exam lit good

What forms of English literature were practiced in colonial America?

diaries, sermons, captivity narratives, historical writings, poetry

What did the Puritans do for American culture positively and negatively?

Negative - persecution of other religious communities, poor = lazy, hatred of entertainment, alienation of certain people. Positive - focus on education, giving money to develop culture, believing in advancement

Benjamin Franklin - a typical man of enlightenment

Representation of American Dream, rags to riches, focused on progress with science and reason, established 1st library and hospital

Beginning of prose in the US

seduction novels, gothic novels, wisdom, folk tales, historical texts with high regard for indians and nature

Most important representatives of romanticism

Ralph Waldo Emerson - trust yourself, Henry David Thoreau - radical and offensive, Margaret Fuller - New Woman, Walt Whitman - freedom within natural law, Emily Dickinson - rebellious toward God

New England Glory Days in the 19th century

rebel against puritans, progression, abolitionism, education, feminism, nature is kind (Emerson), no woman, overgrown child (Fuller), progressive ideas on childrens education (Bronson Alcott)

Sentimental/domestic/woman’s fiction of the 19th century

Fanny Fern - model husband, Ann Douglas - feminization of am. lit. - relations most important, death of a child = tragedy, emotional, themes: marriage problems, family

Transcendentalism and Transcendentalists

rebellion againts puritan ideas, god lives in the world, soul is part of god, logic is good but instinct is better, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman

Poe vs Hawthorne

Poe - realist, Hawthorne - idealist, Poe - open presentation of violence, Hawthorne less open, Poe - horror in physical terror, Hawthorne in moral decay, Poe not apprecitated in his time, Hawthorne opposite

Interpretation of Scarlett Letter by Hawthorne

Secret sin leads to guilt and pain, A symbolism - adultery, able, angle, artist, honesty can be punished worse than lying, wisdom gained through suffering, running away to europe to escape problems

What’s so great about Melville’s Moby Dick

unusal topic, anti imperialist novel, symbolism - whale = devil, vengeance, realism, ahab saying no to God

Dickinson and Whitman expetionalism

Whitman - father of freedom movements and free verse, he included slang, colloquialisms and dialecta to poetry. Dickinson was boldly original with haunting personal voice and imperfect rhymes. Their unconventonality served as an inspiration for exeperimen

What did 19th century Americans read for entertainment?

fireside poems, sentimental/domestic/women’s fiction, local color - texts about regions

Images of Indians in American literature

savages, violent, uncivilized, good friends but not entirely human, unfair treatment

African American literature in 18th-19th centuries

Frederick Douglass - depiction of slave life, selfmade man, never ending struggles. Harriet Jacobs - black people emacnipation, black feminism, appealing to christian matters

White authors’ approach to slavery

Abolitonist - Uncle Tom’s Cabin - impact of slavery on individuals and families. Defense of slavery - Marse Chan. Complex approach - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - critique of slavery, but preserving stereotypes

Literary canon, members, changes

list of literary works known for their significance. Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe. After WWI experiments were allowed and late 20th century minorities

realism vs romanticism, realistic aspects of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

realism - no supernatural elements, human experiences, concentrates on what people are. Aspects - realistic depiction of slavery, showing characters from different perspectives, dialect, slurs

three american woman of the 19th century with feminist writings

Margaret Fuller - woman in the 19th century, Charlotte Perkins Gillman - the yellow wallpaper, Louisa May Alcott - little women

Children’s literature in 19th century

Louisa May Alcott - little women, Mark Twain - Tom Sawyer, Horatio Alger, books for boys, american dream

What does Local Color mean in the 19th century literature? One region in detail

Local color - realis trend, literature about regions, narrator-writer, unreadable stories, hidden meaning - no need to go to Europe. WEST - cowboys, prostitutes, gold diggers, rude jokes, hostile setting, desert, mountains, life on the river

What makes south unique?

different ethnic groups, races, descendants (creole, cajuns). Southern gothic - violence and terror in southern literature. Historical heritage - slavery, segregation, confederacy during civil war

What did Kate Chopin do for American Literature? Why was she forgotten in the 20th century?

first openly feminist writer. Her stories showed women desire for freedom in society. Laid groundworks for future feminist writers by introducing themes like marriage, sex, and woman need for independence. Was forgoteen because of contoroversy

Naturalism in American literature

human being lacking free will, survival of the fittest, moral despair, extreme realism - everything has its effects, determinism, Jack London - To build a fire

Edith Wharton vs Henry James

wharton - environment>individual, James opposite. Wharton - realistic approach, James colored, Wharton sociological genius, James linguistic. Similarities - writin about upper class, critique of the constraints of society, exploring human relationships

Edith’s Wharton approach to Victorianism

critical perspective - lot of restrictive norms, social conventions, gender and class dynamics, not talking about ugliness, unrealistic romantic notions

Why is William Dean Howells important?

promoted realism, wanted to bring european literature to america, explored social and moral issues, protested against war

Psychological realism and international novel

psychological realism - focus on motivations and internal thoughts of the characters, author expresses opinion on social or political issues. International novel - relations between europeans and americans, each group with its own characteristic and moral

Three major realism novels

Of mice and men (John Steinbeck), Daisy Miller (Henry James), The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) - honest depiction of society and institutions in the south, comples characters with moral struggles, observations of the environment and nature

Characteristics of modernism

imagism, individualism, irony, no emotions, pessimism, oppesed to realism, direct, openness about sex (reaction to victorianism)

How important for modernism are Ezra Pound, T. S Eliot and Gertrude Stein? Who were the New Critics?

New Critics - biography has no importance, form is as important as the rest, forget what author thought. Ezra Pound - promoted imagism, developed intellectual and aesthetic exchange between the US and Europe,

T. S Eliot and Gertrude Stein

T. S Eliot - developed a theory of impersonality - poet’s emotion and experiences shouldnt influence the poetry. Gertrude Stein - promoted many modernist artists like Picasso, promoted breaking with the past and new forms of expression

Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, Willa Carther - characteristics and similarities

Lewis - development, materialism, photo realism, satire. Anderson, no plots or stories, obssesion with experience. Cather - connection to land, cultural heritage, no ornamentation. S - american life, social critique, small towns and rural life

What was high modernism and writers

experimentation, individualism, symbolism, absurdity, formalism. Gertrude Stein, E. E Cummings

What is so great about The Great Gatsby

American Dream, illegitimate ways of making money, obssesion with money, bad image of women

Influence of WWI on the writers known as Lost Generation + text

obssesion with bravery and fighting for the country, disillusionment due to propaganda, contrast of American Prudity with liberal Europe, PTSD. My sweet old etcetera (E. E Cummings)

Southern legacy in the works of William Faulkner

admits south’s fault but still loves it, southern violence as a joke, suspense, dysfunctional family = south a dysfunctional place

Harlem Renaissance

interest in black art, money and exotic places, alcohol, music. Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston

Richard Wright vs Zora Neale Hurston

Wright - communist, Zora liberal. Wright hated harlem renaissance, Zora was its representative

American Novels of social protest in the 20th century

Black protest novel - Uncle Tom’s children (Richard Wright) - brutality towards blacks, violent deaths, deep south, resistance to white racism

Who is the father of American theater?

Eugene O’Neill - greek tragedy in America. Desire under the Elms - different objects of desire, catharsis, psychoanalytical. Mourning becomes Electra - south, love within family, no blacks. Long Day’s journey into Night - novelistic, autobiography family

The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) as an ideological and didactic novel

ideological - protest against bourgeois, critique of capitalism, achieving social justice, bible, weak vs strong. Didactic - bad conditions for migrants in cali, meaning of relationship with land, american landscape

What makes novels of Djuna Barnes and Nathanael West disturbing?

West- american dream as corrupt and hollywood as its cemetery, disillusionment with deppression-era society, immoral world, dark humor. Barnes- full perspective of women life, lesbians, surreal, tragic, challenging whats normal, critique of childbearing

1920s an 1930s in American literature and culture

1920s - jazz, harlem renaissance, lost generation, war themes, naturalistic, individual issues. 1930s - black protest novels, stressed society, unemployment, escapist literature, political

Reactions to the Red Decade

historical romance - gone with the wind - apology from the south, racially offensive. Horror fiction - cosmic horror, fear of smth from outside. Detective stories - hard-boiled, clinical, violent, dishonest detective

Southern Gothic

disturbing and eccentric characters, grotesque, violent, crime, alienation. Violent stories demanded by northerners. O’Connor (A Good Man is Hard to Find), Mccullers (The Ballad of a Sad Cafe)

Important writers of the 20th century south

Flannery O’Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find - disturbing personalities, family and misfit, irony, moral degradation. Carson McCullers - The Ballad of a Sad Cafe - people disfigured physically or mentally, spiritual isolation, hormonal changes

Characteristic themes in different decades of modernism - 1920s 30s and 50s

1920s - emphasis on the individual, abundance and wealth, heroism, disillusionment, war. 1930s - group survival, poverty and suffering, nostalgia, escapism. 1950s - prosperity, family, alienation, inequality, fear of communism

Tennesse Williams, Edward Albee, Arthur Miller

Tennesse Williams - outsider, gay, themes of relationships, women, south, A Streetcar Named Desire. Edward Albee - maturing, marriage, sex, against am dream, isolation, Whos afraid of Virginia Woolf. Arthur Miller - Death of a Salesman, loss of identity

War novels

Virginia Woolf - Mrs. Dalloway 1925 -mental effects of the war, PTSD, mental and physical suicide. E. Hemingway - A farewell to Arms 1929 - realistic account of the war, disillusionment. Joseph Heller - Cath-22 1961 - WWII, absurdity of war, tragedy,? God

Black writers of the 20th century

Ralph Elisson, Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Angelou, Richard Wright

Similarities in major novels of the Eisenhower era

failure of the adult world, insanity, mental health problems, rebellion against norms, psychology, psychoanalysis

Beat Generation

Neil Casady, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burrough, Jack Kerovac. AIMED FOR - rejecting standard values, protesting against postwar prudery. ACHIEVED - revolutionary 60s, future ways of feminism

What is confessional poetry? Why is Daddy a disturbing poem?

Focus on individual experiences and traumas, sexuality, suicide, mental illness. Written to distance from the realities of 20tj century. Use of holocaust imagery, odd language, comparisons, marraige with oppressive man resembling father