IntroductionAmerican LiteratureEnglish III

Obama’s Inaugural Speech, 2009“We remain a young nation, but in the

words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”

Purpose

•We will explore the history of American Literature and the tradition of rhetoric used, past and present.

•We will discover the literary tradition called: American Literature

•Thinking of a more fluid relationship between text and context.

• In what ways are history and ideology 'intrinsic' to literary texts?

Cosmopolitanism

•A view that includes all nations and all diversity;

•Cosmos + polis•being a “citizen of the world” vs “citizen of

a nation”•Nations have boundaries, cosmopolitanism

doesn’t. Joins all people together without conformity.

•We will see if any of our authors are Cosmopolitan and why you think so.

Universalism: Immanuel Kant(1724-1804)

•Envisioned a world government• federation of nations• keeping national tradition•Problem: diversity of humankind•Cosmopolitans believe diversity of

humankind is a fact, not a problem to be solved.

American Traditions

•Puritanism – New England tradition•Jeffersonianism- Virginian tradition•Both reject differences

▫“Often American history- and the meaning of America-has been framed as a political and cultural dialect between Virginia and Massachusetts, Cavalier and Yankee.”-Thomas Bender

•Is New York/Cosmopolitanism a third?▫Hybrid, immigrants, an island

Literary Criticism

•Purpose of class is to see the history and culture through the literature.

•Must use a “format” or an organized way to look at the text.

•See handout•We will use this type of lens to read our

texts and analyze what we read. •This focus will help/aid make writing

stronger.

Meaning of Text

•A conversation with limits; it doesn’t mean anything. Moby-Dick is not about a pink elephant.

•A great text (MD) allows the reader to create and test different theories and ideas. Depth.

•New Criticism only allowed the review of the text/words. What is the problem with that?

Horizon of Expectations

•The author writes for an audience; there is intention in the work; personal expectations.

•When reading Moby-Dick, the meaning will be affected b/c you know it’s a novel, not a poem. It’s a classic (eeewwww), reading under pressure of a course.

•All of these things effect the meaning of the text.

Horizon, con’t

•All of this is part of the horizon of expectations.

•Authors have intention of what they are going to write. (Dan Brown example)

•Genre fiction (detectives, romance, adventure)

•The literary novel: challenging, high brow, difficult, blah, blah, blah.

Horizon, con’t• Sometimes a horizon of expectation changes

takes place after the writing.▫Moby-Dick, mid 19th Century▫“I’m going to write something different.” He did.▫People freaked out. He quit writing.▫Surprised when read his obituary. ▫1920’s Melville revival!▫WWII, needed literary canon, new world power▫Modernist novel…ha! We’ve got one!

* The horizon shift had nothing to do with the writer.

You!

•Yes, you. •You have your own horizon of

expectations.•Most of ours will overlap, but we all have

different lenses. Why?•We will explore that in this class and

allow you to voice your expectations in writing in response to the texts.

America the…metaphor.

•America vs U.S. …What is the difference?•Cultural currency…which is “worth”

more?•“I’m going to America.” Isn’t there an

understanding as to what that means?•A metaphor has meaning: literal and

figurative. It works harder than plain language.

•Be conscientious of it. Look for it.

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”(1893)

That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness, that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients, that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends, that restless, nervous energy, that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom -- these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier.

Toni Morrison, “The Pain of Being Black” (TIME interview, 1989)• Toni Morrison in “The Pain of Being Black”, TIME interview

(1989), in response to what makes most people feel American (typical response-Individualism):

I feel personally sorrowful about black-white relations a lot of the time because black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war, to prevent other kinds of real conflagrations.

If there were no black people here in this country, it would have been Balkenized. The immigrants would have torn each other’s throats out, as they have done everywhere else. But in becoming an American, from Europe, what one has in common with that other immigrant is contempt for me- it’s nothing else but color. Wherever they were from, they would stand together. They could all say, “I am not that.” So in that sense, becoming an American is based on an attitude: an exclusion of me.”

Exclusion• A number of people don’t fit the typical American

rhetorical metaphor. Who?• Even legally:• “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men

are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

• Where is this from? • Statement of universal principles, right? Well…• men= metaphor• Important to see the figurative language in our

texts.

The Age of Discovery

•The Age of Writing•Columbus sails about the time of the

Gutenberg Bible, printing press •Text is about to explode!•Melville writing a sea novel in the 19th

century, long tradition of associates the sea, texts, imperialism, conquest, etc.

Jefferson to Lewis and Clark“Your observations are to be taken with great pains &

accuracy, to be entered distinctly & intelligibly for others as well as yourself, to comprehend all the elements necessary, with the aid of the usual tables, to fix the latitude and longitude of the places at which they were taken, and are to be rendered to the war-office, for the purpose of having the calculations made concurrently by proper persons within the U.S. Several copies of these as well as of your other notes should be made at leisure times, & put into the care of the most trustworthy of your attendants, to guard, by multiplying them, against the accidental losses to which they will be exposed. A further guard would be that one of these copies be on the paper of the birch, as less liable to injury from damp than common paper.

Moby-Dick• We are using Moby-Dick to frame the semester. We

will ask in the end, in what ways does Moby-Dick sum up the state of American literary history in the mid-nineteenth century?

• Frame the semester from the early settlement narrative to the concerns of American Romanticism.

• You will be reading MD chapters as we study other sections. If you are a slow reader, start now.

Final Thoughts

•To fully understand any text, you must understand the culture;

•To understand the culture, it’s important to understand the text via close reading.

•This will reveal the culture through the words.

•You must read with intent and purpose to pass this course. A “breeze through” Sparknotes will not do it.

Notebook Requirements

•You need a 3-ring binder. NO SPIRALS!•You will need dividers:

▫Class notes▫Literary elements/key words▫Handouts/printouts▫Journal▫Writing Workshop▫Midterm Gathering (or Misc.)