American Literature and Early History Lecture Review

Flashcards covering key figures, literary works, and historical concepts from early American literature based on lecture transcripts.

Scrivener

A professional copyist, such as the character Bartleby in the story 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'.

Unambitious lawyer

The way the narrator in 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' actually describes himself, contrary to being ambitious.

Slave-breaker

The role given to Covey in Douglass's Narrative, though he was noted for being bad at managing the business of it.

Olaudah Equiano

A West African man who wrote a famous account of his life in slavery and the Middle Passage.

Edward Taylor

A minister and poet who used domestic imagery, like weaving and spinning, to explore his spiritual work.

Huswifery

An Edward Taylor poem that uses the image of created clothing and weaving to understand the work of a minister.

Of Plimoth Plantation

William Bradford's historical account which includes a treaty establishing peace with Native peoples.

Phillip Freneau

The poet who wrote 'The Indian Burying Ground' and imagined a romantic, imaginary Native American past.

Cedar blocks

Objects with letters on them that Samson Occom asked his Native American students to retrieve as a teaching technique.

12 years

The amount of Occom's missionary work that equaled only one year of pay for a white missionary.

John Woodbridge

Anne Bradstreet's brother-in-law who published her manuscript in London without her permission.

Less wise than true

How Anne Bradstreet described those who published her work without authorization.

Errata

The term Benjamin Franklin used in his 'Autobiography' to describe mistakes like rebelling against his brother.

Jonathan Edwards

The Great Awakening minister who combined Puritan rhetoric with emotional appeal in his sermons.

Great Awakening

The religious revivals of the 1740s characterized by emotional responses to theatrical preaching.

King Phillip

The Native American leader who appears in Mary Rowlandson's captivity Narrative.

Pocahontas

A woman described as Powhatan’s 'dearest daughter' in the writings of John Smith.

Powhatan

A chief whose ideas about war and peace were related by John Smith in his 'General Historie of Virginia'.

Samoset

A Native American whose ability to speak English marveled the settlers of Plimoth.

Profitable

The word used by William Bradford to describe some Native Americans in his history of the colony.

Washington Irving

A writer who helped invent the short story form with tales like 'Rip Van Winkle'.

Phillis Wheatley

The first published African American female poet in America.

William Cullen Bryant

A poet who discussed the spiritual dimensions of nature in works such as 'To A Waterfowl'.

Linda Brent

The pseudonym under which Harriet Jacobs published her account of life in slavery.

Mayflower Compact

A document that set up ground rules for conducting colonial governance in New England.

The Spectator

The publication Benjamin Franklin avidly read and rewrote to improve his own prose.

Vulture eye

The feature of the old man that fixated the narrator and motivated the murder in 'The Tell-Tale Heart'.

Nominal Christians

Equiano's term for those who claim the Christian faith while supporting the practice of slavery.

Conceit

An elaborate, extended metaphor frequently used by seventeenth-century poets.

Dead Letter Office

The place where Bartleby previously worked, according to the narrator.

Screen

The object the narrator sets Bartleby up behind to work in his law office.

Memento Mori

The Latin phrase reflecting the 17th-century idea that death is inevitable and possessions decay.

Enlightenment

An era associated with literacy, rational debate, and the rise of scientific thinking in the 18th century.

Wolf

The name of Rip Van Winkle’s dog who accompanies him on his mountain rambles.

Dreadfully nervous

How the narrator of 'The Tell-Tale Heart' describes his emotional state.

Sharpened my senses

The claim the narrator of 'The Tell-Tale Heart' makes about the effect of his disease.

My Faith is gone!

The exclamation made by Goodman Brown upon seeing a pink ribbon in the forest.

Diabolic dye

A phrase Phillis Wheatley says some prejudiced people use to describe Black skin.

Pagan

The term Wheatley uses to describe her native land in her poetry.

Heathen

The term Samson Occom uses to describe his own upbringing.

Tuckahoe

The birthplace of Frederick Douglass as specified in the first chapter of his Narrative.

Aunt Hester

The relative whose brutal punishment Douglass describes in detail in his Narrative.

Cain and Abel

The biblical story referenced by Wheatley in 'On Being Brought from Africa to America'.

6 or 7 months

The duration Equiano estimates he was in captivity in Africa before reaching the sea coast.

5 years old

The age of the mistress Harriet Jacobs was given to when she was twelve.

Dammed waters

The image used in Jonathan Edwards's famous sermon to represent the wrath of God.

Draw

The outcome of the fight between Frederick Douglass and Covey, where both claimed victory.

Shadows and delusions

How Phillip Freneau describes the Native American burial ground in his poem.

Frogs croaking

The image Emily Dickinson uses in a poem to criticize the nature of publicity.

Verses on the Burning of our House

A poem by Anne Bradstreet meditating on the loss of property and the value of heavenly possessions.

Dead Letters

The items Bartleby sorted in his previous job that allegedly affected his soul.

King Phillip's War

A conflict associated with the genocide of Native Americans referenced in 'Young Goodman Brown'.

Singularly at ease

How the narrator in 'The Tell-Tale Heart' describes his behavior while being questioned by police.

Magic

The force by which Equiano believed European ships operated.

Domestic duties

The type of work Mary Rowlandson performed for Native Americans during her captivity.

Upon Wedlock and Death of Children

A poem by Edward Taylor featuring the line, 'But praying ore my branch, my branch did sprout'.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

A theatrical sermon that warns against complacency in Christian faith.

The Indian Burying Ground

A poem by Freneau that suggests Native American burial positions indicate an active afterlife.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

The autobiographical narrative of Harriet Jacobs detailing the moral confusion caused by slavery.

When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer

A Whitman poem where the speaker feels bored by mathematical equations and prefers the stars.

Printing

The vocation to which Benjamin Franklin was apprenticed under his brother James.

Walt Whitman

A poet who rejected long lists and sensory details in favor of brief lines and tight meter, according to the notes.

John Collins

A childhood friend of Benjamin Franklin mentioned as not being the primary addressee of his Autobiography.

Vanity

The theme of Anne Bradstreet's burning house poem, expressed as 'Adieu, adieu, all’s vanity'.

A home of her own

One of the things Harriet Jacobs notes she still does not possess at the end of her story.

Condition of a slave

The state that Harriet Jacobs argues 'confuses all principles of morality'.

Storyteller

The role Rip Van Winkle eventually assumes upon returning to his village.

The Author to her Book

A Bradstreet poem expressing affection for her 'blemished' work published without her consent.

Generall Historie of Virginia

The text by John Smith detailing hard beginnings and interactions with Powhatan.

Mary Rowlandson

The author who wrote 'I can remember a time when I used to sleep quietly… but now it is the other ways with me'.