he quit the naval career.

    His first novel Precaution (1820), examining English high society, appeared because of abet with his wife that he could write a better book, than those in circulation. Though the workwas a failure, Cooper had found his vocation, and his next novel, The Spy (1821), in whichhe created Harvey Birch, a humble spy for the American revolutionaries, was highly rated.

    Coopers next work, The Pioneers (1823), promoted his reputation, both at home andabroad, and started his Leather-Stocking series, which have becomeclassics of American literature. They tellof the adventures of the Americanforester-frontiersman Natty Bumppo(also cal led Leather-Stocking &Hawkeye) and his Indian companion

    Chingachgook. The story starts with thelast-published work in the series TheDeerslayer(1841), which shows youngBumppo in the Lake Otsego region. TheLast of the Mohicans follows Nattysheroic deeds against the Huron Indiansin the Lake Champlain region. ThePathfinder (1840) tells of Bumppos

    Native Americans and white merchants exchange the most precious commodity, beaver furs.

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    adventures in the French and Indian War, and his love; The Pioneers portrays Natty andChingachgook as old men; and The Prairie (1827) pictures Bumppos last days, as a trapperon the Great Plains, where he was driven by the destruction of the forests in the East.

    Cooper has yet another literary asset he created the first sea novel, The Pilot(1824),filled, like the forest tales, with rapid action and strongly contrasted characters.

    Critics have often been too sharp toward Coopers literary faults, especially his careless

    and pompous language, though nowadays they are beginning to discover the complexinternal designs that made Coopers work admired by such writers as Goethe, Balzac andConrad for his inventiveness and pioneering use of American materials.

    The Pioneersfrom Chapter XXII

    For a week, the dark covering of the Otsego was left to the undisturbed possession of

    two eagles, who alighted on the centre of its field, and sat proudly eyeing the extent of

    their undisputed territory. During the presence of these monarchs of the air, the flocks of

    migrating birds avoided crossing the plain of ice, by turning into the hills, and apparently

    seeking the protection of the forests, while the white and bald heads of the tenants of the

    lake were turned upward, with a look of majestic contempt, as if penetrating to the veryheavens with the acuteness of their vision. []

    At each step the power of the winds and the waves increased, until, after a struggle of a few

    hours, the turbulent little billows succeeded in setting the whole field in an undulating motion,

    when it was driven beyond the reach of the eye, with a rapidity, that was as magical as the

    change produced in the scene by this expulsion of the lingering remnant of winter. Just as the

    last sheet of agitated ice was disappearing in the distance, the eagles rose over the border of

    crystals, and soared with a wide sweep far above the clouds, while the waves tossed their little

    caps of snow into the air, as if rioting in their release from a thraldom of five months duration.

    The following morning Elizabeth 1 was awakened by the exhilarating sounds of the

    martins, who were quarrelling and chattering around the little boxes which were suspended

    above her windows, and the cries of Richard,2 who was calling, in tones as animating as

    the signs of the season itself.

    Awake! awake! my lady fair! the gulls are hovering over the lake already, and the heavens

    are alive with the pigeons. You may look an hour before you can find a hole, through which,

    to get a peep at the sun. Awake! awake! lazy ones! Benjamin 3 is overhauling the ammunition,

    and we only wait for our breakfasts, and away for the mountains and pigeon-shooting.

    There was no resisting this animated appeal, and in a few minutes Miss Temple and her

    friend descended to the parlour. The doors of the hall were thrown open, and the mild,

    balmy air of a clear spring morning was ventilating the apartment, where the vigilance of

    the ex-steward had been so long maintaining an artificial heat, with such unremitted

    diligence. All of the gentlemen, we do not include Monsieur Le Quoi,4

    were impatientlywaiting their mornings repast, each being equipt in the garb of a sportsman. Mr. Jones

    made many visits to the southern door, and would cry.1 Elizabeth Temple, daughter of Judge Marmaduke Temple, the founder of Templeton and its chief landowner; at theoutset of the story she returns from four years at school.

    2 Richard (Dickon) Jones, the sheriff, a cousin of Judge Temple; he superintends all the minor concerns of Templesbusiness.

    3 Benjamin Penguillan (called Ben Pump), former sailor, major-domo or steward under Jones. One of his chargesat the Templeton house is to keep the stove in the parlor hot in winter.

    4 Once a West Indian planter, now a refugee because of the French Revolution.

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    See, cousin Bess! see, duke!1 the pigeon-roosts of the south have

    broken up! They are growing more thick every instant. Here is a flock

    that the eye cannot see the end of. There is food enough in it to keep

    the army of Xerxes 2 for a month, and feathers enough to make beds

    for the whole county. Xerxes, Mr. Edwards,3 was a Grecian king, who

    no, he was a Turk, or a Persian, who wanted to conquer Greece,

    just the same as these rascals will overrun our wheat-fields, whenthey come back in the fall. Away! away! Bess; I long to pepper

    them from the mountain. [XX]

    Amongst the sportsmen was to be seen the tall, gaunt form of

    Leather-stocking, who was walking over the field, with his rifle

    hanging on his arm, his dogs following close at his heels, now scenting

    the dead or wounded birds, that were beginning to tumble from the

    flocks, and then crouching under the legs of their master, as if they

    participated in his feelings, at this wasteful and unsportsmanlike

    execution.

    Leather-stocking was a silent, but uneasy spectator of all theseproceedings, but was able to keep his sentiments to himself until he

    saw the introduction of the swivel into the sports.

    This comes of settling a country, he said here have I known

    the pigeons to fly for forty long years, and, till you made your

    clearings, there was nobody to scare or to hurt them. I loved to see

    them come into the woods, for they were company to a body; hurting

    nothing; being, as it was, as harmless as a garter-snake. But now it

    gives me sore thoughts when I hear the frighty things whizzing through

    the air, for I know its only a motion to bring out all the brats in the

    village at them. Well! the Lord wont see the waste of his creatorsfor nothing, and right will be done to the pigeons, as well as others,

    by-and-by. Theres Mr. Oliver, as bad as the rest of them, firing

    into the flocks as if he was shooting down nothing but the Mingo 4

    warriors.

    Among the sportsmen was Billy Kirby, 5 who, armed with an old

    musket, was loading, and, without even looking into the air, was firing,

    and shouting as his victims fell even on his own person. He heard the speech of Natty,

    and took upon himself to reply.

    Whats that, old Leather-stocking! he cried; grumbling at the loss of a few pigeons!

    If you had to sow your wheat twice, and three times, as I have done, you wouldnt be so

    massyfully feelingd toards the divils. Hurrah, boys! scatter the feathers. This is better

    than shooting at a turkeys head and neck, old fellow. 6

    Frontiersmenwore loose-fitting, thigh-lenght huntingshirts madefrom deerskinor homemadecloth without

    buttons andbelted or tiedat the waist.They also woredeerskintrousers.

    Most pioneerwomen woresmock-likedresses andpetticoats overtheir skirts.Woolen orcotton bonnetsprotected theirfaces.

    1 short for Marmaduke, the judge2 Xerxes the Great (519-465 b.c.) was king of Persia (486-465 b.c.).3 Oliver Edwards, a mysterious young stranger.4 In the Leather-stocking novels set in New York, the Mingos (Iroquois) are made out to be the bad Indians whilethe Delawares are the good Indians.

    5 a wood-chopper6 In an earlier chapter Natty Bumppo had beaten Kirby in a turkey-shooting contest.

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    Its better for you, maybe, Billy Kirby, returned the indignant old hunter, and all

    them as dont know how to put a ball down a rifle-barrel, or how to bring it up agin with

    a true aim; but its wicked to be shooting into flocks in this wastey manner; and none do

    it, who know how to knock over a single bird. If a body has a craving for pigeons flesh,

    why! its made the same as all other creaters, for mans eating, but not to kill twenty and

    eat one. When I want such a thing, I go into the woods till I find one to my liking, and

    then I shoot him off the branches without touching a feather of another, though theremight be a hundred on the same tree. But you couldnt do such a thing, Billy Kirby

    you couldnt do it if you tried.

    Whats that you say, you old, dried cornstalk! you sapless stub! cried the wood-chopper.

    Youve grown mighty boasting, since you killed the turkey; but if youre for a single

    shot, here goes at that bird which comes on by himself.

    The fire from the distant part of the field had driven a single pigeon below the flock

    to which it had belonged, and, frightened with the constant reports of the muskets, it was

    approaching the spot where the disputants stood, darting first from one side, and then to

    the other, cutting the air with the swiftness of lightning, and making a noise with its wings,

    not unlike the rushing of a bullet. Unfortunately for the wood-chopper, notwithstandinghis vaunt, he did not see his bird until it was too late for him to fire as it approached, and

    he pulled his trigger at the unlucky moment when it was darting immediately over his

    head. The bird continued its course with incredible velocity.1823 (22)

    Expanding Your Knowledge

    PERSONAL RESPONSE

    COOPERS LIFE1. What are Coopers literary distinctions? Why are his heroes so popular?2. What was the reason for his public estrangement?

    3. What are his literary innovations?THE PIONEERS

    1. Cooper provides us with a rich description of the setting. What were the time andplace of the event?

    2. Why is Mr. Jones so urging the company? What does the choice of weapons tell of thevillagers?

    3. How different is Natty Bumppo from the rest of the shooters?4. How different is Nattys speech from that of the wood-choppers? By what means does

    Cooper achieve this contrast?5. What can be conclued about Natty Bumpoos attitude toward Nature?6. How would you characterize Coopers diction?

    7. Choose the right word for each of the eight gaps out of the given nine: noised,commenced, flocks, ringing, woods, pointed, mounted, extinct, shot.

    a) Large ... of wild geese were seen passing over the country.b) In a few moments the attack ... .c) The miniature cannon had been released from the rest, and ... on little wheels.d) On the morning of the Fourth of July, it would be heard, with its echoes ... among

    the hills, and telling forth its sounds, for thirteen times.e) The gun was ... on high.

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    f) The wonderful exploit of Leather-Stocking was ... through the field with great rapidity.g) Wasnt the ... made for the beasts and birds to harbour in?h) The passenger pigeons are ..., the last known specimen dying in 1914 at the Cincinnati

    Zoological Garden.

    WRITING WORKSHOP

    z Think of an ending to this episode. Go through the whole extract again, paying attention

    to figures of speech, sentence structure, punctuation, etc., and write it down as if itwere done by Cooper. Then compare it with the original of The Pioneers.

    z Invent a scene from Cooper s childhood and shape it in a story, adding more characters,description, dialogue, and, of course, some pranks on James behalf.

    z Recall the authorswho found inspirationin Nature. What aretheir works like?

    It is easy in the world to live after the worlds

    opinion; it is easy in solitude after ones own; but the

    great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps

    with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

    Ralph Waldo Emerson

    RALPH WALDO EMERSON

    Ralph WaldoEmerson

    Emerson is often quoted as a defender of the inner divine powers of anindividual. This dominant thought penetrates his every major work such asSelf-Reliance, where he called upon his countrymen to trust themselves,to accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the societyof your contemporaries, the connection of events. He also maintained thatmans mind and spirit are like Gods; and by seeing through the workingsof Nature, of which everyone is a part, we can discover our own selves.

    A poet, essayist, lecturer, and public speaker, Ralph Waldo Emerson(May 25, 1803, Boston April 27, 1882, Concord, Massachusetts) graduated from HarvardCollege as an ordinary student, but at an early age he delighted in putting down his thoughtsand famous quotations in his diary, which grew to the saving bank for his later writing.He taught at school, tried his pen in fiction and verse, read up on theology and enteredHarvard Divinity School.

    Emerson often traveled to the Southfor his health and, as junior pastor,preached in the Boston area. He marrieda young woman, Ellen Tucker, just afterreceiving his appointment as pastor of

    the Second Church of Boston, but theirhappiness was cut short by her death in1831. The next year Emerson left thepulpit and traveled extensively in Europe.

    Back in America, he launched acareer of a public speaker, and after asecond marriage he moved to the rusticConcord. The couples own houseEmersons journal

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    became a welcoming place for writers and conversationalists such as William Channings,Louisa Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Thoreau and others. This prominent group made Concorda kind of the Athens of America.

    In 1836, Emersons first book Nature saw print, setting forth the major guidelines forTranscendentalism. In 1841, Emerson produced some of his best writings, The Over-Soul,Compensation and Self-Reliance, which contain the finest aphorisms to be found in

    American literature, e.g. To be great is to be misunderstood, Great men are they whosee that spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world, Adoptthe pace of nature: her secret is patience, Theres no road that has not a star aboveit. These three masterpieces, published collectively as Essays, firmly established his literaryreputation. His elaborate style and masterly sentences are referred to as a treasure troveof a perfect union of language and thought.

    NatureTo go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.

    I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would

    be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds will

    separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was madetransparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence

    of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear

    one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many

    generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night

    come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

    The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are

    inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to

    their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort

    her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became

    a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of

    his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood. []

    To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least

    they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines

    into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward

    senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into

    the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth becomes part of his daily food. In

    the presence of nature a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature

    says, he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me.

    Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight; for

    every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless

    noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourningpiece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow

    puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of

    special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In

    the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever

    of life is always a child. In the woods is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a

    decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he

    should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I

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    On July 4, 1837, a monumentwas unveiled in Concord,Massachusetts. There, in 1775,the American Minutemen hadfought against the British inone of the first battles of theRevolutionary War.

    feel that nothing can befall me in life, no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes),

    which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air

    and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball;

    I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or

    parcel of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers,

    to be acquaintances, master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of

    uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connatethan in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the

    horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.

    1836 (x)

    Hymn Sung at the Completion

    of the Concord Monument,

    April 19, 1836By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

    Their flag to Aprils breeze unfurled,

    Here once the embattled farmers stood,4 And fired the shot heard round the world.

    The foe long since in silence slept;

    Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;

    And Time the ruined bridge has swept

    8 Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

    On this green bank, by this soft stream,

    We set to-day a votive stone;

    That memory may their deed redeem,

    12 When, like our sires, our sons are gone.Spirit, that made those heroes dare

    To die, or leave their children free,

    Bid Time and Nature gently spare

    16 The shaft we raise to them and thee.1836 (26)

    Expanding Your Knowledge

    PERSONAL RESPONSE

    EMERSONS LIFE1. How was education important in the Emersons tradition?

    2. Have you ever kept your own saving bank? What thoughts could be trusted to it?What thoughts could Emerson have put in his diary?

    NATURE1. Why do people usually look at the stars they wish to be alone? How would people

    respond if the stars appeared only once in a while? What does this suggest abouthuman nature?

    2. In Emersons view, how do grown-ups and children differ according to how they viewnature? What explanation does Emerson suggest for this difference?

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    HenryWadsworthLongfellow

    3. What, do you think, is the difference between the meanings a writer and a scientist findin nature?

    4. Try to define the style of this essay.HYMN

    1. What events are referred to in the Hymn? What purpose will the monument serve?2. What does the poet ask in the last lines? Who is praised in this poem?

    3. Emerson uses a figure of speech called metonymy such as shot(line 4). Identify otherexamples where one word represents a related notion, and state their role in the poem.4. What tone does the repetition ofrsound create in the first line? Identify more examples

    of consonance.

    WRITING WORKSHOP

    z If Emerson were to travel through your own countryside, what could he write of Naturethere? Write an informal essay.

    z If Emerson should have delivered a speech instead of Hymn, what might it have beenlike? Write a short speech for this or any other memorable occasion.

    z What American mythical heroes created by Longfellowdo you know?

    z Do you think being a poet was a reputableoccupation in the mid-19th century?

    z While reading, fit the subtitles back into the biography Years at Home, The First Profession,From Bowdoin to Harvard, Within a

    Family, Later Years.

    We can make

    our lives sublime,

    And, departing,

    leave behind us

    Footprints on the sand

    of time.

    Henry Wadsworth

    Longfellow

    HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

    Few writers have understood people better than Longfellow did or havegiven them so much pleasure they could take to their hearts. Poem afterpoem strengthen his popularity both in the United States and in Europe.Longfellow had an exceptional ability the power of mythmaking, of creatingfigures that would forever become a part of American fiction.

    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807, Portland March24, 1882, Cambridge, Massachusetts) grew up in a cultivated atmosphere, where booksadded scholarliness to the picturesque countryside of Maine. While in the country, hethirstily listened to live accounts of Grandfather Wadsworth about the Indian warfarechieftains and their.

    As a student, Longfellow led a quiet life, and by his senior year had published numerousessays and poems in the American Monthly Magazine and the United States LiteraryGazette.

    On graduating from Bowdoin in 1825, Longfellow wrote his father, I most eagerly aspireafter future eminence in literature. ... Surely there never was a better opportunity offeredfor the exertion of literary talent in our own country than is now offered. A literary life,his father objected, to one who has the means of support, must be very pleasant. Butthere is not enough wealth in this country to afford sufficient encouragement and patronage

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    to merely literary men. The elder Longfellow wanted his son to study law, but when anoffer of a professorship of modern languages came from Bowdoin, provided Henry wouldstudy for a time abroad, his father agreed.

    Longfellow spent the years 1826-1829 traveling in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany,which laid the foundation for his mastery not only of the languages and literatures ofthose countries, but also of Swedish, Finnish, Dutch and Portuguese, as well as the

    classical languages, Old English and Provenal.Longfellow held his professorship at Bowdoin from 1829 till 1835; in 1831, he marriedthe beautiful and frail Mary Potter of Portland. Thoughtful efforts to secure a better academicposition, linked with his success as a teacher at Bowdoin, finally culminated in hisappointment as professor of modern languages at Harvard in 1835, and again he left fora period of further study abroad, concentrating on German and the Scandinavian languages.His trip, however, was heavily saddened by Marys sudden death. He stayed on in Europe,and the winter in Heidelberg brought him into contact with the sentimentality of romanticGerman literature, whose mood appealed both to his nature and to his loss.

    In 1836, Longfellow began teaching at Harvard. He was a popular figure on campus,and dressing stylishly, with a sense of humor, was well liked by his students. His own

    writings and his perfect knowledge of foreign literatures earned him the friendship ofNathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Sumner the U.S. statesman, OliverWendell Holmes the U.S. poet, novelist, essayist, and physician, and James RussellLowell the U.S. poet, essayist, and diplomat, who made Cambridge and Boston soremarkable.

    The practice of translation polished Longfellows verse technique beyond that of anyAmerican contemporary. His editing ofThe Poets and Poetry of Europe (1845), an anthologythat included many of his own translations, was an important milestone in Americanliterature, acquainting Americans with foreign verse forms.

    Longfellow resigned from Harvard to devote himself solely to writing and published severalworks in the next few years, notably The Courtship of Miles Standish,and Other Poems

    (1858) and The Song of Hiawatha (1855). The latter is especially distinguished for itstrochaic meter, which Longfellow adapted from the Finnish epic Kalevala.Longfellows six children were born in Craigie House, and he shared with his readers

    his love for them in the charming domestic idyll ofChildrens Hour (1860). But he wasntsafe from another tragedy.

    One day, Fanny, his second wife, was sitting at her writing desk, cutting off pieces oftheir daughters hair to be sent to their aunts. Setting each curl into an envelope, shesealed it with a drop of wax from a lighted candle.

    It was a hot summer day, and Mrs. Longfellow was wearing a light dress. Suddenly thecandle flame caught a corner of her sleeve, and the flames fanned out toward her face.Henry Longfellow heard her screaming and rushed to her. In panic, covered with flames,Fanny dashed toward him. He seized a rug and wrapped it around her as she fainted.

    By the next morning she died. Henry Longfellow mourned her deeply; and the burns onhis own face were so bad that he had to grow a beard, being unable to shave.

    At the time of his wifes death, Longfellow was at work on Tales of a Wayside Inn(1863), a collection of stories in verse, and he managed to finish it after the tragedy. Thefirst poem, Paul Reveres Ride, became a national favorite. Written in anapestic tetrametermeant to suggest the galloping of a horse, this ballad portrays a hero of the AmericanRevolution and his famous midnight ride to warn the Americans about the British attackon Concord.

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    PAUL REVERES RIDE

    from Tales of a Wayside InnListen, my children, and you shall hear

    Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere [...]

    He said to his friend, If the British march

    By land or sea from the town tonight,Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

    Of the North Church tower as a signal light

    One, if by land, and two, if by sea;

    And I on the opposite shore will be,

    Ready to ride and spread the alarm

    Through every Middlesex village and farm

    For the country folk to be up and to arm.

    Then he said, Good night! and with muffled oar

    Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore

    Just as the moon rose over the bay,Where swinging wide at her moorings lay

    The Somerset, British man-of-war,

    A phantom ship, with each mast and spar

    Across the moon like a prison bar,

    And a huge black hulk that was magnified

    By its own reflection in the tide.

    Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street

    Wanders and watches with eager ears,

    Till in the silence around him he hears

    The muster of men at the barrack door,The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,

    And the measured tread of the grenadiers

    Marching down to their boats on the shore.

    Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,

    By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,

    To the belfry chamber overhead,

    And startled the pigeons from their perch [...]

    Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,

    Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride

    On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.And lo! as he looks, on the belfrys height

    A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

    He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,

    But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight

    A second lamp in the belfry burns!

    A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

    A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

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    And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark

    Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:

    That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light

    The fate of a nation was riding that night,

    And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight

    Kindled the land into flame with its heat []

    You know the rest. In the books you have read

    How the British regulars fired and fled;

    How the farmers gave them ball for ball

    From behind each fence and farmyard wall,

    Chasing the redcoats down the lane,

    Then crossing the fields to emerge again

    Under the trees at the turn of the road,

    And only pausing to fire and load.

    So through the night rode Paul Revere,

    And so through the night went his cry of alarmTo every Middlesex village and farm

    A cry of defiance and not of fear,

    A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

    And a word that shall echo forevermore!

    For, borne on the night wind of the past,

    Through all our history, to the last,

    In the hour of darkness and peril and need

    The people will waken and listen to hear

    The hurrying hoofbeats of that steed

    And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

    1863 (27)

    Expanding Your Knowledge

    PERSONAL RESPONSE

    LONGFELLOWS LIFE1. Why did Longfellow travel to Europe? What was he particularly talented in?2. Who did he come in touch with while teaching at Harvard?3. Draw a chronological chart and retell Longfellows biography according to it.

    PAUL REVERES RIDE1. Which way were the British soldiers coming as Paul Reveres urgent message warned

    people? What place names help us see that the events were at the heart of the American

    Revolution?2. Find examples ofalliteration. Read them out loud, carefully pronouncing the first sounds

    of the words. How instrumental is it in the general design of the poem? How does theauthor create a turbulent atmosphere?

    3. Find examples of hyperbole. How important is it?4. Longfellow masterfully imitates the gallop of the horse by auditory means. Starting from

    the line And lo! as he looks on the belfrys height find examples of onomatopoeia.What role does it fulfil here?

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    EdgarAllan Poe

    z What works by Poe are you familiarwith?

    z Bring to memory any dark episodesfrom either his life or works.

    The pure Imagination chooses, from

    eitherBeauty orDeformity , only the most

    combinable things hitherto uncombined.

    Edgar Allan Poe

    EDGAR ALLAN POE

    The forerunner of psychological writing, detective stories and science fiction,Poes heritage appears astonishingly modern to the contemporary reader.Misunderstood by popular American writers of his time, Poe was a majorinfluence in Europe, particularly among the French Symbolist poets, includingBaudelaire, Rimbaud, and Mallarm . He also added to the dark tradition inAmerican literature maintained by Hawthorne, Bierce, and Faulkner.

    When his actor-parents died, Edgar Allan Poe (Jan. 19, 1809, Boston Oct. 7, 1849, Baltimore, Maryland) was taken without formal adoption into the householdof John Allan, a prosperous but childless tobacco merchant.

    As he grew older, Poe must have felt his uncertain position in a wealthy aristocraticfamily. Allan quarreled with Poe after the latter was dismissed from the University of Virginia,where he had done well academically, but had got into debts which Mr. Allan refused topay. Shortly afterwards, Allan secured for him an appointment to the United States MilitaryAcademy at West Point, from which he was expelled in 1831. Allan now turned his backon Poe.

    Poe had already published Tamerlane and Other Poems in 1827 and a better volumecalled simply Poems in 1831. He was living in Baltimore with his fathers widowed andpoverty-stricken sister, Mrs. Maria Clemm, when he won a prize of $50 for his MS Foundin a Bottle in a Baltimore Saturday Visitorshort-story contest. In due course, Poe spentmost of his remaining years as a staff member of various magazines from which he usuallyeither soon retired or was discharged as the result of unruly behavior. He was becomingincreasingly known as the writer of sharp critical essays, now recognized as the mostoriginal that had appeared in the United States; of poems, marked by an unforgettablerhythm; and of stories, of which the best were mostly fantastic, mysterious, and morbid.

    Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, in 1836. Her pale beauty, weakhealth, and childlike character seemed to embody the ideal which almost from the beginninghad been celebrated in his poems and stories. Her death in 1847 of a wasting diseaseseems to have caused Poes total collapse. He was found ill in a Baltimore tavern inOctober 1849, and died in a hospital.

    5. Paul Reveres Ride is an example of narrative poetry. What features is this genrecharacterized by?

    WRITING WORKSHOP

    z Longfellow is a master of creating a well-organized rhythm. There are many naturalrhythms in the world around, e. g. the sunrise and sunset, the changing of the seasons,etc. Choose some rhythm and try to express it through a short poem.

    z By removing stylistic ornamentation, reduce Paul Reveres Ride to a prose story. Whichwords from the original would you keep? Can poetry roughly be defined by what wasleft out?

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    Poes deep understanding of human psychology was most vital in his establishing oneof the popular literary genres the detective story. C. Auguste Dupin, the predecessorof a long line of literary sleuths developed by Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy Sayers, andAgatha Christie, embodies the idealized version of Poe that life had never granted him.Masterful in his ingenious inductive and deductive powers, Poes protagonist is a faultlessthinking machine able to resolve the most complex mysteries such as in the trilogy The

    Murders in Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Purloined Letter.Poes imagination knew no limits. He foreshadows Jules Verne and the space explorationsof the 20th century in tales such as The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall, wherehe describes a balloon voyage to the moon. In The Facts in the Case of M. ValdemarandA Tale of the Ragged Mountains, he digs into the still undefined field of mesmerism. Poetranscends yet another barrier that of time in the humorous Some Words with aMummy. Poe is particularly unique as the acknowledged discoverer of those dark cornersof the human mind where unearthly beauty is merged with the subconscious dreadfulnightmares.

    MorellaItself, by itself, solely, one everlasting, and single.

    Plato. Sympos

    With a feeling of deep yet most singular affection I regarded my friend Morella. Thrown

    by accident into her society many years ago, my soul from our first meeting, burned with fires

    it had never before known; but the fires were not of Eros, and bitter and tormenting to my

    spirit was the gradual conviction that I could in no manner define their unusual meaning or

    regulate their vague intensity. Yet we met; and fate bound us together at the altar, and I never

    spoke of passion nor thought of love. She, however, shunned society, and, attaching herself to

    me alone rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder; it is a happiness to dream.

    Morellas erudition was profound. As I hope to live, her talents were of no common

    order her powers of mind were gigantic. I felt this, and, in many matters, became her

    pupil. I soon, however, found that, perhaps on account of her Presburg education, sheplaced before me a number of those mystical writings which are usually considered the

    mere dross of the early German literature.

    In all this, if I err not, my reason had little to do. My convictions, or I forget myself,

    were in no manner acted upon by the ideal, nor was any tincture of the mysticism which

    I read to be discovered, unless I am greatly mistaken, either in my

    deeds or in my thoughts. Persuaded of this, I abandoned myself

    implicitly to the guidance of my wife, and entered with an

    unflinching heart into the intricacies of her studies. And then

    then, when poring over forbidden pages, I felt a forbidden

    spirit enkindling within me would Morella place her cold

    hand upon my own, and rake up from the ashes of a dead

    philosophy some low, singular words, whose strange meaning

    burned themselves in upon my memory. And then, hour after

    hour, would I linger by her side, and dwell upon the music

    of her voice, until at length its melody was tainted with terror,

    and there fell a shadow upon my soul, and I grew pale, and

    shuddered inwardly at those too unearthly tones. []

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    But, indeed, the time had now arrived when the mystery of my wifes manner oppressed

    me as a spell. I could no longer bear the touch of her wan fingers, nor the low tone of

    her musical language, nor the lustre of her melancholy eyes. And she knew all this, but

    did not upbraid; she seemed conscious of my weakness or my folly, and, smiling, called

    it fate. Yet was she woman, and pined away daily. In time the crimson spot settled steadily

    upon the cheek, and the blue veins upon the pale forehead became prominent; and one

    instant my nature melted into pity, but, in next I met the glance of her meaning eyes, andthen my soul sickened and became giddy with the giddiness of one who gazes downward

    into some dreary and unfathomable abyss.

    Shall I then say that I longed with an earnest and consuming desire for the moment of

    Morellas decease? I did; but the fragile spirit clung to its tenement of clay for many days,

    for many weeks and irksome months, until my tortured nerves obtained the mastery over

    my mind, and I grew furious through delay, and, with the heart of a fiend, cursed the days

    and the hours and the bitter moments, which seemed to lengthen and lengthen as her gentle

    life declined, like shadows in the dying of the day.

    But one autumnal evening, when the winds lay still in heaven, Morella called me to her

    bedside. There was a dim mist over all the earth, and a warm glow upon the waters, andamid the rich October leaves of the forest, a rainbow from the firmament had surely fallen.

    It is a day of days, she said, as I approached; a day of all days either to live or die.

    It is a fair day for the sons of earth and life ah, more fair for the daughters of heaven

    and death!

    I kissed her forehead, and she continued:

    I am dying, yet shall I live.

    Morella!

    The days have never been when thou couldst love me but her whom in life thou

    didst abhor, in death thou shalt adore.

    Morella! I cried, Morella! how knowest thou this? But she turned away her faceupon the pillow and a slight tremor coming over her limbs, she thus died, and I heard her

    voice no more.

    Yet, as she had foretold, her child, to which in dying she had given birth, which breathed

    not until the mother breathed no more, her child, a daughter, lived. And she grew strangely

    in stature and intellect, and was the perfect resemblance of her who had departed, and I

    loved her with a love more fervent than I had believed it possible to feel for any denizen

    of earth. [...]

    And as years rolled away, and I gazed day after day upon her holy, and mild, and eloquent

    face, and poured over her maturing form, day after day did I discover new points of

    resemblance in the child to her mother, the melancholy and the dead. And, hourly, grew

    darker these shadows of similitude, and more full, and more definite, and more perplexing,

    and more hideously terrible in their aspect. For that her smile was like her mothers I

    could bear; but then I shuddered at its too perfect identity that her eyes were like

    Morellas I could endure; but then they too often looked down into the depths of my soul

    with Morellas own intense and bewildering meaning.

    Thus passed away two lustra of her life, and as yet my daughter remained nameless

    upon the earth. My child, and my love, were the designations usually prompted by a

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    fathers affection, and the rigid seclusion of her days precluded all other intercourse.

    Morellas name died with her at her death. Of the mother I had never spoken to the daughter;

    it was impossible to speak. Indeed, during the brief period of her existence, the latter

    had received no impressions from the outward world, save such as might have been afforded

    by the narrow limits of her privacy. But at length the ceremony of baptism presented to

    my mind, in its unnerved and agitated condition, a present deliverance from the terrors of

    my destiny. And at the baptismal font I hesitated for a name. What fiend spoke from therecesses of my soul, when amid those dim aisles, and in the silence of the night, I whispered

    within the ears of the holy man the syllables Morella? What more than fiend convulsed

    the features of my child, and overspread them with hues of death, as starting at that scarcely

    audible sound, she turned her glassy eyes from the earth to heaven, and falling prostrate

    on the black slabs of our ancestral vault, responded I am here!

    Distinct, coldly, calmly distinct, fell those few simple sounds within my ear, and thence

    like molten lead rolled hissingly into my brain. Years years may pass away, but the

    memory of that epoch never. Nor was I indeed ignorant of the flowers and the vine

    but the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed me night and day. And I kept no reckoning

    of time or place, and the stars of my fate faded from heaven, and therefore the earth grewdark, and its figures passed by me like flitting shadows, and among them all I beheld only

    Morella. The winds of the firmament breathed but one sound within my ears, and the

    ripples upon the sea murmured evermore Morella. But she died; and with my own

    hands I bore her to the tomb; and I laughed with a long and bitter laugh as I found no

    traces of the first in the channel where I laid the second Morella.

    1840 (29)

    THE BELLSI

    Hear the sledges with the bells-

    Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

    How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

    In the icy air of night!

    While the stars that oversprinkle

    All the heavens, seem to twinkle

    With a crystalline delight;

    Keeping time, time, time,

    In a sort of Runic rhyme,

    To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

    From the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells-

    From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

    II

    Hear the mellow wedding bells,

    Golden bells!

    What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

    Through the balmy air of night

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    How they ring out their delight!

    From the molten-golden notes,

    And an in tune,

    What a liquid ditty floats

    To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

    On the moon!

    Oh, from out the sounding cells,What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

    How it swells!

    How it dwells

    On the Future! how it tells

    Of the rapture that impels

    To the swinging and the ringing

    Of the bells, bells, bells,

    Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

    Bells, bells, bells-

    To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!III

    Hear the loud alarum bells-

    Brazen bells!

    What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!

    In the startled ear of night

    How they scream out their affright!

    Too much horrified to speak,

    They can only shriek, shriek,

    Out of tune,

    In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,

    Leaping higher, higher, higher,

    With a desperate desire,

    And a resolute endeavor,

    Nownow to sit or never,

    By the side of the pale-faced moon.

    Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

    What a tale their terror tells

    Of Despair!

    How they clang, and clash, and roar!

    What a horror they outpourOn the bosom of the palpitating air!

    Yet the ear it fully knows,

    By the twanging,

    And the clanging,

    How the danger ebbs and flows:

    Yet the ear distinctly tells,

    In the jangling,

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    As he knells, knells, knells,

    In a happy Runic rhyme,

    To the rolling of the bells-

    Of the bells, bells, bells:

    To the tolling of the bells,

    Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-

    Bells, bells, bells-To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

    1849 (XX)

    Expanding Your Knowledge

    PERSONAL RESPONSE

    POES LIFE1. What singles Poe out of the other literati? What could Virginia Clemm symbolize to

    him?2. How does Poes idea of pure imagination agree with your views about art?3. Find expressions that add to the dark image of Poe. Using a thesaurus try to substitute

    them with more neutral equivalents. What is the overall impact of such changes?MORELLA

    1. Poe used to say that in the story texture there should be no single word but only thosewhich add to the overall effect. Find proofs in this story.

    2. Characterize Morella. Do you see any vicious intent in her doings?3. In what state of mind could Poe have written the story? What could lead to the darkness

    in Poes subconsciousness?4. Why do you think Poe gives no place or time in the story? Define the plot phases in

    the story.5. What atmosphere is created here? What constitutes such mood?6. Find antithesis in the dialogue with Morella and comment on its hidden meaning and

    importance for the story.THE BELLS

    1. Find examples of assonance in the poem. What is their function?2. Perform scansion of the poem and identify its meter. How does it differ from the

    previously covered poems? What tone does it set up?3. Try to pick out examples of inversion in the poem. What does it help to emphasize?4. If you were to render it in prose, all the attractiveness of the poem would be lost. What

    factors, then, add up to the beauty of this poem?5. How does mood differ in each stanza. What could be the reason for metrical irregularity?6. Find examples of alliteration. What do they help to emphasize?

    WRITING WORKSHOP

    z You apply for a job at a film studio. One of the tasks is to write a screen version.Scriptwrite Morella, or any other of Poes story into a screenplay, with more fictionaldialogues and other inventions.

    z Make your own poetic translation ofThe Bells or any other of Poes verses. Try to makeit sound like the original, i.e. bring in as many auditory images as you can.

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    Harriet

    Beecher Stowe

    z What was womans role in thefamily and society in the 19th

    century?z How was woman educated?

    My soul ant yours, Masr! You havent

    bought it, ye cant buy it! Its been bought

    and paid for, by one that is able to keep it.

    Harriet Beecher Stowe

    HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

    Harriet Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811, Litchfield, Connecticut July1, 1896, Hartford, Connecticut) was initially involved in teaching under

    her authoritarian sister. Though this occupation took up a lot of time andeffort, she managed to turn her lifelong interest in writing into stories and

    publish them.In 1836, she married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a leading professor at

    Lane Theological Seminary, which was founded by Harriets father.After living eighteen years next to slaveholding communities acrossthe Ohio River, the Stowes returned to New England in 1850 when

    Stowes husband was offered a professorship at Bowdoin College,Maine. Outraged at the Fugitive Slave Act (1850), which allowed

    owners to capture runaway slaves in free Northern States, she started her major work,Uncle Toms Cabin. Later in life, she claimed that she was under the spell of a God-sent image of sufferings of a beaten slave, who, nonetheless, was forgiving histormentors.

    Owing to her overwhelming success, she traveled widely, met Abraham Lincoln andQueen Victoria, and lived among the rich and famous. Her seventieth birthday was anevent of the national importance.

    UNCLE TOMS CABIN;

    OR LIFE AMONG THE LOWLYChapter VII.

    The Mothers Struggle

    It is impossible to conceive of a human creature more wholly desolate and forlorn than

    Eliza, when she turned her footsteps from Uncle Toms cabin.

    Her husbands sufferings and dangers, the danger of her child, all blended in her mind

    with a confused and stunning sense of the risk she was running in leaving the only home

    she had ever known, and cutting loose from the protection of a friend whom she loved and

    revered. Then there was the parting from every familiar object, the place where she

    had grown up, the trees under which she had played, the groves where she had walked

    many an evening in happier days, by the side of her young husband, everything, as it

    lay in the clear frosty moonlight, seemed to speak reproachfully to her, and ask her whithercould she go from a home like that?

    But stronger than all was maternal love, wrought into a paroxysm of frenzy by the near

    approach of a fearful danger. Her boy was old enough to have walked by her side, and

    in an indifferent case she would only have led him by the hand; but now the bare thought

    of putting him out of her arms made her shudder, and she strained him to her bosom with

    a convulsive grasp as she went rapidly forward.

    The frosty ground creaked beneath her feet, and she trembled at the sound; every

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