American Literature

FROM THE EARLY TIMES TO NOW

Theme of inclusion Theme of exclusion Paradox The frontier Individualism : the American Hero The virgin land

American Literature

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

Declaration of Independance, 1776.

American Literature

1. Major Periods of American Literature

Pre-Colonial Periodca. 1620

Colonial Periodca. 1620 - 1800The American Renaissanceca. 1800 - 1865Realism and Naturalismca. 1865 - 1914Modernismca. 1914 - 1945Contemporary Literatureca. since 1945

Periods of American Literature

Settlement about 28,000 years ago (from Southern

Asia via South Sea islands) Another wave of migration about 14,000 years ago (via

the Bering Straight) 1492: -- 18 mio. people in North America; 5 mio. of

them in what is now the United States 300 cultural groups in North America, 200 languages

spoken no cultural/linguistic homogeneity, shifting alliances

and enmities

The Pre-Colonial Period ( - ca.1620)

1. The power of words 2. The significance of dreams 3. Personality (of all elements of creation) 4. Dualism 5. Father Sky and Mother Earth 6. The four world quarters 7. Syncretic religion 8. Hierarchy (spirit world - humans - animals - plants - physical geography - natural elements) 9. Goal of harmony 10. Anonymity (literary text is the cultural property of

the whole tribe)

Central Aspects of Native American Thought and Cultural Practice

I have made the sun!I have made the sun!Hurling it highIn the four directionsTo the east I threw itTo run its appointed course.I have made the moon!I have made the moon!Hurling it highIn the four directionsTo the east I threw itTo run its appointed course.

Pima Indians (Pre-Columbian)

Sample of Pre-Columbian American Literature:

“Song of Creation”

Pre-Colonial Period (– ~ 1620)

Charact-eristics

• oral literature: song-poems, tales, legends, tales, ritual drama; spoken texts accompanied by dance or performance;• texts passed on from one generation to the next forpurposes of historiography, education, celebration

CulturalContext

• literature as a communal text (audience response; no individual authorship);• assumption of harmony and correspondence in the universe

HistoricalContext

• much linguistic and cultural diversity;• rivalries and wars between different tribes

Authors andWorks

• songs, poems and tales recorded in the 19th and 20thcentury and translated into English (available innumerous anthologies)

The Colonial Period ( - ca. 1620)Charact-

eristics• religious and historical writing; sermons; journals and accountsof life in the New World (e.g. "captivity narratives");• political writing, especially in the 1770s;• autobiography (starting with Benjamin Franklin);• first American novels in the late 18th century (epistolary novel)

CulturalContext

• 17th century: Puritanism in New England; colonial inferioritycomplex toward England; contrast: popular culture and lack ofliteracy in the Southern colonies;• 18th century: birth of the "American Dream" ("from rags toriches"); search for a national identity; decline of Puritanism

HistoricalContext

• 1730s: "Great Awakening" (religious revival movement)• 1776: Declaration of Independence

Authors andWorks

• John Winthrop (sermon “A Model of Christian Charity”)• Ann Bradstreet (poetry)• Phillis Wheatley (first African-American poet)• Benjamin Franklin (autobiography, essays)• Royall Tyler, The Contrast (1790, first American play)• Charles Brockden Brown (early novel)

The American Renaissance (~ 1800 - 1865)

Charact-eristics

• influence of English romanticism, but search for truly American topics and settings;• celebration of American landscapes and values; short story and novel are most important; essay established as an American genre

CulturalContext

• struggle for cultural independence from Europe;• desire to define a national identity of the U.S. and to establish anational culture;• Transcendentalism: romantic philosophy and mode of writing thatvalues intuition as a guide to what lies underneath the surfaces

HistoricalContext

• massive immigration & diversification;• westward expansion / “Frontier”;• slavery, abolitionist movement;• 1861-65: Civil War

Authors andWorks

• Edgar Allan Poe (poetry, short stories);• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter;• Herman Melville, Moby Dick;• Walt Whitman (free verse, democratic, national poet);• Emily Dickinson (unconventional poetry)

Realism (~ 1865-1914)CulturalContext

South: devastation after the Civil War,• struggle with Southern heritage and race division;North: growing industrialization and urbanization;• mass immigration;• westward expansion (completed in the 1890s);• discussion of the position of African Americans• Women rightsIsolation vs Imperialismhttp://www.pbslearningmedia.org/asset/akh10_int_expansion/

HistoricalContext

1865 - 13th Amendment passes, permanently outlawing slavery1866 - Civil Rights Act of 18661866 - Ku Klux Klan founded 18701870 - 15th Amendment 1903- The 1903 Silent Film by Edwin Porterhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc7wWOmEGGY1908 - October. Henry Ford introduces the Model T. It sells for about  $8501914 - WWI

Authors andWorks

• Henry James (fiction; psychological realism);• Kate Chopin (woman-centered fiction);• Stephen Crane (naturalist fiction);• Samuel Clemens [Mark Twain], Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

From Richard Chase, The American Novel and Its Tradition “The faithful representation of reality”; Representation of middle-class life; events and social

conditions as they actually are, without idealization; Focus on the truthful treatment of the common, average,

everyday life; Selective presentation of reality with an emphasis on

verisimilitude, even at the expense of a well-made plot; Character is more important than action and plot; Complex ethical choices are often the subject; Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament

and motive;

Realism -Characteristics

From Richard Chase, The American Novel and Its Tradition They are in explicable relation to nature, to each other, to

their social class, to their own past; Class is important; the novel has traditionally served the

interests and aspirations of an insurgent middle class. (See Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel);

Events will usually be plausible; Diction is natural vernacular, not heightened or poetic; tone

may be comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact; Objectivity in presentation becomes increasingly important:

overt authorial comments or intrusions diminish as the century progresses., "the redemption of the social world lay with the individual" (75-76).

Realism -Characteristics

Characteristics: Characters and setting set apart from society; Static characters--no development shown Universe is mysterious; irrational; incomprehensible Good receive justice; nature can also punish or reward universals rather than learned truths Plot arranged around crisis moments; plot is important Plot demonstrates

romantic love honor and integrity idealism of self

Supernatural foreshadowing (dreams, visions)

Romanticism -Characteristics

Emphasis on psychological, optimistic tone, details, pragmatic,

practical, slow-moving plot Rounded, dynamic characters who serve purpose in plot Characters dictate plot; ending usually open. Plot=circumstance Empirically verifiable (world of science) Time marches inevitably on; small things build up. Climax is not a

crisis, but just one more unimportant fact. Realists--show us rather than tell us Representative people doing representative things Events make story plausible Insistence on experience of the commonplace Humans are in control of their own destiny and are superior to their

circumstances

Realism -Characteristics

Other Views of Realism "The basic axiom of the realistic view of morality was that there could

be no moralizing in the novel [ . . . ] The morality of the realists, then, was built upon what appears a paradox--morality with an abhorrence of moralizing. Their ethical beliefs called, first of all, for a rejection of scheme of moral behavior imposed, from without, upon the characters of fiction and their actions. Yet Howells always claimed for his works a deep moral purpose. What was it? It was based upon three propositions: that life, social life as lived in the world Howells knew, was valuable, and was permeated with morality; that its continued health depended upon the use of human reason to overcome the anarchic selfishness of human passions; that an objective portrayal of human life, by art, will illustrate the superior value of social, civilized man, of human reason over animal passion and primitive ignorance" (157). Everett Carter, Howells and the Age of Realism (Philadelphia and New York: Lippincott, 1954).

Realism -Characteristics

"Realism sets itself at work to consider characters and events

which are apparently the most ordinary and uninteresting, in order to extract from these their full value and true meaning. It would apprehend in all particulars the connection between the familiar and the extraordinary, and the seen and unseen of human nature. Beneath the deceptive cloak of outwardly uneventful days, it detects and endeavors to trace the outlines of the spirits that are hidden there; those measure the changes in their growth, to watch the symptoms of moral decay or regeneration, to fathom their histories of passionate or intellectual problems. In short, realism reveals. Where we thought nothing worth of notice, it shows everything to be rife with significance." -- George Parsons Lathrop, 'The Novel and its Future," Atlantic Monthly 34 (September 1874):313 24.

Realism -Characteristics

“Realism is nothing more and nothing less

than the truthful treatment of material.” --William Dean Howells, “Editor’s Study,” Harper's New Monthly Magazine (November 1889), p. 966.

"Realism, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm." --Ambrose Bierce The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Realism -Characteristics

Context and Controversy In its own time, realism was the subject of controversy;

debates over the suitability of realism as a mode of representation led to a critical exchange known as the realism war. (Click here for a brief overview.)

The realism of James and Twain was critically acclaimed in the twentieth century. Howellsian realism fell into disfavor, however, as part of early twentieth century rebellion against the "genteel tradition." For an account of these and other issues, see the realism bibliography and essays by Pizer, Michael Anesko, Richard Lehan, and Louis J. Budd, among others, in the Cambridge Guide to Realism and Naturalism.

Realism -Characteristics