American Lit Spring 2025

Alan Seeger

“I Have a Rendezvous with Death”

E. E. Cummings

“I Carry Your Heart with Me” “pity this busy monster, manunkind”

Diction

how the use of particular language allow the poet to establish a particular tone and create a specific kind of mood in the mind of the reader

William Faulkner

“Barn Burning”, “The Hamlet”, “The Town”, “The Mansion”

The Harlem Renaissance 1920-30s

a golden age in African American culture, manifesting in literature, music, performance, and arts, blues and jazz became a worldwide sensation - Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Bessie & Mamie Smith

The New Negro

an anthology by Alain Locke featuring the early works of some of the most gifted Harlem Renaissance writers came to define a movement

New Negro Movement

term coined in the anthology; it represented a shift from the “Old Negro”, characterized by passivity and subservience, to a “New Negro” who embraced self-respect, racial pride, and cultural expression

Fenton Johnson

forerunner of Harlem Renaissance, “The Banjo Player”, “Tired”

mood

overall feeling of the poem; can be created by the tone or by the language choices of the poem

Tone

the “voice” that you imagine the poem is read in

Allusion

expression design to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; in literature it is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text

Imagery

figurative expressions sparking visual, auditory, or sensusal connections in the reader's mind, “The Garden by Moonlight” by Amy Lowell

Theme

underlying message, the big idea that the author is trying to convey

Langston Hughes

“I, Too”, “Mother to Son”

Georgia Douglas Johnson

pioneer in the Black theatre movement, “Blue-Eyed Black Boy”

Literary conflict

a struggle between two opposing forces, usually between the protagonist and an internal or external force, which drives the narrative forward

The Lost Generation

the group of men and women whose early adulthood was consumed by WW1, the term coined by Gertrude Stein, popularized by Ernest Hemingway

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

“The Side of Paradise”, '“The Beautiful and Damned”, “The Great Gatsby”, “Tender Is The Night”, “Winter Dreams”

The Jazz Age

a cultural movement also referred to as the Roaring 20’s, began in 1918 with the end of WW1, lasted until 1928 (the Stock Market Crash), redefined womanhood

Protagonist

main character who generates the action of the story, engages reader’s interest and empathy, central to all action in the plot

Antagonist

character who opposes the protagonist, or someone who gets in their way, created to move the plot, doesn’t have to be a villain

Open-ended story

the ending is left uncertain to one degree or another, the reader is not told all the answers and is left to figure them out on their own

Closed-ended story

all the details are wrapped up and leave the reader knowing how the conflict, which provides crucial tension in the story ends

Ernest Hemingway

“The Sun Also Rises”, “A Farewell to Arms”, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, “The Old Man and the Sea”, “Hills Like White Elephants”

the Hemingway hero

a man for whom it is a point of honor to suffer with grace and dignity, a man who, through sensing that defeat is inevitable, plays the game well

The code hero

refers to Hemingway’s characters that covers the principal ideals of honor, courage, and endurance in a misfortune life

The Iceberg Technique

removes everything but the bare essentials from his stories and novels, leaving readers to sift through the remaining dialogue and bits of narrative on their own (e.g. frequently skips internal monologues, leaving the characters’ thoughts and feelings completely up to the reader’s own interpretation)

Allegory

representation that symbolizes how humans understand their surroundings and the world at large. It is the storytelling technique that operates on two levels as a literary device. The emphasis of allegory is typically placed on the abstract ideas represented or symbolized by the work’s literary elements

Imagism

the reaction to the 19th century poetry (Victorian sentimentalism) the first innovative movement in modern American poetry, direct concentration on “image” - the thing itself, advocated free verse and new rhythmic effects

Ezra Pound

“Des Imagistes: An Anthology”, “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”

Amy Lowell

“What’s O’Clock”, “The Garden by Moonlight”

The Great Depression in American literature

socially engaged authors of that time who linked to the 1930s in their concern for the welfare of the common citizen included: Sinclair Lewis, John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, Richard Wright, and the dramatist Clifford Odets

John Steinbeck

“The Grapes of Wrath”

narrative structure

the manner in which a narrative is presented to a reader, listener, or viewer; the way(s) in which the various elements of a story are assembled

narrative techniques

methods and devices writers use to tell a story, such as a point of view, description/imagery, dialogue, foreshadowing, etc.

Woody Guthrie

“Tom Joad”

Arthur Miller

“Death of a Salesman”

parable

a figure of speech, which presents a short story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson

6 elements of drama as defined by Artistotle

Plot “Mythos”, Character “Ethos”, Thought “Dianoia”, Diction “Lexis”, Melody “Melos”, Spectacle “Opsis”

expressionism

a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century, a rebellion against realism and naturalism in theatre

Tennessee Williams

“The Streetcar Named Desire”

Setting

where and when a story or scene takes place

Characterization

the process by which the writer reveal the personality of a character

Elegy

a form of poetry in which the speaker expresses grief or sadness, especially remembering someone who has died or something in the past

Flannery O’Connor

“Good Country People”, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”

Southern gothic

a style of writing practiced by many writers of the American South whose stories set in that region are characterized by grotesque, macabre, or fantastic incidents

Grotesque

fits in between the real and the fantastic, simultaneously fits somewhere between being funny and being frightening

Central conflict

The main opposition, obstacle, or complication that characters need to navigate for the story to reach a conclusion

irony

the use of words to convey a meaning that is opposite to or significantly different from their literal meaning, often to create humor or highlight contradictions

dramatic or tragic irony

a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character’s words or actions is clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character

situational irony

involves a contradiction between what is expected or intended and what actually occurs

Sylvia Plath

“The Bell Jar”, “The Colossus”, “The Collected Poems”, “Lady Lazarus”

Confessional Poetry

a branch of Postmodernism that emerged in the US in the 1950s and is generally thought to have ended by the 1970s; a revolution in poetic style as well as specific subject that reflected intense psychological experiences; a newly personal mode of writing that popularized exploring the self

Alliteration

a technique that makes use of a repeated sound at the beginning of multiple words, grouped, “The Triumph of Death” by Don DeLillo

Anaphora

the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of multiple lines, usually in succession, “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison

Assonance

the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words, giving your writing a smooth, melodic flow, “The Arrangements” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Enjambment

when the end of a phrase extends past the end of a line, “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” by Alan Seeger

Hyperbole

a deliberate exaggeration that amplifies reality for dramatic effect, “Defender of the Faith” by Philip Roth

Metaphor

a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another, “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison

Onomatopoeia

a literary device used to enhance the sensory experience of a piece of writing by immersing the reader in sound. A word is considered onomatopoetic if its pronunciation is a vocal imitation of the sound associated with the word, “The Old Man and the Sea” by Hemingway

Paradox

a literary device used to engage a reader to discover an underlying logic in a seemingly self-contradictory statement or phrase, “The Life You Save may be your Own” by Flannery O’Connor

Personification

a figure of speech where human qualities are assigned to non-human things, such as objects, animals, or abstract concepts, “Once in a Lifetime” by Jhumpa Lahiri

Rhetorical question

a question that's asked for effect, not because someone is expecting a genuine answer to it, "Angels in America" by Tony Kushner

Symbol

a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship, “The Old Man and the Sea” by Hemingway

Simile

a comparison between two unlike things that uses the words “like” or “as”, “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams

Synecdoche

a figure of speech that uses a part to represent the whole or vice versa, “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller

Ralph Ellison

“Invisible Man: Prologue”

Existentialism

the term was adopted by the French philosopher and novelist Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980); it became identified with a cultural movement that flourished in Europe in the 1940s and 1950s

Toni Morrison

“Rectatif”

Philip Roth

“Defender of the Faith”

internal conflict

the character's struggle that can arise from within the self

external conflict

can also occur when the subject is at odds with his surroundings

Sherman Alexie

“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, “Blasphemy, New and Selected Stories”, “Integration”, “How to Write the Great American Indian Novel”

Sara Littlecrow-Russell

“The Secret Powers of Naming”, “Song from a Reedless Flute”

Don Delillo

“White Noise”, “Libra”, “Falling Man”, “The Triumph of Death”

Postmodernism/Post-structuralism

mixing of styles (high vs. low); using absurd or comic aspects to address important issues, parody; references to other texts and artifacts; the crisis of metaphysical concept of truth and the crisis of representation — it allows truth to be denied, falseness to be taken for truth; a self-consciousness about language and literary techniques

The New York School of Poetry

the term used to refer to the group of poets who emerged in New York City around the 1950s and 1960s, when the New York School of painting dominated the art world. - Abstract Expressionist art was a major influence and the New York School poets had strong artistic and personal relationships with artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Both groups frequently collaborated on projects or shared and argued about ideas regarding art, politics, and philosophy.

Frank O’Hara

“Why I Am Not a Painter”

Intertextuality

a postmodern phenomenon, it is a sophisticated literary device making use of a textual reference within some body of text, which reflects again the text used as a reference, instead of employing referential phrases (citations) from different literary works, intertextuality draws upon the concept, rhetoric, or ideology from other writings to be merged in the new text.

Feminist criticism

a critical approach to literature that seeks to understand how gender and sexuality shape the meaning and representation of literary texts; an attempt to describe and interpret (also: reinterpret) women's experience as depicted in various kinds of literature and popular culture

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“The Arrangements”

Jhumpa Lahiri

“Once in a Lifetime”

W. D. Snodgrass

“Lasting”

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter

“Brown Skin Girl”

Colorism

refers to the social hierarchy that privileges individuals with lighter skin tones over those with darker skin tones, even within the same racial or ethnic group, affecting concepts of beauty, wealth, and social status. For many, hair texture, for instance, is often used as a signifier of one's proximity to whiteness. It is like racism but WITHIN one racial group

Tony Kushner

“Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” (Part One: Millennium Approaches, Part Two: Perestroika)

Queer theory

an academic field of study focusing on matters relating to gender, human sexuality, and sexual orientation with emphasis on LGBTQ+ issues and culture

Bob Dylan

“Roll on John”

Eduardo C. Corral

“Autobiography of My Hungers”, “slow lightning”, “guillotine”