a growing nation

American lit test on 3/19

Romanticism went on from ____ to ____

1800 to 1860

Romanticism valued

Feelings, intuition, idealism, and inductive reasoning as is placed faith in inner experience and the power of the imagination. It went looking for and wrote about unspoiled nature as a path to spirituality

Prominent authors of Romanticism

Washington Irving

Emily Dickinson

Edgar Allen Poe

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Transcendentalism (American Renaissance) went from ____ to ____

1840 to 1860

Transcendentalism included

• Everything in the world, including human beings, is a reflection of the Divine Soul

• People can use their intuition to behold God’s spirit revealed in nature or in their own souls

• Self-reliance and individualism must outweigh external authority and we shouldn’t conform to that which is around us

Prominent authors of transcendentalism

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Henry David Thoreau

Realism went from ____ to ____

1850 to 1900

Realism included

• Civil War times

• Feelings of disillusionment

• Common subjects included rapidly growing cities, factories replacing farmlands, poor factory workers, corrupt politicians.

• Authors wrote about everyday life and ordinary people as realistically as possible, less about plot and more about the characters

Prominent authors of realism

Ambrose Bierce

Kate Chopin

notable works of realism

spirituals -”swing low, sweet chariot”, “go down Moses”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“A Psalm of Life,” was written after Longfellow’s wife and unborn child died.

• Summary - The poem is meant to be an inspiration for Longfellow and others to overcome the misfortune of the past and to live in the present - do something with your life. Instead of being filled with grief and sorrow, live enthusiastically, take action, and leave your mark on the world.

• Theme – Life and hope, seize the day, live in the here and now.

Tide Rises, Tide Falls

Summary - tells the tale of a “traveler” who arrives at a shore, hurries to a nearby town, and never returns the way they came. The poem can be read as an extended metaphor for the reason behind human life and the mystery of death—something the poem presents as inevitable, and final (everyone dies – it’s one of the few guarantees in life)

• Life is short. The repetition of the ”the tide rises, the tide falls” expresses the poems theme because of the continuous motion of the sea continuously wiping away the past.

• The mood is sad and somber because it’s ultimately about death.

• The tide is a metaphor for the renewal of life as well as the loss of life

Ralph Waldo Emerson

He was the first major American literary and intellectual figure to widely explore, write seriously about, and seek to broaden the domestic audience for Asian and Middle Eastern works, giving many their first exposure to non-Western culture

from Nature

Nature expresses Emerson’s belief that each individual must develop a personal understanding of the universe. Emerson makes clear in the Introduction that men should break away from reliance on secondhand information, upon the wisdom of the past, upon inherited and institutionalized knowledge.

• Theme - lose yourself in nature! It is only by, in Emerson’s words, becoming a “transparent eyeball” in the forest that we can really understand anything at all.

• Main idea in the first part – we get excited by things in nature, like shining stars, they surround us, but it doesn’t mean we can reach out and touch them to get a better look. This is not only true of the stars, nature surrounds us everywhere, but it also seems distant and inaccessible.

Henry David Thoreau

He was good friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson and saw him as a mentor. After leaving Walden, Thoreau even lived in the Emerson house, taking care of his family while Emerson was in Europe building his writing career.

from Walden

Also known as Life in the Woods/from Walden was inspired from Thoreau’s own two-year adventure of living in a small cabin near Walden Pond on Emerson’s eleven acres.

• While inspired by his time, there were differences, Thoreau spent two-years in “solitude” while in Walden the narrator only spends one year. Walden discusses what Thoreau experiences as well as his thoughts on the meaning of life (the theme of the piece).

• Another theme is self-reliance, and simplicity over “Progress.”

• Thoreau set out to contemplate life and to find out man’s role in the world.

• Thoreau’s house when he first moves in is unfinished, without insulation or inside walls that would provide protection from New England’s harsh winters

from Civil-disobedience

Thoreau’s basic premise is that a higher law than civil law demands the obedience of the individual. Human law and government are subordinate. In cases where the two are at odds with one another, the individual must follow his conscience and, if necessary, disregard human law.

• The government must end its unjust actions to earn the right to collect taxes from its citizens. As long as the government commits unjust actions, he continued, conscientious individuals must choose whether to pay their taxes or to refuse to pay them and defy the government.

“Shiloh” by Herman Melville

a short, artistic, and haunting, recounting the battle’s death and mayhem the day after the fight. It is a type of poem called an elegy. An elegy is a mournful poem that laments the dead. The form of this poem makes it more meaningful in that it reinforces the idea that this is meant to grieve the dead but also show the complexity of death that comes along with both life and war.

what’s a requiem?

a service or mass to honor the souls of the dead

The significance of Shiloh’s setting

it was the site of one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Civil War

Tone of “Shiloh”

profoundly sorrow, and perhaps a touch of angry

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - Ambrose Bierce

• An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was written in 1890 about a Civil War civilian’s confrontation with death. It is about the thin line that separates life from death. After the war, Bierce worked as a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, and though An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is his most famous work, Bierce published quite a few stories about the Civil War. In all his works, he’s known for his cynical depiction of the war.

• Ambrose Bierce’s classic short story – in the tradition of American Realism of the late 1800s is a famous work of psychological fiction. It can be characterized as psychological fiction because it is a close study of a human’s emotions, reactions, and behaviors in a moment of extreme stress.

• Be able to explain what happened in the story as well as the twist and surprise ending.

• Takes place in Northern Alabama

• Told from 3rd person point of view

• Falls un the genre of realism and psychological fiction, although it does contain tragic elements.

character list of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Character list: Peyton Farquhar (confederate sympathizer), Farquhar’s wife, The Federal Scout, The Captain, The Lieutenant

A Pair of Silk Stockings - Kate Chopin

A short story written in 1896 and published in Vogue the following year.

• The story is about a married woman, Mrs. Sommers who comes into possession of fifteen dollars (approx. $540 today) and ends up treating herself to new clothes (silk stockings, boots, and gloves), magazines, a meal in a restaurant, and a theatre show.

• She had originally planned to spend the money on new clothes for her children and was excited by the thought of them looking smart in new clothes. However, it ended up turning into a day of pampering for herself.

theme of A Pair of Silk Stockings

Responsibility, escape, independence, freedom, identity, consumerism, and temptation. The desire to feel beautiful, and the desire to feel like you belong.

The only character in A Pair of Silk Stockings

Mrs. Sommers

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” “Go down Moses”

Spirituals were African American folk songs. They were created by communities versus an individual. These songs were sung throughout the south by slaves while they worked and during their occasional times of rest and prayer.

• The lyrics tend to use biblical imagery and follow a slow, deep melody. The lyrics express the desire for freedom, and they pay tribute and honor those who have helped slaves escape or those who have actually escaped and were free.

• With their strong use of biblical imagery, allusion, a literary device that refers to something in the past is very prevalent throughout spirituals. (Allusion is an indirect reference of a person, place, thing or idea of a historical, cultural, political or literary significance.)

• The musical structure developed from chants to work songs to spirituals and went on to evolve into blues, jazz, and rock&roll music. They are the basis for modern day