CLEP American Literature

Metaphysical Poetry

Uses conceits and uses intellectual and philosophical language. Makes abstract comparisons using conceits. ie. John Donne.

Michael Wigglesworth

Clergyman who wrote "Day of Doom" and "Meat out of the Eater". He wrote lyrical, theological poems. Puritan.

Connotation

the feelings or emotions surrounding a word. (ie. home = pleasant haven)

motif

Phase, image, action, that unifies a work of literature by recurring throughout it. A theme or idea in a work of art or literature that is developed or repeated.

Theme

central idea of a work of literature, general topic or subject.

Apostrophe

A figure of speech in which one directly addresses an absent or imaginary person, or some abstraction. Often used to address deep emotion.

Philip Freneau

Transitional poet. Between Enlightenment and the Romantic age. " "The Wild Honeysuckle". Published National Gazette that promoted anti-federalism. Considered "the poet of the American Revolution."

picaresque

novel about lower-class character who triumphs through wit instead of hard work. Usually autobiographical and in the first person.

J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur

•French-born American who wrote "Letters from an American Farmer". First successful American author. First to examine the idea of the "American Dream" and attempted to explain what an "American" was.

Concepts by him that influenced America culture.

• American Adam - uniqueness of new people called "Americans".

•Melting Pot - America's uniqueness transcends ethnic, religious, cultural backgrounds.

Huswifery

by Edward Taylor. "Make me, O Lord, thy Spinning Wheele compleat"

W.E.B. DuBois

Opposite of B.T. Washington. Black should engage in higher education. Challenges Washington's inability to see complete integration in America. Not only work for freedom but demand rights and participation in office. Disagrees on how "liberation" should be defined.

Alliteration

Repetition of consonant sounds.

Stephen Crane

A "realistic" writer. Wrote The Red Badge of Courage.

Irony: Henry's only wound comes from retreat, not battle.

-Humans are left on this world to fend for themselves without help from divine creator.

Heroic Couplet

a couplet consisting of two rhymed lines of iambic pentameter (ie. aa, bb, cc) and written in an elevated style. (tradition of the epic form)

imagery

The use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, thing, place, or experience.

Edward Taylor

Wrote Preparatory Meditations. God's Determinations touching His Elect. His work not meant for publication. Uses conceits and unusual images. Inspired metaphysical poets like Ezra Pound. T.S. Eliot.

Metonymy

One word or phrase is substituted for another with which is closely associated.

"crown → royalty",

"ring →marriage"

"heart→love"

Bluest Eye

Pecola wants_ to be beautiful.

-She is considered a scapegoat because her ugliness has made the towns people beautiful, her suffering made them feel lucky, her silence, their chatter.

By Toni Morrison.

Huck Finn escaped his father by

faking his death.

End of book: different from classic American success myths. Instead of being free of moral corruption into wilderness, it is being adopted into moral corruption away from wilderness.

Brook Farm

A transcendentalist Utopian experiment, put into practice by transcendentalist former Unitarian minister George Ripley. Emerson declined to live there. Hawthorne was there, but wrote a satire about it in "Blithedale Romance".

Margaret Fuller joined.

Olaudah Equiano

wrote The first slave narrative. "Interesting Narrative of the life of _". Powerful abolitionist voice against inhumanity. He bought his freedom and traveled and taught.

Close reading

ignores author's intent or any commentary outside the particular work; viewed each work as a piece of art. Trend from 1920 to 1960. It scrutinized words and their order within a literary work.

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds within words.

William Dean Howells

leading realist who seriously considered the problems of industrialization and unequal rights in his novels. wrote bio of Abe Lincoln. Wrote "The Rise of Silas Lapham" - rags to riches story; moral and ethical dilemmas. Wrote "Edith".

William Hill Brown

wrote First American Novel - The Power of Sympathy (1789), a fictitious romance novel based on contemporary scandel between the Mertons and Sarah Merton's sister.

William Bradford

wrote Of Plymouth Plantation records why he wrote the forerunner of the US Constitution, The Mayflower Compact. Pilgrim Leader.

Ezra Pound

Subcategories of Modernism he was famous for expanding were Imagism and Vorticism. Vorticism describes a partiular type of art influenced by cubism and futurism. Wrote The Cantos and "In a Station of the Metro" Used Free Verse.

Thomas Paine

Common Sense, Age of Reason, The Rights of Man, The American Crisis. Revolutionary leader who argued for American independence from Britain.

Thomas Morton

satirized the rigidity of the New England Separatists New England Canaan. Bradford, horrified, wrote of Plymouth Plantation.

The literary periods of American Literature

1) Colonial and Early National Period (Beginnings to 1830)

2) Romantic Period (1830 to 1870)

3) Realism and Naturalism Period (1870 to1910)

4) Modernism Period (1910 to1945)

5) Contemporary period (1945 and on)

Benjamin Harris

_wrote the New England Primer, the first textbook used in the colonies. Wrote first newspaper as well.

James Fenimore Cooper

wrote Precaution, The Spy (About the American Revolution)

imitated English Novels. Author of The Leatherstocking Tales. Natty Bumppo aka Leatherstocking aka Hawkeye aka Deerslayer (superman with moccasins)

-Father of American Novels.

Order of The Leatherstocking Tales

1)The Pioneers

2) The Last of the Mohicans

3) The Prairie

4) The Pathfinder

5) The Deerslayer (when Natty's the youngest)

John Winthrop

"A model of Christian Charity" by ____ __". Sermon written on Arbella.

He recorded daily happenings from his voyage on the Arbella in his journal "The History of New England.

-major and minor events are no different and are all under the will of God.

William Cullen Bryant

he uses blank verse.

explored beauty of nature, considered the visible expression of God.

Death = unavoidable.

wrote "Thanatopsis" and "To a Waterfowl.

-He is a Fireside Poet.

William Byrd

Surveyor. Wrote accounts of his expeditions to Virginia and North Carolina in "History of the Dividing Line".

Both Journey to the Land of Eden and Progress to the Mines were published after his death.

Maya Angelou

wrote I Know why the Caged Bird Sings. African American autobiographical work. Themes: racism, identity, family.

Transcendentalist Authors

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, Alcott

Post World War 2 novels

-To Kill a Mockingbird

-The Catcher in the Rye

-The Bell Jar

-The Naked and the Dead

-Catch 22

-Invisible Man

Where does the thief hide the letter in the Purloined Letter?

The thief did not hide it at all. It was in plain view.

Transcendentalism

Movement in the Romantic tradition (around 1840), which held that every individual can reach ultimate truths through spiritual intuition and creativity, which transcends reason and sensory experience. We can rise above doctrine and dogma. Nothing is evil. Avoid conformity. It was made famous in Self Reliance by Emerson.

In what Poe work was the detective story popularized?

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

-main character August Dupin

Naturalist Authors

Kate Chopin

Edith Wharton

Theodore Dreiser

Willa Cather

Stephen Crane

Jack London

Authors in the Beat Movement

William Burroughs = father figure of movement.

Allen Ginsberg

Kerouac

Gregory Corso

Gary Snyder

Kenneth Rexroth

Usually open verse, has controversial subject matters, in first person

Metaphysical Poets

John Donne

George Herbert

Richard Crashaw

Francis Quarles

The Mayflower Compact

Contract established power for colonists to make and enact laws for the good of the settlement. Consent to common government.