Important concepts/terms

American exceptionalism

(cf john Winthrop)

belief at the founding of settlements in the mid- 17th century, that americans were going to form an exemplary society, different from the rest of the world

Autonomy of literature

E.A. Poe

wanted to create art for art’s sake

was against the big national narratives of the time

Byronic hero

archromantic character, invented by Lord Byron

• restless and brave

• but moody and dark

(ex. Victor Frankenstein)

Cetology

= the study of whales

Moby Dick is not about cetology

Civil disobedience

from “resistance to civil government” by Thoreau

• if the law tells you to do unjust things, break the law

Closet-play

play that is only meant to be read

ex. “Prometheus unbound” by Percy Shelley

colorless all-color of atheism

the idea that we are alone here on earth, that there is nothing beyond this life right here right now

(moby dick, chapter “the whiteness of the whale”)

Cult of beauty

beauty is truth, truth is beauty

feature of romanticism (relating to subjective worldview)

Dark romanticism

a subgenre of romanticism, with more attention to the macabre and the violent

(ex. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë)

Direct discourse

from “handbook of narrative analysis” by Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck

= quotation of a character’s communication

Discourse

from “handbook of narrative analysis” by Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck

= written or spoken communication or debate

Epistolary novel

novel shaped as a series of letters

ex. what Jane Austen initially intented “Pride and Prejudice” to be (aka “first impressions”)

Esemplastic power

Coleridge “biographia literaria”:

imagination, creativity

External focalisation

from “handbook of narrative analysis” by Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck

= when a heterodiegetic narrator is describing what is happening, not inside minds

Fancy

Coleridge “biographia literaria”:

= what writers can do, associative power (no need for creativity)

Features of romanticism

emancipation of the individual

• artistic

• political

subjective worldview

• insistence on personal feelings

• exploration of the mind and soul

• cult of beauty

• obsession with death

attitudes toward time (past - present - future)

attitudes toward space (indoor - outdoor)

Focalisation

from “handbook of narrative analysis” by Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck

= the relation between the object and subject of perception

Free indirect discourse

(popularised by Jane Austen)

= a narrator presenting a characters words as if they were the narrator’s own

from “handbook of narrative analysis” by Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck

= a blend between direct discourse and indirect discourse

Great American Novel

after american civil war

trying to tie the nation back together, in culture and in literature

could be Moby Dick (Melville) or the scarlet letter (Hawthorne)

Heterodiegetic narrator

narrator stands outside of the story

in the case of “pride and prejudice”: the heterodiegetic narrator crawls in and out of the characters’ minds as they are trying to understand the world around them

Indirect discourse

from “handbook of narrative analysis” by Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck

= paraphrasing what a character says

Infinite I am

Coleridge “biographia literaria”:

eternal act of creation, eternal unfolding of the world around us

we cannot fully understand the ongoing creation, but the mind/primary imagination allows us to make an impression

Internal focalisation

from “handbook of narrative analysis” by Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck

= when a narrator crawls into minds of characters or when a character is narrating

King Cotton

90% of cotton was made in the south of the US around the late 18th and early 19th century

=> “this country is ruled by king cotton”

Lyceum movement

19th century phenomenon of speakers travelling the East Coast of the US, renting themselves out to speak on any topic they wanted to

ex. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Manifest destiny

= The idea that white Americans were divinely ordained to settle the entire continent of North America

Mind forg’d manacles

From William Blake - London

• we have rationalised ourselves into slavery

reflecting ideas from Jan-Jacques Rousseau - “le contrat social”

• “man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains”

Monomania

= being overly focused on one goal

(ex. Ahab in Moby Dick)

Mutability

“Mutability” by Percy Shelley

idea of transit and change

• self is not a solid thing, it is constantly changing, like clouds

• we might feel entirely different when waking, depending on our dreams

• change is the only constant in life

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair"!”

Ozymandias (1818) by Percy Byssche Shelley

• one of the most important romantic quotes

Negative Capability

John Keats

= something poetry should evoke in a man

let reader experience it, not explain

Noble savage

idea from Rousseau, reflected in “the world is too much with us” by Wordsworth

• more “primitive” people are more in touch with nature

• pagan natural religion

Novel of manners

= genre that explores how people in certain social circles behave

sees characters as a kind of micro-cosmos

popular since romantic period

(ex. Jane Austens novels)

Poetic ‘genius’

Coleridge “biographia literaria”:

(paraphrase:) to combine the child’s sensE of wonder with things that years of life have turned familiar

considers Wordsworth a genius, what a poet should be

Poetry (capital P)

poetry as it should be (Wordsworth)

poetry = “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility”

Poetry (Percy Shelley)

In “a defence of poetry” (1821)

= the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth

Primary imagination

Coleridge, “Biographia literaria”:

the world out there is what we perceive in our mind

Romanticism

In UK: 1780s - 1830

In US: later: begins around 1850

• purely academic temr, applied to writers in hindsight

• originated in Germany (ex. Goethe)

• romantics are good at writing about writing

• belief that imagination could heal or kill

• romantics = writers of extreme emotion

• (in US:) focus on democracy

Scriveners

= legal scribes

Secondary imagination

Coleridge, “Biographia literaria”:

echo of the primary imagination

creative interpretation of the primary imagination that you can control

Sonnet

poem with 14 lines, in English typically 10 syllables per line

ex Ozymandias by Percy Byssche Shelley

Sublime

• something so astonishing that it’s impossible to put into words, overwhelmingly terrific

• an experience beyond reason, inspires terror, wonder and awe, and fills the mind with a “delightful horror”

The American Renaissance

1830s-1850s

much later than British Romanticism

main theme: what is democracy?

The natural poet

from “to a skylark” - Percy Shelley

Skylark: songbird, doesn’t even need to think about what art to make

The poetic principle

E.A. Poe:

there is not better poetry than “the poem written for the poem’s sake”

The universe (according to Emerson)

in “nature” (1836)

= the soul & nature (nature = everything that isn’t you)

Theory of Mind

attempting to understand other people by ascribing mental states or emotions to them

Tormented poet

ex. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, E.A. Poe

idea of “poète maudit” (Baudelaire)

poet who lives in pain and frustration with the world, with art, with people

Transcendentalism

belated romanticism in VS

The idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of humanity, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths.

focus on selfhood/subjectivity/nonconformity

Unity of effect

E.A. Poe: “philosophy of composition”:

• length (about 100 lines)

• beauty (a contemplation of the beautiful which excites the soul)

• tone (melancholy = “the most legitimate of all poetical tones”)

• keynote (refrain, ex. “nevermore”)

• topic (“the death […] of a beautiful woman”)

• originality (it needs to be serious enough for the reader to experience all this, yet ‘fantastic’)

= algorithm that guarantees writing good poetry

Variable focalisation

from “handbook of narrative analysis” by Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck

= switching between external focalisation and internal focalisation