Midterm (Identification) Flashcards
1
Q
Letter of Discovery
A
- Christopher Columbus
- 1493
- a letter (historical)
- Written to the man who financed his initial journey
- depicts the natural world of the “new” Americas and the first encounters with Indigenous peoples
2
Q
Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella Regarding the Fourth Voyage
A
- Christopher Columbus
- 1503
- Letter (historical)
- shift away from his letter of discovery
- Shows spiritual troubles and mental anguish at seeing his discovery be carted around for consumption by the masses
3
Q
The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles
A
- John Smith
- 1624
- heroic tale meant that indicated a version of life where people of all stations could live equally
- Written as a history of the colony’s early years, but is NOT really a history
- validates their goal
4
Q
The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca
A
- Cabeza de Vaca
- 1542
- a story of a Spanish colonist being taken into captivity
- ethnographic depiction of the tribe’s culture and rituals
5
Q
Of Plymouth Plantation
A
- William Bradford
- 1630-1650
- a history meant to mythologize the Puritans
- of the Plymouth plantation which intended to (1) serve as model for theological government (2) provide accurate history of the colony (3) glorify God rather than inflate themselves
- Puritan text of the sect that did NOT want to change the COE
- emphasis on “covenant” and “providence”
- typology is a focus
- ends with the realization that the experiment failed when the colony ended up looking like it did in England
6
Q
A Model of Christian Charity
A
- John Winthrop
- 1630
- A sermon that creates a new myth for these peoples
- Puritan text of the sect that wanted to change the COE
- Represents a growing feeling of Protestant Nationalism
- Primary idea: how to reconcile theological equity with inherent social inequity
- The Puritan settlement to be a City upon a Hill
7
Q
The Trial of Anne Hutchinson
A
- a court transcript in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
- 1637
- John Winthrop (governor) presiding over the trial of Anne Hutchinson
- Anne expressed discontent in the religious leaders, thinking that they were preaching a Covenant of Works rather than a Covenant of Grace
- Her engagement with the Bible as a Puritan gave her ability to defy ministers
- She is found guilty and excommunicated
8
Q
The Bay Psalm Book
A
- 1640
- first printed psalm edition in the colonies
- translated the bible into vernacular
- forgoes poetic language in favor of purity and truth in the words of god
9
Q
Poems (Prologue, Contemplations, On the Burning of Our House)
A
- Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)
- spans many genres
- linked to the woman’s world (childbirth)
- theme of self-consciousness/being humble
- struggled to reconcile hardships in her life with idea of divine providence/the divine plan
10
Q
Poems (Huswifery)
A
- Edward Taylor
- 1642-1729 —> 1685 is “Huswifery”
- metaphysical poems that combine naturalism with the spiritual
- religious lyric poetry is larger genre
- use of extended metaphor
11
Q
The Sovereignty and Goodness of God/A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration
A
- Mary Rowlandson
- 1682
- auto-biographical narrative about her captivity by the Native Americans
- Takes place during King Phillip’s War
- Theme of movement
- ethnographic study of Indigenous cultures and rituals
- Reading the Bible during captivity as an example of God’s grace –> typology
- Themes of grief, family, faith
- She is a spiritual heroine: the protagonist of a story where Providence is unfolding before her
- She does NOT return to her normal self before the captivity
- an example of the Puritan legacy: individuality through reading
12
Q
Personal Narrative
A
- Jonathan Edwards
- 1739
- describing his personal experience with God’s grace
- emphasis on sensory words to describe things; he belives it’s not enough to know something, we must use ALL of our senses
- wants to be as empircally close to describing the ineffable power of God
- emphasis on the Natural world
- a conversion story
13
Q
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
A
- Jonathan Edwards
- 1741
- Important piece in the bringing-about of the Great Awakening
- A sermon using fear to push a message
- speaking to the unconverted Puritans in the congregation
- theme of God’s arbitrary will
- seeks to AWAKEN them
14
Q
The Autobiography
A
- Benjamin Franklin
- 1784
- the beginning of a new, post-Englightenment era in America
- the modern secular self is described
- the text observes the faculties of psychology: how we have basic motor functions, knowledge of the right thing to do, and emotions which drive us
- Living one’s life is like writing one’s life
- the outcome of one’s life is seen materially/physically
- appearance is most important
- a tale of self-betterment
15
Q
The Interesting Narrative
A
- Olaudah Equiano
- 1789
- autobiography about a once-enslaved man
- a type of conversion story
- depicts the change into a “model European man” as achievable by all
- demonstrates a plurality of culture: comparing social systems through his journey
16
Q
Poems (On Being Brought from Africa to America)
A
- Phyllis Wheatley
- 1773
- first Black, enslaved, female poet to be published in the colonies
- Reflects on European 18th century sensibilities (Augustan, neo-classical, proportion, order, and harmony)
- On Being Brought accuses Christians of inequality in religion, and asks that they let Black people into the organization
17
Q
Letters from an American Farmer
A
- Hector Crèvecoeur
- 1782
- trying to define “American” identity
- a travel narrative in letter form
- pluralistic thinking: finding differences between cultures, and using those differences to uncover universal principles
- a near-Utopian landscape
- a narrative defined by work/labor
- transplantation
18
Q
Common Sense
A
- Thomas Paine
- 1776
- pamphlet at the start of the American Revolution
- seeks to convince readers that this war will affect the entire world
- uses moral sentiment to say that even if you are far away, you must be spurred to action by your emotional response to the suffering of others
- people have REASON/COMMON SENSE
- believes we CANNOT go back from this point in American history
- an emotional, impassioned text
19
Q
The Declaration of Independence
A
- Thomas Jefferson (and others)
- 1776
- declamation of a new American identity
- a nation grown purely from REASON rather than the emotions and passions of early war texts like “Common Sense”
20
Q
Rip Van Winkle
A
- Washington Irving
- 1819
- a response to the claims that American culture is too infantile to have anything of its own
- a story about sleeping through the Revolution; what would happen if you lost your sense of identity
- early Romanticism
21
Q
The Author’s Account of Himself
A
- Washington Irving
- 1819
- emphasis on travel and the significance of the natural world to the American identity
- meditating on the so-called superiority of Europe’s deep, long past/history versus America’s newness
- the discovery of America as an aesthetic education
- invocation of the sublime/the beautiful
22
Q
Poems (Thanatopsis)
A
- William Cullen Bryant
- 1821
- Romanticisim
- communion and intimacy with nature
- mortality of the human conjoined with the immortality of the natural world
23
Q
Nature
A
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- 1836
- Romanticism and Trancendentalism
- a treatise (non-fiction) or examination of the natural world
- looking for the universal through the particular
- Wants to have an original relationship with the divine/the universe (rather than relying so much on the past) –> nature as the text which can elucidate this for us
- Emphasis on SIGHT
- Rejecting a history of empiricism and rationalism
24
Q
The American Scholar
A
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- 1837
- arguing against the institutionalization of education in America
- language of fragmentation and alienation
- Emphasis the dignity of the ordinary experience in shaping our view of the world, rather than that of so-called “higher education”
- Focusing on the self, the internal, the local, allows us to notice the smaller things and gain an education from them instead
25
Q
Self-Reliance
A
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- 1841
- idea that the social contracts and institutions we enter into when we mature remove our youthful ability to speak our minds and make us self-conscious
- youth has pure genius by the reliance we place on our own thoughts
- must find solitude in order to regain that self-reliance
- true freedom comes from the capacity to change
- all individuals have the potential to “become,” or the turning inward and discovery of the self
26
Q
Walden, or Life in the Woods
A
- Henry David Thoreau
- 1854
- Transcendentalism (?)
- mixes genres (autobiography, natural history, conduct book, essays) to physically represent that form inhibits individual progress
- Addressed to “poor students”
- describes the many forces which impoverish the human, and the student knows them most intimately
- Capitalism force us to sacrifice individuality for the gaining of fixed property, but we must be individuals who can change because that is where freedom resides
- DELIBERATE LIVING, WAKING UP
27
Q
The Fall of the House of Usher
A
- Edgar Allan Poe
- 1839
- Gothic romanticism
- unsettling and depressing diction; emphasizes apprehension
- In a remote and static place
- looking to the past/a culture that has become trapped in the past
28
Q
Young Goodman Brown
A
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- 1835
- language of apprehension and depression like Poe
- a look back at Puritanism
- relates to Hawthorne’s own family history and involvement in the Salem Witch Trials
- the stranger akin to the devil; Faith akin to religious faith/devotion/piety –> an allegory
- nature depicted as a place of paganism and heathenism; purely negative
