Midterm Review

Question 1

American Exceptionalism

Answer 1

America is distinct and different from other nations.

• Divine favor
• Political pride
• Found especially in Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity.”

Question 2

Puritan/Plain Style

Answer 2

Simple, direct statements
Ordinary words
Discuss religion and relationships with God
The personal, routine daily things of life
Telling a story about ourselves

Question 3

Enlightenment

Answer 3

Led to the American Revolution and creation of the United States.

• Ben Franklin
• Tommy J
• Becoming enlightened

Question 4

Realism

Answer 4

Depicted contemporary, social realities
Pulling away from fantasy and focusing on the now
Rebecca Harding Davis & Life in the Iron Mills

Question 5

Romance

Answer 5

Evocation or criticism of the past
Cult of “sensibility”
Isolation of the artist or narrator
Respect for nature
Based off the supernatural/occult (Hawthorne) and human psychology (Poe)
-Rip Van Winkle
-The Tell Tale Heart
-Hawthorne’s work
-

Question 6

Allegory

Answer 6

Has characters that directly personify
Represents specific things in the real world
Characters represent specific others
Limited
Ex. The Chronicles of Narnia

Question 7

Symbol

Answer 7

Can be anything (object, person, place)
Not specific the way an allegory is
Can take on any idea, interpretative, ambiguous
Like an allegory in that it is trying to get at deeper concepts
Nathanial Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Birthmark”

Question 8

Gothic

Answer 8

Related to the supernatural
Ancient, macabre, and has dark aspects
Works to create an effect or sensation
Can be wrapped up with sexuality
1780-1810
Edgar Allen Poe

Question 9

Transcendentalism

Answer 9

Highly intellectual, draws on Great Conversation
Moral, spiritual, and intellectual greatness
The “ought” or how they are supposed to be
Nature is tied to spirituality and intellect
Unity of all things
Reaction to modern American life
Radical ideas
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau
“Walden” especially

Question 10

Sentimentalism

Answer 10

Fiction written to influence the feelings of the reader
Primarily written by women
Effective in swaying audiences (Persuasion)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Frederick Douglass
Life in the Iron Mills

Question 11

John Smith

Answer 11

A Description of New England

Question 12

William Bradford

Answer 12

Of Plymouth Plantation

Question 13

John Winthrop

Answer 13

A Model of Christian Charity

Question 14

Conversion Writers

Answer 14

• Jonathon Edwards
• Joseph Smith
• Samson Occum
• Olaudah Equiano

Question 15

Anne Bradstreet

Answer 15

“The Author to Her Book”
“To My Dear and Loving Husband”
“Before the Birth of One of Her Children”
“Verses upon the Burning of Our House”

Question 16

Edward Taylor

Answer 16

“Huswifery”

“Meditation 8”

Question 17

de Crevecoeur

Answer 17

“Description of Charlestown

Question 18

Judith Sargent Murray

Answer 18

“On the Equality of the Sexes”

Question 19

Phyllis Wheatley

Answer 19

“On Being Brought from Africa”

Question 20

Washington Irving

Answer 20

“Rip Van Winkle”

Question 21

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Answer 21

“Young Goodman Brown”

“Th Birthmark”

Question 22

Edgar Allen Poe

Answer 22

“The Raven”
“Annabel Lee”
“The Tell Tale Heart”

Question 23

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Answer 23

The American Scholar

Divinity School Address

Question 24

Henry David Thoreau

Answer 24

“Resistance to Civil Government”

“Economy” and “Where I Lived, and What I lived For” from Walden

Question 25

William Cullen Bryant

Answer 25

“Thanatopsis”

Question 26

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Answer 26

“A Psalm of Life”

Question 27

Frederick Douglass

Answer 27

Narrative of the Life of a Slave

“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Extract of an Oration”

Question 28

Herman Melville

Answer 28

“Bartleby the Scrivener”

“The Portent”

Question 29

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Answer 29

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Question 30

Walt Whitman

Answer 30

“Song of Myself”
“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”
“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”

Question 31

Emily Dickinson

Answer 31

“‘Faith’ is a fine invention”
“Success is counted sweetest”
“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church”
“I felt a funeral in my brain”
“This World is not conclusion”
“Because I could not stop for Death”
“Tell all the Truth but tell it slant”

Question 32

Rebecca Harding Davis

Answer 32

“Life in the Iron Mills