ENG2223 American Lit Final Exam (professor's guide)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Harvard-educated minister who resigned the pulpit by saying " . . . in order to be a good minister it was necessary to leave the ministry."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Most famous works were Essays, including "Self-Reliance," "The American Scholar," and "The Poet" and Nature

Henry David Thoreau

Died at 44 of tuberculosis; Walden is most famous work.

Henry David Thoreau

Two concerns of this author were social issues and the feeling of unity of humanity and nature

Margaret Fuller

Feminist, writer, and literary critic who was educated in the classical curriculum of the day

Margaret Fuller

Helped found the Dial, a journal devoted to transcendentalist views.

Elizabeth Peabody

Born in Massachusetts; took Greek lessons from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Elizabeth Peabody

Taught in several schools and opened Temple School with Bronson Alcott

Abraham Lincoln

Realized to preserve the union, slavery would have to be abolished; author of "The Gettysburg Address"

Abraham Lincoln

Born in Illinois; 16th President who was assassinated at Ford's Theater

Frederick Douglass

Son of an unknown white man; born into slavery in Maryland

Frederick Douglass

Educated himself; used a free man's release papers and signed his name to be released

Nat Turner

____was a literate slave preacher who had visions of angels who convinced him to punish slave owners.  He gained 70 followers who killed 57 white people.  He was tried, found guilty, and executed.

Henry David Thoreau

In 1846, _____went to jail for refusing to pay the poll tax in protest of the Mexican War and slavery.

Transcendentalism

____could be defined as a belief that an individual's relationship with God is personal and is to be established directly by the individual and not through the intermediation of church ritual.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

_____said, "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

According to ____, a person should define his place in society not by the property that he owns or by what the general public would have him do, but by his own will, ideas, and imagination.

Abraham Lincoln

In the Gettysburg Address, ______ wished to honor the soldiers’ sacrifice not only by burying them, but by giving meaning to their deaths.

Elizabeth Peabody's Brook Farm

In_________, physical and intellectual labor is paid the same rate of wages. All labor was to be performed by inhabitants of the farm with the intention of teaching the children not to expect others to perform certain lowly tasks

Henry David Thoreau

does not measure a rich life by the material things that one possesses.

List 4 of the 5 General Characteristics of Transcendentalism

1. Believed on self-reliance of independent thought

2. Believed each person is inherently good & capable of doing for himself

3. All things are connected to God; God is in everything (ex: the desk; God made the
   wood from the people to make the desk; God-Nature-Man)

4. Believed in reincarnation; when you die, you come back in a different form (if
   you had a good karma, you will come back & have a good life; if not, you may
   come back as a worm)

Discuss how Thoreau feels about the morning.

He calls morning a “cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and . . . innocence, with Nature herself.” He says that morning is the “most memorable season of the day.” He refers to being awakened to “our Genius” and the importance of recognizing that we each have inner strength and guidance within us.

What arguments does Fuller make for the rights of women? List 3.  

1. Women bear children and care for them and should have rights where their children are concerned

2. Men treat women as slaves or as children

3. All men have been influenced by women

How did Frederick Douglass learn to read? What effects did reading have on a young Frederick Douglass? (75 word answer)

His mistress taught him the alphabet. He befriended white boys to help him learn to read, and he constantly kept a book with him to practice. Reading opened his mind to a moral: “the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder”. It also made him hate his existence and the people who enslaved him. It opened his mind to freedom and the idea tormented him.