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Benjamin Franklin published something under a pseudonym.
What and when was it?
What was his pseudonym?
"The Poor Richard's Almanack" by Richard Saunders (pseudonym of Benjamin Franklin) in 1733-1758.
The Almanacks can be considered pamphlets and were forerunners of magazines. They included essays, such as "The Way of Wealth" and offered adages (Weisheiten) and advice.
"The Way of Wealth" was protrayed as if it was a speech by Father Abraham and was, therefore, written in the form of a sermon.
More info: http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/poor-richards-almanac/
Picture: https://considerthesourceny.org/document/poor-richards-almanac-1733
When was the timeframe of American Revolutionary Writing?
1775 - 1783
Which text is classified as "1st classic of American literature"?
Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography (1771- until his death in 1790, he wrote it in parts in various moments of his life).
The core theme was: Calculate your time wisely, set your goals, and be determined to follow them.
Franklin presented thereby the rules and manners for a prototypical American imbetting it in the setting of a conduct book (Benimm-Buch).
The relating 13 virtues listed in his autobiography were also later used in "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925.
FYI: A biography is an account of a person's life, written by someone else. An autobiography is an account of a person's life, written by that person.
More info: https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/franklin/autobiography.html
Picture: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#/media/Datei:BenFranklinDuplessis.jpg
What were the two important Acts the British Empire enforced?
What did this lead to?
Sugar Act, 1764
Tea Act, 1773
Both included a rise in taxes which American colinizers weren't to accept since they had no representative in the British Parliament.
--> This led to the Boston Tea Party in 1773, a major protest and the turning point in the American fight for independence later in 1775-1783
The American Revolutionary War (for independence) started with the Battles in Lexington and Concord in 1775 (before! Declaration of Independence in 1776) and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
People participating in the signing of the Treaty of Paris: King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the 13 colonies of North America, including Benjamin Franklin.
Name the key aspects of the American Revolutionary Writing Style (1775 - 1783)
- self-determination
- rightfulness
- inalienable rights
- politically interested
- fascination with science, nature, freedom, and innovation
- telling from American experiences
- not so formal style (which was seen as British)
more info: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/educational-magazines/literature-and-arts-revolutionary-era
What are the six text "building the nation" of America?
- "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine (1776)
- "Declaration of Independence" Thomas Jefferson (1776)
- "Letters from an American Farmer" by Hector st. John de Crevecoeur (1782)
- "Constitution" (1787)
- "Notes on the state of Virginia" by Thomas Jefferson (1787/88)
- "The Federalist Papers" by John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton (1788)
FYI: "Letters from an American Farmer" by Hector st. John de Crevecoeur (1782) is the only fictional text!
Which was written first?
"Common Sense" by Thomas Paine
"Declaration of Independence" Thomas Jefferson
Both were written in 1776.
The pamphlet "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine had a widespread circulation when it was first published anonymously on 10th January 1776. It was the most influential pamphlet of the American Revolution and called for a break with Britain. It was also the 1st text that attacked the King (King George III).
"Common Sense" made a clear case for independence and directly attacked the political, economic, and ideological obstacles to achieving it. Paine relentlessly insisted that British rule was responsible for nearly every problem in colonial society and that it could only be resolved by colonial independence.
More info: https://jackmillercenter.org/anniversary-thomas-paines-common-sense/
The Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson was submitted to Congress on 28th June 1776 (written between 8th and 28th June 1776) and the final version was unanimously signed by the thirteen united States of America on 4th July 1776.
BUT it was not a legal document, and therefore not legally binding!
More info: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
When was the timeframe of the early republic period / early national period and what was it's key aspect?
1780s - 1810s
The search for a common vision and the need for a national literature and national culture.
What is meant by the key term "usuable past"?
It is the idea to look into the past to find helpful solutions for the current problems.
Who coined the term "inalienable rights" of the American Revoloutionary Writing Style.
Which are they?
Why are they so important?
John Locke came up with the philosophical Theory of Natural Rights.
He wrote that all individuals are equal in the sense that they are born with certain "inalienable" natural rights. That is, rights that are God-given and can never be taken or even given away. Among these fundamental natural rights, Locke said, are "life, liberty, and property."
Thomas Jefferson used those ideas to write the Declaration of Independence, but advocated for the right to the pursuit of happiness (instead of property), which he changed accordingly.
More info: https://www.crf-usa.org/foundations-of-our-constitution/natural-rights.html
Picture: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke#/media/Datei:John_Locke.jpg
Why was there a need of a Constitution after the Declaration of Independence?
Because the Declaration of Independence was not a legal document.
The Constitution is a legal document.
It also set the structure of the future nation.
More info: https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm
What did Hector st. John de Crevecoeur wrote and what was it about?
"Letters from an American Farmer" by French aristocrat Hector st. John de Crevecoeur (1782) is a fictional epistolary novel (novel in form of various letters) to persuade readers from countries unfamiliar with the American society.
The letters are written by a fictional American farmer James to an English gentleman and scholar. They span the immediate years leading up to the American Revolution and end at some point during the war.
James describes the variety of American peoples and experiences to be found in the British North American colonies as well as the impressions of American society and personal characteristics he believes embodied the American spirit.
More info: https://study.com/learn/lesson/letters-from-an-american-farmer-st-jean-de-crevecoeur-summary-themes.html
Picture: https://www.inspiringquotes.us/author/7942-j-hector-st-john-de-crevecoeur
Which was the most influential query of the "Notes on the State of Virginia" by Thomas Jefferson and why?
Thomas Jefferson wrote 23 queries in 1787/88 which are called the "Notes on the State of Virginia".
The most influential query was nr. 19 because he explains why farming is an economically and morally superior pursuit for Virginians and Americans in contrast to commerce driven Europeans.
More info: https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/notes-on-the-state-of-virginia-1785/
What was the purpose of the Federalist Papers (1788)?
The Federalist Papers was a collection of essays (85) written by John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton in 1788. It was written to secure the ratification of the United States Constitution (which had been drafted in 1787) providing for a more perfect union.
The five main themes were:
- federalism
- checks and balances
- separated powers
- pluralism
- representation
Picture: book cover
Which book was the first American novel (from an American writer) and what was it about?
"The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature" by William Hill Brown (1789).
It is a sentimental novel about the danger of seduction and the pitfalls of giving into one's passions. The novel is also advocating women's moral education to avoid such scandalous behaviour.
It is based on a true scandal of an incest romance between siblings, whereas the female sibling commits suicide in the end of the story as well as in real life.
When was the timeframe of American Romanticism period and what was it about?
1820s - end of Civil War (1865)
It has its focus on individualism, an emphasis on nature, emotion over reason, freedom of form, and an exploration of the Gothic and unknown.
Although this literary period is based on European Romanticism, it critizised writers who imitated the British and European writing style with its strict forms.
Who wrote the Monroe Doctrine and what was it about?
The Monroe Doctrine (1823) was a message delivered to congress by President James Monroe.
The Doctrine warns European nations that the United States would not tolerate further colonization or puppet monarchs.
Monroe made four major statements:
- the United States would not interfere in European affairs
- the United States would not interfere with already existing colonies in America (so, English colonies)
- the Western Hemisphere was closed to future colonization
- if a European power tried to interfere with any nation in the Americas, that would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States
More easy to understand info about it: https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/Monroe-Doctrine/628231
Further info (and picture): https://apprend.io/apush/period-4/monroe-doctrine/
Name an author of frontier novels and list the central topics of this genre.
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) has written several frontier novels, such as:
- "The Pioneers" (1823)
- "The Last of the Mohicans" (1826)
- "The Prairie" (1827)
Central topics of the frontier novel genre are:
- clash of civilizations
- wilderness vs. civilization
- differentiated representation of Native Americans
- American traditions and convention
The frontier novel also used "stock characters" most of the time. This is a fictional character with a stereotypical set of traits which can be found in any genre. (Modern example: The Chosen One in Harry Potter, or a more specific example: The Dark-Haired Mystery Love-Interest in any modern romance book).
The stock character used mostly in frontier novels was called the "noble frontierman"
Picture: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:James_Fenimore_Cooper_by_Brady.jpg
When was the timeframe of American Renaissance period and what was it about?
1830s - end of Civil War (1865)
In the wake of the Romantic movement it came of age as an expression of a national spirit.
Why is the American Renaissance period considered to be (one of) the greatest literary periods in American Literary History?
The American Renaissance was significant because it was the first time in history that American writers were considered equal or even better than European writers. At the time, America was a young country with no real literary talent or accomplishments to speak of yet.
The Indian Removal Act (1830) led to another common term, the so called "Trail of Tears".
Please explain.
The Indian Removal Act signed into law by President Andrew Jackson in 1830. It authorized the president to grant lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. He guaranteed Native Americans save and better lands, which was not taken well by the Natives.
This led to a forced relocation of Native American tribes by the American military.
The Native American had to leave their farms, homes, and schools behind to move westward to foreign land which was not as suitable for
relocated to foreign land (not suitable for agriculture).
Many Natives died during this relocation march.
--> Those consequences led to an annhiliation and destruction of Native American Culture, which caused it to be called the "Trail of Tears"
More info: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indian-Removal-Act
Picture: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/indian-removal-act
Why was the "Frontier" a "sneak attack" on Native American tribes after the Indian Removal Act in 1830?
Here, "Frontier" is defined by the advancing border towards the West by European settlers and claiming the expanded land as their own. This was justified by "Manifest Destiny", meaning European settlers saw themselves as God chosen to do so.
The Indian Removal Act promised Native Americans to relocate to save lands. But the frontier began to be pushed aggressively westward in the years that followed, upsetting the “guaranteed” titles of the displaced tribes and further reducing their relocated holdings.
Was the form of Poetry in the American Revolution period and the Early National period based on American or European ideals?
Both.
American content: political, didactic, collective
European form: free verse, sonnet, limerick (and more)
What were the Fireside Poets known for?
The Fireside Poets (also called "schoolroom" poets, 19th century) were the first American poets whose work has been printed and was able to rival British poets in terms of popularity.
Their poems were patriotic and didactic being reformatory by critizising for example slavery. The tone of the poems is very nostalgic and sentimental.
The group consisted out of five members:
- William Cullen Bryant
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- John Greenleaf Whittier
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
- James Russell Lowell
Name two members of the Fireside Poets and explain for each one a poem of their's.
"The Prairies" by W. C. Brryant (1832/33)
This poem includes the Romanticism themes of the exploration of the unknown, nature, and emotion over reason. It is about the brevity of human life and how ancient ruins show the transience of empires. It emphasizes the beauty of American nature.
Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55341/the-prairies
"Paul Revere’s Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1861)
This poem is written in anapestic tetrameter to imitate the horse galloping. It is based on the same named folk ballad and is about an American Revolution hero who rides at midnight to warn the Americans that the British are impending to raid the city.
It can also be interpreted as an anti-slavery statement.
More info + Poem: https://poemanalysis.com/henry-wadsworth-longfellow/paul-reveres-ride/
Why was Ralph Waldo Emerson critizised for his "The American Scholar" in 1837?
"The American Scholar" by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1837) was a speech about cultural independence and his concerns of intellectual integrity. He coined the prototypical American scholar as "a man thinking" using three major sources, such as nature, books, and personal experiences (Action).
He did this while imitating the European culture and style, which was a no-go in the American Romanticism period.
Why is the traditional American canon problematic?
When and how was it changed to the better?
The traditional American canon was introduced by F. O. Matthiessen in 1941 and only focuses on literature between 1850 - 1855 (in the timeframe of American Renaissance period) with democratic ideas. He furthermore only included five authors, all of them white and male.
Matthiessen argued that those are "masterpieces" from "great writers" and this statement had a lasting effect still to this day.
The five writers Matthissen included were:
- Ralph Waldo Emerson ("Representative Men", 1850)
- Nathaniel Hawthorne ("The Scarlett Letter", 1850)
- Hermann Melville ("Moby Dick", 1851)
- Henry David Thoreau ("Walden", 1854)
- Walt Whitman ("Leaves of Grass", 1855)
The canon later was revised in 1980s/90s including female writers, writers of various ethnicities, and texts outside of traditional forms and genres.
What are the three types of novels in the early 19th century called?
- sentimental novel
- gothic novel
- gentry novel
Nowadays the term "novel" is used as an umbrella term. In the 19th century the "novel" was a genre such as "romance".
What aspects differentiated those two?
Romance
Romance books do not include love, for the most part. Those were influential texts and seen as THE American text form, they were considered as the most imaginery, fictional and constructed form of written literature. Romance focused on the individual and was often seen as the superior genre.
Examples:
"The Scarlett Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850)
"Moby Dick" by Herman Melville (1851)
FYI: The examples for Romance would nowadays be considered "novel", because the genre romance only refers to love stories.
Novel
The novel emerged as an opposition to romance, always imitating real life, trying to write as realistic as possible.
Example: Frontier novels
Name the four major aspects of American Poetry.
- religious (meditative, inspirational)
- political (public, nationalistic)
- sentimental (patriotic, ideologically affirmative)
- romantic (nature, emotional)
All those aspects are seen as tendencies which can overlap. The overarching objective is to transport collective values.
Name an American male poet of the 19th century and describe one of his works.
"Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman is a poetry collection which was constantly rewritten by Whitman.
The original was published in 1855, but he has rewritten it several time since then until his death in 1892.
Whitman belongs to the five writers in Matthiessen's canon of American literature.
The poems focus on vastness of love, including homosexual love, which was deemed as obscene, shocking and too sensual for society.
Whitman used free verse and everyday language. The "grass" can be interpreted as a symbol for "democracy", whichhe sees as the best political system.
One of the poems in the collection is called "Song of Myself" which has also been rewritten several times by Whitman.
Picture: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman#/media/Datei:Whitman_at_about_fifty.jpg
Name an American female poet of the 19th century and describe one of her works.
"I'm Nobody! Who are you?" by Emily Dickinson is a poem in which she claims that
anonymity is preferable to fame, because it’s lonely at the top.
Her poems are famous not so much because ofwhat the poem says but how it says it.
The rhyme scheme is erratic: the two four-line stanzas (quatrain) roughly rhyme abcb, as with most of Dickinson’s poems. Her wording is more than dubious.
In total, she has written over 1,800 poems, from which fewer than a dozen appeared in an 1864 anthology, "Drum Beat", published to raise money for Union soldiers fighting in the Civil War.
Dickinson dies in 1886. Four years after her death, in 1890, a book of her poetry was published by her family who have found her hand-sewn poem book, however, a complete volume did not appear until 1955.
More info: https://interestingliterature.com/2016/02/a-short-analysis-of-emily-dickinsons-im-nobody-who-are-you/
Picture: https://interestingliterature.com/2016/02/a-short-analysis-of-emily-dickinsons-im-nobody-who-are-you/
When and by whom was the term "American short story" invented?
Brander Matthews invented the term "short story" in "The Philosophy of the Short-Story" in 1885, which was long after the first short stories had been published.
This means, this term was invented in retrospective, meaning, it was invented afterwards by looking back into the past.
Edgar Allan Poe described this form of narrative (in his guides on how to write) as "short prose narrative" and stressed that it should be readable in 30 minutes.
There were two popular short story writers in the 19th century.
Who were they and what differentiated those two?
Washington Irving (1783-1859) was a wealthy conservative writer who took European stories and legends as inspiration and worked them into his American writings. His focal points were romantc writing and regional writing (Key term! local color).
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) came from a poor family and was split between his morbid writing tendencies and his use of modern literature style. His texts were tightly structured and focused on gothic horror, mystery and the grotesque.
Picture: https://www.discogs.com/de/release/12226244-Edgar-Allan-Poe-Washington-Irving-Tell-Tale-Heart-Legend-Of-Sleepy-Hollow
Explain one of Washington Irving's short stories.
Irving used many pseudonyms and invented personas for his works, namely "Dietrick Knickerbocker" (a Dutch-American historian) and "Geoffrey Crayon".
Under his pseodonym Geoffrey Crayon, Irving published "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon" published in 1819-1820. It was a collection of short prose, including sketches, stories, and tales.
The short story "Rip Van Winkle" is part of this collection and states at the very beginning, that this story was found among the letters of "Dietrick Knickerbocker" (his second persona), a historian, to imitate authenticity.
The story took its inspiration from the German legend Barbaross, Peter Klaus and fairy tales. The major themes were the passing of time and the preservation of identity.
It has a very loosely structured plot about Rip Van Winkle who is an amiable farmer before 1776. Rip is offered a drink by dwarfs which lets him fall asleep for 20 years. When he awakes after the War of Independence, he finds that everything has changed: his wife is dead, his children are grown.
More info: https://interestingliterature.com/2020/05/rip-van-winkle-washington-irving-summary-analysis/
Picture: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Irving#/media/Datei:Washington-irving.jpg
Explain one of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1839 shows Poe's ability to create an emotional tone in his work, specifically emphasizing feelings of fear, impending doom, and guilt. These emotions center on Roderick Usher, who, like many Poe characters, suffers from an unnamed disease.
Poe uses traditional Gothic elements such as inclement weather, a barren landscape, and a haunted house. He contrasts this standard Gothic tale form with a plot that is inexplicable, sudden, and full of unexpected disruptions.
It can be interpreted that Poe wanted to create the sensation of claustrophobia in this story. The narrator is mysteriously trapped by the lure of Roderick’s attraction, and he cannot escape until the house of Usher collapses completely.
More info: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section3/
Picture: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe#/media/Datei:Edgar_A._Poe_-_NARA_-_528345_(cropped).jpg
