Producing American Literature
Teaching the American Literary Tradi1on June 19, 2014 • Eric Lupfer Thomas Jefferson School Yearbook Staff, St. Louis, MO, April 1993.
Literature: Texas Treasures (American Literature). Columbus, OH: Glencoe/ McGraw Hill, 2011. Challenge of Teaching ELA
• To help students imagine the life, meanings, and significance that their texts have had over Dme. • To pry the texts out of the textbook. Goals of this PresentaDon
• Examine how American literature is produced. • Suggest possible teaching approaches and assignment ideas. • Review online resources offering access to historical newspapers and magazines, literary archives, and other teachable resources – all related to the producDon of American literature. Producing American Literature
• What happens between writer and reader? • Who is involved? • How do their acDons shape a text’s meaning and value? Example #1: Book publishers “Walden,” Literature: Texas Treasures (American Literature). Columbus, OH: Glencoe/McGraw Hill, 2011.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854.
Title page. Henry David Thoreau, Walden. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854.
Map. Henry David Thoreau, Walden. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854.
AdverXsement for Walden. New-York Daily Tribune, August 9, 1854. Cover. Henry David Thoreau, Walden, edited by Francis Allen. Riverside Literature Series. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910.
Francis Allen, “Preface.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden, edited by Francis Allen. Riverside Literature Series. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910.
Francis Allen, “Thoreau and His Book Walden.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden, edited by Francis Allen. Riverside Literature Series. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910.
Charles Swain Thomas, “SuggesXve QuesXons and Comments.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden, edited by Francis Allen. Riverside Literature Series. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910.
Student annotaXon of Henry David Thoreau, Walden, edited by Francis Allen. Riverside Literature Series. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910.
HDT, Walden. New York: EdiXons for the Armed Services, [1945].
Opening pages of HDT, Walden. New York: EdiXons for the Armed Services, [1945].
HDT, Walden and Other WriBngs of Henry David Thoreau. Modern Library. Random House: New York, 1950.
HDT, Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Collier Books. MacMillan: New York, 1962. HDT, ReflecBons at Walden. Ed Peter Seymour. Hallmark EdiXons. Hallmark Cards: New York, 1968.
Title page. HDT, ReflecBons at Walden. Ed Peter Seymour. Hallmark EdiXons. Hallmark Cards: New York, 1968.
HDT, “My Prayer.” HDT, ReflecBons at Walden. Ed Peter Seymour. Hallmark EdiXons. Hallmark Cards: New York, 1968.
HDT, Walden and Civil Disobedience. Penguin Books: New York, 1986.
HDT, Walden. Oxford University Press: New York, 1997. HDT, Walden. Beacon Press: Boston, 1997.
HDT, Walden. Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston, 2004.
HDT, Walden. Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston, 2004.
Many Waldens
• Differences in book design: pocket-size books, textbooks, coffee- table books, paperbacks for study.
• Differences in target audiences: students, general readers, soldiers, people seeking inspiraDon.
• Differences in how HDT is portrayed: – an author whose status is contested v. “lessons for a new millennium” – nature writer v. poliDcal philosopher – Writer whose work maZers in the “war of ideas” during WWII
• Differences are drawn not by the author but by publishers.
Example #2: Magazine publishing
EAP, “The Raven.” The New-York Mirror, February 8, 1845. Close up of Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven.” The New-York Mirror, February 8, 1845.
Mark Twain, “An Adventure of Huckleberry Finn.” The Century, December 1884. Mark Twain, “Jim’s Investments and King Sollermun.” The Century, January 1885.
Mark Twain, “Royalty on the Mississippi.” The Century, February 1885. Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat.” Scribner’s, June 1897.
Charlohe Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” New England Magazine, January 1892.
EAP, “The Raven.” The New-York Mirror, February 8, 1945. Close-up on “To the Texas- Bound Emigrant: The Town of Trespalacios.” The New-York Mirror, February 8, 1845
Henry James, “The Bostonians.” The Century, February 1885. William Dean Howells, “The Rise of Silas Lapham.” The Century, February 1885.
U. S. Grant, “The Bahle of Shiloh,” The Century, February 1885.
Other arXcles in the Feb 1885 issue of The Century
• “Canada as a Winter Resort” (travel essay) • “Dutch Portraiture” (art history) • “Notes of a Confederate Staff Officer” (memoir) • An editorial criDcizing conDnued “secDonal hatred” • An editorial on poliDcal and elecDon reform following the 1884 presidenDal elecDon Text of Stephen Crane, !"#$%#&'()*&#+!',-&'!",).'' “Stephen Crane’s Own %#'"#//!'%,-'"%#'(,00,1,)#'-*!'-)#(2#1'' Story.” The New York Press, *&1'%,-'%#'#!(*$#1'' 3#*)4()*5#1'),'&#*)/.'!-*0$!'7,*"''
January 7, 1897. From the .,8&6'-)9"#)'(,0$#//#1",'-,)2'9&!!"93/9&6!*"0,!$%#)#'' website of the Ponce de Leon ,3'"%#!39)#'),,0'' Lighthouse and Museum. 7)*:#).',3'(;<=;>?'08)$%.'*&1'%9669&!'' "@>AB'"C'"CD'"%#9)'(,0$*&9,&!'-EC'-A@A'C?'"EA')*3"4''
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!"#$%&%'(%)% *+",$-.%/$0.1"1$+%233'4,5%'(%56$%76810+$39% FLANAGAN AND HIS SHORT FILIBUSTERING ADVENTURE.: I. Stephen Crane, “Flanagan BY STEPHEN CRANE, McClure's Magazine (1893-1926); Oct 1897; Vol. IX.,, No. 6; American Periodicals and His Short Filibustering pg. 1045 Adventure.” McClure’s Magazine, October 1897.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. M.D. “Perilous Stuff.” Boston Evening Transcript, April 8, 1892.
Charlohe Perkins Gilman, WHY I WROTE THE YELLOW WALLPAPER? “Why I Wrote the Yellow A. Ty and many a reader has so near the border line of utter mc:ntal asked that. When the story ruin that I could see over. Wallpaper.” The Forerunner, M fjr t came ut, in the New 'I hen, using the remnant of intelli- bngland JJaga::ine abo u t t.hat remained, and helped by a October 1913. 1.'DI, a 130 ton physician made protest WIse fnend, I cast the noted .peciali_t':::; in The Transcript. Such a story ought aclvice to the winds anel went to work 110t to be written, he said; it was enough again--'work, the normal Iif e of every to (lrive anyone mad to read it. human being; worl , in which i joy and Another physician, in Kansas I think, growth and service, without which one wrote to say that it was the best de- is a pauper and a para ite; ultimately re- cription of incipient insanity he had covering some measure of power. ever een, and-begging my pardon- Being naturally moved to rejoicing by had I been there? this narrow e cape, J wrote The Yello,it! N ow the tory 0 f the story is this: IVallpaper, with it mbelli hment an 1 many years I suffered from a additions to carry out the ideal (I nev r severe and continuous nervous break- had hallucinations or objections to my down tending to melancholia-and be- mural decorations) and ent a copy to yond. uring about the third year of the physician who so nearly drove me thi trouble I went, in devout faith and mad. He never acknowledged it. 'ome faint stir of hope, to a noted The little book is valued by pecialist in nervous diseases, the best and a a good specimen of one kind of known in the country. This wise man literature. It has to my knO\\ledge aved put me to bed and applied the rest cure, one woman from a similar fate-so terri- to which a still good physique rec;ponded fving her family that they let her out so promptly that he concluded there was into normal activity and she recovere l. nothing much the matter with me, and nut the be t result is this. :Many ent me home with solemn advice to year later I was told the "live a domestic a life as far as pos- peciali t had admitted fnends of hI ihle," to "have but two hour " in- that he had altered hIS treatment nt tellectual life a day," and 'never to neura thenia since reading The Yello7.C.' touch pen, brush or pencil again as long HIallpaper. a I lived." This was in 18 7. It was not intended to drive people I went home and obeyed those direc- crazy, but to save people from being tion:; for c;ome three months, and came driven crazy, and it worked. Cover. Life, September 1947.
“Thoreau’s Walden.” Life, September 1947.
“Thoreau’s Thoughts.” Life, September 1947.
AdverXsement. Life, September 1947. AdverXsement. Life, September 1947.
Example #3: Editors and EdiXng “Flowers.” Drum Beat (Brooklyn, NY), March 2, 1864.
Cover. ED, Poems. Eds. Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Roberts Brothers: Boston, 1890.
Table of contents. ED, Poems. Eds. Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Roberts Brothers: Boston, 1890.
Table of contents. ED, Poems. Eds. Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Roberts Brothers: Boston, 1890.
ED, “The Chariot” in Poems. Eds. Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Roberts Brothers: Boston, 1890. ED, Manuscript of “Because I Could Not Stop for Death-” [1862]. From the online Emily Dickinson Archive. Walt Whitman, A WarBme Whitman. Ed. Major William A. Aiken. New York: EdiXons for the Armed Services, [1945].
“As I Have Walk’d in Alabama” from A WarBme Whitman. Ed. Major William A. Aiken. New York: EdiXons for the Armed Services, [1945].
Example #4: Textbooks and Teaching American literature Charles Swain Thomas, “SuggesXve QuesXons and Comments.” In HDT, Walden, edited by Francis Allen. Riverside Literature Series. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910. Cover. Literature of Achievement. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1957.
Title pages. Literature of Achievement. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1957. Robert Frost, “Two Tramps in Mud Time.” In Literature of Achievement. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1957.
Assignments and AcDviDes
• Become an editor and create an anthology organized around a certain theme or literary period. Write a preface explaining your raDonale. Cover. In American Fields and Forests. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1907.
Table of Contents. In American Fields and Forests. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1907.
Assignments and AcDviDes
• Use Making of America or Chronicling America to locate classic texts of the nineteenth- century in magazines or newspapers of the period. Examine the table of contents, to determine what else was happening at that moment in local, state, naDonal, and world history. Chronicling America home page. chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ Making of America journals page. ebooks.library.cornell.edu/m/moa/ Assignments and AcDviDes
• Design an ediDon of a book covered in class, complete with a target audience, a book design, and markeDng plan. Ask students to explain 1.) why they think that text will be significant to that audience, and 2.) how they have developed their book design and markeDng plan with that audience in mind. Assignments and AcDviDes
• Select a specific ediDon of a classic text and imagine how a member of its target audience read it. What meaning did the text have for that person? John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. New York: EdiXons for the Armed Services, [1945].
Assignments and AcDviDes
• Compare different versions of the same text, such as the Dickinson poem.
• Search the web for different covers of the books you read in your courses. Determine their date of publicaDon; idenDfy the audiences they seemed to target. Assess the effecDveness of the design. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet LeVer. New York: • Chronicling America Pocket Books, 1948. screenshot Richard Wright, NaBve Son. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940.
Assignments and AcDviDes
• Redesign a “textbook treatment” of one of your textbook readings. “Walden,” Literature: Texas Treasures (American Literature). Columbus, OH: Glencoe/McGraw Hill, 2011.
Assignments and AcDviDes
• IdenDfy arDcles, books, and movies that re- interpret or make reference to classic texts. What sort of arguments are being made about the classic work? Laurie Shepherd, A Woman’s Walden: A Dreamer’s Log Cabin. New York: Dembner Books, 1981. Ken Ilgunas, Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. PromoXonal poster. The Great Gatsby. Directed by Baz Luhrman. Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers, 2013