ENGL 240 Exam 1

Of Plymouth Plantation

• voyage on the ship
• when they landed in dawnland

A Model of Christian Charity

His greatness, His Wisdom… etc.

• The Prologue
• -not a good writer
• The Author to Her Book 
• A Letter to Her Husband
• Here Follows Some Verses
• -house burning

The Declaration of Independence

• What Is an American OR
• Letters from an American Farmer

• On Being Brought from Africa to America
• To the Right Honourable William

• Philosophy of Composition
• The Raven

The Birth-Mark

The Yellow Wallpaper

Self-Reliance

No Name Woman

• Dawnland
• Settled by Native Americans and visited by Europeans. 
• Puritans met a Native American who had traveled to England and then come back
• Indians and Puritans used/helped each other

• Native American Early Contact Stories
• Writing of Bradford and Winthrop

• Wild Chaotic
• Savage (eye of the beholder)

• Orature: stories that are spoken, exists in the mind of the culture
• Literature: Written stories, goes on to tell a story

• Want to purify Church of England
• They survived and thrived
• They were anxious, Intolerant, and Hierarchical
• They believed in:
• -absolute sovereign God
• -Constant Providential Intervention
• -Their own "election" or "exceptionalism"

• To record an example for future generations, ensuring the continuity of Puritan community or beliefs
• To instruct current generation, importance of community

• English people but not Americans
• Interpreted world entirely through a strict protestant/calvinist framework
• Tried to reform church and create own group.
• Puritans head over and founded Plimith foundation

• 1. Pilgrams (100) were separatists of Plymouth Plantation. Believed church was beyond repair
• 2. Others (1000) came were Massachusetts Bay Colony. Were not separatists and believed the church just needed to be cleansed

• Religious Tolerance
• Political Structure (Authoritarian)
• Exceptionalism (believed they were chosen by God to go to Heaven and had to make themselves worthy
• Natural Depravity (believed all humans are born naturally corrupt and Jesus is the only one who can same them

• 1. History (William Bradford)
• 2. Sermon (John Winthrop)
• 3. Familiar-peoms, diaries, etc. (Anne Bradstreet)

• Was in the second group of Puritans to come
• Merchants and Not Separatist
• Purpose: was to promote charity and community in a "New World"
• Found on principal of charity, community,and balance

If achieve what God want's they shall become a city on a hill, all eyes upon them expecting them to do good

• A proactive puritan
• Poetry included long meditative and philosophical poems, but is remembered one for personal "familial" poetry
• In story about fire in keeping with puritan values, she turns immediately to God

• She begins with predictable Puritan humility
• Broken Muse=her poetry is not good
• But writes in perfect iambic pentameter
• She is an early feminist

• Drawing attention to her body
• Metaphor to characterize her marriage
• -she is earth he is sun and he made her cold (winter)
• Fruits are children
• Poem serves to remind us that affection and emotional depth could be hallmarks of Puritan relationships

• Disperse, communities split
• Indian Wars
• Emergence of competing protestant religions
• Time: as time goes on, harder to endure for puritans
• Enlightenment

• Values and Reason
• Promotes skepticism
• Education for all is good
• Mind not soul
• Puritans always believed things happened because of God, Enlightenment leads to practical explanation (germs=illness)
• God is rational and Benevolent

• Denunciation of tyranny
• Logically organized complaint
• Sense of "threat"
• Using Preface as a form of Revenge 
• Wanted to get rid of slavery but South Carolina and Georgia wouldn't sign

• All men are created equal
• -only men not women
• Gov are instituted, get power from people
• Excised slavery clause

• colonial propaganda
• Most perfect society in the world?
• -Social compression (no aristocracy)
• -Hard work=proportional reward
• -Diversity, but with some major oversights
• -True citizenship
• -Lack of prejudice
• -Religious Indifference
• -To sum it all up

• African American literary tradition
• 1st African American to publish a book of poetry
• rationalized slavery by saying they didn't have the ability to reason 
• Bought be a quaker and Quakers believed everyone should be educated
• Had to have white elders sign off before publishing
• Her kidnapping was an act of mercy to save her from Africa 
• writing to a white audience

• Governor in Colonies
• Hopes he will treat colonies fairly
• Feelings about slavery change and she hates it
• Revisits Africa and the sorrow her parents feel

• Origins (abusive Britain) trade blocks
• Precipitous rise in nationalism
• To create terror and tangibly scare readers by stressing the irrational and the unknown
• Narrator/Main Character: almost always the same; nervous, on edge
• Setting: is withdrawn and remote, dark, indoors; readers often feel insane
• Plot: narrator is being chased, pursued, haunted or otherwise bothered
• The Double: a character or figure who in some way mirrors the narrator; often, pursuing/haunting/bothering
• Conclusion: lack of resolution, no way out, trapped

• Gothic=reaction to Enlightenment
• emphasizes the irrational and supernatural

• indoors at midnight, in "Bleak December" with books
• Lost a beautiful loved one
• Trying to heal himself through books
• The Bird: considered bird of ill-omen
• -Speaks only one word and refuses explanation
• -It will not answer because nothing can adequately answer-life's "big" questions

• Enlightenment can't answer every question
• Their writings didn't make you feel it, it made you think
• wants to produce and affect
• no poem was an accident
• There must be a reason for everything
• This essay may be a satire/mockery of Enlightenment; faith in reason, process and progress

• Old "secluded" mansion= Gothic
• -may have previously housed the insane
• Character: new mother, postpartum depression
• -wandering womb syndrome
• married to a "man of science" whose cold "reason" prevents him from listening.
• Theme: the limits and dangers of science
• narrator sees a double; she implies several times that things might be different if her husband/doctors listened 
• -husband doesn't believe she is sick
• Solution: none, continuously circling the room

• Revolutionary-era Enlightenment
• secluded apartment/laboratory
• science has replaced love
• Character: Aylmer; cannot stand imperfection and is practical to remove birthmark
• symbol of Enlightenment arrogance and reason
• Laboratory=Hell b/c of fire, heat, torment
• Celestial represents Georgiana; she was already and angel

• Transcendentalism is a religious movement of sorts, but it believes that God is inside rather than above
• We are Divine
• Best avenue to God is not via Bible, but via knowledge and cultivation of self - understand yourself 
• Transcendentalists support Enlightenment

• Most central figure in American literary history: everyone responds (via imitation, rejection) to his ideas
• inspires, frustrates, and infuriates
• Celebrity in his own times
• helped launch Thoreau and Hawthorne

• Deliberate Repitition (meant to leave an "impression")
• Essay to inspire individuals, artists, and nation
• believe he can contribute to a stronger and noble America through writing

• we are ashamed of our own divinity
• We all have a little piece of God in us but are ashamed to let it out.
• we are "afraid of truth"

• Nonconformity
• Living wholly from within
• Intuition over reason
• A new respect for the divinity of man
• 1.True for you in your private heart
• 2.Act like a child
• 3. Speak the rude truth in all ways
• 4. Practice "solitude"
• 5. Prepare to be misunderstood
• 6. Live in the present

• You care what others think
• Dole out compassion
• Care about "property"
• Quote others

• Slavery
• Charity
• Morality
• Us (coming to class because we have to)

• Famous in our time
• Tells as cautionary tale
• Facts
• -small, impoverished agricultural community
• -Aunt is married then abandoned
• -Aunt is victim of society
• -Aunt drowns self and baby in well
• Imagination
• - Pregnancy is result of potion or rape
• - Attack was assertion of community over individual