Themes and Authors Flashcards
William Cullen Bryant
“Thanatopsis” (Meditation on death), extremely romantic, No afterlife or God, people go to nature as they die, Nature + Earth = female, Compare: Emily Dickinson = going to death is not a big deal and she shares Bryant’s skepticism
Washington Irving
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, Ichabod Crane is the opposite of Crevecoeur, who emphasizes the beauty of America’s farms, is against industrialization, against greedy politicians, and an advocate of Puritan values. Ichabod, however, is attempting to steal all the wealth away from Sleepy Hollow’s wealthiest farmer and invest it in the frontier lands. He is potentially planning on destroying this New England’s puritan community, very gothic novel but NOT a ghost story, industrial revolution and emigration westward is beginning to take place
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Nature” -> writing = lack of transitions, pithy lines containing axioms, writes very poetically. Emerson advocates letting go of the past, steamboats and railroad are parts OF nature, children and savages are closest to right tradition, language is derived from nature, the way nature works SHOULD be the way the ethical world works (contrast with BF), advocates intuition + dreaminess, must read with a loose mind: one cannot expect analytical rhetoric. “Self-Reliance” -> Emerson is against cities and pro-farmer, society is corrupt, family gets in the WAY of self-reliance, genius + intuition = romantic ideals, savages are healthier and more resilient than white men. ——Can compare Emerson with Bartleby in that both are against conformity and very influential in their times (Emerson is perhaps the most influential writer in the 19th century). Also advocates putting humans ABOVE god (human divinity)
Henry David Thoreau
Writing -> is much more rational than Emerson’s, writes in a much smoother prose, also uses pithy lines that resemble proverbs or maxims. Thoreau uses allusions to eastern/Asian writings (a first for his time). Whereas Emerson suggests that technology is an adaptation of nature and its means, Thoreau claims that the railroad rides upon us, a pun against railroad builders as sleepers (wooden ties under the railroad), went to jail because he refused to pay his taxes. Contrast his writing with Emerson because it is not poetic but compare it because they both use maxims. Compare him to Harriet Jacobs in that both believe human beings are becoming too mechanical in their ways, compare to Bartleby b/c both are rebelling against conformity.
Harriet Jacobs
“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” -> writing is full of metaphors, exclamation marks, italics, and is very melodramatic. She does this because her audience is middle class white women and her prose is intending to embarrass them. Contrast her family ideals with those of Emerson, contrast her heavy and harsh writing style with Emerson + Thoreau’s much cooler and rhetorical writing. She directly references the reader.
Edgar Allan Poe
“The Fall of the House of Usher” ->
Edgar Allan Poe
“The Purloined Letter” -> Detective Genre! (need a sidekick who is a foil-> highlights the intellect of another, inept and VERY perplexed police, a criminal who is equally as clever as the main detective (doppleganger), cerebral > action) Dupin needs only his intellect and uses a psychological approach (like Usher?), procedures of police are universal + systematic (Enlightenment style thinking like BF), motif of poetry, art, and creative thinking, questions of knowledge (math vs. poetry), poetry -> creativity + imagination (Dupin admits to writing poetry), compare police with both BF (for their alikeness in mathematical thinking/Enlightenment ideals) and Turkey + Nipper for their static traits)
