American Literature of the 19Th Cent

American literature of the 19th cent.

Early American and Colonial Period 1. Early American literature – Indian Cultures; 2. The Literature of Exploration; 3. The Colonial Period in New England; 4. Literature in the Southern and Middle Colonies

1) Early American Literature

Native American oral tradition

 Indian oral literature and tradition is one of the richest but least explored;  Orally transmitted myths, legends, tales and lyrics of Indian cultures (no written literature before the first Europeans arrived);  Native American oral literature is diverse, nevertheless a few generalizations can be made: Indian stories are full of references to nature being a spiritual as well as physical mother; full of tribal heroes.

 Values, humour, truth and history are transmitted through oral tradition,  The role of elders in transmitting the culture  Appropriate season, custom and time of telling a story  The stories expresses what American Indians value and believe; help ppl to understand the meaning of their existence, and the existence of other things in the world

 From these stories young children learn how ppl came to be, ; they receive explanations of why things are the way they are and instructions on how to live properly  Many stories explain that ppl have a special responsibility to all living things with whom we share the Earth  These are stories which resemble (Ojibwe) fables and include a moral at the end of the story ( e.g. Manabozho and the Cranberries (Ojibwe))

 The language of the Native Americans – more than 50 language families and hundreds of distinct languages;  Tribes do not share a common literary heritage;  Tribal literatures are unique and culturally specific – stories, legends and so on have different significance for the members of a different tribe  Translations of the same tale from different tribes are not identical ( “ iktomi” can be a “spider” or a “coyote”)

The meaning of songs (…freedom-idea) The eagle sings:

The sun´s rays Lie along my wings And stretch beyond their tips.

A grey little whirlwind Is trying to catch me. Across my path 1 It keeps whirling.

1. Oral literature includes: myths, legends, songs and chants, and even speeches; 2. Elements of ritual, patterned way of singing: 3. Songs: 1) songs of healing 2) individual songs 3) songs of growth 4) songs of vision and dream 5) songs of death

 Tales: 4. mythological stories 5. trickster tales 6. hero tales 7. miscellaneous tales

An example of an Indian vision song: I The song I walk here (“they learn about the world by songs from elders”) A very short tale (Dakota) Manabozho and the Cranberries (Ojibwe)

2) THE LITERATURE OF EXPLORATION (picture Columbus)

 The first European record of exploration in America( cca 400 years before the next recorded European discovery) – written in Old Norse – Vinland Saga – a band of wandering Norseman settled on the northest coast of America  Epistola – Christopher Columbus´s journal (1493) - describes the famous voyage and the trip´s drama.

3) THE COLONIAL PERIOD IN NEW ENGLAND (ppl didn´t know anything about farming, but the new ppl bring also diseases...)

The first colonies

 Colonial ambition – trade; promise of freedom and hope;  Virginia – Jamestown (1607): the first permanent settlement was a result of mercantile /obchodné/ motives – plantations providing goods for British trade  The conceptions of the New World was unrealistic – perfumers and tailors vs. epidemic fevers and Indian raids;  Population: aristocrats, staves, farmers, frontiersmen /hrnčiar/

1. Although the initial English attempts at colonization were disasters (the first colonists of Roanonke disappeared – establishment of the second colony Jamestown was accompanied by starvation, brutality, misrule) the literature of this period paints America in glowing colours 2. Settlers had to fight wilderness – very little time for art  They had to be practical, energetic, often merciless 2  Writings contain historical, geographical and theological information; not very imaginative and artistic.  Detailed accounts of the lives of colonists.

 A Brief and True Report of the New-Found Land of Virginia – the exploration of Roanoke  The General Historie of Virginia (Pocahontas) – writings by Captain John Smith (one of the leaders of Jamestown colony) – the famous story of Indian maiden.

The Colonial Period in New England

Plymouth (1620), Salem(1628), Massachusetts Bay (1630) – more than 20.000 Englishmen – learned Puritan clergymen and governors - The Puritans – wished to reform, “purify” the Church of England; held on to the Calvinists doctrine and dogmas (original sin and depravation,/nemravnosť/ etc); persecuted the “witches”; instead on common schools; had the first college ( Harvard), first printing press,; created memorable literature. - According to the Puritans – good writing – worshipping God, facing spiritual dangers; - Puritan style: metaphysical poetry, homely journals, religious history. - Topics: life is seen as a test; failure leads to eternal damnation; success to heavenly bliss; - Puritan authors commonly cited Bible, interpreted all things and events as symbols; - The first Puritans to settle in New England are known as “Pilgrims”

William Bradford (1590-1657) - At age 17, Bradford fled for Holland with persecuted Pilgrims; at age 30 sailed with them to America; in 1621 was chosen governor and reelected 30 times till his death; - Governor of Plymouth, deeply pious, self-educated man, spoke several languages, including Hebrew - Of Plymouth Plantation (1651)– history of the colony´s beginnings

John Winthrop (1588-1649) - A Puritan; first governor of Massachusetts Bay; - Born to a wealthy and influential English family; - Sailed to America at the age of 40; - The History of New England - A Model of Christian Charity – moral principles and ideas of common welfare.

Roger Williams (1603-1683) - Symbol of the American ideals of liberty of conscience and toleration of racial and religious differences; - Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, winter among Indians, found new settlement - Criticised all new American churches; - A Key into the Languages of America

(staci iba par mien vediet- co mame na seminaroch)

Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) o The first published book of poems by an American was also the first American book to be published by a woman; o Born and educated in England o Long religious poems; witted poems from daily life; love poems

3 o The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650) – book of poems (inspired by English metaphysical poetry) o *To My Dear and Loving Husband; A Letter To Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment

Mary Rowlandson (1637-1711) - Heavy immigration and acquisition of Indian lands after the early peaceful wears resulted into open hostility and series of Indian raids - Narrative (The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson) – subject of her narrative is her own captivity by an Indian tribe; 30 editions and reprintings; didn´t see her work in print.

Samuel Sewall (1652-1730)  Member of special court that condemned the “witches” of Salem in 1692; years later confessed his error publicly  Author of the first track published against slavery – The Selling of Joseph  Diary – reflects rapid influx of immigrants, secularization of daily life and practical traits that came to be called “Yankee”

Edward Taylor (1642-1729)  Town minister, missionary, doctor, teacher, civic leader, born in England, studied at Harvard College;  Never published his poetry, it was discovered in 1930s;  Funeral elegies, medieval “ debate”, preparatory meditations  Metrical History of Christianity – history of martyr

Prednáška 2 (11.10.2012) Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705)  The Day of Doom (1662) - a long narrative, terrifying popularization of Calvinistic doctrine, the first American bestseller

Colton Mather 1663-1728)  Contradictory author: contemporary influence and international reputation of his works, but was known as a witch-hunter and pedantic egoist

 Was enrolled in Harvard at 11

 Literary defect was his style - pedantic, heavy, literary allusions and quotations in several languages

 Wanders of the Invisible World - analysis of the validity of evidence against witches

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1799)  Defender of New England Calvinism, revival of Puritan orthodoxy

 Wrote serious books in childhoods, enrolled at Yale at 13

 Systematic philosopher

 Freedom of Will, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, The Nature of True Virtue

Literature in the Southern and Middle Colonies  Literature of this pre-revolutionary period was aristocratic and secular, reflecting the dominant social and economic systems of the southern plantations 4  Authors of this era include: William Byrd, Robert Beverley, Olaudah Equiano and Jupiter Hammon (both slaves - black writers, Equiano - 1st black in America to write an autobiography, Hamman - 1st black American to publish a poem)

Revolutionary Period in American Literature, The American Enlightenment Revolutionary period in Am. literature  The period from 1765 - 1810 - the Revolution - the Foundation of the Union

 American Revolution against Britain (1775 - 1783) - the first modern war of liberation against a colonial power, the triumph of independence was seen as a di- vine sign of American greatness

 Brief characterization of the literature of the revolutionary era: ideas of liberty, oratory material, propa- ganda material, patriotic pamphlets, essays on democracy and democratic government and rights of man

Political situation o British colonial wars

o Intolerable British trade and taxation policies (e.g. Boston Tea Party, 1773)

o Growth of a loose confederation

o Growing sense of unity and independence

o Concerns for general toleration, civil rights and a more comprehensive democracy in government

o Immigration of a new population

Taxes o French and Indian War cost a lot of money

o Parliament (the British government) decided to tax to colonies to help pay for it

o The first tax was the Sugar Act of 1764. It placed a tax on sugar imported by the colonies

o Stamp Act of 1765 placed a tax on all printed material, such as newspapers and playing cards

NO taxation without Representation o The colonists claimed „no taxation without representation“ because they were being taxed but had NO vote in Parliament and had no say in how the colonies were being governed

o The colonists started a boycott, or a refusal to buy certain goods, from the British

The Boston Tea Party o Colonists dressed up like Mohawk Indians and boarded three British ships full of tea

o The colonists dumped all the tea into the larbor, about 90,000 pounds

o King George III was furious!

Situation in literature o Mainly political writings appeared

5 o American dependence on English literary models led to the search for a „native literature“, nevertheless, the literary independence was slowed by difficult economic and political conditions concerning publishing and by an excessive imitation of English or classical literary models

o Talented and educated people were attracted by politics, law and diplomacy, not writing - American writers had no modern publishers, no audience and no adequate legal protection

o Until 1825, most American authors paid printers to publish their work

o Audience wanted well-known European authors, only journalism offered financial profit

o The absence of adequate copyright laws was the clearest cause of literary stagnation, American printers pir- ated English best-sellers - it was a source of profit on one hand, on the other hand pirating was seen as a ser- vice to the colonies - the books educated American public

The American Enlightenment  a movement marked by an emphasis on rationality rather than tradition, scientific inquiry instead of unques- tioning religious dogma, and representative government in place of monarchy

 Enlightenment thinkers and writers were devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty and equality as the natural rights of man

 The Age of Reason manifested rationalistic conception of man in his relation with nature and God too

 The writings of John Locke and J.J. Rousseau had enormous influence on American readers and leaders

 The enlightened rationalists confined their logic to practical affairs

 By the time of Revolution there were nearly 50 newspapers and nearly 40 magazines

 Periodical publications gave a hearing to essayists, propagandists and political writers

Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)  David Hume (a Scottish philosopher, called him „the first America’s great man of letters“

 Franklin embodied the Enlightenment ideal of human ...

 Writer, printer, publisher, scientist, philantrophist, diplomat, the most famous and respected private figure of his time

 Autobiography - recording of his early life ...

 Poor Richard’s Almanach - annual book of useful encouragement, advice and factual information that made him prosperous and well-known throughout the colonies, contains many memorable sayings. e.g God helps them that help themselves, Early to bed and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, wealthy …

 To establish good habits, Franklin invented a reusable calendrical record book in which he worked on one virtue each week, recording each lapse with a black spot

 Despite his prosperity and fame, he never lost his democratic sensibility, in his later years he was president of an antislavery associations, he also promoted universal public education

Hector St. John de Crevecoeur (1735-1813)

6  French aristocrat who owned a plantation out NYC before the revolution

 The first to exploit the „melting pot“ image of America

 Idealization of natural man as inherently good when free, and subject to corruption only by artificial urban society

 Letters from an American Farmer(1782) - 12 letters that enthusiastically praise the colonies for their industry, tolerance, prosperity, depicts America and an agrarian paradise

Thomas Paine (1737-1808)  Author of political pamphlets - the most political literature of that day, pamphlets were often read aloud in public, even soldiers read them aloud in their camps, the language of pamphlets was clear, logical and simple in order to address masses

 Common Sense - a striking pamphlet in favour of a complete break with England, voiced the idea of American exceptionalism, in 3 months it sold a hundred thousand copies, was reprinted also abroad

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)  Governor of Virginia, American minister in Paris, the first American secretary of state, rector of University of Virginia, America’s third president, the author of the best known national document The Declaration of Inde- pendence

 Interested in law, philosophy, government, architecture, education, religion, science,

 Government most provide freedom of speech, thought, association, press, worship, education and enterprise

Neoclassicism: Epic, Mock Epic and Satire  „literary“ writing was not as simple and direct as political writing, authors of poetry often „practised“ neoclassicism

 American literary patriots found their expression in the epic - a long narrative poem in elevated language, celebrating a legendary hero

 Satirical poetry was more popular than serious verse - the mock epic genre encouraged American poets to use their natural voice

 Satire appealed to Revolutionary audiences because it contained social comment and criticism, political topics and social problems were the main subject of the day

Philip Freneau (1752-1832)  Poet of the American Revolution, escaped the imitativeness, incorporated European Romanticism, embraced liberal and democratic causes

 His popular poems, published in newspapers for the average reader, regularly celebrated American Subjects: The Virtue of Tobacco, The Jug of Rum

 The Wild Honey Suckle - neoclassic lyricism

7 18.10.2012 Noah Webster (1758 – 1843) Dictionary – updated Webster´s Dictionary as still standard today Blue-Backed Speller, published in 1873, helped to standardize the new American version of English

Writers of fiction By the time of the American Revolution, American writers had ventured beyond the Puritan literary style and its religious themes and had developed styles of writing that grew from distinctly American experiences. Used American subjects, historical perspectives, themes of change, nostalgic tones, initiated new forms. The colonial fascination with science, nature, freedom, and innovation came through in the writings of the Revolutionary period. The colonists developed their own way of speaking as well, no longer copying the more formal style of British writers. Charles Brockden Brown (1771 – 1810) The first professional American novelist. In his haunting novels (e.g. Wieland) developed the genre of American gothic novel – exotic and wild settings, disturbing psychological depth, ruined castles, ghosts, mysterious secrets, threatening figures. Expresses subconscious fears that the outwardly optimistic Enlightenment period drove underground. Washington Irving

 Used a pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon

 Recreated American history, gave it an imaginative life, chose the most dramatic aspects of American history

 One of the first noted American authors to be highly acclaimed in Europe during his life time

 Wrote numerous short stories, biographies, histories, and tales of his travels

 Named in honour of American President George Washington, under whom the United States gained independence during the American Revolution.

Sketch Book – contains two best remembered stories: Rip Van Winke – still accepted as authentic American legend – tells a story of a man who slept for 20 years, waking to find the colonies independent The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – the power of superstitions on the background story of a Headless Horseman

James Fenimore Cooper

- A novelist whose subject was sea, American history, but also the multicultural issue

- His myth of America is timeless, like the wilderness – he depicted the tragic destruction of wilderness, personal experience enabled him to write vividly of the selected subjects

- His work demonstrates lots of romantic features (considering the setting, the protagonist, the antagonist, as well as the presence of romances).

- The Pioneers – creates the character of Natty Bumpoo – embodiment of idealized individualist who is better than the society he protects; poor and isolated, he´s the touchstone of ethical values, loves nature and freedom, is deeply spiritual

8 - Leather-Stocking Tales – collection of 5 novels

The Last of the Mohicans o Comines heroism and romance with powerful criticism of the destruction of nature and tradition o Adventurous, historical novel; attempts to be realistic and factual o SETTING: 1750s – French and Indian War (“bloody arena”) – British and the French are fighting for the control over the colonies; Fort Henry and Fort William (New York) o THEMES: personal lineage – hereditary title of chief passed from father to son; picture of Indian character and life; oppositions based on culture, race and geography, life on the frontier, interracial love and friendship o CHARACTERS:

 Nathaniel (Natty) Bumppo – Hawk-eye – Long Rifle: through him wilderness and civilization are mediated, he´s guide and protector, skilled woodsman, in him culture of Indians and the white people is blended

 Uncas – son of Chingachgook – Uncas is the last of the Mohicans

 Magua – former leader of Huron Indians (driven away from his tribe because of drunkenness), mysterious, terrifying

 Cora and Alice Munro – daughters of Colonel Munro – commander of Fort William Henry; half sisters, Cora dies in the book; Cora has a “Negro” mother, Cora and Uncas have feelings for each other

 Major Duncan Hey-ward – young officer, colonist, loves Alice

The Romantic Period: 1820 – 1860 – Essayists and Poets

Socio-political situation

- Economic and political independence

- Prospects of peace, prosperity and social progress

- Self-sufficiency, the development of American industry

- Extension of slavery

- Public school system

- The issue of women´s rights

- The issue of Indians´ removal The Romantic Movement

- Originated in Germany, reached America around 1820 (20 years after Lyrical Ballads – Coleridge, Wordsworth)

- Romantic period in America – the period of national expansion, strengthening of the national identity and discovery of distinctive American voice

- Art, rather than science, could best express universal truth; importance of expressive art (“The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.” Emerson). Major theme:

9 - The development of self; primary method: self-awareness; self and nature were one, one´s self were one with all humanity – the individual had a moral duty to reform social inequalities and relieve human suffering

- The idea of “self” was redefined, no longer symbolized selfishness

- The romantic spirit suited American democracy: individualism on one hand and the value of common person on the other

Transcendentalism

 Reaction against 18th century rationalism; the movement was based on a fundamental belief in the unity of the world and God; the souls of each individual was thought to be identical with the world, belief in the identification of the individual soul with God

 Wanted to explore inner spiritual life; not interested in the old American patriotism and growing wealth

 Formed a movement of feelings and belief, not only a system of philosophy

 They rejected both the conservative Puritanism of their ancestors as well as the newer, liberal faith of Unitarianism; the saw them as cold and lifeless

 The matter of truth: believed in intuition and feeling; didn’t want to rely strictly on logics

 According to O. Bronson the movement is “the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively…and order of knowledge transcending the senses”

 H.D. Thoreau: “Wisdom doesn’t inspect, it beholds.”

 The Dial – a quarterly magazine

 The Transcendentalist never published a manifesto – they insisted in individual differences, on the unique viewpoint of an individual

 Number of Transcendentalists were abolitionists and some were involved in experimental utopian communities

 American Transcendental Romantics saw themselves as lonely explorers outside the society and convention; their American hero faced risks, destruction in search for self-discovery Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Spiritual vision and practical, aphoristic expression made him the towering figure of his era; much of his spiritual insight comes from his readings in Eastern religion

 Consciously avoided a logical intellectual system because such a rational system would have negated his Romantic belief in intuition and flexibility

 was accused of subverting Christianity because of his statement “to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the church”

 he accused the church or acting “as if God was dead” and of emphasizing dogma

 was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society

 travelled the US and gave more than a thousand of public speeches and lectures Essays: - Nature: formulated and expressed the philosophy of Transcendentalism; man should not see nature as something to be used, man´s relationship with nature transcends the idea of usefulness 10 - The Poet: expresses the need for the United States to have its own new and unique poet to write about the new country´s virtues and vices; opens up new possibilities of poetry (in structure, rhythm, idea) - The American Scholar: provided a visionary philosophical framework for escaping “from under its (Europe´s) iron lids” and building a new, distinctly American cultural identity; called for a burst of new American creativity - Self-Reliance: to believe in your own thought and the truth of your heart Poetry: - Concord Hymn (celebrates the Battle of Concord during the Am. Revolution); Society and Solitude

Lecture 25.10.2012

The Romantic Period: 1820-1860

Essayists and Poets

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Throughout his life he reduced his needs to the simplest level and managed to live on very little money, thus maintaining his independence;

His style blends close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore; while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and “Yankee” love of practical detail;  He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life´s true essential needs;  Was an early advocate of recreational hiking and canoeing, of conserving natural resources on private land , and of preserving wilderness as public land;  Favoured vegetarian lifestyle  Walden, of, Life in the Woods (1854)- Thoreau´s masterpiece; reflects 2 years, 2 months and 2 days he spent living in a cabin he built at Walden Pond on property owned by Emerson – this period is shaped in the book into a period of 1 year  Walden opens the inner frontier of self- discovery;  Building of the cabin is described in great detail, it´s a metaphor for the building of a soul;  Thoreau challenged “ living of the authentic life” , was also influenced by Hindu and Buddhist philosophy;  Walden inspired W.B. Yeats; Civil Disobedience – essay – inspired – inspired Gandhi and Martin Luther King  Ecological consciousness, do-it-yourself independence, abolitionism and political theory of civil disobedience and peaceful resistance.

 WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892)  “Not the book needs so much to be the complete thing, but the reader of the book does.”  Innovative work expressed the country´s democratic spirit;  Often called the father of free verse;  Controversial, even obscene for his time;  His sexual (homosexual) orientation had been discussed widely  Volunteered as a nurse during the Civil War (1861-1865)

Leaves of Grass A collection of poems, a visionary book celebrating all creation; innovative, free-verse form, unrhymed, open celebration of sexuality, vibrant democratic sensibility, extreme Romantic assertion that the poet´s self was one with the poem the universe.

11 Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of the Grass, revising it in several editions until his death.

 his poetry is full of concrete sights and sounds; it´s vast, energetic and natural as the American continent;  Whittman seems to project himself into everything he sees or imagines;  but he´s equally the suffering individual;

 Song of Myself- the most stunningly original poem ever written by an American;  When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom´d – a moving elegy on the death of Abraham Lincoln;  Democratic Vistas - long essay , criticizes materialism of industrialism ´s “Gilded Age”

The Brahmin Poets / The Boston Brahmins . patricians, Harvard-educated, professors or ambassadors; . European- oriented views; fused /spájali-by combining/ American and European traditions; attempted to educated the general populace by introducing a European dimension to American literature; . Their conservativeness blinded them to innovativeness.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)  Professor of modern languages at Harvard, the best-known American poet of his day; merged European and American tradition;  Combined considerable learning with an enlightened/osvietené/ understanding of people;  Most famous for his long narrative poem The Song of Hiawatha – popularized native legends in European meters.

Other Brahmin Poets include: James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), Oliver Wendell Holmes *contrast them

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

 A radical individualists, her life was outwardly uneventful but was full of inner intensity;  An introverted person, most of her friendships were kept thanks to vast correspondence;  Preferred to stay at home, in her father´s house, often talking with ppl from another room, or just sending them poems or flowers instead  Loved nature, found inspiration in the birds, animals, plants and changing seasons of the new England countryside;  Imagistic style, modern and innovative; clean and clear poetry – never uses 2 words when one will do;  Original punctuation and capitalization; often omits titles  Only very few poems had been published during her lifetime and only posthumously was she completely acclaimed.  Explores the dark and hidden part of the mind, dramatizing death and the grave;  had an excellent sense of humour;  wrote 1775 poems- Complete Poems- published and discovered after her death

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD (1820-1860) FICTION

Characterization

Romantic writers (and artists) saw themselves as revolting against the Age of Reason” (1700-1770) and its values. They celebrated imagination/intuition versus reason/calculation, spontaneity versus control, subjectivity and

12 metaphysical musing vs. objective fact, revolutionary energy vs. tradition, individualism vs. social conformity, democracy vs. monarchy, and so on.

Romantic vs. non-Romantic Romantic/Classical R: emotional, individualistic, revolutionary, loves solitude and nature, fantasy/introspection, the particular, subjective perception, satisfaction of desire, organic, creative energy/ power, exotic, “noble Savage”/Outcast, Idealist Philosophy

NR: Reasonable and Practical, Public Responsibility, Conservative, Loves Public, Urban life, External Reality, The Universal, Objective Science, Desire Repressed, Mechanical, Form, Mundane, Bourgeois Family, Materialist/Empirical Philosophy

Literary themes (very diverse in Am.rom.)

 Escapism (journey, quest, etc.);  Common man as hero;  Nature as refuge, source of knowledge and/or spirituality;  Forbidden/Socially inappropriate/ Tragic romantic relationship;  Independence, equality, and freedom (influence of Am. Independence War)  Struggles of Byronic hero;  Native history;  Mysticism and abnormal psychology;  Abolition etc….

Sub Genres - Slave narrative: protest, struggle of authors; self-realization/identity; - Domestic (sentimental) novel: social and family duties of a woman; women secondaty in their circumstances o men; often cheaply sentimental - Gothic novel: devilish childhood; family doom; mysterious foundling; tyrannical father; gloomy atmosphere; etc. - Women´s fiction: anti-sentimental: heroine begins poor and helpless, heroine succeeds in her own character - Buildungsroman: initiation novel; growth from child to adult.

PRINCIPLES  Belief in natural goodness of man, that man in a state of nature would behave well but is hindered by civilization. The figure of the „ Noble Savage” is an outgrowth of this idea.

 Sincerity, spontaneity, and faith in emotion as markers of truth.

 Nature as a source of instruction, delight, and nourishment for the soul, return to nature as a source of inspiration and wisdom, celebration of man´s connection with nature, life in nature often contrasted with the unnatural constraints of the society.

 In art, the sublime, the grotesque, the picturesque, and the beautiful with a touch of strangeness all were valued above the Neoclassical principles of order, proportion, and decorum

 Interest in the “ antique”: medieval tales and forms, ballads, Norse and Celtic mythology; the Gothic

 Belief in perfectibility of man, spiritual force immanent not only in nature but in mind of man.

 Affirmation of the values of democracy and the freedom of the individual.

13  Belief that what is special In a man is to be valued over what is representative; delight in self-analysis

 Belief in organicism rather than Neoclassical rules, development of a unique form in each work.

8.11.2012

The American novel and The wilderness experience  The development of the American novel coincided with westward expansion, with the growth of nationalist spirit, and with the rapid spread of cities.  Geography of the imagination developed, in which town, country and frontier would play a powerful role in American lie and literature- as they continue to do today  Cooper explored uniquely American settings and characters: frontier communities…….  Cooper explored uniquely /špecificky/ American Indians, and the wilderness of western New York and Pennsylvania. Most of all, he created the first American heroic figure: Natty Bumppo (also known as Hawkeye, Deerslayer, and Leatherstocking), a skilled frontiersman whose simple morality and almost superhuman resourcefulness /nápaditosť/ mark him as a true Romantic hero.

A new kind of hero  Cooper created the 1st American heroic figure: Natty Bumpoo (alos known as Hawkeye, Deerslayer and Leatherstocking), a skilled frontiersman whose simple morality and almost superhuman resourcefulness mark him as a true romantic hero, a triumph of American innocence.  This kind of hero is quite different from the hero of Age of Reason  The rationalist hero: wordly, educated, sophisticated, making a place for himself in civilization  The typical hero of American Romantic fiction: youthful, innocent, intuitive and close to nature  American Rom. Heroes of today : the 20th and-21st cent descendants of Natty Bumpoo can be found in dozens of pop-cultures heroes: The lone Ranger, Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones, and lots of western, detective, and fantasy stories.

THE DARK ROMANTICS TDR did not believe that nature is necessary good or harmless (in contrast to the Transcendentalists). TDR´s view of existence developed from both the mystical and melancholy features of Puritan though. In their work they explored the conflict btw good and evil, the psychological effects of guilt and sin, and even madness (Young Goodman Brown, Scarlet Letter) Dark Romantics saw the blackness and the horror of evil.

ROMANCE A romance is an independent American form which expressed the Romantic vision in fiction.  A heightened, emotional and symbolic form of the novel, not a love story, a serious story  Heroic figures with mythic significance, often haunted and alienated individuals, isolated, lonely, visionary  Plot is often symbolic  Most of romantic heroes die in the end.

American authors simply didn´t have the material for writing a novel – the new world lacked a historical background or cultural resources and American society was not built on a range of different social structures sa the English society was American authors had to move away from ordinary novelistic requirements while relying on the vision and method ……….. The romancer moves often in a haunted and fatalistic world or a world of daydream and nightmare, fantasy and revery A romance makes use of allegory, symbol, legend, myth, archetype and ritual. A romance also involves a mixture of realistic detail and fable or parable. 14 Romance characters tend to be somewhat unreal, since they often get an abstract or ideal presentation Mysterious, unexplained or incredible events may occur and connections are not always made

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

• NH was born in Salem, Massachusetts; his father was a sea captain and descendant of John Hawthorne, one of the judges who oversaw the Salem Witch Trials. Although Puritanism no longer existed as a formal organized religion its influence in moral and social practices remained very strong, existing not only in New England but having penetrated trough United States.

He added “w” to his surname, cuz he was ashamed of his fathers actions. • Hawthrone´s father died in 1808 of yellow fever when Hawthorne was only 4 years old, and Nathaniel was raised secluded from the world by his mother. Hawthrone´s Puritan past broutgh him to add the ´´w´´ to his surname in his early twenties and the Puritan legacy for long intrigued him; Many-----  Was born in Salem, Massachusetts, his father was a sea captain and descendant /nástupca, potomok/ of John Hathorne, one of the judges /sudca/ who oversaw /dozerať/ the Salem Witch trials. Although Puritanism no longer existed as a formal, organized religion its influence in moral and social practices remained /zostať/ very strong, existing not only in New England but having penetrated /preniknúť/ trough the United States. Hawthorne´s father died at sea in 1808 of yellow fever when Hawthorn was only four years old, and Nathaniel was raised secluded from the world by his mother. Hawthorne´s Puritan past brought him to add “w” to his surname in his early twenties and the Purtitans legacy /dedičstvo/ for long intrigued /zaujať/ him.

The Scarlet Letter  Classic portrayal of Puritan America  For its time a very daring book  With a modern psychological insight → it was something new for A literature  Hawthorne probed the secret motivations in human behaviour, explored the guilt and anxiety that grew out of sins against humanity and asserted that emotional and intellectual ambivalence was inseparable from the Puritan heritage of America. → inner conflict, he contrasted deeper emotions and emotionality

 (Hester cope with it differently, guilt, power of guilt, Arthur - coward)  H. characterized most of his books as romances which are not strictly bound to realistic detail, it freed him to represent symbolically the passions, emotions, and anxieties of his characters and to expose “ the truth of human heart” that he believed this lies hidden beneath mundane daily life  His writings are influenced by his antiquarian enthusiasm and his understanding of the colonial history  Was absorbed by the enigma of the evil and moral responsibility → always oppositions  Short story that possesses all of this attributes is Young Goodman Brown.  Other works include:  The House of the seven Gables (1851) – deals with an inherited curse on a family and its resolution through love; → typical dark romantic novel  The Blithedale Romance (1852)- modern setting, a portrait and critique of the socialist, utopian Brook Farm community → people isolated themselves of purpose, people we not full or virtues but nature, that is why he criticised them??

15  The Marble Faun – set in Rome, deals with the Puritan themes of sin and salvation

Herman Melville (1819-1891)  His family fell into poverty upon the death of the father, Melville had no college education, at 19 went to sea.  His career began with largely autobiographical, well-received adventure stories about his experiences as a sailor in the South Seas. Yet, although his career began with easy, early recognition, it evolved /vyvinúť sa/ into tragic anonymity. Though he published eleven prose books, along with shorter pieces and books of poems, it was only thirty years after his death that people began to realize just what it was he had managed to achieve /dokázať/.

Some notable works: - Typee – based on his time spent among supposedly cannibalistic but hospitable tribe of the Taipis; the book praises the islanders and their natural, harmonious life and criticizes the Christian missionaries, who Melville found genuinely civilized than the people they came to convert.

- Moby-Dick; or, The Whale – Melwille´s masterpiece - Isnare – young boy/men, frustrated, doesn’t feel comfortable on the see, decisded to go to the sea, the complications come when the captain of the boat is – he is searching for moby-dick and kills him (cause he is without one leg). The end of the story is dark – many people died. → moby-dick leads the risk of the life, nature is very strong here and it is represented by moby-dick

. Melville´s writings reveal his pessimistic views on man, the idea of the darkness of man´s deeds and the evil seemingly inherent in nature itself . He introduced “stream of consciousness” technique (in Moby Dick), which was long the technique was known or given the name, or even appreciated. SOC – mixture of different style, themes

The theme of a quest  The theme of a quest, the urge to explore, seems to be inherited in the American character and history ( starts with Pilgrims)  In Melville´s work, both the physical and the spiritual exploration are interwoven.

The quest involves, roughly, 6 elements:

1) Departure of the hero in special circumstances (the hero is unable to cope with the society, he´s somehow cut off, an outsider, a disoriented or alienated hero) → 2) A specific goal (this estranged forces him to go away in search for some solution and his search has a goal, he ´s convinced that this goal will somehow change his life); → his self explorations, looking for his self 3) A domain in which the quest takes place (in MD it´s sea that constitutes the domain of exploration) → devasted sea, the power of nature 4) The search itself ( the journey and preliminary adventures that occur in the outer world and affect hero´s heart and mind) → more about characters, expositions, 5) A conflict or climax ( a crucial struggle that causes a change in the characters self) → what they are searching for 6) Conclusion ( evaluation of the hero , often on the side of the reader) → what they reached, desires

WOMEN WRITERS AND REFORMERS in the 19 th century

 American woman in the 1st half of the 19 century:

16  No right to vote, forbidden to attend higher education and to speak in public (,,without presence of her husband”), unable to own property.  Wifehood and motherhood were regarded as women´s most significant professions  Women were to represent the virtues of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity → the development from P to R at women didn’t have any progress  The characteristics of the feminine mind were described as tenderness and simplicity  Women, it was supposed, had no reason not to be submissive, as their men would only give them the best.

 Women (W) demanded fundamental reforms, literature was their intellectual expression;  sentimental novels that appealed to emotions and raised social issues such as women´s role and responsibilities in the society, the need of racial and religious tolerance and women´s equality were extremely popular; → e.g. Jane Austine, sisters Bronties  Slave narratives (mentioned before) appeared as well brought recognition of African-Americans and their terrible conditions in slavery. → through literature they mentioned they equality

Harriet Jacobs (1818-1896) - a fugitive slave, a writer and an abolitionist; Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl – slave narrative genre, describes her own difficult life of a slave;

Harriet Wilson (1807-70) – Our Nig- 1st novel published by an African-American in the United States, realistically dramatizes the marriage between a white woman and a black man. → also about culture of African-Americans and white Americans

Frederick Douglas – the most famous black American anti-slavery leader and orator of the era; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, An American Slave- insight into the mentality of slavery and agony it caused among blacks, helped established the African-American identity in white America.

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1894) ◘

Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? = he contrast reality and the reason , reality, fiction, dream,

Introduction  Dark metaphysical vision mixed with elements of realism, parody and burlesque → ending is very surprising  Invented detective fiction!; many of his stories prefigure the genres of science fiction, horror, and fantasy  Themes: death-in-life, buried alive, returning from the grave, decadence, alienation, loneliness, sanity and insanity, etc. →  Settings: often (strictly) Gothic – often midnight, dark outside,  Verse: very musical (alliteration, internal rhyme, etc….) → bit similar to Withman (but he used balk verse)

Characterization of his work  Believed that strangeness was an essential ingredient of beauty; his stories and poems are populated with doomed, introspective aristocrats, gloomy characters who never seem to work or socialize, they bury themselves in dark castles that are bizarrely decorated, hidden rooms reveal ancient libraries and strange art works, their life is often tragic, loss of loved ones, disturbed souls and mental health, Poe was fascinated by human´s mind a psyche. (inside the rooms, inside the castles, something that is not easily explain by reason, man or woman dies on early age)

Philosophy of Poe´s work

 His work has had a continuous influence on many authors and critics since the Romantic period till nowadays,

17  His works are directed toward universal human response that is almost unchangeable (nezmeniteľné, nezv- ratné).

 Emphasized (zdôrazňujúci) that the art appeals simultaneously (súčasne, zároveň) to reason and emotion, the work of art is not a fragment of the author´s life, nor an adjunct to some didactic purpose, but an object created in the cause of beauty. →the themes of guilty, emotions and reason are also universal

E.A.Poe and other romantic authors

•Poe´s theory of art was in opposition to the view prevailing (panujúci, prevažujúci) in American literature of Poe´s generation, I. E. Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, etc, (x)

• Link btw Poe and Coleridge and Byron (Byronic myth of lonely and misunderstood artist) • Btw Poe and Hawthorne (symbolism) but Hawthorne being too didactic; • Btw Poe and Melville (sensibility in symbolic expression); → nice combination of reason and emotion • Poe and European symbolism. → they shared life stories (suffer..) • Poe and 20th cent lit and pop culture → a lot of authors find inspiration in his writing

Biography

 Born January 19th, 1809 in Boston to itinerant(“travelling”) actors (potulnému hercovi) David Poe and Eliza- beth Arnold Poe

 18 months after Edgar´s birth father deserted the family, 6 months later mother died on tuberculosis

 Poe is fostered (vychovávaný) by a relatively rich family of Allans, though is never formally adopted (Al- lan – took name of his foster parents, legacy)

 John Allan – Scottish tobacco exporter – the family lived both in Richmond and England or Scotland → that´s why he has his second name, he wasn’t formally adopted

 Poe attended fine classical preparatory schools and local academies, later he studied at the University of Vir- ginia → due to the property of the family

 During the university studies his believed-to-be fiancée (nevesta) Sarah Elmira Royster was on the insisting (na požiadanie) of her father engaged (zasnúbená) to someone else

 Poe´s gambling debts grew and was removed from the university by his stepfather within a year (počas jed- ného roka) (“he started using opium- he searched for inspiration and escape- romanic poetry”) → also his drinking habits, and relationship started to fall down

 Mr. Allan wanted to employ Edgar in his business, but Edgar refused (odmietol) and ran away to Boston;

 In Boston (in 1827) published his first collection of poems Tamerlane and Other Poems signed “By a Bostoni- an”; (“he couldn’t live from his poetry survive solely form writing poetry in particular, wasn’t popular so he entered army”) →

 Then disappeared (zmiznúť, stratiť sa) into the army under a changed name Edgar A. Perry → he continued with writing in army ( AA, T, MP)

18  Death of Mrs. Allan brought temporary reconciliation (dočasné zmierenie) with the family of Allan and they offered to secure a place for Edgar in West Point Academy

 During this time he published Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829);

 Another violent disagreement with Allan who declined to ensure (znížil jeho zaistenie) his prospects resulted into intentional dismissal (úmyselné prepustenie) from the Academy; (his father refused to support Edgar financially, so Edg left the Academy)

 Allan´s second marriage and his death two years later ended up any further expectations of support;

 In 1831 Poe published Poems but was still not able to survive by writing; (uživiť sa písaním)

 From 1831 to 1835 he lived with his aunt Mrs. Maria Poe Clemm, whose daughter Virginia later became Poe ´s wife

 In 1832 Philadelphia Saturday Courier published Poe´s first five short stories, a part of the Tales of the Folio Club

 In 1833 his first characteristic short story – MS(message) Found in a Bottle – combining pseudoscience (paveda) and terror, won a prize of 50 dollars and publication in the Baltimore Saturday Visitor

 The prize won him friends and an assistant editorship (redigovanie);

 In 1835 Poe married his cousin Virginia (13); (“incest- but inspiration for his writing”)

 The period of 1838 – 1844 – greatest accomplishment (úspech, výsledok): successful editor, author of critical articles, new poems and revised versions, collections of stories Tales of Grotesque and Arabesque. His fame was ensured (znížený) by “The Gold Bug” (100 dollars)

 Poverty and Virginia´s tuberculosis led to (viedlo) Poe´s increased eccentricities (zvýšenej výstrednosti), drinking and taking opium, his reputation suffered; (reputácia utrpela)

 Yet 1845 appeared (objavili sa) “ The Raven and Other Poems” and “Tales”

(“story of a young man who loses his wife; loss of a beautiful loved woman-theme in Raven”) he followed she 2 years after she died

 In 1847 Virginia died, while he was working on “Eureka” – then considered (uvážené) the work of a demen- ted mind, now important as a pose poem in which he tried to unify (zjednostiť) the laws of physical science with those of aesthetic reality →(no money, no fame, no success) not only romantic period in Am L

 In 1849 Poe died ,too; found unconscious (v bezvedomí) on the street, died in delirium...

LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS

 During a short life of poverty, anxiety (úzskosť, strach) and fantastic tragedy Poe achieved the establishment (dosiahol založenie) of a new symbolic poetry, the formalization (formálne schválenie) of the new short story, the invention of the story of detection (zistenie) and the broadening (rozšírenie) of science fiction, foundation (základ) of a new fiction in psychological analysis and symbolism, and development of critical theory and analytical criticism. →

19 Selected works:

 Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym – a dreamlike (snová) novel, a tale of mystery (tajomstvo, záhada); action – packed plot, imaginative use of symbol and myth, depiction of cannibalism, and numerous unusual occurrences; has come to be recognized as a classic example of metafiction.(fiction about nature, reality of a dream?) → it is a kind of romance, so it is a highly symbolic

 Among major themes are: metaphor of death and rebirth, drifting in and out of consciousness; deception, masquerade, illusion, trickery. → typically whole life themes

 Some of his short stories include: MS. Found in a Bottle, Ligeia, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders the Rue Morgue, The Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum(“only a few seconds before a death”) , The Black Cat (he is obsessed that the cat is following him everywhere, staring at him, so he hang it).

 Collections of poems include: Tamerlane and other poems, The Raven and Other poems, Al Aaraaf, Tam- erlane and Minor Poem

 Some of his well-known poems include: Annabel Lee; Lenore; A dream; A dream within a Dream; etc.

 (Raven Nevermore- things won´t be happy and the same as they were - nevermore)

The Raven

 One of the most significant poems ever written

 Fascinating unity of the form and content,

 In1846, one year after The Raven had been released, Poe published the essay Philosophy of Composition, in which he described the process of writing of his unique masterpiece; (started with rhyme stanza)

 Poe declared to have written the poem logically and methodically;

 There are a lot of different statements in the Philosophy of Composition, that are hard to believe for many of the critics, especially the statement in which Poe declared that he wrote the 16th stanza 1st and then he fin- ished poem backward;

 More on the story, atmosphere, melody, tone structure, of individual stanzas rhyme and alliteration, themes symbols, allusions and translation: seminar discussion. → raven can speak just the one sentences – Never more. He is dormating??? himself a lot. (similar to Young Goodman Brown); reaven – a black bird, symbolize the death

The Fall of the House of Usher Short summary:  In this tale the narrator finds himself in the house of his friend Roderick Usher. They had been friend Roderick Usher. They had been friends in their young hood and because the narrator stays Roderick´s only friend, he is invited to spend some time with him to give him some pleasure, some alleviation (úľava). As the narrator learns after his arrival (príchod), Roderick suffers (trpí) from a malady (choroba) greatly caused by the direct “line of descent” in his family. Also his sister suffers from an illness – “ transient (pominuteľné) affections of a partially cataleptical” (katalepticky) character. The days when the narrator and Roderick are together are marked (poznamenaný) with fine art as painting, reading, playing music until Lady Madeline dies. (“a tale within a tale, a poem within a poem-intertextuality”)

20  She is entombed (pochovaná) in a vault (hrobka) in the back portion (čase) of the house, where there is no obvious (zrejmá, očividná) way of getting away. Some days later the narrator notices strange and unnerved (vyn- ervované, zdeptané) behaviour of his friend. During a terrible storm while reading to Roderick in order to calm him down (upokojila ho), Roderick utters (vysloviť) what caused his uneasiness (znepokojenie). As soon as he says that, on the scene appears (zdať sa) Lady Madeline with bloody stains (škvrny) on her white dress. Em- bracing (objatie, zovretie) her brother both fell on the floor which is both the death of two siblings and the destruction of the house itself.

Setting: The tale is set in an unknown place and unknown time. All we know is that the country is not welcoming, dark an rotten. The detailed description is in the opening scene where he solitary rides makes…. Death: the death of Lady Madelina Decay: the house and its premises Madness: both Usher siblings and the narrator possibly…

 (“ as the narrator leaves the house, the house is falling dawn into ruins – the end of a family, the end of a story”)

Murder in the Rue Mordue - the murder is not a man, but animal, who is distructed to kill

The Black Cat

The Raven

Setting  The tale is set in an unknown place and unknown time. All we know is that the country is now welcoming, is dark and rotten (skazený). The detailed description is in the opening scene where the solitary (osamelý) rider makes his way to the House of Usher.

 “ During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. “

Topics

 The main topic of the tale is the isolation symbolized by Madeline´s entombment (pohreb) and dual hal- lucination (“who was hallucinating? Young hero? Narrator? Was it someone else?”)

 At a brief reading of the tale Madeline is considered as a living when she throws herself on her brother. But there are several proofs which say the contrary.

Gothic tale and its features found in the tale  Terror (both psychological and physical): “I have, indeed, no abhorrence (odpor, hrôza, des)of danger, except in its abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect – in terror. In this unnerved, in this pitiable, condition I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, on some struggle, when the grim phantasm, FEAR

 Mystery: unnerved (zdeptané, skľúčené) behaviour of Roderick Usher

 Haunted houses and Gothic architecture: the house itself “ mansion of gloom”

21  Darkness/ the absence of light: “The vault which we placed it was small , damp, and entirely without means of admission for light.”

 Death: the death of Lady Madeline

 Decay/dikej/: the house and its premises (areal)

 Madness: both Usher siblings and the narrator possibly

 Secrets: the secret which is hidden behind the walls of the house

 Hereditary curses (dedičné prekliatie) : “I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honoured as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; on other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descendent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain.”

 Wild nature: storm (búrka)

Main Characters

 Roderick Usher - He is an educated young man fond (milujúci) of fine art as painting, reading books, playing music. He suffers from a mental disorder (ťažkosti, choroba) including acuteness (vnímavosť) of senses.

 Physical appearance : “ A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminuous beyond compar- ison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicare Hebbew model, but with a beadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finaly moulded chin, speaking in its want of...”

 Lady Madeline -The physical appearance (vzhľad) of hers is quite alike (podobný) to her brothers´ since they are twins. She suffers from a disease as well : “ A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person and frequent although transient affections of a particularly cataleptical character were the usual diagnosis .”

 The narrator: “ Poe´s narrator posseses a character and consciousness distinct from those of their own thoughts and are the dupes of their own passions. Poe, I maintain is a serious artist who explores the neuroses of his characters with probing intelligence. “ He is giving the reader clues facts and wonders if readers can fol- low him.

Symbols The name Usher – the own meaning of the word means “ to introduce” Although we cannot see thoughts of the main character but what Roderick says and does ushers us into his mind (uviesť, voviesť nás do jeho mysle). “ Now hear it – yes, I hear it, and have heared it. Long-long-long-many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it- yet I dared not-oh pity me…

A poem within the tale In the poem “The Haunted Palace” performed by Roderick we can find the link with the house of Usher.

A tale within a tale If we think of Roderick as Ethelred – Madeline as a dragon He kills the dragon with the mace (žezlo, štipľavý plyn) – Roderick kills Madeline by entombing her alive Dead dragon –

22 Abolitionist literature → last period of Romantic Movement → literature about the end of slavery

“This is not the Republic I came to see. This is not the Republic of my imagination. The more I think of its youth and strength, the poorer and more trifling in a thousand respects, it appears in my eyes. In everything of which it has made a boast – expecting its education of the people, and its care for poor children -- it sinks immeasurably below the level I had placed it upon." (Ch. Dickens, 1842 - English representative – after he came to America he saw terrible conditions of slaves, women, Indians

The North and the South  Proofs of prosperity, rapid progress in agriculture and commerce  Freedom-loving democratic nation  Growing cities and industrialization

 Slave-holding society;  A nation of expensive and primitive frontiers;  Regional and economic differences between North and South; → N- typical for progress, new and new building, new machines, new society and people → S – industrialization was much slower

 (“it was illegal to defend themselves, vicious circle, either the will kill you cuz you are defending yourself, or you let them kill you, slaves were kept in cages, huge loss in lives, a lot of cruelties, ; women raped by their masters, or by African American, no human rights”)

 By 1850: 23 mi. people, 21 states;  East: industry boomed  Midwest and South: agriculture flourished;  California: gold mines; → natural sources  New England and Middle Atlantic states: centre of manufacturing, commerce, finance and shipping;  South: tobacco, rice, sugar, cotton (slaves cultivation al of these crops);  Expansion of the railway network (in the North first).

 Regional and economic differences between North and South exacerbated by slavery;  Relative backwardness of South was attributed to the marketing of the cotton crop by North (by the Southerners) on hand, and on the other hand to the “ institution of slavery” itself ( by the Northerners)  Abolitionist feeling grew more and more in the North , but in South slavery was more than 200 years old institution and was an integral part of the region´s economy

. A planter/plantážnik/: someone who owned at least 20 slaves (=rich and powerful) → held a distinctive social and political status . A yeoman farmer /slobodný majiteľ pôdy/: owned a few slaves of none . The “poor whites” of South: held no slaves → white poor Americans, no land, had no slaves, were equal, weren’t slaves . All of them were interested in the continuation /pokračovanie/ of slaveholding - for planters it was an obvious interest; for yeoman and poor whites it was a matter of social states and fear of competition /konkurencia/ (for land) if slavery was abolished.

. The South no longer apologized for the slavery, they championed it

23 . Some publicists even claimed /vyhlasovali/ that the relationship between capital and labor was more human under the slavery system than under the wage /mzda/ system of the North . Before 1830 masters of slaves participated /podielať sa/ in the personal supervision /dozor/ of the slaves, but gradually, they employed professional overseers /dohliadačov/ whose tenure /výkonné právo/ depended upon their ability to extract /získať/ from slaves a maximum amount /množstvo/ of work- the conditions of slaves radical worsened /zhoršiť sa/.

. Slavery was inherently /v podstate/ a brutal system (beating, breakups of the families, sale of individuals away); → most of the people were Christians, but this was not Christian behaviour and treatment with people . But not only behavior of masters and overseers was criticized, it was slavery´s fundamental violation /porušovanie/ of every human being´s inalienable /neodcudziteľného/ right to be free; . Nevertheless the Southerners believed that slavery needs to be spread (need for new fertile /úrodné/ lands, etc.)

The abolitionist movement  Earlier antislavery movement -1808 – Congress abolished the slave trade with Africa;  Opposition held by Quakers – mild and ineffectual protest;  Early 1830s – the abolitionist movement – combative, uncompromising and insistent upon an immediate and to slavery  Leader: William Lloyd Garrison – awakened the Northerners by hos heroism of a martyr and effective demagogue techniques

• Frederic Douglass: an escaped slave, son of a black slave woman and a white man, taken from mother as a infant, changed his original name in order to escape pursuit, no formal education, taught himself to read and write, joined Garrison, spokesman for Antislavery Society, editor of abolitionist weekly newspaper Northern Star. → he educated himslef • The antislavery movement helped slaves escape to safe refuge /úkryt/ in the North or over the border /hranica/ into Canada (more than 40.000 fugitive slaves) • 20.000 members of antislavery societies.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) •1860: the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) for the presidential elections; • Parents were illiterate pioneers; • * Born in a backwood log cabin • Educational opportunities were limited; read whatever he could find, studied law; opened a law office and gained considerable reputation; • Opposed the extension of slavery; • Joined the newly formed Republican party .

• South slaves states declared /žiadali/ their secession /odtrhnutie/ from the United States and formed the Confeder- ate States of America • The Confederacy fought /bojovala/ against the United States (the Union), which was supported by all the free states (where slavery has been abolished) and by five slave states that became known as the border states • Victory of the North meant the end of the Confederacy and of slavery.

CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS (picture) 1961-1865

ABOLITIONIST LITERATURE

24 • From the late eighteen cent until the Civil War, there was a great deal of writing by “Negroes” which devoted to the fight against slavery. Their essays, their poetry, their histories, their autobiographies – all were part of the struggle for freedom; • The authors demonstrated that “ Negroes” had intellectual and artistic capabilities equal to those of their white countrymen; • Slavery was not only unchristian but undemocratic and unAmerican; •The first records protest against slavery known to have been written by a “Negro” was a tract titled “An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York” by Jupiter Hammon, a slave who has gained /získať/ recognition /poznanie/ in his community as a poet; • A pamphlet written by David Walker David Walker´s Appeal, marked a transition /prechod/ from the gentle persua- sion and thoughtful /zamyslený/, reasonable pleas /žiadosť/ and the Quakers and early “Negro” spokesmen to the more militant /bojovný/ tone typical of the northern abolitionist. • Another anti-slavery author was Hosea Easton, demonstrated that “ Negroes” were not inferior; • Slavery violated the Constitution of the United States, the Articles of Confederation and the Bill of Rights, Easton ar- gued, and he insisted that “Negroes” born in America were “ constitutionally “ Americans • The first “Negro” woman poet was Phyllis Wheatley, a slave who had been brought from Africa as a young girl gave the evidence /dôkaz/ of the artistic and intellectual capacities of the “Negro”.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 – 1896)

 Father was a pastor;  She was a teacher and a writer; social reformer and philanthropist;  Married to a professor;  Younger brother was one of the most famous preachers of the 19th cent, a leader of the anti-slavery movement and a proponent of woman ´s suffrage; → rights of women?  Mother of seven children; → she married a professor

• Addressed the oppression /útlak/ of African Americans, interested in political, spiritual and humanitarian causes • She published novels, studies of social life, essays, and a small volume of religious poems; • In 1852 H. B. Stowe published her Uncle Tom´s Cabin, inspired a widespread /všeobecný/ enthusiasm for the antislavery cause, portrayed cruelty of slavery and appealed to basic human emotions; • ( the death of martyr . uncle tom´s cabin, story of slave family- broken and trying to reunite) - the second anti-slavery novel: Dread, a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp - much of her best work has no focus on slavery at all - subject of her works was the life in New England village- The Mayflower, The Minister´s Wooing /vábenie ministra/, The Pearl of Orr´s Island, Oldtown Folks, Poganuc People (nauč len 2)

Uncle Tom´s Cabin

• The most popular American book of the 19th cent, was an immediate success, translated into 20 languages, inflamed the debate to end slavery that within a decade resulted into civil War (1861-1865) • The novel contrasts democratic principles and injustice of slavery, Stowe´s novel attacked slavery precisely because it violated domestic values and Christian values • (Stowe )Greeted by Abraham Lincoln as “ the Little woman who wrote the book that made this great war” in an 1862 visit to the White House • Stowe immediately reached iconic status for her phenomenally successful and provoking depiction of the horrors of slavery • The author used her personal observations and managed to portray many aspects of slavery in a realistic manner (e.g. master- slave relationship, separations of families, abuse, cruel beatings) • The book appalled to both moral and Christian values of her readers

25 • Stowe addressed also sentimental part in her readers and especially the character of Uncle Tom bears of features of the genre of a sentimental novel • Stowe took a clear position when it comes to her female characters – she believes in the strength of women and that’s how they are portrayed as well; • The book also introduced stereotypical characters (especially the black slaves) • A Key to Uncle Tom´s Cabin – published after the novel , the book was subtitled “ presenting the Original Facts and Documents upon Which the Story is Founded, Together with Corroborative Statements Verifying the Truth of the Work ´´. Others works: • The second anti-slavery novel: Dread, a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp – it was more documentary in character and though its initial sales were promising, it never reached the popularity of her previous novel • Much of her best work has no focus on slavery at all • subject of her works was the life in New England village - The Mayflower, The Minister´s Wooing , The Pearl of Orr´s Island, Oldtown Folks, Poganuc People (2 remember)

The Rise of Realism (1860-1914)

Historical and social background

. The period of Civil war (1861 – 1865) – the industrial North and the agricultural slave-owning South; . The period after the Civil War – optimism of the young democratic nation gave away, period of exhaustion; American idealism remained but was redirected – before the war idealists promoted human rights, abolition of slavery; after the war they idealized progress of the self-made man and survival of the fittest; . The era has been described in many ways—as an “era of good feelings”; an age in “ferment”; an age of “progress” of “reform”; of “energy”; “The Gilded (pozlátené) Age” or the “end of American innocence”; . Business boomed /prosperovať/ after the war, enormous natural resources /zdroj/ (iron, coal, oil, gold, silver) of the American land . Constant /ustavičný/ influx /príval/of immigrants (1860-1910), over 23 million foreigners from Germany, Scandinavian countries, Ireland, central and southern Europe, China, Japan and Philippines ) – endless /nekonečný/ supply /doplniť, nahradiť/ of inexpensive labour /lacná práca/; . A partial list of innovations or inventions: dynamite (1867), the telephone (1876), the phonograph (1879), the internal combustion engine (1885), electric streetcars (1887), the electric motor (1888), the box camera (1888), radio telegraphy (1895), the X-ray (1895), the first flight (1903), and Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity (1905); . The intercontinental rail /železnica/ system and the transcontinental telegraph – access to materials, markets and communications. . In 1860 most Americans lived on farms or in small villages, but in 1919 half of the population was concentrated in about 12 cities. . Problems of urbanization and industrialization appeared: poor and overcrowded housing, unsanitary conditions /nehygienické podmienky/, low pay, difficult working conditions; . Farmers became an object of ridicule, seen as uneducated “hicks”. . The ideal of American post-Civil War period became the millionaire . From 1860-1914, the United States was transformed from small, young, agricultural ex-colony to a huge, modern, industrial nation, the world´s wealthiest state; a major world power.

Realism in American literature (1860-1914)

- the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in 1859, the start of the American Civil War in 1861, and the deaths of Henry David Thoreau in 1862 and Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1864: new generation of American writers who emphasized Realism in the arts;

26 - chose not to allegorize or sentimentalize or sensationalize experience in their fiction, preferring instead to represent the world as objectively as possible; - Many Realists began their careers as journalists, and they addressed the questions of “who, what, when, where, why, and how” in their fiction no less than in their newspaper reporting; - The Realists often depicted middle-class experience - no monolithic school of Realism (many realities or varieties of Realism), including local colour or Regionalism, psychological Realism, critical Realism and Naturalism; - Apart from novels and short stories, within the period of R we may find genres like biography and autobiography, crime and detective fiction, ethnic writing, humor writing or reform writing - New concepts of science (the idea of evolution as progress, the view of nature as struggle for survival, the philosophy of scientific materialism and a mechanistic interpretation of life) contributed to a changed understanding of the meaning of life – it affected the form of American writing; - The industrial revolution, with its factory system, the growth of cities, quick wealth, keen competition, increased immigration, and shifting of social classes gave a whole new material for the writers to report and interpret; - Realism was the most influential literary movement in the period btw. the Civil War and WWI - In part the rise of Realism came as a protest against the falseness and sentimentality which realists though they saw in romantic fiction; - Realism is typical of simple, clear, and direct prose - in a broad sense: representation of actuality in literature - in a more narrow sense : a term applied to literary composition that aims at an interpretation of the actualities of any aspect of life, free from subjective prejudice, idealism, or romantic colour. - Realists center their attention to a remarkable degree on the immediate, the here and now, the specific action, and the verifiable consequence; - Objectivity on the part of the novelist was the proper attitude - As industrialization grew, so did alienation, writers began to depict the damage of economic forces and alienation (odcudzenie sa) on the weak or vulnerable /bezbranný/ individual - ( Heroes with inner strength or survivors were typical characters of the period; skipped: - The surface details, the common actions, and the minor catastrophes of a middle-class society constituted the chief subject matter of the movement; - a great concern for the effect of action upon character, and a tendency to explore the psychology of the actors in their stories.)

Basic Realistic Features – summarization

• Settings are thoroughly familiar to the writer • Plots emphasizing the norm of daily experience • Ordinary characters, studied in depth; • Complete authorial objectivity • Responsible morality; a world truly reported.

Local colour or regional fiction

• followed the war and frontier humor tales, is often considered contributing factor to American realism ; • focuses on the characters, dialect, customs, topography, and other features particular to a specific region ; • dual influence of romanticism and realism.

27 • Setting: The emphasis is frequently on nature; the setting is integral to the story and may sometimes become a character in itself; • Characters: Local color stories tend to be concerned with the character of the district or region ; t he characters are marked by dialect, and by particular personality traits central to the region ; • Plots: revolve around the community and its rituals; • Narrator: The narrator is typically an educated observer , sometimes sympathetic, sometimes ironic distance ; • Themes: antipathy to change and a certain degree of nostalgia for an always-past golden age ; t hematic tension or conflict between urban ways and old-fashioned rural values . • Main representative of local color: Mark Twain (individual lecture)

Henry James (1843-1916)

• “It is a complex fate being an American.”: lived most of his life abroad and being an American in Europe was the central theme of his life and his work; • international, cosmopolitan themes, complex relationships between Americans and cosmopolitan Europeans; • In his writings Americans are always “tested” by European civilization and similarly, the achievements of European civilization are always being tested by the new possibilities of American civilization; • Representative of psychological realism; • Was said to be an observer of human mind rather than a recorder of the times; • Few of his stories include big events or exciting actions; he concentrates of psychology of his characters; • His characters often do nothing at all and events in their lives are not a result of their own actions; they tend to observe life rather than live the life; (• The real story is the changing consciousness of the protagonist, ) • the reader is allowed into their mind and watches how their mind responds to new situations; • James`s career is usually divided into three stages: the early, the middle and the mature stage;

Early stage : • reflects his thoughts and feeling as an American living in Europe (James spent most of his life in England and became a British citizen, too); (Roderick Hudson (1876): tells a story of a failure of a young American artist in Italy; although he has genius, he fails because he lacks moral strength;) • The American (1877): contrasts American innocence with American experience; • The protagonist of The American, Christopher Newman (new life), is a wealthy American businessman on his first trip in Europe, he seeks “culture” and better life; • here he meets a woman (beautiful English) and wants to marry her; she can`t marry him, although she wants to and although he`s an intelligent and rich man; her family won`t allow it, because he`s not of an aristocratic origin; the family value their “name” more than their daughter`s happiness; • James examines cultural differences and emotional displacement in a story that moves quickly and clearly;//in this work is quite critical – European society and tradition and convention; his first novel from the American stage// • (international themes are to be found in whole James`s work, not only in novels but also in travel writings Transatlantic Sketches;) • Daisy Miller (1879) is another novel about American innocence defeated by stiff traditional European values; • Daisy brings her free American spirit to Europe; she looks at people as individuals, rather than as members of a social class; despite her goodness she`s completely misunderstood by the European characters; • she meets a young American who has lived in Europe for a long time and acquired the same kind of coldness; it`s the coldness of people that finally leads Daisy to her death;

• Middle period: • The Portrait of a Lady: young, independent and beautiful American girl travelling round Europe in order to “explore life”; • relationships with her three suitors: Gilbert Osmond, Caspar Goodwood, and Lord Warburton; at first fears losing her freedom by getting married, at the end ends up losing her personal independence, holds on to social conformity and

28 responsibility after she marries G.O.; cultural clashes between Am. and Eu. cultures; features of feminism. //similar to Pride and Prejudice, the story but also language is very similar// • feminism and social reform, the situation of women, the decline of the sentiment of sex and political topics in the novel The Bostonians; • political intrigue in the novel The Princess Casamassima; portrayed unusually violently, in the naturalistic manner; tells a story of a revolutionary who wants to destroy European aristocracy; but gradually he falls in love with the aristocrats` “world of wonderful precious things”; this change of heart leads to his suicide. //young revolutionary who is disgusted of aristocracy// • international subjects with deep psychological penetration in the novels: The Wings of the Dove (search for happiness and innocent friendship)and The Ambassadors, where a middle-aged American goes to Paris to rescue a son of a friend from the “evils” of European society; when he arrives he`s still a moralistic New Englander; he disapproves of everything he sees; but slowly, he begins to see Europe in an entirely different way; in the end, the boy is happy to be rescued and to go back to America; nevertheless, the “rescuer” wants to stay in Europe; • the most controversial novel: The Golden Bowl – a fabulously rich American and his daughter innocently marry a pair of lovers who are disposed to continue their intrigue; examines the issues of marriage, adultery and consciousness; • The novella The Beast in the Jungle tells a story of man who is scared that something terrible is going to happen to him; much later he discovers that the terrible thing waiting for him is that actually nothing is going to happen to him; an unlived life; • In the novel What Maise Knew James examines the problem of children being exposed to evil and immorality of the world around them; //family relationship of the parents…// • Similar topic is dealt with in The Turn of the Screw , a ghost story about two children and their nurse; the nurse is sure that the children are being haunted by ghosts, but it is not clear to the reader whether these ghosts are real or only in the nurse`s mind. • In his short stories James deals with the nature of art: e.g. in The Real Thing he explores how art changes reality; an artist wants to create a picture of real aristocrats; when he tries to use real aristocrats as his models, he fails; he discovers that lower-class models are better for his purposes than “the real thing”; the real aristocrats are so real that his imagination can`t work; • In The Death of the Lion, another short story, James tells a story of a famous writer who faces the problem of being too popular; he becomes too busy with his admirers to write. //the title – according to the writer – Lion, later he stopped to write?//

Bret Harte (1836-1902)  a journalist, poet and writer of fiction;  portrayed the pioneering life in California; the new subject in literature was the American West ;  In 1850s moved to California during the days of the “Gold Rush”;  later spent 24 years in Europe;

• The Luck of Roaring Camp brought him nationwide fame; tells a story set in a dirty mining camp full of gamblers, prostitutes and drunkards during the Gold Rush; The camp and its people are “reborn” and changed when a baby is born there; James combined frontier vulgarity with religious imagery and humor; • The Outcasts of Poker Flat describes the fate of two prostitutes, a professional gambler and a teenage girl in a snowstorm. • The public loved his short stories about Far West, which actually prefigured the popular genre of the Western ; • Harte created typical (stereotypical) characters of a young and pretty school teacher, the sheriff, the gambler, the bad girl, the villain, etc. that have appeared in the Western stories and movies ever since.

6.12.2012

29 Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) //mark- from the verb to mark, twain-the level of water of sufficient// 1835-1910

• Grew up in the Mississippi river frontier town Hannibal, in the slave state of Missouri, the river came to represent „the human journey“ in his life and in many of his works

• Clemens grew up hearing a rich mixture of dialects: African American, Missourian (several!, Southern(numerous!, as well as Northern dialects of those travelling up and down the river

• He developed a good ear for many different dialects and used this skill in his fiction

• He developed, too, a keen sense of irony, drawn partly from the inherent contradictions of living in a country that prided itself on freedom and independence even while keeping slaves in bondage

• As a boy he was confronted by this stark contradiction early and often, as his family kept slaves

• His surroundings also afforded him inspiration in the form of Indian legends and stories of the black slaves that he used to listen throughout his childhood

• Clemens began his literary career early by working for his older brother´s newspaper, he wrote many humorous pieces drawing on the variety of types once experienced in a village on the Mississippi River; • Adopted the pen name Mark Twain while a reporter for the Virginia Territorial Enterprise;

• His experiences as an itinerant typesetter and steamboat pilot, wildcat miner, reporter, and lecturer shaped his narrative voice and his practice of realistic writing;

• He left newspaper work after his first book The Innocents Broad (1869, became a national success (it was his best-selling book throughout his life);

• He devoted the rest of his life to writing across genres, from novels to travel writing, from short fiction to essays, from lectures to political and social polemic;

• During his most prolific years (1870-1897), along with short fiction and essays, he published 18 books including Roughing It(1872), The Gilded Age (with Charles Dudey Warner-1873), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer(1876), Tramp Abroad(1880), //The Prince and the Pouper(1881)//, Life on the Mississippi(1883), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur´s Court(1889),// The Tragedy of Pudd´nhead Wilson(1894), Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc(1896), Tom Sawyer,Detective(1896), A Double Barelled Detective Story(1902), A Horse´s Tale (1907), The Mysterious Stranger ...

• From 1900 until his death in 1910 Twain shifted his attention primarily to nonfiction with a series of anti-imperialism essays, a diverse collection of aborted manuscripts, and his autobiography

GENERAL CHARACTERIZATION OF TWAIN´S WRITING!!!!!

• Twain´s style is based on vigorous, realistic, colloquial American speech

• New appreciation of national voice, captured the distinctive, humorous slang and iconoclasm (breaking cultural dogmas and conventions) of the interior of the country

• Biting social satire

• Conflict between ideals of Americans and their desire for money

• The short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog made him nationally famous - it´s a typical Western humor story called a „hoax“ - it´s about an apparently innocent stranger who cheats a famous frog racer and beats him. The stranger fills the stomach of the other man´s frog with tiny metal balls → then the frog can not jump as another frogs

30 The Innocents Abroad (1869) - his first major book, collection of his letters from a trip to Europe and the Holy Land, the book clearly shows his „democratic“ hatred of the European Aristocracy, when he´s taken to see great old paintings, he refuses to praise them, in fact, he plays a „hoax“ on his guide by asking very stupid questions; - although he is critical on Europeans, he´s more critical of American tourists in Europe who pretend to get excited by the art treasures they see there. They are only excited because their guide books tell them they should be; - He also attacks tourists in Jerusalem who show false religious feelings - Later he tried to write another humorous book from his travels in Europe, A Tramp Abroad, but it was not so fresh and successful

Roughing It - also began as a series of newspaper articles, features many hoaxes and „tall tales“ (exaggerating factual events, de- scribing things larger than they really are), his travels in Far West, introduces characters that he met and gives a clear picture of them: cowboys, stagecoach drivers, criminals, „lawmen“, etc . - There´s a story of an angry buffalo that climbs a tree to chase the hunter, or a story of a camel that chokes to death on one of Twain´s notebooks;

The Gilded Age

- the period after the Civil War was often thought of as the Golden Age - American millionaires and their luxurious homes represented the wealth of the country, but underneath the society was corrupted, full of crime and social injustice; the layer of „gold“ was very thin and thus Twain coined the phrase the Gilded Age and used it for his work that was co-written with Charles Wamer; Twain describes the new morality (or immorality) of people who are morally des- troyed by the dream of becoming rich; although Twain presents some of his typically humorous characters, the tone of the novel is serious, primarily deals with the lads of American idealism; Twain manages to create a picture of the entire nation, not just couple of individuals;

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

- 2 young heroes Tom and Huck Finn are „bad“ only because they fight against the stupidity of the adult world; realistic background, careful psychological study of the characters; differences between Tom and Huck; → critical mirror of society

- Twain´s young hero is a cheeky, self-confident boy who quickly wearies of humdrum routines and lings constantly for excitement and escape. Along with his friend Joe Harper, he often skips school to fish;

- With Huckleberry Finn, the outcast son of the town drunk, Tom and Joe play Robin Hood on Cardiff Hill, pretend to be pirates on Jackson´s Island, and explore McDougal´s cave;

- Tom is cared for by his Aunt Pilly and Cousin Mary;

- His cousin Sid, the perfect child, provides a foil for Tom´s mischievous antics;

-Structurally, the book is interesting because of its inherently episodic nature, typical of childhood, in which one event follows another, interrupted only by the occasional obligations of church and school → introduction, climax and conclusion

- Tom is very romantic, his view of life comes from the books about knights in the Middle Ages; after every adventure he can return home, to his Aunt Polly´s house, by the end of the novel we can see Tom growing up and one day he will also be a part of the adult world

- Huck has no real home, he´s a real outsider, his life has been harder and he never sees the world in that romantic way;

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

31 - young hero with adult problems, novel of American democracy, shows wisdom of ordinary people, Hemingway wrote that „All modern American literature comes from Huckleberry Finn“ (MÁME ČÍTAŤ - obsah sme tu vynechali)

• The novel is essentially the tale of a runaway Huck, who teams with a runaway slave, Jim, om ana improvised and ili- timately failed attempt to find freedom. As the story begins, Huck is constrained by the social order and false piety of St. perersburh and the Widow Douuglas and her sister Miss Watson. When his father reappears (in chapter five) to claim Huck´s….

• Huck´s journey changes radically when he finds the runawawy slave Jim on Jackson´s island (ch8),a nd the two another as they make their way down the river. _ Jim´s hope to excape to freedom and to rescure his wife and children from slavery form and underlying tension in the novel as Huck is forced ……. • Along the wys, Huck and Jum face their own deamos as well as series of oxternal theats from the corrupt society and (with the ais of Tom Sawyer) an attempt to free Jum from bondage after te is imprisioned at the Phelps farm. Finally, after a harrowing and absurd escape plit, Tom Sawyer delivers the news that Jum has already been manumitted and Huck once again faces the possibility of social constraints from Aunt Sally Phelps, who wants to adopt him, He an- nounces his intention to flee into the West, but it is not clear in the novel about whether this is a real possibility.

The Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur´s Court

- a novel where he seems less hopeful about democracy, just like in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, The $ 30 000 Bequest

- the hero is the boss of a factory, he´s hit on his head and wakes up in 6th century England, because he´s a 19th century inventor, he begins to modernize this world, and because he knows so much, he becomes a kind of a dictator, called “the Boss”, in many ways, Twain seems to be praising both the technology and the leadership skills of the bosses of the post- Civil War era;

The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg

- describes a town that had been famous for its honesty, a stranger who got offended while passing by plots a revenge and at the end corrupts the honest citizens and has everyone lying in order they get a big bag of gold;

The Mysterious Stranger

- completed in 1906, but published posthumously, sums up Twain´s sense of man´s absurdity in a story of Satan´s appearance in a medieval town to explain that mankind is part of a „grotesque and foolish dream,“ a toy in a Creation de- vised to ridicule the idea that men progress, act morally or really exist at all, the story begins with an angel appearing to 3 boys, becomes their friend and shows them the evil of mankind, after destroying their innocent souls he finally an- nounces that he´s Satan.

Female authors in the 19th century American literature • Cultural, ideological and aesthetic value of female writing - caused many discussions and was questioned;

32 • Best-selling literature was often by female writers – nevertheless, the question of quality and high-culture arose; • “Envious” reactions (especially by male authors); • Cultural paradigm of that time – high culture = male writing; • Representation of literary sentimentality – sentimental novel; • Domestic novel; • Feminist writing – includes both fiction (feminist novel) and non-fiction.

Sentimental novels • Sentimental novel – aimed at emotional response (both from readers and characters); • Part of the reaction against rationalism; • Penetrated souls and emotions of women – female heroines; • Asked for sympathies for the oppressed and condemned (women, slaves, even criminals); • Often balanced on the edge of cheap sentiment; Domestic novel • The protagonist is a woman, set in her domestic surroundings, going through many hardships; often caused by gender inequality and injustice in the relationship between a man and a woman; • Forwards the message of “fighting for one`s own right”, changing the perception of oneself leading to the change of the perception by the society of “that self”. Some of the notable female writers Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) Kate Chopin (1850-1904) Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911) L.M. Alcott (1832-1888) Frances Harper (1825-1911) • P.Y. Pember (1823-1913) • Susan Warner (1819-1895) • Catherine Sedgwick (1789-1867) • Fanny Fern (1811-1872) • E.D.E.N Southworth (1819-1899) • Maria Cummins (1829-1866) • C.F. Woolson (1840-1894) • Ann Sophia Stephens (1810—1886)

Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) • Born into slavery; • Wasn`t permitted to marry a free black man; • sexually abused by her master; • Befriended a white lawyer whom she had 2 children with; • The evil master wanted to sell her children as slave plantation workers; • ran away to the North ; • Autobiography: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; • Became actively involved in the abolitionist movement. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935)

33 • Writer of fiction (novels, short stories) and non-fiction; sociologist and lecturer on the issues of social reform; • A utopian feminist with unorthodox attitudes; • H.B. Stowe`s niece; • Advocated divorce, euthanasia and after being diagnosed cancer, committed suicide by overdosing on chloroform; • Best remembered for a short-story The Yellow Wallpaper.

The Yellow Wallpaper  Epistolary (1st person journal) Gothic short story;  Upstairs bedroom of a rented house with yellow wallpaper;  Wife kept in a room, forbidden to work or move freely in the house by her husband (a part of her “cure”);  Becomes obsessed by the yellow wallpaper (its pattern, color, smell);  Ends up seeing a creeping woman in the pattern, tries to free her by stripping the wall from the wallpaper;  At the end locks herself in the room, believes that she`s the woman who was freed; creeps round the room...  Themes of madness and powerlessness;  Feminist interpretation;  Gilman`s interpretation.

Kate Chopin (1850-1904) A feminist author of short-stories and novels; Many of her writings were not socially accepted, e.g. novel The Awakening; they were ahead of her time; Depicted different themes and wrote in different styles; What unites her work is the idea that women are capable and strong.

The Awakening A feminist novel; Southern literary tradition + Naturalism + Modernism; Maternal duties and social freedom; The protagonist is “awakened”, takes an active role in her own happiness; After emotional devastation ends her life in the sea.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911) • Grew up in the surroundings of writing women and religious ideas; • Wrote both for children and adults; pioneered in the genre of girls` novel – introduced a tomboy heroine (charismatic, independent, assertive, etc.); • The most famous work The Gates Ajar was the 2nd best-selling novel of her time (after Uncle Tom`s Cabin); • Married a man 17 years younger than her.

The Gates Ajar Addresses Civil War women who lost their loved ones, remained spiritually close to them, readers might expect to rejoin them in a domestic afterlife; Depicts a shock followed by anger, a flood of grief and hopeless despair, then finally being able to let go and move on; concerns also gender stereotypes, especially women's roles.

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) Acquainted with both Emerson and Thoreau; Apart from being a writer (before and after Civil War), served as a nurse during the Civil War; Best remembered for her girls` novel Little Women;

34 By the time of her death published more than 30 books. Little Women • Themes: family life, growing up, contrast between wealth and poverty, discovering real values in life, women`s duties in the world of men, gender differences in 19th century; • Story of 4 daughters of the March family: Jo, Beth, Amy, Meg; and their neighbor and later part of the family Laurie Laurence; • The character of Jo is based on Alcott herself – a tomboy with a passion for writing.

Phoebe Yates Pember (1823-1913) • Born to a wealthy upper-class Jewish family; • Married a Christian man; • During Civil War made her way as a respected matron in the biggest Confederate hospital – very uncommon and admiring for the era of big gender differences; • The hospital life and problems in management and gender roles appear in her A Southern Woman`s Story.

Susan Warner (1819-1895) • Author of children`s literature works and theological writing; • Classified as a writer of sentimental fiction, domestic novel and only later on as a feminist writer; • Published more than 30 novels; • The most famous one The Wide, Wide World; • Depicts American rural life, explores gender stereotypes, implements Christian and moral teaching.

Catherine Sedgwick (1789-1867) Anti-Calvinist and non-imitative and non-sentimental novelist; Remained unmarried throughout her life and advocated the life of “old maids”; Involved in women`s rights movement; Remembered for her works like A New England Tale and Married or Single?

Fanny Fern (1811-1872) • A widowed but successful newspaper columnists, children`s author and novelist; • her themes concerned the position of women in the middle of 19th century in America; • Addressed a wide spectrum of public (especially middle-class women) and managed to live on her writing – the highest paid columnist of the time; • Autobiographical novel: Ruth Hall

E.D.E.N Southworth (1819-1899) Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth; Began as a teacher supporting her income by occasional writing; During Civil War volunteered as a nurse; Themes explored: opposing rigid conventions of the era (like feminine domesticity); Her most popular novel The Hidden Hand.

Maria Cummins (1829-1866) • A novelist, writer of sentimental novels; • Was herself convicted of witchcraft (lived in Salem); • Her first novel was a major success – The Lamplighter; • Tells a story of an orphaned girl, mistreated by her guardian, later on is rescued, gets “proper” (moral and religious) upbringing and is finally married to a long-term friend from childhood.

35 Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894) • A novelist and short-story writer who gained a serious acclaim out of sentimental female tradition; • Grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper; • Categorized as local color novelist; • Wrote about position of women in the society of the era and personal relationships; often concerning expatriates in Europe (mainly Italy); • Famous novels: Anne, East Angels, Jupiter Lights.

Ann Sophia Stephens (1810—1886) A novelist and a magazine editor; Pioneered in the genre of dime novels; A dime novel – 10 cents novel - popular, mass market fiction, melodramatic, sensational and often oversentimental; E.g. High Life in New York. Thank you for your attention!

Naturalism Naturalism and Muckraking

(→destiny, only the fittest can survive, once you are not fitting to society, you can not to survive) Social conditions that gave rise to Naturalism • Theories of Charles Darwin ( natural selection), Karl Marx( exploitation by capitalist economy), Sigmund Freud ( dark internal drives and desires we can scarcely hope to control)→ they are obsessed by sth and you can not control it • Densely crowded urban areas – loss of individualism and free will; • Growing social differences and injustice (luxury in contrast to extreme poverty).

Introduction • Naturalism was first proposed and formulated by French novelist Emile Zola, and it was introduced to America by American novelist Frank Norris • An important movement in American literature from the 1890s until the 1920s • Naturalistic writers were influenced by evolution theory of Charled Darwin, believed that one’s heredity and social environment determine ones character and influence the actions of its subjects

Characterization • Naturalism first appeared in Europe (Blazac Flaubert , etc.) it opened up the underside of society and such a topic asi divorce, sex , adultery, poverty, crime, prostitution, and seduction, naturalism is often seen as a bleak , realistic depiction of lower-class life, pessimistic determinism.(they can´t control it) • Attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment of its study of human beings; • Characters are studied through their relationships too their surroundings; • Naturalistic writers believed that the laws behind the forces that govern human lives might be studied and understood • Naturalistic writers studied human beings governed by their instincts and passions as well as by forces of heredity and environment. - Characters come primarily from the lower middle class or the lower class, fictional world is commonplace and unheoric, seems to be dull and reflects „just“ the daily existence, but the naturalist discovers in this world those qualities of moan usually associated with the heoric or adventurous (sucha s acts of violence and passion)

36 - A naturalistic novel- partly an etension of realism – delas with the local and contemporary, BUT discovers in this material the extraordinary and excessive in human nature. - Exercising free will or choice are beyond their control - Raw and unpleasant experiences which reduce characters to „degrading“ behavior in their struggle to survive

- Their struggle for life becomes heroic and the maintain human dignity

- Setting: frequently urban, - Themes: determinism, violence, taboo, the „brute within“ each individual, the fight for survival in an amoral, indifferent univerise, man against nature or man against himself, nature as an indifferent force acting on the lives of human beings, heredity and environment influencing invidivudal´s life, limited ability of humans to impose will upon their own destiny. - Stephen Crane (1871 – 1900) - A journalist, wrote fiction, essays, poetry and plays, - Saw life at its rawest, in slums and on battlefields, - Died at the age of 29, was forgotten till 1923 - Maggie: A Girl of the Streets – one of the best naturalistic American novels. - The novel presents disruption of Maggie´s family, her descent into prostitution, and her eventual suicide – an ineveitable consequence of the limited choices offered by the poverty of her New York environment, - Use of an urban setting, - Refusal to condemn or sentimentalize Maggie´s prostitution, - Depiction of slum life, - Objective focus on scandalous or immoral subjects. - Jack London (1876 – 1916) - Grew up in extreme poverty, educated himself in order to improve his own condition, - His stories involve primitive settings, melodramatic struggle of strong and weak individuals in the context of irresistible natural forces, - Deeply influenced by Darwin´s ideas of constant struggle in nature and the survival of the fittest, - The Son of the Wolf – first collection of stories, brought him fame and money, - Two novels The Call of the Wild and The Sea Wolf made him the highest paid writer in the US of his time, - The White Fang - Martin Eden – the autobiographical novel, story of unsuccess, depicts his rise from poverty to fame, love´s disillusion, class alienation, ends in suicide. - The Call of the Wild - A previously domesticated dog Buck, kidnapped and taken to the north, where he served as a sled dog, - Bad weather, terrible Husky dogs, fights, dead friend – no fair play, - Realizes that only figh and war can help him, finally, he begins to master his new surroundings – the survival of the fittest. - Buck was sold once more – to John Thornton, who is later killed by an Indian tribe – Buck´s last tie with people was broken, - He ran away with wolves: the call of the wild, - No goodness and kindness in this world, - Environment plays a very important part – controls one´s life, - „eat or be eaten“.

37 - Theodore Dreiser (1871 – 1945) - A novelist, journalist - Depicts the American success myth disillusion, stress caused by urbanization, modernization and alienation, - Dissatisfaction, envy and despair of the poor ones, contrast of the life of the rich and the poor, - Major works include these novels: - Sister Carrie – a young woman from the countryside decides to fulfill her American dream only to find out that money and fame dont bring her happiness she longed for - Jennie Gerhardt – class discussion - An American Tragedy – explores the dangers of American dream, discusses the tragic ineveitability. - Sister Carrie – pretty small-town girl who comes to the big city filled with vague ambitions, she i sused by men and uses them in turn to become a successful Broadway actress, - George Hurstwood, a married man, runs away with her, - George later descends into beggary and in despair and commits suicide. - Meanwhile, Carrie achieves stardom, but finds that money and fame do not satisfy her longings or bring her happiness and thath nothing will - Frank discussion, celebration and humanization of sex, - Clear dissection of the mechanistic brutality of American society, - Heroine goes unpunished for her transgressions against conventional sexual morality. - An American Tragedy - Is a detailed portrayal of the dark side of the American Dream – the story of what can happen when an ordinary man´s desire for wealth and status overwhelms his moral sense. - Dreiser built the novel around a real-life crime after spending years researching incidents in which men murdered women with whom they had been romantically involved but who had become inconvenient for one reason or another (often because of an unwanted pregnancy, as in the novel). Dreiser chose as his starting point the case of Chester Gillette, who drowned his pregnant girlfriend in a New York lake in 1906. Like the novel´s Clyde Griffiths, Chester Gillette was electrocuted for his crime. - Muckraking: investigative journalism directed at social issues, often scandals and corruption, - Truthful reports involving social issues, broadly including crime and corruption and often involving elected officials, political leaders and influential members of business and industry, - The term is closely associated with a number of important writers who emerged in the 1890s through the 1930s.