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cd “Young Goodman Brown” [1835] -Central figure in American Renaissance 1 -High praise in his lifetime and after. His short stories reviewed by Poe and Melville. Admired by many different reasons. -His fiction invites multiple readings (studied by poststructuralist, new literary, feminist…) -Revolt VS the sentimentalized literary culture of the time. -His moralizing sketches in domestic topics are no longer popular. -His dark/troubling short stories are now popular. -His pure style (aesthetic qualities) won his universal applause. -Carefully polished prose style. -His use of grammatically complex and rhetorical subtle mode of literary discourse. -He experiments with literary forms and techniques. *Meticulous. *Deliberately used *Highly conscious. archaisms to give colonial *Rigorous verbal economy. flavour to his work. *Concentration of effect.

“Young Goodman Brown”

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-Original use of allegory (he allegorizes evil) -Faith is aptly named / Young Master Anybody / Forest -> His own evil mind. : -Witchcraft stories (popular among magazine audiences) especially the witchcraft delusion of 1692. -New England Puritans (the results of their intolerance). -Many people in the 17th century believed in spectral evidence. The devil could only appear in his follower’s bodies. -Keep in mind when reading that the protagonist does not represent the 1st generation orthodox Calvinism but 3rd generation. Confused/ troubled Puritans. -Brown does not behave like a genuine saint and he didn’t heed the warning of “presumption”. -This is about shattered faith. -Considered his best work but he did not include it in his TwiceTold Collection. --> He used archaisms to give a colonial flavor. 5 -Plain style. Sentences not very long. Direct speech -> dynamic. -Style. Easy to understand. Allegory and symbolism not so easy. rd -3 person limited omniscient. Authorial intrusion some times. -Purity of style. Rhetoric, paradox and archaism. *Setting: Supernatural dark forest with a path that closes behind him. Forests are territories of the devil. Anything can happen. -Plot is circular. Begin and ends with Faith and her pink ribbon. -Didactic framework of traditional allegory turned against Puritans *Flat characters: Faith=faith, Goody Cloyse=goodness, Traveler=evil, Y. G. B.= Every man, Brown) Color of the earth. -Predestination. -Lack of final closure. Reader must decide dream or not?

: Moral issues (secret sin and

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hidden gilt) He was brought up a Unitarian, but his writings showed Calvinist concerns. Most of his writings about colonial history of New England and its Puritan past (showed an ambivalent attitude towards the Puritans). -> He saw them as great, but didn’t like their selfrighteousness and intolerance. He didn’t like that the Puritans saw sin as part of life but were intolerant with transgressors. Puritans separated people into 2 groups: the saved and the doomed, whereas Hawthorne was interested in the mix of good and evil in each individual. -> He claimed such severe introspection caused more harm than good. Used Allegory (double meaning that allows the story to be interpreted on two levels). Similar to the fable or the parable. Used to convey moral messages. -He turned the Puritan allegory against them -He rejected Puritanism -He can be seen as an allegorist or a master of symbolism -He adopted the didactic framework of the traditional allegory. 4 --> Dream vision -Journey into the forest, both physical and psychological. - unconscious desire / to learn about : Adventure story. Has an evil, finds it in He’s the hero. Proud. his inner self refuses to accept it : Description (Actions) No -Hermeneutic gap (pieces of inforeport. withheld from the direct/indirect speech. reader to create suspense) -> The final question “was it a st dream” /is an example of it. : Time of the 1 settlers st Creation of the Virginia Company and 1 English --> Young Goodman Brown: Protagonist. establishment @ therd beginning of the 17th century. Declining religion. 3 generation of Puritans. Very naïve, : Latin & Greek quotations. immature, overconfident and presumptuous. rd (Seneca) Uses 3 person narrative. -Faith: Stability and domestic sphere in Puritan world. Savages, devils, beastly and Pure-hearted. Religious :feeling. threatening. But he is fascinated. -Old Man/Devil: Appears to be an ordinary man. Devil Complex relationship could be any man. Can appear in: any context. history and rhetoric -> Blends facts and fiction. 6 Forest=Eden/Evil Faith=Purity Path= evil or good Serpent staff= The devil

The Bible-Genesis Pilgrim’s Progress Salem Witch Trials King Philip’s War Protestant Persecution

Good/Evil Past changes present Religion Nature is evil Fire/Light

UNIT 13 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE "Young Goodman Brown" From A Study Guide: Hawthorne is one of the major writers of the American Renaissance on the grounds of his polished prose style; The Scarlett Letter is an outstanding example of "psychological romance", a genre which allowed the incorporation of mysterious or supernatural elements to explore the irrational forces that affect human minds; his ambivalent attitude toward Puritanism is reflected in his writings, being the focus on his innovative use of allegory which he subversively transformed in order to question the mythology set up by Puritan allegory; Hawthorne's original use of the allegorical method in YGB made it a masterpiece defined as a gloomy allegory of evil written by an author obsessed with original sin and eternal damnation, allowing also many other interpretations; YGB draws conclusions about philosophical, historical, psychological, ethical and aesthetic aspects; appraise how plot works in YGB not only to evaluate Hawthorne's dexterity but also to learn how to apply the same critical skills to the analysis of any other short stories and novels. The clever use of deliberate ambiguities allows readers to speculate about divergent meanings.

His work has been considered worthy of close scrutiny up to the present, favourably reviewed by his contemporaries (Poe and Melville), and as his fiction invites multiple kind of readings, he has been studied by critic schools like Post-structuralism, New Criticism, Historicism, Feminism and Deconstructionism. Our age values irony, paradox, symbolic complexity, psychological depth, subtlety, and clever use of ambiguities which allow readers divergent meanings. There is a tendency to view his work as a revolt against the sentimentalized literary culture of his time, since he expressed his resentment towards women writers who were achieving commercial success from whose methods he wanted to distance himself. However he also tried to reach the widest audience with conventional pieces, we prefer the innovative ones in which he questioned established ideas and subverted traditional procedures, like his darker and more troubling short stories. Work: One aspect of his prose is his purity of style for he was a meticulous and highly conscious artist who experimented with literary forms and techniques. Through his rigorous verbal economy, he achieved great concentration of effect, although his prose style was perceived as old-fashioned even in his own time since he deliberately employed archaism in order to give colonial flavour to his writings. Nowadays we call him a "novelist" but in his own time he was proclaimed the finest American "romancer". Romance is a fictitious narrative in prose or verse with marvellous and uncommon incidents, while novel is presumed to aim at fidelity, the probable and ordinary course of man's experience (realistic novel). Rather to strive for verisimilitude, he withed to be able to incorporate mysterious or supernatural elements because romance gave him the freedom to explore the irrational forces that affect the human mind. Allegedly he had an ambivalent attitude toward Puritanism, for although he had learnt about the failures and achievements of this community he found also greatness in them

but was appalled by the intolerance, which led them to persecute dissenters. He disliked the rigid Puritan minds, which were aware that sin is a part of everyday life and nevertheless were incapable of dealing with transgressors. Puritan doctrine separated people into two groups, the saved and the damned not considering the good and evil in each individual, a theme that Hawthorne deemed of utmost importance. He sought to demonstrate the damaging effect of certain Puritan teachings that led to an excessive preoccupation with sinfulness, which made ordinary people more vulnerable to temptation. He expressed his clearest convictions through allegory and therefore he revealed his stand on Puritanism through his innovative use of this mode. In allegory there is a double meaning that allows a story to be interpreted on two levels: a surface level and a deep one, which is understood through the first. It is a literary form closely related to fable and parable, used to convey moral messages or teach ethical principles, a form employed by the first Puritan colonists to set up a mythology of the New World. Hawthorne adopted the didactic framework of allegory to question such a mythology and for subversive purposes: to turn the Puritan allegorical method against the Puritans themselves. His movement towards secularized allegory helped to mould the technique of symbolism, which would be cultivated in the 19th c. and some critics consider him an allegorist while others see him as a symbolist. In the difference between allegory and symbolism, the former points to a referent, which stands outside itself and demands a strict correspondence between the concrete and the abstract idea; on the contrary, symbolism is able to embody abstract realities and allows for multiple possibilities of meaning. Instead of tag him in one of the both, is safely to conclude that he rendered these two related modes very effectively in his prose. "Young Goodman Brown" It is probably the tale that best illustrated his original use of allegorical method, in which he allegorizes evil. Not only names are allegorical, expressing what characters represent, but also places and things (e.g. Faith is "aptly named"; the protagonist has an Everyman-like name). The meaning of the journey is evident, being a typical motif in allegorical writings, but the forest is subject of speculation for when Brown enters it, he is really entering his own evil mind. YGB, apart from the allegorical interpretation, can be analysed from other perspective since its accounts of moral, philosophical, historical and psychological aspects. Regarding the sources of this masterpiece, his most important debt was the witchcraft delusion of 1962, considered a humiliating passage in the history of his nation which he saw as the direct result of the intolerance of the Puritans. The guilt he felt about his ancestors' involvement in the persecution of Quakers and in Salem witchcraft trails comes out in YGB. Regarding this, it is relevant in YGB the spectral evidence, since in the 17th c many people believed in spectres, a satanic intervention since it was commonly accepted that the devil only assumed the shape of his sworn (declarado) disciple, upon which many accusations of witchcraft were based. This practice was condemned by the 19th c. historians whose works influenced Hawthorne's treatment of the theme.

The protagonist does not represent orthodox Calvinism (first-generation Puritans) but a declining form of religion. Brown behaves as an extremely naïve, immature, overconfident and presumptuous third-generation Puritan, who had no doubts about his place amongst the saved. Calvinist preachers warned against "presumption", which is the act of declaring one's salvation already certain, explaining that their doctrine of predestination was not an excuse for moral evasion. Goodman takes the risk of getting involved with the devil, having a partial and distorted vision of the Puritan catechism. His failure to understand the evil led to the gloomy ending of YGB, a story about shattered faith. Images suggest darkness versus light; contrast day/night; antithesis good/evil. Pink ribbons contribute to Faith's characterization. Pink is white (pure, innocent) + red (passion, depravity): good and evil in human nature. The point of view swings between the narrator and the title character. The journey into the forest can be considered both a physical and psychological journey. Goodman Brown has an unconscious desire to learn about evil, and discovers it in his inner self but refuses to accept this dimension of his personality. Through "hermeneutic gaps" are pieces of information are withheld by the writer to enhance curiosity and interest: the final question "was it a dream?" is an example. Exploratory Questions - Melville detected the darkness in Hawthorne's work. Indicate the images that suggest darkness versus light and analyse their function. To what extent does the contrast between day and light correspond to the antithesis between good and evil in the tale? - The pink ribbon (mentioned 5 times in the tale) is an important factor which contributes to the characterization of Faith. As the colour pink is a mixture of white (associated with purity and innocence) and red (linked with passion and the scarlet of depravity), it may symbolize the inevitable coexistence of good and evil in human nature. - Impartial omniscience does not allow the narrator any evaluation of the characters, but since Hawthorne's narrator is not a detached observer, we are often aware of the existence of an author/narrator who even addresses the reader. Look for examples of authorial intrusion. - Lawrence observed that Hawthorne, Poe and Melville "refuse everything explicit and always put up a sort of double meaning". Find them in YGB. - Some critics consider Hawthorne as a sceptic or agnostic whose interest in Puritan conscience was intellectual, although there is a strong Calvinistic strain in his work evident in his distrust of human nature. Melville was fascinated with the "great power of blackness in him [Hawthorne] which derives its force from its appeals to that Calvinistic sense of Innate Depravity and Original sin. - According to Christian theology, both presumption and despair are two great sins, consider their relevance to this short story. To explain how Goodman Brown shifts from one extreme position to the other, you may want to attention to the acts that undermine his confidence.

- Melville suggested that Hawthorne sometimes "directly calculated to deceived the superficial skimmer of pages", so careless readers can be mistaken when skimming YGB. Note that Hawthorne was concerned with the difficulties of interpreting absolutely. - YGB presents an interesting example of his fictional treatment of female characters. Hawthorne showing that patriarchal society victimizes women, thus consider whether the narrator reveals sympathy for Faith and how various kinds of women are classified in the witches' meeting. - Note that the word "dream" is used 6 times, what elements may lead readers to thing Goodman Brown has had a dream? - Analyse his use of direct speech bearing in mind that he avoided colloquial idioms which might not sound as refined as the rest of his prose. He often sets Goodman Brown's thoughts in quotation marks, providing us with examples of direct thought (a submode of the narrative mode called speech). - "The Colloquy of the Dogs", Cervantes's novella, contains many important motifs which appear in YGB, which is the uncertainty of the meeting, was it for real or a dream? - Poe: "The style of Mr. Hawthorne is purity itself. His tone is singularly effective, wild, plaintive, thoughtful, and in full accordance with his themes". Longfellow praised him for "the exceeding beauty of his style". - Some critics contend that Hawthorne's works, successively reinterpreted from different perspectives, resist any final interpretation. Explain how you interpret the tale bearing in mind the distinction between meaning (what a work means for its author) and significance (what a work signifies for its readers). - Analyse the descriptions of the woods as the devil's territories and point out similarities with the way other American authors have described wilderness as the realm of evil. - Compare Hawthorne's attitude to nature with that of Emerson and Thoreau, especially with the way the forest is depicted. The three of them were close friends and saw the same landscape when they were living in Concord, but Hawthorne did not share the optimistic spirit of his Transcendentalist friends nor their belief in the goodness of human nature. From A Study Guide: writing about plot Plot refers to the unfolding series or pattern of events in a narrative or drama. When we write about the plot we should not simply discuss what happens in it, or merely give a summary of its action, but conscientiously explain the way events are arranged in a temporal sequence, paying attention to how they are ordered and why they are linked. Plots usually arise out of a network of aims and desires expressed by characters that engage with each other while trying to achieve differing aspirations. The starting point of a piece of fiction is often the exposition of a conflict situation experienced by two or more characters that antagonize each other.

Since a plot necessarily moves in a certain direction, readers tend to anticipate its trajectory, because their knowledge of other plots helps them predict the path. Yet, not all plots are easily predictable, because a trajectory may be diverted by the introduction of an unexpected element. Most short stories follow a pattern of: 1) exposition: the introductory material that supplies readers with information about the conflict situation in which characters are involved; 2) rising action: the complications that entangle characters and plunge them into further conflict; 3) climax: the moment of greatest suspense, emotional tension or excitement; 4) falling action; 5) resolution. Few short stories are balanced as evenly. The climax does not generally fall right in the middle of the story, because the bulk of many narratives is spent building up the crisis or turning point of the conflict. A distinction must be drawn between two temporal sequences which may or may not coincide: 1) the order in which the events recounted in a story are supposed to have happened; 2) the order in which such events are presented in the text and the reader learns them. Events may be presented in chronological order, but authors may prefer to depart from a chronologically ordered pattern by moving back and forth between past and present: analepsis (flashback) and prolepsis (anticipation). A highly effective way of plotting a short story or a novel is by basing it on a journey. "Young Goodman Brown" may be discussed as both a physical journey into the forest, and a psychological journey in which the protagonist has an unconscious desire to learn about evil, and discovers it in his inner self, but refuses to acknowledge this dimension of his personality. Plot and setting are two important narrative elements that are often considered together when analyzing fiction. Setting is the spatio-temporal location, together with the social and historical context, in which the events of a story happen. Note that it is certainly nighttime and presumably Halloween, the night of October 31. Setting is linked to atmosphere, the prevailing mood and feeling evoked by a text. Atmosphere arises from the mixed evocation of physical location together with other circumstances that help readers perceive the concrete details of a scene as if they were visualizing it. Landscape accurately reflects what is going on in the minds and hearts of the characters. Physical location parallels the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist. Dark forest is an adequate space to locate a series of incidents that reveal the author's pessimistic vision of the natural world. The plot can be analyzed in relation to its theme, since the chief issues at work may be easily discovered when one ponders the underlying causes of events and sums up their importance. For instance, how the plot gradually foregrounds the theme of isolation, as the protagonist turns out to be one of Hawthorne's typical self-imprisoned character; or how the plot discloses the theme of the mixture of good and evil in all human beings. The plot can also be examined in relation to its characterization. Static characters remain the same from the beginning to the end, whereas dynamic characters undergo some kind of transformation over the course of the narrative. Plots generally contain gaps and ambiguities. The most common gap in fiction is the hermeneutic gap, also called information gap. When readers detect enigmas or gaps, they search for clues and hypotheses. Hermeneutic gaps can be either temporary or permanent. The author may withhold information so as to add suspense, enhance

interest, increase curiosity, and later achieve maximum impact. Sometimes the information that readers expect is never given. Closure may exist: 1) at the level of questions; 2) at the level of expectations. Closure at the level of questions means that the question raised throughout the narrative are finally answered. When a narrative ends in such a way as to satisfy the expectations, it is said to have closure at the level of expectations. For instance, knowing the destinies of the characters who fall in love in a fairytale provides closure at the level of questions, while learning that such characters "got married and lived happily ever after" furnishes closure at the level of expectations. Many narratives have closure at the two levels: no important secrets are left unexplained and the conflict situation corresponds to whatever reader anticipated. Any narrative may lack closure at one or at both levels. For example, a tragic ending for the lovers (instead of a happy marriage) would provide closure only at the level of questions in a fairytale, not at the level of expectations. Short stories basically differ from novels in length, an essential feature which implies a greater economy concerning all their narrative elements, including plot, because the events recounted in a brief piece of fiction cannot be as numerous as in a long one. Short stories have only one plot, whereas novels often have multiple plots. Any critical evaluation of plots entails an attentive appraisal of their construction or design. Causality may be either implied or made explicit, and some writers manage better than others when manipulating the causal links, which bind a plot together. Abbott claims that one of the keys to the success of all narratives is the author's ability to build up "chains of suspense and surprise, which keep us in a fluctuating state of impatience, wonderment, and partial gratification.

El Joven Goodman Brown Young Goodman Brown; Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) Al anochecer, el joven Goodman Brown salió a la calle del pueblo de Salem. Al cruzar el umbral, volvió la cabeza besar a su joven esposa. Y Faith, nombre que le resultaba muy adecuado, asomó su hermosa cabeza a la calle dejando que el viento jugueteara con las cintas rosas de su gorra mientras hablaba con Goodman Brown. -Querido -susurró acercando los labios a su oído-: te ruego que dejes tu viaje para la mañana y duermas esta noche en casa. Una mujer sola es acosada por sueños y pensamientos que a veces le dan miedo. De todas las noches del año, esposo mío, te ruego que te quedes conmigo precisamente ésta. -Mi amor y mi Fe -contestó el joven Goodman Brown-. De todas las noches del año, ésta es la que debo pasar lejos. Mi viaje debe hacerse entre este momento y el amanecer. Pero mi dulce y bella esposa, ¿es que dudas ya de mí, cuando sólo llevamos tres meses casados? -¡Que Dios te bendiga entonces! -dijo Faith moviendo las cintas rosas-. Y que lo encuentres todo bien cuando regreses. -¡Así sea! -gritó Goodman Brown-. Reza, querida Faith, y acuéstate al anochecer, así ningún daño te sucederá. Se despidieron, y el joven siguió su camino hasta que, cuando estaba por de girar la esquina junto al templo, miró hacia atrás y vio la cabeza de Faith que seguía observándole con un aire melancólico, a pesar de sus cintas rosadas. -¡Mi pobre y pequeña Faith! -susurró, pues tenía el corazón afligido-. ¡Soy un perverso al dejarla! Y hablaba de sueños. Me parece que cuando lo hacía su rostro estaba turbado, como si un sueño le hubiera advertido del trabajo que hay que hacer esta noche. Pero no, no: pensar en ello la mataría. Es un ángel sobre la tierra, y tras esta única noche me mantendré aferrado a sus faldas y la seguiré hasta el cielo. Con tan excelente resolución para el futuro, Goodman Brown se sintió justificado para apresurar su propósito maligno. Había tomado un camino que oscurecían los árboles más tristes del bosque, y que al apartarse de la carretera principal se convertía en un estrecho sendero. Todo era realmente solitario; y en tal soledad es peculiar que el viajero no sepa quién puede ocultarse en los innumerables troncos o las gruesas ramas que hay sobre la cabeza, de manera que con sus pasos solitarios puede estar pasando entre una multitud invisible. -Podría haber un indio diabólico detrás de cada árbol -dijo Goodman Brown para sí, y miró con temor hacia atrás al tiempo que añadía-: ¡El propio diablo podría estar a un codo de mí! Mirando hacia atrás, recorrió una curva del camino, y al volver a mirar hacia adelante vio la figura de un hombre con atuendo grave y decente sentado al pie de un viejo árbol. Se levantó al acercarse Goodman Brown y empezó a caminar al lado de éste. -Llegas tarde, Goodman Brown -le dijo-. El reloj del Old South estaba sonando cuando llegué desde Boston, y de eso hace ya más de quince minutos. -Faith me entretuvo un rato -contestó el joven, asustado por la aparición repentina de su compañero, aunque no fuese inesperada. En el bosque había ya una oscuridad profunda, que era todavía mayor por la zona que ambos estaban recorriendo. Por lo que podía discernirse, el segundo viajero tendría unos cincuenta años, aparentemente de la misma posición en la vida que Goodman Brown, y se le asemejaba considerablemente, aunque quizás más en la expresión que en los rasgos. Aun así, podrían haberlos tomado por padre e hijo. Y sin embargo, aunque el mayor iba vestido tan simplemente como el joven, y era de maneras igualmente simples, tenía ese aire indescriptible de alguien que conoce el mundo, y que no se sentiría avergonzado en la mesa del gobernador ni en la corte del rey Guillermo. Pero lo único que en él podía considerarse notable era su bastón, semejante a una gran serpiente negra y tan curiosamente trabajado que casi se le veía dar vueltas y retorcerse como una serpiente viva. Evidentemente aquello era una ilusión ocular ayudada por la luz incierta. -Venga, Goodman Brown -le gritó el compañero-. Llevamos un paso muy apagado para el principio de un viaje. Si tan pronto te has cansado, toma mi bastón. -Amigo, si he convenido encontrarme contigo aquí, ahora prefiero regresar por donde vine- contestó el otro cambiando su paso-. Tengo escrúpulos de tocar el asunto que tú sabes. -¿Eso opinas? -contestó el de la serpiente-. Sigamos caminando, y razonemos mientras tanto; si yo te convenzo no volverás. Sólo nos queda un poco de camino por el bosque.

-¡Es demasiado lejos! ¡Demasiado! -exclamó el buen hombre reanudando la caminata-. Mi padre nunca habría entrado en el bosque con tal recado, ni su padre antes de él. Hemos sido una raza de hombres honestos y buenos cristianos desde los tiempos de los mártires; y seré el primero con el nombre de Brown que tomó nunca este camino y siguió... -En tal compañía, dirías -observó el de más edad- ¡Bien dicho, Goodman Brown! He conocido a tu familia como una más entre los puritanos; y eso no es decir poco. Ayudé a tu abuelo cuando azotó a la mujer cuáquera por las calles de Salem; y fui yo el que durante la guerra del rey Felipe llevé a tu padre un nudo de pino de tea, cocido de mi propio hogar, para que prendiera fuego a un pueblo indio. Ambos fueron buenos amigos míos; y hemos dado muchos paseos agradables por este camino, regresando alegremente tras la medianoche, y sólo por ellos de buena gana sería amigo tuyo. -Si es como tú dices, me maravilla que nunca hablaran de esos asuntos -contestó Goodman Brown-. O en realidad no me maravilla, sabiendo que el menor rumor les habría expulsado de Nueva Inglaterra. Somos gente de oración, y de buenas obras además, y no permitimos esas maldades. -Sean o no maldades, tengo aquí en Nueva Inglaterra muchos conocidos -contestó el viajero del bastón retorcido-. Los diáconos de muchas iglesias han bebido conmigo el vino de la comunión; hombres selectos de diversas ciudades me nombraron su presidente; y una gran mayoría del Gran Tribunal y del Tribunal General apoyan firmemente mis intereses. Además, el Gobernador y yo... aunque eso son secretos de Estado. -¿Es posible que sea así? -gritó Goodman Brown mirando con asombro a su impasible compañero-. Sin embargo, nada tengo que ver con el Gobernador y el Consejo; ellos tienen sus modos, que no son normales para un simple esposo como yo. Y si siguiera adelante contigo, ¿cómo iba a aguantar la mirada de ese buen anciano, nuestro ministro, en el pueblo de Salem? Ay, su voz me haría temblar tanto en el día del Sabbat como en el del sermón. Hasta ese momento el viajero de más edad le había escuchado con la debida gravedad; pero entonces tuvo un ataque de risa irreprimible que le hizo agitarse con tanta violencia que su bastón, semejante a una serpiente, realmente parecía sacudirse con simpatía. -¡Ja, ja, ja! -reía una y otra vez, hasta que recobró la compostura-. Bueno, sigamos, Goodman Brown, sigamos; pero te ruego que no me mates de risa. -Pues bien, terminemos el asunto -contestó Goodman Brown sintiéndose molesto-. Piensa en mi esposa, Faith. Rompería su corazón, tan querido para mí; y entonces estaría rompiendo el mío. -No, si ése fuera el caso, deberías seguir tu camino Goodman Brown -respondió el otro-. Pero no creo que veinte ancianas como la que va cojeando delante de nosotros hicieran a Faith daño alguno. Mientras hablaba señaló con el bastón a una figura femenina que estaba en el camino y en la que Goodman Brown reconoció a una dama muy piadosa y ejemplar que de joven le había enseñado el Catecismo, y seguía siendo su consejera moral y espiritual junto con el ministro y el diácono Gookin. -Realmente me maravilla que Goody Cloyse esté en este bosque profundo a la caída de la noche -respondió-. Pero con tu permiso, amigo mío, tomaré un atajo por el bosque hasta que dejemos atrás a esa cristiana. Como no te conoce, puede preguntarse a quién acompañaba y adónde iba. -Sea así -respondió el compañero-. Acorta por el bosque que yo seguiré por el camino. El joven se desvió, pero observó a su compañero que avanzaba tranquilamente por el camino hasta que estuvo a la distancia de un bastón de la vieja dama. Entretanto ella avanzaba lo mejor que podía, con una velocidad singular para una dama de tanta edad, y murmurando entretanto unas palabras que no le llegaban con claridad, sin duda una oración. El viajero extendió el bastón y tocó el cuello arrugado de ella con lo que parecía ser la cola de la serpiente. -¡El diablo! -gritó la piadosa anciana. -¿Es que Goody Cloyse no conoce a su viejo amigo? -preguntó el viajero poniéndose delante de ella e inclinándose sobre su agitado bastón. -Ah, ¿verdaderamente es su señoría? -exclamó la buena dama-. Sí, por, cierto que lo es, y con la misma imagen del viejo chismoso de Goodman Brown, el abuelo de ese estúpido. Pero, ¿podrá creerlo su señoría?, mi escoba ha desaparecido extrañamente; sospecho que robada por esa bruja a la que todavía no han ahorcado, Goody Cory, y eso que la tenía ya toda untada conjugo de apio silvestre, cincoenrama y acónito. -Mezclado con buen trigo y la grasa de un niño recién nacido -añadió la forma del viejo Goodman Brown. -Ah, su señoría conoce la receta -exclamó la anciana-. Si es lo que yo estaba diciendo, todo dispuesto para la reunión, y sin ningún caballo que montar, decidí venir a pie; pues me han dicho que esta noche toma la comunión una agradable joven. Pero ahora su señoría me prestará el brazo y llegaremos allí en un momento.

-Difícilmente podrá ser eso -respondió su amigo-. No puedo prestarle mi brazo, Goody Cloyse; pero si quiere, aquí está mi bastón. Nada más decir eso, lo arrojó a los pies de ella, donde quizás asumió vida porque era uno de los bastones que su propietario había dado anteriormente a los magos de Egipto. Aunque Goodman Brown no podía tener conocimiento alguno de ese hecho. Alzó la mirada asombrado, y al volver a bajarla ya no vio ni a Goody Cloyse ni al bastón en forma de serpiente, sino sólo a su compañero de viaje que le aguardaba con tanta tranquilidad como si no hubiera sucedido nada. -Esa anciana me enseñó el Catecismo -dijo el joven; y ese comentario simple estaba repleto de significado. Siguieron caminando mientras el mayor exhortaba a su compañero a que mantuviera una buena velocidad, hablando tan adecuadamente que sus argumentos más parecían brotar en el pecho de quien le oía que ser sugeridos por él mismo. Mientras avanzaban tomó una rama de arce, que le sirviera de bastón de paseo y empezó a quitarle las hojas y ramitas, que estaban humedecidas por el rocío de la noche. En el momento en que sus dedos las tocaban, se marchitaban y secaban extrañamente, como si llevaran una semana al sol. Así fue avanzando la pareja, a muy buen paso, hasta que de pronto, en un oscuro ensanche del camino, Goodman Brown se sentó sobre el tocón de un árbol negándose a ir más lejos. -Amigo mío, estoy decidido -dijo tenazmente-. Ni un paso más daré por este motivo. ¿Qué me importa si una perversa anciana prefiere ir hacia el diablo cuando yo pensaba que se dirigía al cielo? ¿Es eso un motivo por el que debiera, abandonar a mi querida Faith y seguir a la otra? -Más tarde pensarás mejor en eso -dijo con toda tranquilidad su compañero-. Siéntate aquí y descansa un rato; y cuando creas que puedes ponerte otra vez en movimiento, mi bastón te ayudará a seguir. Sin decir nada más, arrojó a su compañero el bastón de arce y rápidamente desapareció de su vista como si se hubiera desvanecido. El joven permaneció sentado al lado del camino, animándose y pensando con qué conciencia tan clara se encontraría con el ministro en su paseo matinal, y que no habría de apartarse de la vista del buen diácono Gookin. Y qué tranquilo sería su sueño esa misma noche, pues no habría de pasarla de forma perversa, sino pura y dulcemente en los brazos de Faith. Entre esas meditaciones dignas de alabanza, Goodman Brown oyó cascos de caballos por el camino, y le pareció aconsejable ocultarse en la linde del bosque consciente del propósito culpable que le había conducido hasta allí, y del que ahora, felizmente, se había apartado. Le llegaron entonces con claridad el ruido de los cascos y las voces de los jinetes, dos voces ancianas y graves que conversaban discretamente mientras se aproximaban. Esos sonidos pasaron a pocos metros de donde se hallaba escondido; pero debido a la profundidad de la oscuridad no pudo ver ni a los viajeros ni sus corceles. Aunque las figuras rozaban las ramas pequeñas que había al borde del camino. Goodman Brown a veces se agachaba y otras se ponía de puntillas, apartando las ramas y metiendo la cabeza tanto como se atrevía sin discernir más que una sombra. Lo que más le irritó de aquello es que habría jurado, de ser posible tal cosa, que había reconocido las voces del ministro y del diácono Gookin, trotando tranquilamente tal como solían hacer cuando acudían a alguna ordenación o un consejo eclesiástico. Y cuando estaban todavía a una distancia desde la que podía oírlos, uno de los jinetes se detuvo para coger una vara. -De entre las dos cosas, reverendo señor, preferiría perderme una cena de ordenación que la reunión de esta noche -dijo la voz que se asemejaba a la del diácono-. Me han dicho que va a estar parte de nuestra comunidad, desde Falmouth y más allá, y vendrán otros de Connecticut y Rhode Island, además de varios curanderos indios, quienes a su manera saben de lo diablesco casi tanto como el mejor de nosotros. Además va a recibir la comunión una buena y joven mujer. — ¡Por las Potestades, diácono Gookin! — Contestó el otro con el tono solemne del ministro-. Apresurémonos o llegaremos tarde, y ya sabe que nada puede hacerse hasta que yo esté allí. Volvió a escuchar los cascos; y las voces, que de manera tan extraña hablaban en el aire vacío, se perdieron en un bosque en el que nunca había habido iglesia alguna ni había rezado un cristiano solitario. ¿Adónde, entonces, podían acudir esos hombres santos en la profundidad del bosque pagano? El joven Goodman Brown tuvo que apoyarse en un árbol, pues estaba a punto de caer al suelo desmayado y cargado con la pesadez de su corazón. Miró hacia arriba, al cielo, dudando de que realmente existiera un cielo encima de él. Pero allí estaba el arco azul en el que brillaban las estrellas. -¡Con el cielo arriba, y Faith debajo, me mantendré firme contra el diablo! -gritó Goodman Brown. Mientras seguía mirando hacia arriba, al arco profundo del firmamento, y elevando las manos para rezar, una nube cruzó presurosamente el cenit, aunque no había ningún viento que la moviera, y ocultó las estrellas

brillantes. El cielo azul seguía siendo visible, salvo directamente encima de su cabeza, donde aquella masa de nubes negras se dirigía velozmente hacia el norte. Y arriba, en el aire, como si surgiera de la profundidad de la nube, brotó un sonido de voces confuso y dudoso. Hubo un momento en el que le pareció que podía distinguir el acento de conciudadanos suyos, hombres y mujeres, tanto de seres piadosos como faltos de religión, con muchos de los cuales se había encontrado en la mesa de la comunión, y a los otros los había visto alborotando en la taberna. Pero al momento siguiente, tan inciertos eran los sonidos, dudó de si no habría oído más que el murmullo del viejo bosque que susurraba sin que hubiera viento. Volvió entonces a escuchar con más fuerza esos tonos familiares, que a diario escuchaba en Salem bajo la luz del sol, pero que hasta entonces no había oído nunca saliendo de una nube durante la noche. Luego escuchó la voz de una mujer joven que se lamentaba, y que con una vaga pena pedía un favor que quizás le afligiera obtener; y toda la multitud invisible, juntos los santos y los pecadores, parecía estimularla a que siguiera adelante. -¡Faith! -gritó Goodman Brown con dolor y desesperación; y los ecos del bosque se burlaron de él gritando ¡Faith! ¡Faith!, como si unos seres infelices y confusos la buscaran por el bosque. Todavía estaba traspasando la noche el grito de pena, rabia y terror cuando el infeliz esposo retenía el aliento esperando una respuesta. Hubo un grito que fue ahogado por un murmullo de voces más altas que acabaron convirtiéndose en una risa lejana mientras desaparecía la nube oscura dejando el cielo claro y silencioso por encima de Goodman Brown. Pero algo aleteaba ligeramente por el aire y se posó en la rama de un árbol. El joven lo cogió y contempló una cinta rosa. -¡Mi Faith ha desaparecido! -gritó tras un momento de estupefacción-. Nada bueno queda en la tierra; y el pecado no es sino un nombre. Ven, diablo; pues a ti se te ha dado este mundo. Enloquecido por la desesperación, de la que tanto y con tanta fuerza se había reído, Goodman Brown cogió el bastón y se puso en marcha de nuevo a tanta velocidad que más parecía volar por el bosque que caminar por él. El a camino fue haciéndose más salvaje, con menos huellas, y al final desapareció dejándole en el corazón de una oscura espesura, mientras avanzaba todavía con el instinto que guía a los mortales hacia el mal. El bosque entero se pobló de sonidos: el crujido de los árboles, el aullido de los animales y el grito de los indios; a veces el viento sonaba como la campana de una iglesia distante, y a veces producía un estruendo mayor alrededor del viajero, como si la Naturaleza entera se estuviera riendo y burlando de él. Pero él mismo era el horror principal de la escena y no se acobardó ante los otros horrores. -¡Ja, ja, ja! -rió con fuerza Goodman Brown cuando el viento se rió de él-.Veamos quién ríe más fuerte. No creas que vas a asustarme con tus diabluras. Ven, bruja, ven, brujo, ven, curandero indio, ven el propio diablo, aquí tenéis a Goodman Brown. Podéis tenerle tanto miedo como él a vosotros. En realidad en todo aquel bosque hechizado no había nada más temible que la figura de Goodman Brown. Seguía volando por entre los pinos negros, blandiendo su bastón con gestos frenéticos, lanzando a veces una blasfemia inspirada y horrible, y otras veces riendo con tal fuerza que los ecos del bosque le devolvían la risa como si estuviera rodeado de demonios. En su propia forma, el diablo resulta menos espantoso que cuando brama en el pecho de un hombre. Así prosiguió su veloz carrera hasta que vio delante de él, estremeciéndose entre los árboles, una luz roja, como si se hubieran prendido fuego los troncos caídos y las ramas en un claro, y justo en la medianoche levantaba hacia el cielo su misterioso resplandor. Se detuvo, en una calma de la tempestad que le había impulsado hacia adelante, y escuchó el crescendo de lo que le parecía un himno que se elevaba solemnemente desde la distancia con el peso de muchas voces. Conocía la melodía; era habitual en el coro del templo del pueblo. Los versos se apagaron y se alargaron con un coro que no era de voces humanas, sino que estaba formado por todos los sonidos de la oscura soledad, que sonaban juntos en una horrible armonía. Goodman Brown gritó, pero su grito se perdió en sus propios oídos por sonar al unísono con el grito de lo deshabitado. En un intervalo de silencio, avanzó hasta que la luz brilló plenamente. En un extremo de un espacio abierto, cercada por la oscura muralla del bosque, se levantaba una piedra que tenía una semejanza tosca y natural con un altar o un púlpito, y estaba rodeada por cuatro pinos encendidos, con las copas ardiendo y los troncos sin tocar, como velas en un servicio nocturno. El follaje que había crecido en la parte superior de la roca estaba ardiendo, lanzando sus llamas hacia la noche e iluminando bien toda la zona. Ardía cada rama colgante, cada guirnalda de hojas. Conforme la luz roja crecía y menguaba, una numerosa congregación alternativamente brillaba para desaparecer luego en la sombra, y volver a surgir, por así decirlo, de la oscuridad, poblando enseguida el corazón de los bosques solitarios. -Una compañía grave y vestida de oscuridad -citó Goodman Brown.

Y en verdad así era. Entre ellos, estremeciéndose entre las tinieblas, surgían rostros que al día siguiente se verían en la mesa del consejo provincial, y otros que un sábado tras otro miraban devotamente hacia los cielos, inclinándose benignos sobre los bancos atestados, desde los púlpitos más sagrados. Algunos afirman que estaba allí la señora del Gobernador. Al menos había damas de elevada posición que la conocían bien, y esposas de maridos honrados, y viudas, una gran multitud de ellas, y doncellas ancianas, todas de excelente reputación, y hermosas jóvenes que temblaban pensando que sus madres las espiaran. O bien el brillo repentino de los destellos de luz sobre el campo oscuro confundieron a Goodman Brown o reconoció a una veintena de miembros de la iglesia de Salem, famosos por su especial santidad. El buen diácono Gookin había llegado, y aguardaba junto a la sotana de ese santo venerable, su reverenciado pastor. Pero acompañando irreverentemente a esas personas solemnes, de buena reputación y piadosas, esos ancianos de la iglesia, esas castas damas de ingenuas vírgenes, había hombres de vida disoluta y mujeres de fama manchada, infelices entregados a todo tipo de vicio malo e inmundo, incluso sospechosos de crímenes horribles. Era extraño ver que los buenos no se apartaran de los perversos, ni los pecadores se avergonzaran junto a los santos. Desperdigados entre sus enemigos de pálidos rostros estaban los sacerdotes indios, o brujos, que a menudo habían hecho temblar el bosque nativo con encantamientos más horribles que cualquiera de los conocidos por la brujería inglesa. -Pero ¿dónde está Faith? -pensó Goodman Brown; y cuando la esperanza entraba en su corazón, se echó a temblar. Brotó otro verso del himno, una melodía lenta y triste, como de amor piadoso, pero unida a palabras que expresaban todo lo que nuestra naturaleza es capaz de concebir acerca del pecado, y sugerían oscuramente mucho más. La ciencia diabólica es insondable para los simples mortales. Cantaron un verso tras otro, y todavía el coro del bosque desértico se dejaba oír como el tono más profundo un potente órgano; y con las notas finales brotó un sonido como del viento cuando ruge, los torrentes precipitados, las bestias que aúllan, todas las demás voces del inarmónico bosque se mezclaron y acordaron con la voz del hombre culpable en homenaje al principal de todos. Los cuatro pinos ardientes arrojaron llamas más elevadas y descubrieron oscuramente formas y visajes de horror en las columnas de humo que había sobre la impía asamblea. En el mis momento el fuego que había sobre las rocas se lanzó hacia arriba formando sobre su base un arco ardiente en el que apareció una figura. Dicho sea con reverencial la figura no guardaba la menor similitud ni en el ropaje ni en las maneras corte ninguna divinidad solemne de las iglesias de Nueva Inglaterra. -¡Que se adelanten los conversos! -gritó una voz que se repitió en ecos por los campos y rodó por los bosques. Ante esa palabra Goodman Brown se adelantó desde la sombra de los árboles y se acercó a la congregación, hacia la que sentía una detestable hermandad por la simpatía de todo lo que de perverso había en su corazón. Casi habría podido jurar que la forma de su propio padre muerto le pedía que se adelantara, mirándole desde una columna de humo, mientras que una mujer con los rasgos oscuros de la desesperación adelantaba la mano advirtiéndole que retrocediera. ¿Era su madre? Pero no tenía poder para retirarse ni un paso, ni para resistirse ni siquiera en pensamiento, desde el momento en el que el ministro y el bueno del viejo diácono Gookin le tomaron por los brazos y le condujeron hasta la roca ardiente. Hasta allí llegó también la esbelta forma de una mujer cubierta por velos conducida entre Goody Cloyse, esa piadosa maestra del Catecismo, y Martha Carrier, que había recibido del diablo la promesa de ser reina del infierno. Una bruja furiosa es lo que era. Y allí estaban los prosélitos, bajo el dosel de fuego. -Bienvenidos, hijos míos, a la comunión de vuestra raza -dijo la figura oscura-. Así habéis encontrado pronto vuestra naturaleza y vuestro destino. ¡Hijos míos, mirad detrás de vosotros! Se dieron la vuelta y destellando en una llama, por así decirlo, fueron vistos los veneradores del maligno; la sonrisa de bienvenida brilló oscuramente en cada rostro. -Allí están aquellos a los que habéis reverenciado desde la juventud -siguió diciendo la forma negruzca-. Les considerabais santos y os apartabais de vuestros pecados, comparándolos con sus vidas de rectitud y sus devotas aspiraciones al cielo. Pero aquí están todos en la asamblea que me venera. Esta noche os será concedido conocer sus actos secretos: cómo los ancianos de barbas canas de la iglesia han susurrado palabras lascivas a las doncellas jóvenes de sus casas; cómo muchas mujeres, deseosas de llevar ropa de luto, han dado a su marido al acostarse una bebida y le han dejado entrar en el último sueño apoyado en su pecho; cómo jóvenes imberbes se han apresurado a heredar la riqueza de los padres; y cómo hermosas damiselas han cavado pequeñas tumbas en el jardín y me han invitado solamente a mí al funeral de un recién nacido. Por la simpatía que produce el pecado en vuestros corazones humanos, olfatearéis todos los lugares -ya sea la iglesia,

el dormitorio, la calle, el campo o el bosque- en donde se haya cometido un crimen, y os alegraréis al contemplar que la tierra entera es una mancha de culpa, una enorme mancha de sangre. Mucho más que eso. Os será dado conocer en cada pecho el misterio profundo del pecado, la fuente de todas las artes perversas que proporciona inagotablemente más impulsos malignos que los que el poder humano puede manifestar en hechos. Y ahora, hijos míos, miraos unos a otros. Así lo hicieron; y con el resplandor de antorchas encendidas en el infierno el hombre infeliz contempló a su Faith, y la esposa al esposo, temblando delante de ese altar sin santificar. -Ahí estáis pues, hijos míos -dijo la figura en tono profundo y solemne, casi triste en su horror desesperado, como si su naturaleza en otro tiempo angélica pudiera lamentarse todavía por nuestra raza miserable-. Dependiendo de los corazones de los otros teníais todavía la esperanza de que la virtud no fuera sólo un sueño. Pero ahora ya no os engañáis. El mal es la naturaleza de la humanidad. El mal debe ser vuestra única felicidad. Bienvenidos otra vez, hijos míos, a la comunión de vuestra raza. -Bienvenidos -repitieron los veneradores del diablo en un grito de desesperación y triunfo. Y allí estaban ellos en pie, la única pareja que parecía vacilar todavía al borde de la perversión en este mundo oscuro. En la roca se había abierto de manera natural un hueco. ¿Contenía agua enrojecida por la luz fantástica? ¿O era sangre? ¿O quizás una llama líquida? Allí sumergió la mano la forma del mal, preparándose para poner la señal del bautismo en sus frentes, para que pudieran compartir el misterio del pecado, ser más conscientes de la culpa secreta de los demás, tanto de hecho como de pensamiento, de lo que podían serlo ahora de la suya propia. El esposo miró a su pálida esposa y Faith le miró a él. ¡Qué sucias desdichas les revelaría la siguiente mirada, temblando juntos ante lo que revelaban y lo que veían! -¡Faith! ¡Faith! Mira hacia el cielo y resístete al perverso -gritó el esposo. No pudo saber si Faith le obedeció. Apenas había dicho aquello cuando se encontró en medio de la soledad, escuchando el rugir del viento, que se apagaba en el bosque. Caminó hasta la roca y al tocarla la notó fría y húmeda; y una rama colgante, de las que habían estado encendidas, salpicó su mejilla con el rocío más frío. A la mañana siguiente el joven Goodman Brown entró lentamente en la calle del pueblo de Salem mirando a su alrededor como un hombre confuso. El buen ministro estaba dando un paseo por el cementerio para fortalecer el apetito para el desayuno y meditar su sermón, y lanzó una bendición a Goodman Brown cuando pasó junto a él. Éste se apartó del santo venerable como para evitar un anatema. El viejo diácono Gookin se dedicaba a la oración en su casa, y las palabras santas de su rezo podían escucharse a través de la ventana abierta. -¿A qué dios reza el brujo? —citó Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, esa excelente cristiana, estaba en pie desde primeras horas de la mañana junto a su reja, catequizando a una niña pequeña que le había llevado medio litro de leche matinal. Goodman Brown se apartó de la niña como si lo hiciera del propio diablo. Dando la vuelta a la esquina del templo, espió la cabeza de Faith, con las cintas rosas, que miraba ansiosamente la calle y se alegró tanto al verle que resbaló por la calle y casi besó a su esposo ante el pueblo entero. Pero Goodman Brown la miró dura y tristemente al rostro y pasó a su lado sin saludarla. ¿Se había quedado dormido Goodman Brown en el bosque y sólo había tenido un sueño desbocado de un aquelarre? Así sea si usted lo prefiere. ¡Pero, ay, ese sueño fue un mal presagio para el joven Goodman Brown! De aquella noche temible surgió un hombre severo, triste, oscuramente meditativo, desconfiado cuando no desesperado. El día del sábado, cuando la congregación cantaba un salmo, no podía escuchar porque un himno de pecado entraba en sus oídos y ahogaba la melodía santa. Cuando el ministro hablaba desde el púlpito con poder y elocuencia fervorosa, y con la mano sobre la Biblia abierta, acerca de las verdades sagradas de nuestra religión, de las vidas santas y muertes triunfales, y de la bendición o la desgracia futuras que no podían expresarse, entonces Goodman Brown palidecía, temiendo que el techo cayera sobre el blasfemo y sus oyentes. A menudo, despertando de pronto en mitad de la noche, se apartaba del pecho de Faith; y por la mañana o al atardecer, cuando la familia se arrodillaba para rezar, fruncía el ceño y murmuraba algo para sí mismo, miraba severamente a su esposa y se marchaba. Y cuando hubo vivido mucho tiempo, y llevaron hasta su tumba un cadáver blanquecino, seguido por Faith, que era ya una mujer anciana, y por los hijos y los nietos, formando una procesión numerosa, no tallaron ningún verso de esperanza en su lápida, pues triste fue la hora de su muerte.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

Herman Melville (1819-1891) “Moby Dick” [1851] -Melville and Hawthorne were seen in terms of one another. 1 Nowadays they are seen as having 2 different literary styles. -Melville had exotic settings (sea novels) Hawthorne domestic. -Melville faded away. Rediscovered in the 20th century. *Ishmael is a projection of himself. Presbyterian, worried about innate depravity and original sin (pessimistic). Sources

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Diction: Ishmael operates in a lyrical and comic mode. Long

-“Mocha Dick: or the White Whale of the Pacific” -Read a lot of Shakespeare and yellow novels. -Confluence in Hawthorne and Melville. Same cultural settings. *White Whale may represent -> spirit of evil or agent of justice of heaven to punish Ahab’s defiance of God or the ultimate mystery of the universe (symbol. Destructive powers). -Color white stands for nothing. Absence of color. -Metaphysical valve of Moby Dick is an enigma. Indestructible and cannot be defeated nor apprehended by any human mind.

and complex sentences, rhetorical questions, full of allusions and references. Vocabulary ornate to generate a sense of grandeur and magnitude. Purposes: Elevate the dignity of the novel. Characterize and differentiate Ishmael from the rest of the characters. Ahab is more dramatic.

“Moby Dick”

Readings -Loomings -> 1st chapter. Ishmael -> Narrator and only survivor. -Two passages from chapter 2 introduce Captain Ahab. -Ch 36. Captain Ahab nails a gold coin to the mast for the first sailor to sight Moby Dick. Makes them swear to help him kill it. Closure in Moby Dick -2 macro questions: “Will Ahab and his crew ever find the White Whale?” and “If they do, will they be able to kill it?” -Pequod encounters ships that know the whereabouts of the Whale. It keeps the reader bound to the story. - Outcome of the deadly confrontation. 1 survivor. Novel over. -Added chapter about the grand opening of Ishmael’s dry goods store in New London would be inappropriate. -Not encouraged to ask about Ishmael as he is not part of the hunt of the White Whale. Quotes and allusions -Lots of Greek and Roman references. -Ishmael: Son of Abraham. Outcast, exile, no experience. -Cato: Shakespearian character that commits suicide. -Seneca and the Stoics: Roman thinker. Stoics said humans should be free from passions and calmly accept divine will. -Narcissus. Greek mythology, falls in love w/ himself. -Fates controlled by the gods. -Pythagorean Maxim. -Greek God Jove -Cellini: Perseus -Gabriel: from the New Testament.

Breakdown: Melville was difficult for some to read because of his extravagances, neologism and recondite allusions.

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-Melville didn’t like allegories. He considered them and inferior way of writing. He created the end of all allegories. We never know if the whale is evil or an agent from Heaven to punish Ahab or the ultimate mystery of the universe. *His allegories are complex and ambiguous. *Ishmael asks questions. Never finds answers. Just Qs. *Every sign he sees leads to another one. -Melville warns us NOT to read it as an allegory. -The Whale’s value is enigmatic. Therefore superior. -Mostly 1st person. Retrospective, he tells us about his past. *1st excerpt=Ishmael 1st person narrator. Prevalent mode of his chapter is the comment. He explains why he embarked. *Other 2 excerpts. Ishmael as an omniscient narrator. Ahab is described. Ishmael reports a series of events. Most important things are the things that happen, not the thoughts or reflections of Ishmael. -Reliable narrator. He tells us what he sees, we believe him. -Presbyterian. He had discovered Transcendentalism and was skeptical about the dark side of humanity.

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Themes --> The darker side of human nature.

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-Limits of human knowledge -How past changes present (the whale took off his leg, it all changed – desire for revenge) Calvinist religion -> free will, damnation and predestination. -Good VS Evil. Nature is dangerous.

symbols--> Pequod and its polyglot

Foreshadowing--> Ishmael tells us

Characterization of Ahab--> He is

crew=ship of the world. -The mean on the sea= sea of unpredictability (anything can happen) -Light (whale)/dark (sea). -Coffin-> Life (as a lifeboat) and death. -Moby Dick-> Human’s inability to 6 understand the World.

that water has magical powers. -Fates have drawn him to this trip. -He sets out on a “forbidden” sea. -Captain Ahab surrounded by mystery. -Owner of the Inn -> Peter Coffin. -Talks of Cato’s suicide.

presented as an old sailor. Grey hair, robust and heavy. One of his less cut off by Moby Dick. -His major wish is to kill the whale not only for cutting off his leg. He also sees is as the embodiment of evil.

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UNIT 14 HERMAN MELVILLE Moby-Dick

From A Study Guide: Melville and Hawthorne's writings exemplify the literary phenomena or influence and confluence: both authors were equally concerned with the basic issues of Calvinistic thinking (innate depravity and predestination), shared the same dark vision of nature and human experience, but Melville's subversive use of symbolic allegory is related to, but not derived from, Hawthorne's; Melville achieved fame as a travel writer of the South Seas exciting adventures and remote exotic settings of his romantic novels, especially Typee, in which he mixed autobiography, anthropology, fictional adventure and social criticism; Moby-Dick is not simply a "romance" of whaling adventures but a deep exploration of human nature and evil; aspects of Moby-Dick: mixing genres and blending of sources, Ahab's quest for the mysterious figure of the white whale, high diction with Latinate vocabulary, complicated syntax (very long sentences and superabundance of subordinate clauses), and circumlocutioum (digression, wordiness). Note: the hyphenated form Moby-Dick refers to the book while the unhyphenated to the whale.

Hawthorne and Melville were perceived as writers who cultivated different literary styles because no attention was paid to their darker and more complex writings, the ones that make the two authors appear so similar in our eyes at present. Work: Urged by his family, Melville put the oral account of his adventures at the see in Typee, a work in which he mixed autobiography, anthropology, fictional adventure and social criticism. It included controversial aspects like the description of sexual relations and strong criticism of colonial policies and missionary activities. The key to its success was the exotic novelty of the South Seas. He wrote four more novels inspired by his life at sea: Omoo, Mardi, Redburn and White-Jacket. After meeting Hawthorne, who had just made national reputation with The Scarlet Letter, Melville wrote "Hawthorne and His Mosses" an essay that records his euphoria about Hawthorne's short stories and reveals the new direction in which he was heading his own fiction. Moby-Dick After Hawthorne's personal influence and that of his short stories, Melville recast the book The Whale, which would become Moby-Dick and took him a year of labor to transform a light-hearted narrative of whaling adventures into a deep exploration of human nature and evil. The House of the Seven Gables and Mobi-Dick were published in the same year, but Melville's strange book did not suit the literary taste of his contemporaries. His shifting away from his early style disappointed which discouraged readers interested in romantic stories of sea adventures.

Critics declared that Moby-Dick was not a proper novel since they were not used to the mixing of genre that would later characterize many modern novels. The book encompassed romance, drama and epic as well as features typical of lesser genres as sermons, treatises on natural history, tall tales and technical manuals. Its odd structure is one of the signs of its aesthetics modernity. Its differently structured sections were warmly welcomed by modern readers, as are its multiplicity of voices, its experiments in point of view, its symbolism, and its iconoclastic style. Melville originally intended Moby-Dick to be a romance of adventure emphasizing the first-person narrator of the story with the author's personal experience of 2 years as a harpooner. He fashioned Ishmael, the narrator of Moby-Dick, as a projection of himself, a Presbyterian who speculates about the basic issues of Calvinist thinking, free will, predestination and damnation. Melville voices his own preoccupation with the problem of innate depravity and original sin, since he did share neither Transcendentalist enthusiastic confidence in human goodness nor its optimistic view of nature. Melville's pessimistic spirit made him aware of the dark side of humanity, and being a no believer was skeptic who suffered in his private life. His years at sea provided him with a wealth of first-hand experiences. Also, a magazine article and Owen Chase's narrative of a Shipwreck of a whale-ship were his sources, although Melville did not pretend to offer a faithful narrative of true events. In his romance he felt free to mix fact and fancy. Some critics have pointed out that Melville is America's most Shakesperian writer, since from him he understood the nature of tragedy and incorporated it into his work. Apart from Shakespeare's influence, Moby-Dick presents features derived from subliterary popular genres such as the sensational yellow novels and the grotesque native humor, mixed with scientific discussions and philosophical speculations. The work was dedicated to Hawthorne but the similarities between both writers may be due to the phenomenon known as confluence: writers nurtured in the same cultural atmosphere may be alike in many respects and develop similar traits not attributable to the direct impact of one on the other. Melville's use of symbolic allegory is related to, but not derived from Hawthorne's. It is the story of Captain Ahab's obsessive pursuit of a huge white whale in the Pequod, with its polyglot crew that would represent the Ship of the World navigating on the Sea of Unpredictability, where Good and Evil are confronted. Ishmael warns the readers lest they be misled into thinking that the novel articulates a strict unequivocal correspondence between the abstract and the concrete, as conventional allegories do. Melville undermines allegory itself by foreshadowing the end of all formal allegorical vision. Whereas old allegories were intended to facilitate the teaching of moral principles by establishing clear connections or simple parallels between the spiritual and the material worlds, Melville deliberately used the allegorical mode in an ambiguous and complex manner in order to focus on the impossibility of finding any interpretative clues leading to objective truths. He employed an allegorical framework to voice his skepticism persuaded of the impossibility of reaching any final meaning grounded in transcendent authority. Ishmael keeps asking questions and every sign generates a number of different meanings he feels unable to reconcile. Readers share with the narrator the difficulties in bringing together into a coherent whole the multiplicity of meanings: the white whale

may represent the spirit of evil, or an agent for the justice of heaven to punish Ahab's defiance of God, or the ultimate mystery of the universe taken it as a symbol of nature0s creative and destructive powers. The narrator analyses the symbol of whiteness making it stand for nothingness, an "absence of color", "a colorless, all-color of atheism". By constructing his novel around the mysterious figure of the white whale he intended the metaphysical value of Moby Dick to remain enigmatic: the final proof of the superiority of the white whale over all the other creatures, since it can neither be defeated physically nor even apprehended by any human mind. The first chapter introduces the character of Ishmael, the narrator and sole survivor of the Pequod. The two passages from chapter 28 introduce the character of Captain Ahab. In the first part of chapter 36 Captain Ahab nails a gold coin to the mast as a reward to the sailor who first sights the white whale. Exploratory Questions - The first-person narrator is a specially-created persona or construct. Ishmael is both the firs-persona narrator and a character. Pay attention to how the relationship with the reader is established by the famous opening words "Call me Ishmael". This line has come to symbolize orphans, exiles, and social outcasts, because it makes reference to the son of Abrahanm. Ishmael was formerly a school- teacher who left the life of theory to pursue the more practical life at sea, and confesses he is a poet. - Loomings definition: a frame or machine for interlacing at right angles two or more sets of threads; to come into sight in enlarged or distorted and indistinct form often as a result of atmospheric conditions; to appear in an impressively form. Melville declared that the novel was made of a terrible fabric woven of ship's cables, so the main theme is related to the hard and masculine sea world. The weaving metaphors show how the novel was created by using many allusions to the Bible and Greek mythology. - Comment on the diction (choice of vocabulary and arrangement of words) of Ishmael, note that he operates in a lyrical and comic mode, set in contrast with Ahab's dramatic and tragic mode. Ishmael's diction is characterized by long and complex sentences, rhetorical questions to make his statements and reflections clear and full of allusions and references and the vocabulary is quite ornate to generate a sense of grandeur and magnitude. His purpose is to elevate the dignity of the novel and to characterized and differentiate Ishmael from the rest of the characters of the story. - Which of the four main narratives modes prevails in the first chapter? It is the speech the one that prevails since Ishmael tells the reader reason why he has decided to embark on a ship and give justifications based on his own reflections by alluding to many biblical and mythological facts using also rhetorical questions. The speech is a narrative mode through which the words and thoughts of fictional characters are rendered. - Foreshadowing is a device to create expectation or to set up an explanation of later developments. Throughout the book there is a sense that people are driving on to their doom, and paradoxically, the character who is most obsessed with death from the very beginning is the only survivor. - It is argued that Melville's attraction to ancient writers became integral to his complex response to romanticism. Are there signs of an ironical use of his sources? Moby-Dick is grandiloquent, complex and highly evocative just like the Greek and Roman classics,

and many references to them cab be found in the novel such as Jove, Poseidon, Narcissus, etc. Ishmael makes clear that the genre of the novel is not so appreciated as high genres like tragedies or comedies. - Some references to the great white whale make him represent beauty while others tend to emphasize the terror he inspires. - The four main narratives modes are used for Ahab's characterization, described by the narrator but also reported by his actions, the way he speaks and what comments are made about him. He believes himself omnipotent and makes a deep impression to everyone to gradually reveal in much more detail along the novel. Ahab is presented as an old sailor, with gray hair, robust and heavy, whose major wish is to kill the whale. - The dramatic episodes in 36 do not seem to be controlled by Ishmael as the initial chapters were, for he has ceased to be a fictional narrator and has merged into an omniscient narrator. The prominent first-person narrator of the first chapter has disappeared from chapter 36, although he will return again, transformed in chapter 41. In the first excerpt, Ishmael is the first-person narrator, so the narrator and the main character of the chapter are the same person, and the prevalent mode is the comment. In the other two excerpts, the narrator is still being Ishmael but as an omniscient narrator or a third-person narrator telling what happens through the outside, thus Ishmael is reporting a series of event. In the second and third excerpts the most important things are the things that happen and not the thoughts or reflections of Ishmael. - Compare and contrast Hawthorne and Melville. In YGB an old-fashioned style can be appreciated because of the archaisms which Hawthorne used to give a colonial flavor to his work. It is also written in a plain style because the sentences are not very long and the use of direct speech makes the work quite dynamic, although it is not easy to be understood not because the style but the symbolism and the allegory. Melville's style is quite more complex, taking into consideration that the narrator is Ishmael himself, therefore the chapter gives an introspective reflection about different matters. In the other two chapters, the style is simpler since Ishmael is a third-person narrator and the narrative seems to be more objective and dynamic. From sources out of the syllabus of the course: Moby Dick: in a sense is not a character, as the reader has no access to the White Whale's thoughts and feelings, or intentions. Instead, Moby Dick is an impersonal force, one that many critics have interpreted as an allegorical representation of God, an inscrutable and all-powerful being that humankind can neither understand nor defy. Moby Dick thwarts (frustrar, impedir) free will and cannot be defeated. The majority of a whale is hidden from view at all times, only the surface of the ocean is available for human observation and interpretations, its depths conceal unknown and unknowable truths, which can lead to the metaphor for the human relationship with the Christian God: God is unknowable and cannot be pinned down (condicionado).

From A Study Guide: Writing about genre The classification of texts has always been a major concern of literary theorists and critics. Two important types of classification, or paradigms are period and genre:

1. Period is a paradigm for classifying texts chronologically, sorting them into groups which fall into a historical sequence. Literary history has been divided up into periods identified by a monarch's reign, an influential author, a significant historical event or an artistic movement. There are controversies about when the periods of literary history begin and end. Not all literature written during one particular period can be labeled under its name. 2. Genre is a paradigm for classifying texts into different categories according to certain shared characteristics. The properties of the text itself provide the main basis for its classification. Texts may be classified on the basis of formal arrangement (thyme and rhythm are properties of poetry, and enacting (representar) distinguishes drama), subject matter (story of one's own life is autobiographical genre) or attitude (for instance satire). Drawing on systems of literary classification can help people to make sense of what they read, but classifying texts is not an easy mechanical procedure. Terminological confusions arise because the different periods and genres are loosely defined, and the words used to designate them are often under dispute. Since system of literary classification fit into aesthetic and social frameworks that are not stable, the criteria for classifying texts into genres have evolved over the centuries. Aristotle classified texts into three groups: lyric, epic and drama. Until the Renaissance the major classical genres were: lyric, epic, tragedy, comedy and satire. In modern time are fiction, drama and poetry. Nowadays, a simple list of genres and sub-genres might include, among many others, the following terms: tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, mystery play, lyric poetry, pastoral, satire, autobiography, romance and novel, and hierarchical relations are established. The terms tragedy, comedy and tragicomedy are placed under the heading of drama, which has achieved the status of meta-genre. Novel has been divided into a number of subgenres: autobiographical novel, epistolary novel, Gothic novel, historical novel, mystery novel, novel of manners, picaresque novel, plantation novel, realistic novel, and sentimental novel. We recognize the distinctive qualities of one genre by contrasting it with other genres. Novel and romance achieved a rather stable fixity of meaning in the 19th c., and were often contrasted. Today, the dividing-line or boundary between them is not perceived clearly, apart from the fact that the novel is more realistic that the romance. Nowadays we rarely speak about romance, and we define a novel as "any extended piece of narrative prose fiction". The novel genre is undergoing a sort of permanent revolution, as it shows ample room for innovation and variation. Novelists generally question tradition forms, and the conventions of the novel are characterized by their flexibility and constant change. Moby-Dick does not show a clear membership in a single genre, but draws on the discursive properties of several genres. Far from exemplifying what most people would expect from a typical novel, it displays various generic conventions, and this is the main reason why its early critics declared that it was not a proper novel. Aspects suggested analyzing Moby-Dick. - Explain why Ishmael is said to operate in a lyric mode, and pay attention to the emphasis on the expression of his mood, emotions and feelings.

- Just as we speak about "poetic" passages in a novel, we also refer to its "dramatic" scenes. Can you find any dramatic passages in chapter 36? Note how the stage directions below the title of "The Quarter-Deck" point out the theatrical nature of one of the 13 dramatic chapters. - Apart from the divergent fate of the two characters, there are other reasons why Ishmael strikes many readers as a comedic figure that provokes laughter, while the figure of Ahab as a tragic hero rouses fear. - To what extent "Loomings" show a satirical edge? What is the target of Melville's satire? - Philosophical speculation in the first chapter makes it read like an argumentative essay. There are also passages of "Loomings" that echo the genre of spiritual autobiography. - In the 19th c. some writers ceased to respect the strict separation of genres. How are present-day readers likely to react to the book's generic heterogeneity or its alleged lack of generic consistency? - Chase called Moby-Dick an American epic. Bearing in mind how the term epic is defined, note the characterization of Ahab as an epic hero, as well as the epic nature of his search for the white whale. - An interpretation of its first chapter as a social critique can be also developed. - One of the main difficulties that readers find when first approaching Moby-Dick stems from the fact that they anticipate a straightforward narrative of whaling voyage, yet come up against something entirely different. To what extent the mixing of various generic conventions add to the elusiveness of meaning?

“A Psalm of Life” [1838] cd -One of the Fireside poets. -Read by ordinary people. Very popular in his time. -Lost popularity. His “sentimental masculinity” (sailing and fighting in wars) is looked down on now (after 1920). -Meter and rhyme (now people prefer unrhymed verse)

“A Psalm of Life” What the heart of the Young Man said to the Psalmist

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-His best known short poem. People were still unstable after the Panic of 1837. Its triumphant tone was invigorating and shooting -Tone of heroic confidence. -Domestic style of masculinity later considered effeminate. He tried to counter this with references to war and sailing activities. -Shipwrecked brother. We are all together=brotherhood -Used a condescending tone towards his audience -His imagery has proved faulty (cows don’t go into Battle) can’t leave footprints in sand in an hour glass (must be on a beach). -When published it was a great success He saw himself as a moral guide. He used didactic

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moralizing and was concerned w/ cultural and moral values. -Wrote about conventional topics in an easy manner. -Wanted people to see that life was more than material things. -He disliked controversy and extremes. No political of theological debates (he was an abolitionist, though) -Sensory imagery so readers could “SEE” what he described.

: 4 line stanzas=quatrain. Rhyming quatrains: ABAB, CDCD, EFEF for each of the nine stanzas. -8 syllable line followed by a seven syllable line. Trochaic tetrameter (4trochaic feet w/ 4trochees)

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-Ideas of Jorge Manrique, Calderón de la Barca and Goethe. -Quotes from the Bible. -Check Nacho’s notes on the poem. –Primary message: Life is beautiful.

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-First person perspective. Tone is neither positive nor negative, strictly honest. -Careful choice of words. Each has its own meaning and adds something important to the “life” of the poem. -Imagery is the sole method of expression in the poem. -Figurative language. Lots of metaphors and symbolism. -Punctuation very important. Exclamation to emphasize. -Fireside poet. Writings could be read by families.

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-Purpose of life and significance of death is a heroic and confident tone and informal diction. -Uses funeral imagery: mournful, empty, dead, grave, sorrow, end, fleeting, funeral, battle, dumb, sublime, departing, leave behind, solemn and fate. “Muffled drums are beating funeral marches to the graves”. -Material life is finite. -Interested in living, NOT dying. Living= doing/creating. We should not conform to mournful passivity. -Optimism/joy/faith/our lives on earth have meaning -Inner world of human nature. Now ridiculed and parodied for his FAULTY IMAGERY. -Cattle not to partake in battles. Battles not fought on bivouacs. -Sands of time -> Footprints in the sand do NOT show immortality (get washed away).

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-The central Transcendental concepts in “A Psalm of life” are basically nonconformity and Carpe Diem. -Longfellow rejects the nation that life is an “empty dream” to be endured or wasted until death and expresses that people should appreciate their life on earth as precious and deal and act to make a spiritual, moral or intellectual mark on the world.

UNIT 15 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW "A Psalm of Life"

From A Study Guide: a clear example of shift in poetic taste of the best-known "Fireside Poets"; examine his great technical skill, widely admired for his dexterous command of meter, rhythm and rhyme; interpret "A Psalm of Life" as an illustration of the domestic style of masculinity, within the historical context of the 1937 Panic and the ideological context of Transcendentalism, taking into account both the praise and the negative exegesis to which this once successful poem has been alternately submitted.

He contributed to the so-called "flowering of New England" since ordinary people read his verses when the love of poetry was more common than it is today, coming to be known as one of the "Fireside Poets" of the 19th c. He has lost the canonical status he held for many years allegedly on the grounds of this advocacy of a "sentimental" masculinity, which once was the source of his broad appeal and eventually became the causes for decanonizing him. The great technical skill of this learned academic poet, praised for his dexterous command of meter and rhyme, has been turned against him in an age which prefers unrhymed verse. Apart from despising regular forms, in regard of content, our age also tends to be suspicious of the success achieved by dealing with conventional topics treated in an accessible manner. None of the exoticism, eccentricity, iconoclasm, nonconformity, spontaneity, obliqueness and ambiguity that we appreciate nowadays is to be found in Longfellow's poetry. Life: He became the Smith Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard College. He had the feeblest (pobre) interest in politics and, though deeply religious, was fond of harmony in all his relations. Work: His first collection of Poem, Voices of the Night, was a best-seller. Poems on Slavery, eight antislavery poems prompted by the African slave revolt aboard the Amistad did not please either side, for it lacked of the current abolitionist literature expected, and also others readers were dissatisfied with the mere mention of the subject in dispute. From then on, the author evaded such polemical contemporary matters, and turned to history. Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie was the symbol of the expulsion in 1755 of 14.000 French-speaking from what is now the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, on the eve of the Seven Year0s War, when the British military deported these settlers, who called themselves Arcadians. In The Song of Hiawatha, greeted with similar enthusiasm in America and in Europe, Longfellow attempted to create an American epic to satisfy the patriotism of his fellow citizens exemplifying the spirit of his country for readers abroad. His source was Algic Researches and Longfellow, unaware of the fact that it substantially distorted the original Chippewa stories, viewed The Song of Hiawatha as a faithful rendering of tribal

legends, which he tried to honor, hardly imagining the attacks it would receive in the 20th c on the grounds of fostering stereotypes and romanticizing the Native People.

"A Psalm of Life" It is his best-known poem which moved many of the author's contemporaries and inspired Baudelaire's sonnet "Le Guignon", and also it has been derided, burlesqued and ridiculed in modern times. Its tone of heroic confidence, praised in its days, has made it an easy target of parody. It has been analyzed as an instance of how Longfellow tried to develop a domestic style of masculinity, since he objected literature begets an "effeminate spirit". To counter these notions, this poem contains references to war and sailing activities, the world is presented as a "broad field of battle" and the reader is encouraged to become "a hero in the strife". The "shipwrecked brothers" suggests the notion that all men are united in brotherhood, and although the "lives of great men" are explicitly offered as models of conduct, the values exalted are the ones that were instilled into women at the time: "to labor and to wait" (using the same phrasing to describe Evangeline's proper behavior). The choice of imagery has been deemed faulty, for cattle are nor prone to participate in battle, nor are battles fought in bivouacs (tienda de campaña, o carpa). Among the illchosen images is that of "the sand of time", which seems to indicate the sand in a hourglass, but since footprints cannot appear there, such sands must refer to the sea beach, an unsuitable location for "great men" to leave a lasting mark. The image of footprints in sand does not really help to suggest immortality. Composed in the blank spaces of a letter of invitation and, before it appeared in the Knickerbocker Magazine, the author read it to his college class. After its success, he published "The Reaper and the Flowers, a Psalm of Death", which when it was reprinted in the collection Voices of the Night, its subtitle was removed due to the fact that it was intended as a counter part to the poem published a few months later. "A Psalm of Life" came to be seen by its author as the first of a series of "psalms" in which he planned to go on expressing his ideas about the purpose of life and the significance of death. He adopted the stance of an old sage ready to lead his disciples by offering them the ethical guidance. Exploratory Questions - Summarize "A Psalm of life": Life doesn't abruptly end when one dies, it extends into another after life; humans must live their lives in constant anticipation for the next day under the belief that it will be better than each day before it; art created during one's life can be preserved indefinitely; Longfellow likens living in the world to fighting on a huge field of battle; people should lead heroic and courageous lives and not sit idle; his use of the word "strife" acknowledges that life is inherently difficult; he encourages to have fait hand trust the lord; the 7th stanza describes how successful people in the past have their lives copied, while those who failed serve as examples of ways of life to avoid; the final lines of the poem echo the beginning ones and offer advice encouraging all to work and try hardest to make their lives great and accomplish as much as they can. Longfellow conveys his message by speaking directly to the reader providing his reasoning.

- Scan the poem: Each stanza is four lines long, thus it is a quatrain with the rhyme scheme "ABAB, CDCD, EFEF..." Each of the nine stanzas is written in rhyming quatrains, eight syllable line followed by a seven syllables line. Longfellow used trochaic tetrameter throughout the poem, a line of four trochaic feet. Tetrameter means that the poem has four trochees, a trochee is composed by a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. - Comment on the literary sources of the poem, including the Bible, Jorge Manrique, Calderon de la Barca and Goethe: Quotes from the Bible are in line 7 "Dust thou art, to dust returned", and in line 22 "le the dead Past bury its dead". The poem reflects the influence of Goethe, whose dynamic philosophy suggested to Longfellow the direction of his rather moralizing and trite hymn to action. For Longfellow, Manrique's Coplas was sober thoughts on life and death that had entered into his psyche, but he gives to his poem a positive tone that Manrique's melancholy laments lacks. In line 2, "life is but an empty dream" was inspired on the title of Calderon de la Barca "La Vida es Sueño". - Find the words related to death and comment on the importance of the funeral imagery in a poem primarily designed to exalt life, remembering that there are images pertaining to senses other that of seeing, for instance, an image may also represent a sound. The image that represents a sound is mentioned in lines 14-16. - There are four general types of diction: formal (lofty and dignified), informal (suitable for the normal conversation of educated people), colloquial (like everyday speech of ordinary people) and slang. Long fellow mixes different kinds of diction in his poem, whereas the expression in line 4 is very colloquial "And things are not what they seem", in line 7 we can find an expression written in formal language: "Dust thou art, to dust returnest". Most of the poem is not difficult to read and the vocabulary is plain and the diction informal, the author mixed different types to highlight the most important lines in the poem in which he focused to show his message. - This poem has been very popular to all kind of people because the primary message of the subject matter is that "life is beautiful". The lyrical clines and inspiring message has been handed down through the years, bringing hope. The speaker is involved in the first person perspective, where he is directly addressing the reader. The tone is neither positive nor negative, but a strictly honest. The tone remains the same "encouraging" style from beginning to end, and there is no change of tone. The only tension is between life and death. Figurative language allows the reader to envision his words, and the poem is almost entirely comprised of metaphors and Symbolism. Exclamation points are used to establish emphasis on a particular line, there is no pattern to the punctuation, strengthening the meaning of a phrase. He makes an earnest appeal to his readers not to worry about the past or fantasize about the future. - "A Psalm of Life" portrays a youthful soul, eager to uplift and encourage a psalmist who lost their way. The poem gives a deeper understanding of how one should approach the problems in life, exhibiting an encouraging and hopeful spirit. - The tone of the poem is heroic confidence, which provoked much praise and also made it easy target for parody. Longfellow tried to develop a domestic style of masculinity on the grounds to the references to war and sailing activities, typically masculine in the 19th c. The world is presented as a "broad field of battle" and the reader is encouraged to become a "hero in the strife". The phrase "shipwrecked brother" suggests the notion that all men are united in brotherhood. Nevertheless, the values

exalted are the ones instilled into women at the time, summed up in the line: "to labor and to wait" (also used to describe Evangeline). - Compare these views about poetry and Nature and those expressed by Emerson, taking into account that this optimistic poem reflects its contemporary Transcendentalist idealism. Emerson believed that human senses can know only physical reality and fundamental truths of existence could only be grasped by intuition, focusing on his attention on the human spirit and its relationship to nature. He believed that the human spirit is reflected in the natural world, leading him to a fundamental belief: all forms of beings (God, nature, humanity) are spiritually united through a shared universal soul called the Over-Soul. The Central Transcendental Concepts in "A Psalm of Life" are basically nonconformity and Carpe Diem, because the poem conveys one person's attitude toward life on earth. People should appreciate their life on earth as precious and real act to make a spiritual, moral, or intellectual mark on the world. We have to celebrate life and work toward personal achievement. - Contrast the views about labor by Longfellow with the ones expounded by Thoreau in Walden. Longfellow's view of labor is that one should not labor long if expected results are not forthcoming during one's life. It would be a complete waste of life to wait for an award in the hereafter. The author tells the reader to prepare for anything that may come about, and to never give up; be relentless in achieving your goal, but at the same time, learn to be patient. Walden opens with the announcement of a simple life supported by no one earning his life by the labor of his hands only. Endorsing the values of austerity, simplicity and solitude, Thoreau consistently emphasizes the minimalism of his lifestyle and the contentment of it. He contrasts his own freedom with the imprisonment of others who devote their lives to material prosperity. From A Study Guide: Writing about poetry When you analyze a poem you will need to read it more than once, and several readings are always better than one or two. Since poetry has always been close to music, much of a poem's beauty comes to life only when it is heard. Do not stop at the end of every line where there is no punctuation because this absence signals an enjambment, which is the running over of the sense and structure of a line of verse into the following one without a pause. And end-stopped line is a line with a pause at the end which is typographically indicated by a period, a comma, an exclamation mark, or a question mark. It is correct to read and enjambed line or run-on line straight through, without giving any indication of the line break you see on the page. The reason why you should not pause at the end of a run-on line is that poetry is an aura art form, and therefore poems are written for the ear. The sounds in a poem can contribute to the creation of a certain mod. Pay attention to the poem's sound devices, such as: - Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds in stressed syllables. - Consonance: the repetition of consonants sounds in stressed syllables. - Alliteration: the repetition of the initial sounds in neighboring words or at short intervals within a line or passage. - Onomatopoeia: the use of words whose natural sounds evoke the object or action involved.

A poem's elements do not exist in isolation, but work in unison to create a complete experience. You should pay attention also to: - Punctuation: marks which always function as signals for readers. Do not assume that the end of a line marks the end of a sentence, unless it is concluded by a punctuation mark. Identify both the caesuras and the enjambed or run-on lines in this poem. - The rhythm and rhyme, which work together throughout a poem. Scanning the poem means measuring the stresses in its metrical lines and determining its rhyme scheme. In "A Psalm of Life" the English trochaic tetrameter can be studied with all its virtues and vices. The meter of this poem is catchy and easily imitated, two qualities that made the poem an easy target for parody. The lines containing eight syllables alternate with those containing only seven, where the final unstressed syllable that would complete the fourth trochee is missing. - The forma structure is the way the poem is divided and goes together in terms of its component parts. Identify the stanzaic form of the poem by observing how the groupings of lines are set off by spaces on the page, and count the number of stanzas. - The title serves as an introduction to it and will give you an initial sense of what the poem is about. Bear in mind that the stanzaic form of this (eight-syllable alternating seven-syllable lines) replicates the one used in may Protestant hymns, so that Longfellow's choice of a form commonly associated with sacred songs can be viewed as consistent with the subject matter of his poem. - The theme is the central idea or main abstract concept in the poem. - The speaker, to whom the voice in the poem belongs, is not to be taken at first glance as equivalent to the poet, for it is often a created character, although in many cases they may be virtually the same if we can assume that their thoughts and feelings coincide. - The diction is the writer's choice of a particular range of vocabulary and arrangement of words. - The imagery of the poem is the use of a consistent pattern or collection of related images that appeal to any of the senses, taking particular notice of visual imagery and auditory imagery. - The tone, noting that the repetition of long vowel sounds and nasal sounds helps produce a melancholic effect, whereas short vowel sounds give a line the lightness and speed that is necessary to convey a cheerful mood. Does the speaker's tone change? - The emotional impact that the poem might have had on Longfellow's contemporaries and the emotions it evokes in you at present. Take into account that poems relying on clichés lose much of their capacity to elicit strong emotions. You should include quotations from the poem to illustrate the points you make, giving line numbers. Remember that an explication of a poem involves a line-by-line analysis, and is not just a summary or translation of the poet's language into your own, but a detailed interpretation of how and what the poem means. Do not expect to produce a definitive reading, because poetry tends to break loose of definitions. You will be exploring the poem rather than defining it.

“The masque cd of the Red Death” [1842] “The Raven” [1844] -Powerful, disturbing and original. 1 -Aesthetics over ethics. Create beauty, not teach morality. Condemned the heresy of didacticism. Art for art’s sake. -Extravagant and eccentric subject matter. - He influenced the French symbolist movement. -New techniques, innovations, invented modern detective story and hailed as inventor of science fiction. -Was called drug addict and alcoholic who wrote weird stories after he died. Now consider a tortured genius rooted in suffering -Wrote w/ precision and revised constantly. -Wanted his work to be judged on aesthetic criteria. -Used close analysis (similar to New Criticism) -He classified his own work as grotesque and arabesque. -His works are very diverse but considered Gothic (fantasy, irrational, supernatural). -Poe was concerned with Gothic/Supernatural/Death. 2 -Wanted to produce Art for Art’s sake. Condemned didacticism (he didn’t want to teach). -Objected to Allegory (despised it). “The Masque of the Red Death” can be seen as a parody of allegorical writings. -He said poetry must be brief so as not to lose unity of effect.

“The Raven”

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-It caused quite a stir. Poe claimed that it had been done step by step with mathematical precision (was probably being ironic) -The Philosophy of Composition: He liked brevity. Death of a woman was the most poetical topic of the world. -No direct reference to a woman but it shows the impact of the death of three women in his life. His mother, the mother of a friend and his foster mother. -Same stanza from E.B. Browning “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” -Setting: Normal house. Mysterious tapping on the door. Reflects the feelings of the character. -Time: Last hour or last month of the year. Death and decay. -5 long lines of alternating octameters (8 feet) and heptameters (7 feet) 16/15 syllables and a tetrameter (4feet/7syllables) -Octameters are rare in classical verse. -Rhyme scheme ABCBBB. -Uses trochees (not iambs) *Sound devices used: alliteration (weak/weary), assonance (repetition of vowel sounds) and internal rhyme (it occurs within the same line). Onomatopoeia (tapping and rapping). -1st person singular. -Binary: Light (Lenore)/darkness (Raven) -Psychological, emotional, spiritual paralysis and despair. -Cyclical united through the words: Nothing more/ever more and nevermore. -Careful diction. Uses foreign words and spelling.

“The masque of the Red Death”

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-Poe was probably thinking about “Black Death” when he wrote it. Blood and death. (Obsession w/ wife’s illness) -Cholera epidemic, wife’s burst vessel, Banquo’s ghost in Macbeth… all sources. -Multifold significance, not just a horror story. Relationship of art and nature. -Prince Prospero represents his ideal artist-hero. He is arrogant in thinking that he can avoid death so he is punished. Not Shakespeare’s Prostero who controls the situation through magic. -It represents allegorically and literally DEATH. -Binary concepts: life/death, light/dark, health/illness. -Setting-> Removed from the real world. -Personification-> Clock with its brazen lungs. -Omniscient 3rd person -> Authorial narrative voice. -He wants to control the natural cycle of life w/ his imaginary powers by creating an artificial setting. -The 7 rooms=7 stages of life from east to west. -The colors: blue (birth, unknown), purple (blue+red. Birth+blood), green (spring and yough), orange (summer and autumn of life), white (age, white hair), violet (death is near), black (death). -Fit in death as a motif, not as a reality. -Settings reflect inner personality of the character -Death in luxurious settings makes it appear even worse. -Lots of descriptions. Palace, rooms, colors, windows… -Ebony clock caused silence and seriousness. Reminder of mortality and the passing of time. -Almost no direct speech. The prince asks “who dares?” 4

*Noise of clock (paralyzes partyers) *Entrance of masked man. Unity of effect: -Plot/setting/language/diction/tone -Title already gives us hints about the story -Scenery is grotesque and arabesque -Supernatural -Clock -> Fear and tension. Contrasts with the party atmosphere.

UNIT 16 EDGAR ALLAN POE "The Masque of the Red Death" - "The Raven" From A Study Guide: identify the principles of aestheticism (the cult of "Art for Art's sake") with Poe as the most famous exponent of this movement in America; Poe as a short-story teller exerted influence on 20th c. culture through his creation of fictional genres (detective story and science-fiction tale) and his analytical techniques that New Criticism would later label as close analysis; Poe's classification of his fiction into grotesque (which emphasizes disharmony) and arabesque (which stresses how every narrative element contributes to the single effect of terror); Poe satirized gothic fiction and parodied allegorical writing in TMOTRD, which is not a mere tale of horror but an original aesthetic fable on the relationship between art and nature; apply Poe's "unity of effect" to TMOTRD and "The Raven", and interpret both in the light of the essay "The Philosophy of Composition" (mathematic calculation).

Poe was more interested in aesthetics than in ethics, since his main concern was cultivating beauty, and he dealt with eccentric and extravagant subject matter. According to his theory of taste, simplicity was not synonymous with good taste, and excess was not invariably proof of bad taste. He held the opinion that poetic beauty has the quality of strangeness and that poetry gives pleasure by being indefinite, explicitly condemning the "heresy of didacticism". The origins of the cult of "Art for Art's sake" were found in German writers of the romantic period who agreed on the autonomy of art. Poe exerted a strong influence on the French Symbolist movement. By borrowing themes from popular culture, experimenting with new techniques and making innovative use of the narrative conventions, he created several fiction genres: the modern detective story, and he has been credited to invent the science fiction tale. Poe's conception of the writer as artist implies the consideration of art as an end in itself, not as a means to convey any kind of political or moral message. By applying what would later be known as close analysis, he foreshadowed the New Criticism theory. Work: In Boston he published his first book of poetry under an assumed name but his second collection of poems was published under his own name. Stories and book reviews earned him a position as editorial assistant and principal book reviewer in Southern Literary Messenger. Her cousin Virginia, who would later become his wife, in 1842 would have a violent haemorrhage, being the first sign of the tuberculosis which would kill her five years later. Poe suffered the constant fear of losing her, and he was driven to alcohol and drugs in his most painful moments. Poe began his creative career as a poet, with three collections of poetry before he saw his first piece of fiction in print: Tamerlane and other Poems (first collection), signed by a Bostonian; Al Aaraaf, Tarmelane, and Minor Poems (second collection); Poems

(third collection). In the preface to his last collection The Raven and Other Poems, he summed up what poetry has always meant for him: "With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion". In the early 1830s, he turned to the short story. His theory of "the unity of effect or impression" accounts for his preference for "the short story prose narrative, requiring from a half-hour to one or two hours in its perusal" to the ordinary novel, which "cannot be read at one sitting" and thus "deprives us of the immense force derivable from totality". Nevertheless, he published a novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. His first collection of short fiction was Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), which contained 25 pieces. He classified his own fiction into the two categories borrowed from Sir Walter Scott: - Grotesque: tales drawn upon a northern European tradition in which one aspect of the character is heightened for a marked comic effect. The essential elements are: disharmony, and a clash of opposites. - Arabesque, in which everything contributes to the single effect of terror: setting, characterization, plot, theme and style. The Gothic tradition, characterized by the use of the fantastic, irrational and supernatural, emerged in the 18th c. as a reaction against the rationality and order that dominated the Age of Reason, depicting the dark atmosphere of haunted castles and wild picturesque landscapes during the medieval period. By the 19th, Gothic no longer implied "medieval" but simply referred to works intended to inspire with macabre plots full of horror, violence, mystery and suspense. Poe's Gothic pieces were satires on the German and British examples of the genre. "The Masque of the Red Death" The colour red rather than black's death points to the idea of mortality linked to blood, which also points to Poe's obsession with Virginia's illness. Inspired by an incident reported to have happened after a cholera epidemic in Paris, one of the dancers disguised as the personification of the disease at a masked ball. There can be found details from the presence of Banquo's ghost and the banquet scene in Shakespeare's Macbeth. The tale has multifold significance, it is not a mere tale of horror, and can be read as an original aesthetic fable on the relationship between art and nature. Prince Prospero represents Poe's ideal artist-hero. Poe defined the poet as a man of "taste" rather than of "pure intellect" or "moral sense". When Prospero isolates himself with his courtiers, his behaviour does not follow the dictates of a "pure intellect" or a "moral sense", but of his "taste" to build a symbolic equivalent of nature. Prospero wants to control the natural cycle of life with his imaginative powers by creating an artificial setting he confidently feels able to manipulate at his will. His desire to cultivate beauty is reflected in the design of his imperial suite that reduplicates the cycle of life and inevitable closes with death. The seven connected rooms represent the seven stages of one's life, from birth to death, and they are laid out from east to west, thus evoking the daily course of the sun. The colours are symbolic, starting with blue and ending with black, the fourth or middle room being orange, analogous to midday. Red windows doe not correspond with that of the black decorations, linking the

symbols of blood and death. Prospero represents death in the last chamber, maybe in an attempt to fit death into his scheme as a motif. "Red Death" was not a mere plague, but death itself. "The Raven" Poe discussed it in "The Philosophy of Composition". The idea of the poem as the result of a mathematical calculation rather than the product of an inspired genius can be interpreted ironically. Almost everything Poe wrote is qualified by the prevailing duplicity or irony he used to mock himself and his readers: his emphasis on the principle of brevity upon his belief that a true poem must be brief so as not to lose its "unity of effect of impression", the impact made upon the reader. The death of a beautiful woman was for the author "unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world". Most analyses of "The Raven" mention the impact of the deaths of three women the poet loved: his mother, Jane Stith Stanard and Mrs. Allan (Poe's foster mother). Virginia was still alive, but she has already filled him with the sense that at any moment he would lose her as well. Poe used the same stanza form that Elizabeth Barrett employed in "Lady Geraldine's Courtship", a poem he admired for its "fierce passion" and "delicate imagination". The stanzas are formed by five lengthy lines of 16, 15, 16, 15 and 15 syllables, an alternation of octameters and heptameters. The fifth line repeats a smaller or greater part of the fourth line. Then follows a very short sixth line of only 7 syllables, the 4 feet that form a tetrameter. The octameter is rare still in English verse, "The Raven" is among the few examples of it. The rhyme scheme is unusual, abcbbb, the b being identical throughout the whole poem. He pretended to no originality regarding the trochaic rhythm. The trochee, a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one, is not as common in English poetry as its reverse, the iamb. Poe employs a number of sound devices most of which are different kinds of repetition: alliteration, assonance, internal rhyme. He also uses the sound device of onomatopoeia. Exploratory questions: -Most of Poe's stories have a continual motif of obsessive- compulsive behaviour. The main psychological obsession here is the way to escape from Red Death. -It is said that Poe does not create characters, only atmosphere. Here he creates the mystery moment when Prospero discovers the guest in white like a phantom. Also through the clock. -Poe always sought to awaken powerful emotions in his readers. As an arabesque, to create a mood of terror he depicts a gigantic clock of ebony which represents a reminder of mortality and time passing, described with human features. The black room symbolizes death and the red curtains are like flood of blood. - Poe confronted the death experience by focusing on its most macabre aspects. "The Masque of the Red Death" is an allegory that explores the inevitability of death, and the ebony clock represents the lifetime or the time to die. -There is a biblical reference in the last paragraph.

-The festive and horrific are combined in the masquerade. The strange lights coming from the windows and the clock which sounds every hour let people know their time has arrived. The strange guest is a persofinication of the plague. - The tale contains several foreign words and foreign spellings, intended to produce a striking effect. Poe later moved toward a simpler prose style. Foreign words give the text a more elegiac sound: masquerade, avatar, that moves toward a simpler prose style to give the text more vividness and anxiety. -Prospero represent Poe's ideal notion of the artist as a man who withdraws from natural life in order to create an artificial life. - Poe has been extolled as the writer of a "genuinely new Gothic". By consciously manipulating and laying bare some of the conventions of the German romantic tale and the English Gothic romance, Poe transformed the genre. The author was writing a parody of a formerly serious form. The sublime relied on the power of the mind over nature which corresponds to Prospero's defiant attempt to control nature with his imaginative powers. - Poe sometimes used allegory despite his dislike for what he considered an inferior literary form. He often parodied certain genres. Can the tale be interpreted as a parody of allegorical writing? Allegories: rich people dancing inside isolated from what is happening outside, trials to avoid death, the Red Death: a plague the clock is also the death. - Poe defined the nature and scope of the short story, emphasizing the importance of brevity and focus. He believed that long narratives lost effectiveness, because "unity of effect or impression" could only be achieved in a work that the reader might hold in the mind all at once. - We generally compare for the purpose of noting similarities, whereas we tend to focus on differences when we contrast. Poe is highly the darkest writer of the three. His gothic style has nothing to do with the romantic style of Hawthorne and Melville. While Poe tries to avoid allegory, Hawthorne uses it freely but Poe rather prefers short tales to the long romances of the two.

From A Study Guide: Writing about the unity of effect Writers employ characters, plot, setting, theme, tone, diction and figurative language to create a total effect on the readers of their texts, just like painters by using color, light, texture and line. This overall effect is part of the experience created by the interaction between the words printed on the page and the readers, which can cover a whole range of human emotions including awe, delight, comfort, excitement, nostalgia, surprise, fear, shock, horror, and grief. The various elements do not exist in isolation, but fit together to form a coherent whole that makes a striking impression upon us. In writing about the unity of effect you have to take into consideration how the various elements of the story are combined and contribute to the overall effect of the whole, how the different constituents add up to make a complex unified whole, showing how the unifying idea or theme holds the work's conflicting components together. You have to note oppositions, tensions, ambiguities and paradoxes, and then consider how all

these relate to the story's cohesion assuming that everything in the text (figures of speech, point of view, diction, tone, and so on) is carefully calculated to contribute to the story's organic unity. Some questions can assist you in the analysis: - How does the title relate to the story? - State the theme. - What conflicts are emphasized by binary oppositions like art vs. nature, health vs. illness, life vs. death, joyfulness vs. sorrow, and light vs. darkness? - What is most striking in the author's choice of vocabulary and his arrangement of words? Find any example of "the measured and fateful cadence" that Poe's critics praised so much. -What is the prevailing mood evoked and what visual, auditory images, figurative language have a share in bringing about it? The pervasive atmosphere of mystery contributes to the impact of the story. - How are the spatial locations of the scenes described, are they connected by unity of location? Does setting match mood? How incongruousness of a gloomy location with a cheery mood becomes a striking combination (the festive and the horrific elements). - How important the time is for the construction of this story? - How do setting and plot interplay in this narrative? Poe wanted to make his story as short as possible because he believed that long narratives lost effectiveness. - What Prince Prospero's symbolic connotations does his nave have? He is the only one whose words are quoted in the story, speaking only once. - How are basic gothic motifs intertwined? e.g. the awareness of death, the preoccupation with evil...

Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) “The narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, cd an American Slave written by himself” [1845] Genre: Slave narrative, autobiography. Text: It became popular and encouraged other fugitives to

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“The narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave written by himself”

publish their own narratives. Unlike Olaudah Equiano he was born a slave. His father was a white man, his mother a slave.

Themes:

Work: Embellished style. Many prefer the original versions. -Rhetorical figures-> metaphor, irony, synecdoche… Chiasmus his fav. “You have seen how a man was made slave, you shall see how a slave was made a man”. -Speak and write as visible sign of his manhood or humanity. -Racist charges of black inferiority and public pressure. -Oratorical rules and conventions in his lectures. -Atypical experience of slavery. Was given more opportunities.

Symbolism, allegory, imagery

Narratives: Avoided some of the conventional features. Didn’t

-White sails symbolize freedom, forbidden for blacks. -Female suffering -City (chance to learn) VS country (cruelty).

include the typical climax. He refused to indulge his white audience in a servile way.

Author’s Monologues: Form-> Short sentences, numerous questions and exclamations, use of apostrophe and antithesis. *Content-> Development of thoughts, emotions, changes in tone -Human/subhuman discourse in his arguments and its imagery.

Narrator: 1st person singular to make readers empathize w/ him Influence: Romantic. Heroic fugitive. Heroic loner. Elements of Romance: *Slave = hero *Fight against Covey = Triumphant romantic hero *Mysterious settings = Adds drama and adventure. *Unexpected plot twists = Adds drama and adventure *Scenes of horror and violence = serves the popular appetite for sensationalism. *Overcoming hardships = Climax is NOT his escape. *Happy ending = He is now an educated free man through his own efforts.

-Slavery: Compares slaves to animals. Dehumanized. -Education: Self-improvement incredibly important. -Family -Suffering: Learns to overcome it. -Wisdom of America: Vision of slavery in the country. -Religion: Abolitionists were faithful Christians. He has harsh criticism for “Christian” slave owners. -Truth: Wanted to probe that what he told was true.

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Tone -Reserved and emotional. Angry about slavery.

Writing Style -Dilemma between being convincing and demonstrate that he was an intellectual person. Tries to write in a plain straightforward style and uses elevated style. -Characterization: Direct-> We are told directly and explicitly about the character’s personalities.

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UNIT 17 FREDERICK DOUGLASS Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself From A Study Guide: the slave narrative, born in the 18th c was developed between 1820 and 1860 in direct relation the abolitionist cause; he exerted influence by the three versions of the autobiography which he drew upon his personal experience as a slave, as a fugitive and as a full-time salaried orator at the service of the abolitionist movement; he contributed to the advancement of African Americans through his journalism, public performances, his support of President Lincoln, which turned him into one of the most important black political leaders in American history; examine the author's superb command of many rhetorical figures (metaphor, irony, synecdoche, apostrophe, paradox and chiasmus) and his shaping of an effective counter-discourse that would challenge the proslavery arguments of political speeches subverting oratorical rules and conventions of the hegemonic discourse of the period. The literary genre known as slave narrative helped the abolition cause by bearing testimony to the cruelties of the "peculiar institution". These autobiographies exerted a strong influence on public opinion and thus were recognized as very effective tools in advancing the antislavery movement. Thrilling accounts of heroic journeys into freedom captivated the imagination of readers immersed in the atmosphere of romanticism. Life: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself (1845) has become a classic in African American Literature. A second revised and extended version was My Bondage and My Freedom, and a third one The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. He was born a slave, inherited the condition from his black mother, although his white father was suspected to be his mother's master. Mrs. Auld kindly started teaching the boy to read but eventually she became opposed to let him study. The acquisition of literacy would be for him "the pathway from slavery to freedom". Douglas had to give most of his earnings to his master but managed to save enough to envisage a good plan to escape. With the aid of his future wife, he made his way north, first to New York City. He found difficulty in obtaining steady employment in the North because of racial discrimination against blacks in the free states. After he met the famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, he was unexpectedly launched on a new career as a salaried lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Through his speaking tour of Great Britain and Ireland, he obtained funds provided by British admirers to purchase his manumission from Hugh Auld, and also edited the North Star, the most influential of the black journals in the country. During the Civil War he became a consultant to President Abraham Lincoln, advocating that former slaves be armed for the North. Work: Douglass' writings were linked to his political concerns, and his contribution to non-fiction on the grounds of the autobiographical and the slave narrative genres earned him an outstanding place in the American Literature. The author intended his Narrative to be a literary work of art and deliberately tried to embellish his style. Nevertheless, readers prefer the original version where the writer demonstrated his superb command

of many rhetorical figures: metaphor, irony, synecdoche, apostrophe, paradox, chiasmus and other varieties of antithetical clausal constructions. His most often quoted statement is the chiasmus (the inversion of the second of two paralleled phrases) "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man". Douglass had the desire to show his ability to speak and write well as a visible sign of his "manhood" and "humanity", and although he developed his artistic talent by drawing inspiration from books such as The Columbian Orator and from abolitionist literature he had to explain in his Narrative how he had reached such a sophisticated degree of accomplishment. It provided enough details of how its authentic author, not a ghostwriter, had managed to become a master rhetorician who used language of American middle-class culture and adopted the symbols of Christianity. The purported goal of any slave narrative was to reveal the truth about slavery by describing a representative personal history that might stand for the experiences of all slaves and for the character of black people in general. In his Narrative he avoided some of the conventional features of the slave narrative genre, like the typical climax of escape, because disclosing information about his procedure would have alerted slaveholders and damaged other prospective fugitives' plans. He preferred to finish his Narrative by indicating that arrival into the free states was not the conclusion but only a step in the life of someone who, having evaded slavery in the South, still had to confront racism in the North under various forms (e.g. segregation laws). Exploratory questions - Douglass addressed northern readers as innocent people who needed to be enlightened about the evils of slavery. The author did not simply let the facts of his life speak for themselves, but interpreted their meaning from his own perspective. List instances of abuse he exposed: ignorance as a tool of slavery; abuse of female slaves; dehumanizing effects of slavery (slaves are treated as animals). - Antiliteracy state laws were often justified on the grounds that slaves would "misunderstand" or "misuse" the power given to them by the ability to read and write. Douglass understands literacy as a path to freedom and thus he presents his own selfeducation as the primary means by which he is able to free himself, and as his greatest tool to work for the freedom of all slaves. - A monologue is a long speech given by a single person who is alone. This literary device is used to reveal the private thoughts and emotions of an individual character. The Chesapeake Bay monologue regarding its form has short sentences, numerous questions and exclamations, and the use of apostrophe and antithesis; and regarding its content the development of thoughts and emotions accompanied by changes in tone. Apostrophe: a figure of speech in which some absent or nonexistent person or thing is addressed as if present and capable of understanding. Antithesis: the juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structure or ideas. Douglas changes of tone show us he is really angry. The employment of short sentences, numerous questions and exclamations reinforce the intensity of his monologue.

- "shrouded ghosts" and "the tomb of slavery": These sailboats were reminders of the vessels used to transport thousands of men, women and children to a strange land where their humanity was tripped from them. - Douglass' narrative powerfully deploys the human-subhuman discourse both in its arguments and its imagery. Slaves are treated as animals. Slave owners value slaves only to the extent that they can perform productive labour; they often treat slaves like livestock, mere animals, without reason. - The transformation Mrs. Sophia Auld underwent is an instance of the moral degradation of slaveholders that Douglass exposes. Slave-owning men tempted to adultery and rape, and perverted religious sense to remain blind to the sins they commit in their own house. - The author refused to use dialect and continued to cultivate the American bourgeois modes of expression he had learned during his Baltimore years in the Auld household. He had to provide enough details of his life in order to prove he was the authentic author, not a ghostwriter. He managed to become a master rhetorician who used the language of American middle-class culture and adopted the symbols of Christianity. - Douglass refused to gain credibility by affecting a literary ineptitude that would have met his prejudiced readers' expectations. He combined report and description with comment. He gave a romantic focus on emotion and on the celebration of individual selfhood through his self-portrait as a 'heroic fugitive'. He avoided some of the conventional features of the slave narrative genre, for example, he did not include the typical climax of the escape and pursuit scenes, allegedly because disclosing information about his procedure would have alerted slaveholders. He preferred to finish his Narrative by indicating that arrival into free states was not the conclusion but only a step in the life of someone who still had to confront racism in the North under various forms. He had to provide enough details of his life in order to prove he was the authentic author. - He, as a first-person narrator, tried to engage his readers and enter into empathy with them. The author established a discursive relationship with his public by building a bridge of sympathetic identification between the northern white reader and the southern black fugitive. He tries to provide evidence for the abolitionist cause. - Some abolitionists tried to encourage more self-restraint because they feared that this bold and vehement mode of address could be damaging to the movement. The author intended his narrative to be a literary work of art and deliberately tried to embellish his style. - Characters features of romanticism can be found in the passages, particularly on the attention to the romantic focus on emotion and on the celebration of individual selfhood through Douglass' self-portrait as "heroic fugitive". He poses a Byronic figure apostrophizing the Chesapeake Bay ships and when he presents himself valiantly overcoming Edward Covey in an unequal physical struggle. - Douglass' Narrative is a representative text of black men's literary tradition. He is concerned with the formation of identity, and he presents himself as a paradigm of masculinity, especially in the climatic scene of his fight with Covey, the master is depicted as the aggressor and the slave's reaction is justified as self-defence. Douglas

manipulated his reader's feelings by exploiting sentimental strategies, presenting himself as a virile subject, caught by the legs. - Douglass share with Equiano some features, they locate their quest for freedom within a Christian context, and the stress the value of freedom for personal and spiritual development. Both ex-slaves had to refute claims that blacks were intrinsically inferior. Equiano had criticized the brutality of slave-owners, no the institution of slavery itself, whereas Douglass wanted to reveal the evils of America's "peculiar institution". The "Written by Himself" of both titles lets us detect prejudices. Douglass focused on authenticity rather than interest, and his main theme was escape, not travel (as Equiano). Douglass wrote with an urgency and passion directed toward these abolitionists. Equiano and Douglass relied on their faith to get through hardships, reflected in the writings of both men, and they relied on it to question the hypocrisy of a "Christian" slave owner. While Equiano used his spirituality to convert the nonbelievers, Douglass always used it to question the morals of human bondage. - Douglass' work is also an obligatory point of reference in the study of American autobiographical traditions, and he consciously tried to model himself after Benjamin Franklin. Both authors stress their talents when they proudly present themselves as archetypal self-made men worthy of admiration. Douglass' autobiography lacks the selfcritical and self-questioning that makes Franklin admits his mistakes. Douglass used sophisticated style and learned tone, and Franklin used plain style, colloquial without being familiar, because the latter did not have to demonstrate he was intelligent and educated, did not have to prove anything since he was white. From A Study Guide: Analyzing the techniques of persuasive writings Rhetoric can be defined as the art of using language for persuasion by employing special devices. Aristotle distinguished ethos (the characteristic attitude of the speaker), pathos (the audience's emotional response) and logos (the logic of the argument). Writers are persuasive when they manage these three elements skilfully. - With respect to ethos, writers must create speakers who present themselves in such a way that they carry authority and gain sympathy for their cause. We have to ask ourselves who is the speaker and if s/he is placed in a position of authority to lead to the exertion of influence on the readers' thought. - Regarding pathos, writers must move their audiences to take particular action. They must create a favourable disposition in their readers by making emotional appeals to arouse deep feelings (fear, hostility against opponents, pity for innocent victims). - Concerning logos, writers must carefully build the logic of a strong rhetorical argument. When evaluating logos, you should provide answers to the questions: how well is the argument articulated? What logical proofs are used? Douglas manipulated his readers' feelings by exploiting sentimental strategies in his narrative text, which is pervaded by masculine values. He invariably presented himself as a virile subject, asserting his manhood (combat with Covey), also adopted a highly emotional tone. He also experimented the antebellum sentimentality exposing a common fact of life in slavery: family separation. The author resorted both to rational and emotional appeals in order to elicit his audience's compassion at the loss of his mother.

Audiences appreciated the well-articulated arguments that were brought to the reform movements of 19th c America. Douglass turned to the Enlightenment discourse of liberty and equality to shape a counter-discourse that would challenge the proslavery contentions. Some people were convinced that slave narratives were the creations of white abolitionists. Douglas called upon his personal experience to assure his readers about his authorship. Consider the notion of truth and point out the elements that lend a tone of veracity to it. Look for examples of verbal irony, and note the difference between the truth that readers may supply and what the text literally says. Proslavery readers attacked slave narratives seizing upon any inaccuracies to contend that the whole work was a fraud and the authors felt the need to corroborate their assertions with extensive evidence. Regarding the impassioned apostrophe to the Chesapeake Bay white-sailed ships, Douglass's contemporary readers expected large doses of pathos, and therefore most features of this passage would have proved very effective in his time. He provided evidence of his education by using quotations from literary sources and an extensive vocabulary, exhibiting an uncommon mastery of many rhetorical figures.

Style: elaborate Tone: emotional Audience: white pro & antislavery Romantic features: focus on emotion Self-portrait: heroic fugitive Themes: Importance of education to be free; age; negative effects of slaver: on slaves by their dehumanization; on slaveholders by their moral degradation. Rhetoric devices: repetition: words related with understanding or learning. Chiasmus: the inversion of the second of two parallel phrases, a verbal patter in which the key elements are expressed, and then reversed. The Chesapeake monologue. Change in tone from pessimistic to positive. Apostrophe: an animal, a thing, a place, an abstract quality, an idea or a dead or absent person is addressed as if present and capable of understanding (addressing the ships in the bay). Antithesis: a contrast or opposition of thoughts, usually found in two different sentences. Narratives modes: Description, not focused on the development of a particular mood or an atmosphere. Report: real facts chronologically related. Speech: direct and indirect. Comment: it is the prevailing mode.

Harriet beecher stowe (1811-1896) cd

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” [1852] -Great social impact. She was an active abolitionist who wanted to change the course of events by affecting public’s opinion. -Woman. Wrote “sentimental” sub-literature -Uncle Tom=derogatory term to refer to blacks. -Tom is praised, intelligent, sensible, peaceful, forgiving, stoic… *Has integrity, dignity and strength of character *He is victimized under the whip for helping escape some slaves. *Christ-like figure. Tom is the real hero. -Careful in her writing. Slave’s perspectives. 1 -Principal theme is: EVIL. Many levels: moral, political… “Uncle

Tom’s Cabin”

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-Eliza’s son Harry and Tom get separated. After Tom’s death Eliza and Harry are reunited in Canada. Breakdown -When Lincoln met Stowe said: “So you are the little lady that wrote the book that has started this great war”. -She didn’t see black as inferior. Blacks were more docile, childlike, simple and affectionate. -3rd person omniscient narrator -Excellent for idioms/dialect/black vernacular. -Puritan background, treats evil->slavery->sin. Moral duty to write and speak out against slavery. Compares treatment of slaves to those of animals -Slaves come to market fed and cleaned, sleek and shiny. -They are kept merry so they have no time for reflection. -Buyers examine and comment on them -Pushed and pulled, told to jump, to show their muscles. -Men at the auction talk about how they get rid of “nigger airs”. Religion -Quotes from the Bible. -Susan and Emmeline sing a song to Mary. -Susan reminds her daughter that no matter what, she should be faithful to the Lord. -Slaves’ faith in God helps them to go on. -Sees civil laws in conflict. Wants to justify civil disobedience. -Slavery is destroying society. -Simon Legree is evil, not a good Christian. -Tom is tortured and killed -> Christ. Martyr. -She doesn’t use lots of figurative language but uses parallelism, allusions and quotes.

*Sexual abuse by whites on black women: Susan 3 remembers how the white trader had looked her daughter. -Feared for Emmeline being sold to a life of shame -She wishes she wasn’t so attractive. She has curls. -The man before the sale touched her bust. Slaves have no protection. Characters -Character description is direct. -St. Clare slaves to be sold. Tom, Adolph, Susan, Emmeline. -Evil character: Simon Legree. Stiff hair, coarse mouth, dirty, spitting tobacco juice… Literary strategies -Wrote a key to justify the attacks that her writings produced. -Veracity (asked for info from Douglass) -Characters defined by the color of their skin. -Characters are revealed by their speech. *Mr. Skeggs (loving kindness, speech lively and pleasant), Sambo (black, happy and carefree), Adolph (speaks like a white), Emmeline and Susan (soft spoken, speak like whites, speak of the Bible), Mr. Legree (quick, mean harsh…) Irony in her work *Slaves inclined to pine and forced to be merry. *Susan and Emmeline were sold for trading in slaves was “rather too much money to be lost on principle”. *Calls traders connoissereurs. Auctioneers brilliant and talented men. *Benevolent man tries to bid on Emmeline and loses. How she deals with families *Wants whites to see that blacks have feelings. Same as whites. *Wants readers to identify with these families.

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UNIT 18 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE UNCLE TOM'S CABIN From A Study Guide: Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most influential book ever published in America, considering its unanimous recognition as a popular classic; the recent literary theory and today's current trends of criticism increasingly value politically engaged writings since no longer are biased against works produced by women and authors derogatorily dismissed as "sentimental"; the novel is a reaction against the Fugitive Slave Act in by its author and her social religious background who openly advocated law-breaking in the form of civil disobedience; UTC was shaped by Stowe's personal experience as a woman raised in a family of preachers and reformers, as a devoted Protestant, as a teacher, as a wife of a professor of Biblical Literature, and as a mother deeply concerned with slave parents whose children were sold away; the aspects most celebrated in the novel are: its combination of different sources, its setting, its polemic characterization, its endorsement of the romantic racialism common in the abolitionist circles, its blending of sentimentalism and realism, its treatment of the theme of evil in its theological, moral, economic and political dimensions.

The novel has a greater social impact than any other book in the entire history of American literature. Its author was an ardent abolitionist who wanted to change the course of events in her country by transforming the climate of public opinion over the issue of slavery. Life: Stowe had an orthodox Calvinist upbringing, which explains the Puritan background in her work. Her successful novel stemmed from her firm determination to contribute to the antislavery cause, as she felt it was her moral duty to react immediately against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which made it illegal to aid any runaway slaves arriving in the free states, and required northerners to assist in the capture and return of fugitives to their southern owners. Stowe's son Charley had died at the age of eighteen months during a cholera epidemic, and his death made her sympathize with the plight of the slave mothers whose children were sold away from them. Work: The National Era began the serial publication of a story initially scheduled for 14 weeks, which would later run more than a year. Ten days before the last installment appeared, the entire work was printed under the title of Uncle Tom's Cabin; or Life among the Lowly. The novel was praised by renowned writers and philosophers (such as Emerson, Tolstoy, Longfellow or Henry James), who recognized it as "triumphant". Frederick Douglass defended Stowe through his newspaper, and while using different methods they were joined in a common cause. The opposite proslavery camp critic's response was overwhelming hostile. Accused of ignorance and inaccuracy, Stowe realized that her novel could not stand alone, and felt obliged to justify what she had written by producing documentary evidence.

She replied with A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin: Presenting the Original Facts and Documents upon which the Story is Founded, an annotated selection of documents assembled by herself and her brothers in order to authenticate her fictional portraits by corroborating them with actual facts. Stowe's novel bears the direct influence of the slave narrative tradition, the African American autobiographies of the 1840s. The fictional character of Uncle Tom does not stem from one single source, but is more likely a combination of disparate elements. He was the origin of the pejorative term "Uncle Tom", which refers to a thoroughly subservient black zealously (fanatic religious) intent on pleasing whites. This stereotype does not correspond to Stowe's characterization, but to the distorted image aroused from the influential stage version loosely based on the novel. Tom's central characteristic in the novel is this religiosity, his strength of faith. Everywhere Tom goes in the novel, he manages to spread some of the love and goodwill of his religious beliefs, helping to alleviate the pain of slavery and enhance the hope of salvation. Stowe's Uncle Tom reveals that she unreservedly lauds him throughout her novel. He is intelligent, sensible, peaceful, forgiving, stoic and generous in his response to the human needs that require his assistance, of blacks and whites alike, showing business capabilities. He wants freedom for himself, but not at the expense of harming his family or his community of fellow slaves. His integrity, dignity and strength of character help him stand his final trial. He is victimized, though he dies not out of submission to Legree, but to uphold his conviction rather than capitulate to his cruel master's torture. There is no servility or passivity in Tom's attitude, but what we would now cold nonviolent resistance. In Stowe's religious mind, it was the sacrificial offering of the innocent, cast in the role of the perfect Christian, the martyr. Tom is presented as a Christ-like figure by emphasizing parallelisms, as the true hero of the story, although our contemporary readers are more inclined to see the hero in the intrepid George Harris, who breaks the law -like Frederick Douglass in real life in order to free himself. Stowe wished to take into account the slave's own perspectives, and wrote to Frederick Douglas asking him for information about life on a cotton plantation. Until the first decade of the 20th c, she was honoured among African Americans, but later in the century she began to be accused of portraying the slaves of her novel condescendingly. Uncle Tom's Cabin has drawn criticism for its alleged racism, since 19th century intellectuals embraced a kind of racialist thinking, which held the notion that each racial group has special innate gifts or particular inbred qualities. Romantic racialism: the belief, common in abolitionist circles, that slavery constituted the oppression of "one of the best races of the human family". Abolitionist contended that one of the worst evils of slavery was that it led to the degradation of a "naturally virtuous" people (again Caliban in The Tempest, corrupted by Trinculo and Stephano). Stowe opposed 18th c theories that had denied the humanity of blacks, and subscribed to the romantic racialism of her time, not to be confused with modern racism, for she did not endorse racist claims of black inferiority. Analyzing Uncle Tom's Cabin within the scope of the author's and her first audience's surrounding culture implies considering the religious beliefs of evangelical Protestantism, essential to understand that the principal theme of the novel is the

problem of evil, which Stowe treats on different levels (theological, moral, economic and political dimensions). We nowadays tend to place in separate spheres various modes of discourse, but she blends theological with political discourse in the jeremiad tradition: a long literary work, usually in prose, but sometimes in verse, in which the author bitterly laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone of sustained invective, and always contains a prophecy of society's imminent downfall. Hers is a prophetic voice publicly exhorting to spiritual renewal and social reform, vindicating religious conversion linked to moral regeneration, both necessary for any social change. She denounces the civil laws regulating slavery, in conflict with the higher religious laws suppressed, advocating law-breaking in the form of civil disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act. Any historicized interpretation of Uncle Tom's Cabin requires considering the 19th c cult of domesticity. Stowe used the analogy of the nation as a family under threat establishing a connection between the domestic and the political spheres. Slavery destroyed family, endangering society itself, to both masters and slaves, both black and white families, conveying the message that the inhumanity of owning people was harming everyone. Stowe was convinced that the domestic sphere had a potential transforming power to radically change society. Her ideas about the sacredness of the home and the sanctity of the family was informed by the most advanced cultural feminist ideology of her own time, struggling over the issue of maternal power. Motherhood plays a fundamental role in the novel. The novel: The sale of Tom and Eliza's little son Harry generates two plots that start in Kentucky and proceed in opposite directions, north and south. The plots are linked from time to time by events, and after Tom's death they reunite the surviving characters in the safety of Canada. Possible exam questions: - How characters differ from Douglas to Stowe. - Stowe and Chopin demythologize the idyllic portraits of the plantation novels, the myth of the Old South. - Exposition of prevailing discourses that dehumanized slaves. - Compare and contrast literary strategies by Douglass, Stowe and Chopin dealing with issues of races and gender. Main theme: the problem of evil The novel borrowed elements of plot and characterization from Samuel Eliot's slave narrative too. Genre and race: Women often take the actively moral role in the novel, idealized as almost angelic mothers, wives, and counselors, becoming guiding moral lights: Mrs Shelby, Mrs Bird, St. Clare's mother and Legree's mother. Men are portrayed as gruff, avaricious and morally weaker than women. Uncle Tom provides the one exception serving as the role of moral guide. There is a parallelism between the position of disempowerment held by both white women and black slaves. Stowe does not explicitly make a connection between the oppression of women and the oppression of blacks, but she does imply it through her structure of parallelism and contrast.

Opposites: black/white; freedom/slavery; men/women; good/evil; life/death.

North/South;

happiness/unhappiness;

Binary oppositions: we find in the structure of the novel two opposing plots, the slave narrative and the escape narrative: different directions, both literally and symbolically. Eliza and her husband travel ever farther north finding freedom and happiness, while Tom travels ever farther south, entering into martyrdom and death. This is apt for a book that critiques a politically divided nation, a society organized by differences of skin colour and gender. Discourses that dehumanized slaves: quotes in the novel manifest that slavery is both dehumanizing and robs one the natural rights to self-determination. Also, the sorrow that families feel in parting. Each Stowe's scene, while serving to further (impulsar, promover) character and plot, also serves to persuade the reader that slavery is evil, unChristian, and intolerable in a civil society. Stowe even shows the evil of the "best" kind of slavery. Writing style and diction: Stowe's writing style combines vivid characterization and description with realistic dialogue, describes characters using outwards appearance as a metaphor for personality. Dialogues are written phonetically to reflect the southern accent dialect. Character's manner of speaking is a symbol of his/her social class and education. An important aspect of her style is the diction, particularly the manner in which the white characters refer to slaves: as "articles" when trading, as "critters" (bicho) or animals which serves as justification of treating them as such. Exploratory questions: - Stowe uses an omniscient narrator, who speaks directly to the reader, explaining facts and discussing moral and political issues as well as establishing intimacy. - The old subtitle pointed out dehumanization and objetctification to which slaves were subjected. - Slaves are treated as animals: "well fed, well cleaned, tended and looked after, that may come to sale sleek, and strong and shining". - The characters of Susan and Emmeline are respectfully dressed, first quality material and well cared for. The mother is good looking but the daughter is beautiful. They are taught to read and write by a pious woman. - There are hints of sexual abuse by whites on black women. - Characters are types. She uses metonymic devices. Legree is the antithesis of Tom, first described physically ("bullet head"). Metonimy: is a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is called not by its own name but rather by the name of something associated in meaning with that thing or concept. La parte por el todo. - Characters are revealed by their speech, the importance of the dialogues. Mr. Skeggs's speech is lively and pleasant, urging the negroes to have fun. Sambo's is a negro speech, happy and carefree. Adolph speaks like a white. Emmeline and Susan are soft spoken, pious and speak like whites, speaking of the Bible. Mr. Legree's speech is quick and mean. He doesn't believe Tom, and gives orders.

- Irony in the novel: "slaves are incline to pine"; 30.000 dolar are "rather too much money to be lost on principles" (Susan and Emmeline's onwer). -The Bible is used to fight against the sin of slavery. -We can see that this novel was first written as a series in: "A slave warehouse" are the first words written, they automatically situate the reader and remind him/her where s/he left off; the mentioning of time: "it was a day or two after the conversation between Marie and Miss Ophelia"; it ends with a Bible quote. - Plantation novel defended slavery. How did she demythologize the idyllic portraits offered by these novels? Stowe showed the cruelty, the fear of the mother, the fear for her daughter and their separation; she showed how they were treated like animals and were not happy; also how they were poked and prodded (pinchar), dehumanized. From A Study Guide: Writing about setting This is intended to enhance your awareness of the visual quality of Stowe's writings by focusing on the place setting of chapter XXX: the outside of the slave warehouse in New Orleans, the men's sleeping room, the women's sleeping room, and the auction room. Writing about setting implies much more than simply describing the location and also involves considering the time setting of the text. It is also important to elucidate how time and space work in the narrative, explaining why these two features are significant in creating atmosphere and conveying mood. Setting can be used to cover other dimensions such as the social context and historical milieu. Settings in UTC play a significant role, the depiction of Tom's cabin illustrates the author's ideas about home and family, and provides her with an appropriate environment to introduce the protagonist in close-knit relationship with his relatives and other members of the slave community, who are assembled to eat, learn and pray under one roof. The cabin is presented as a site of physical, emotional and spiritual nourishment. Likewise, in the chapter entitled "Dark Places", Stowe's descriptions of the interior and exterior of merciless and morally corrupt Simon Legree's decaying plantation is set in contrast with St. Clare's state. Lengthy expository description of setting is common in most nineteen-century novels. She begins several chapters by directly focusing on physical surroundings with relatively few details, and then gradually establishes other implicit elements. Titles often emphasize the importance of setting: "The Slave Warehouse" draws attention to the import of the specific place, where the slaves await sale at auction. In a short story or in a chapter from a novel, the scenes may be connected by unity of location and/or unity of time, but authors may prefer to use place shifts and/or time shifts. Shifts in place setting within chapter XXX deserve careful attention. What is the effect of moving from outside of the slave warehouse to its interior? The main geographical setting of chapter XXX is New Orleans, but there is an episode that takes place in New York (lines 126-37). Space and time are two closely linked categories. Note that, apart from the explicit references to "night", nighttime is implicitly evoked with phrases such as "in the moonlight which steals though the grated window".

Settings often have a striking appropriateness with regards to other narrative elements, such as theme, plot, characterization and mood. Setting is expressive of the subject matter and emphasizes the story's meaning. Note how the theme of hypocrisy is highlighted by the contrast between the neat exterior of the slave warehouse and what is going on inside. Since a narrative presents a sequence of events, which are situated in space and time, plot and setting are necessarily related to each other, always working in concert. Given the specific surroundings portrayed in this chapter, do the incidents reported by the narrator seem to be in-place or out-of-place? External surroundings often contribute to the indirect presentation of a character, because settings may shape and reflect the feelings of the characters and reveal traits of their personality. Does the setting influence the character's behaviour in this particular chapter? Setting often matches mood but setting and mood may also be sharply contrasted. How is Tom's mood wet in contrast with the general atmosphere, which prevails in the men's sleeping room? How is the sorrowful mood of Susan and Emmeline reflected in the setting of the women's sleeping room? People function as part of the setting, and often merge with space as part of the description, so that social context can be inferred from a number of spatial and temporal details.

“Song of myself” [1881] cd

-His poetry marked a turning point in American Literature. 1 -Most famous work “Leaves of grass”. Slender volumes of 12 poems started in 1855. Total of 389 poems after 37 years writing -Wrote w/ vividness, originality and power. Lacked structure. -Free verse. -His poetry didn’t fit in with his time. Seemed vulgar compared to the Fireside Poets. -Used alliteration, assonance, repetition of words/phrases. -Saw himself as the bard of the nation. Spoke as and for the people but he wasn’t so popular in his lifetime.

*Appeared vulgar, lack of structure, not family reading. He was provocative and controversial. *Didn’t follow any conventional rules of poetry. He was intense and passionate. Influenced by Transcendentalists. Long and complex poems. *Set rhythm but no rhyme. Verses are fluid. Natural speech patterns of American vernacular. *Free verse. Untraditional topics (prostitution, homosexuality), used metaphors for sexual organs. *American speech, slang, colloquial expressions. *Bard of the common American. *Wrote about Nature-> Democracy and friendship, life, sex, death, antislavery… *Inspiration in everyday life, working class people, marginalized activities. *Saw humans and their creations (cities and buildings).

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-States what he’s going to do in the poem. Celebrate himself (all humanity) -Ground rules. We believe whatever he believes and we take on whatever roles the speaker takes on. -Offers the atoms of his body. -His soul another character. Speaker and soul, 2 slightly different things. -Describes the air as perfume. -Wants to get naked and go to the riverbank. He is in love w/ the air. -Grass. Green is the color of hope. -It’s God’s handkerchief or the child of all the other plants or a hieroglyphic. -The grass grows. People buried. He decides that they don’t fully disappear bc we belong to the same web of life.

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“Song of myself”

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-Word order. Frequent use of ellipsis and anaphoric frame of reference. -Antithesis of Longfellow’s. -Speaker divides his personality into at least three parts: 1) “I” – Involves itself in everyday stuff like politics, fashion and what he is going to eat. 2) “Me, Myself” – Stands apart from the “I” and observers the word with an amused smile. 3) The “Soul” that represents his deepest and most universal essence. -A child asks him what the grass is. He doesn’t have an answer, which gets him thinking about all kinds of things, especially about people buried in the earth who came before him. -He believes in: *Everyone is equal including slaves *Truth is everywhere but unspeakable. *Invisible connection and understanding exist between all people and things. *Death is a fortunate thing, not something to fear. -He is opposed to: *People who think they preach the truth. *Feelings of guilt and shame about the body. *Self-righteous judgments. -Have faith in the order of nature.

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-Describes people according to their vocation. Particular role in society. -Optimistic attitude. He is not naïve, tho. -Limb amputated, it drops in a pail. -Beautiful memorable explanations of the roles people play. -He only judges the judgers. -Claims to be like all those people.

-He’s the union of opposites: Old/young, foolish/wise, south/north, mother/father -He is aware of the fault lines of the cultural battle. Danger of civil war. -Nature is fine the way it is. -His words, the grass he walks, the air he breathes are ours too. -Grass=Leaves/pages of the poem.

-Present fades away. What’s next? -One of his most famous poems/lines. -He embraces contradiction.

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-He sees a hawk and feels humbled. -The ending day=metaphor for death. -His hair is white, he dissolves into the air. Very powerful imagery. To find him we have to look at the ground under our boots. He gives good health to those who walk over him. -Ends the poem: we shouldn’t be discouraged if we can’t find him. -Identity, visions of America, friendship (and democracy), spirituality (body and soul), nature.

UNIT 19 WALT WHITMAN "SONG OF MYSELF" From A Study Guide: Whitman revolutionized the landscape of American literature not only by rejecting conventionally poetic English, also by introducing subject matter traditionally considered unsuitable for poetry; regarding his innovations in form and content, he focused on experiments with free verse, characterized by fluid lines of different lengths, structured according to the cadences of natural speech; his experience as a self-made man coming from ordinary background, his democratic ideals and his professional activities in journalism and politics shaped his poetry, paradoxically recognized by educated audience of scholars and artists, rather than by the working class the author had primarily addressed; appraise Whitman's progressive visual ability to portray reality, his antislavery stance, the central position that the Civil War had in his work and the impact the assassination of Lincoln made on his poetry; Leaves of Grass grew over from twelve to 389 poems along 37 years career; examine 1891 edition of "Song of Myself" concentrating on the expression of the author's personality, his symbolic vision of an egalitarian society, the power inscribed in the visual images, the suitability of free verse for the expression of the poem's ideological content. Walt Whitman's fame rests upon Leaves of Grass, the collection which started in 1855 as a slender volume of twelve poems and grew over the span of a thirty-seven-year career until it eventually contained 389 poems, considered the America's greatest single book of poems. He began to write when the Fireside Poets (Longfellow) dominated the American literature scene, and compared to them, both his language and his subject matter seemed vulgar, while his apparent lack of structure did not suit the taste of those who expected poetry to follow strictly the rigid patterns of traditional verse, an innovation that later won him admirers all over the world. Form: Whitman broke away from the standard metre and rhyme schemes of English poetry. His free verse has no regular metre and no equal line length, nor rhythmic arrangement. The overall effect has a melodic character because the variable patterns of sound used by the poet are created by means of alliteration and assonance, and by the repetition of words and phrases. Verse lines have different lengths structured according to the cadences of natural speech. Content: He rejected conventionally poetic English and replaced it with the language of common American speech, introducing subjects traditionally considered unsuitable for poetry. His democratic ideals led him to expand his fields of interest to the daily lives of ordinary people, and activities habitually marginalized. He saw himself as a bard for his whole nation, with a voice drawn from America's vernacular, a popular language. He called for a literature for the masses but which was never read by the mass readership of his day. Life: Walt Whitman was the epitome of the self-made man from an ordinary background who proclaimed his working-class origins. He attended Brooklyn's only public school, which at the time had the social stigma of the poor because it only enrolled students unable to afford private schools.

Whitman compensated for the little formal education he had received in his early years by reading widely and by attending the theatre and the opera. His personality was also shaped by the Quakerism, the Deism and also his father's admired belief that one's duty is to enjoy life guided by the intuitions of one's soul, which would become the foundation of Whitman's religious thought. Work: At the printing office he really acquired his reading and writing skills and also developed an appreciation of the aesthetics of the page evident in the layout of his poetry, which also introduced him to the connected worlds of journalism and politics. An important aspect of his ideology that had a direct impact upon his journalistic and poetic career was his opposition to the extension of slavery into the western territories. Unlike the abolitionists, who opposed slavery on moral grounds, Whitman supported "free soilers", who were not against the institution itself, but simply against the presence of slaves in the new territories. He travelled down to Mississippi to occupy a new position as a member of the staff of the New Orleans Crescent, where he witnessed slave auctions. He later considered that this southern sojourn had been crucial to his maturing as a poet. His return to Brooklyn provided him with a chance to absorb the variety of the American landscapes showed in his articles in his progressive visual ability to portray reality as a painter would. He became an active member of Free Soil party and the editor of its newspaper, called the Brooklyn Freeman. His contribution to this political paper in the midst of a turbulent period are interesting because they include his most passionate antislavery journalism. He finally came to defend the thesis that the institution of slavery itself was incompatible with the egalitarian ideals of the American Revolution. The gloomy climate of economic depression and social disunion of the pre-Civil War years pervaded Whitman's poems of this period. His contact with the war came through the hospitals where he volunteered as a male nurse. Out of his experiences nursing wounded soldiers grew his volume Drum-Taps, a collection of fifty-three poems he incorporated into the 1867 edition of Leaves of Grass. The "Drum-Taps" cluster (Whitman called his groupings of poems "clusters") of the final edition of Leaves of Grass contains forty-three poems. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at the end of the war affected Whitman much more deeply than any event in the war itself. First he wrote two short poems, and during the summer of 1865 he composed the great elegy "When Lilacs in the Dooryard Bloom'd", later included in Leaves of Grass with other poems as a cluster entitled "Memories of President Lincoln". He held a minor post in the Department of the Interior in Washington until an accident related to his poetry provoked his dismissal, which illustrates how the poet's views on gender and sexuality challenged the predominant social attitudes of his time. Whitman's explicit celebration of sexual freedom often shocked and offended his first audience. Many of his contemporaries saw him not merely as vulgar, but as corrupt for his alleged obscenity. In the cluster poems "Children of Adam" he exhorted a return to the Garden of Eden by recovering the sexual innocence of Adam and Eve before the Fall. Whitman did not use taboo words, but his early readers found "gross indecencies" in his use of daring sexual imagery, particularly in his obvious metaphors for sexual organs. Curiously enough, his handling of homosexuality was largely unnoticed, since "The Calamus" cluster, with thirty-nine pieces, celebrated the "beautiful and sane

affection of man for man" and were initially taken as innocent poems of male comradeship and brotherly love. Recently, the "Calamus" cluster has come to be interpreted as a group of overtly homoerotic lyrics. Whitman declared himself both "the poet of the Body" and "the poet of the Soul". His poetry stressed the importance of the physical self. Democracy was his most distinctive and central theme. He thought that America was the great democracy where each individual could evolve to spiritual perfection and in his Democratic Vistas he suggested that American poets could spread the idea of democracy throughout the world. Whitman continued to revise and expand Leaves of Grass, never changing the name of the book. He published six separate editions of his work developing it in an episodic way and sometimes altering the titles of his poems. In the 1881 edition he decided on their definite arrangement ant titles. The order was made permanent and the book continued to grow with annexes. Central themes: the importance of the physical self; democracy is his most distinctive theme. The most frequent literary device in "Song of Myself" is anaphora. He also introduced subjects traditionally considered unsuitable for poetry: captured the rhythms of urban life; portrayed the daily lives of ordinary people; made the city the setting for poetical works; celebrated America in a mystically imagined Union. He was inspired by Thomas Paine's Age of Reason. Analysis of "Song of Myself" Discovered a poetic form as raw, free, unfinished, expansive, experimental, full of promise as his Transcendentalist conception of his country. Emphasizes diversity in nature and in people; a joyous celebration of the human self in its most expanded, spontaneous, self-sufficient, and all-embracing state. It observes and interacts with everything in creation and ranges feely over time and space. The speaker affirms the divinity of the universe (human body is part of this universe). The "I" of the poem is the human self-experiencing transcendental nature, witnessing the turbulent activity around, enjoying being what it is, being alive in the flesh. There is a crucial emphasis on the "I" that emerges from the speaker's self-performance. He becomes his transgressor self, a Transcendentalist version of the American tall-tale hero. Structure: There are no linear progression of themes through the poem; the different sections express the same themes from different angles; incorporates his listener/reader into the poem; nature speaks free of the limitations of poetic convention; he locates himself and his poems outdoors (outside conventions); based on repetition of words, phrases, and parallel syntactical structures. Idea behind the poem: individual identity is temporary but transcendent; the cycle of the life renews itself constantly (conquers death). Tone: joyous and mystical; modulations in tone, description and emotion between the body and soul; proud and personal pose; addresses the reader directly.

Metaphor: leaves of grass= poems in his book= individual being part of nature. Grass symbolizes individual self. Style: simplicity; freedom in word order; frequent use of ellipsis; anaphoric frame of reference; use of catalogues. • First section: The speaker celebrates in himself the qualities that he has in common with the reader; his own individuality and that of other people; the poem represents an entire body reclining on the ground, leaning and loafing (relaxing): "observing a spear of summer grass" (l.2). A spear of summer grass: symbol of the individual; symbol of the natural world; symbol of democracy. • Number 6: anaphora: "it may be... it may be... it may be..." Handkerchief (l.4): a present offered by God to mankind; a reminder of divinity; a symbol of the new life embodied by greenness. • This section 15: presents a lengthy catalogue that emphasizes human diversity; ends by merging human diversity into a harmonious union; presents both individual portraits and group scenes in rather long lines. Portrayal of people: treats them with dignity and respect; emphasizes the importance of the working class; presents them in a variety of settings, both in the country and in the city; portrayal of the national character of Americans through various kind of evils: physical (sickness, pain); psychological (despair); social (injustice, oppression: slavery, prostitution). People are described: by their occupations; by their relations to other members of their family; by their ethnicity. Lines 42-44: "The prostitute draggles... nor jeer you": the speaker rebukes (reproach) the men and extents compassion to the woman. • Section 16: Anaphora: "at home..., at home... (l. 10-12). Emphasizes that the speaker has lived in Canada, Vermont, Maine and Texas; emphasizes the speaker has several homes; emphasizes the speaker feel more comfortable in some parts of North America than in others. The speaker identifies with: Americans from different parts of the country; people of every condition, occupation and creed; men and women. • Section 17: tries to merge his identity with that of the reader; uses anaphora "If they are not... If they are not... If they are not... (L2-4); "This is the grass that grows... This the common air that bathes..." (L 5-6); uses line of varying length. • Section 51: "look at my face, while I snuff the sidle of evening", suggests the evening darkness is coming on and the speaker is anticipating his death. • Section 52: Yawp: loud or coarse talk or utterance: "I sound by barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world". In this section the author declares an end to his wandering and talking. The poem's last sections are marked by the urgency of his departure: by last-minute preparations, last words of advice, and reluctance to leave at all until his listener, who is also his student and comrade, brother and sister, speaks his or her own word in response. Standing accused by the free-flying hawk, Whitman reluctantly but also joyously sounds the last words of his "barbaric yawp", dispersing himself into the elements themselves.

• Line 3: " I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world" suggests that the speaker of the poem joyously joins with the hawk mentioned two lines above, rather than merely observe the bird. • Line 9: "I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love" suggests that the speaker perceives existence as a continuum and believes in a kind of rebirth in the regenerative natural world. Historical context: Whitman's lifetime saw both the Civil War and the rise of the United States as a commercial and political power. He witnessed both the peak and the abolition of slavery. His poetry is thus centred on ideas of democracy, equality, and brotherhood. In response to America's new position in the world, Whitman also tried to develop a poetry that was uniquely American, that both surpassed and broke the style of its predecessors. "Leaves of Grass", with its multiple editions and public controversies, set the pattern for the modern, public artist, and Whitman, with his journalistic endeavours on the side, made the most of his role as celebrity and artist. Exploratory questions: - What kind of relationship does the poet establish with his reader in the first section of SOM? What aspects of his personality does the author express? He establishes a relationship or "communion" between the writer and reader by saying that "every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you". The poet gives readers details that make them match the "persona" of the poem with the real author: "here/I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health being..." He considers himself natural, honest, easy and tries to portray himself in this way throughout the whole writing. Whitman praises simplicity of character, and rejected boasting. He desires truth, since he thinks that secondary desires makes us ignorant and close mind. - The grass, which is the most commonplace plant on earth, appears as a formal structuring device, starting with the close attention devoted to a single spear or leaf of grass. What does he suggest about himself by associating himself with the grass? How is the grass related to life and death? What double meaning may Whitman have intended when he called his book of poetry "Leaves of Grass"? To what extent does the "spear of grass" allow the poet to praise the individual self and the green "handkerchief of the Lord" serves to extol the democratic masses? With his democratic vision he contributed to performing the cultural work of reshaping an American national identity. "Leave of Grass" highlights the beauty of the individual. Each leaf or blade of grass possesses its own distinct beauty, and together the blades form a beautiful unified whole. Multiple leaves of grass thus symbolize democracy, another instance of a beautiful whole composed of individual parts. Whitman considered each of his poems to be a separate leaf or blade of grass: because they were divine; because they were symbolic of life and cycles of birth and death; because they were significant both individually and in the mass. Grass is democratic, it grows everywhere, and tends to equalize in height, not tall, not above the crowd. - Whitman was fascinated with the power inscribed in visual images and often thought of his work in relation to painting, for he had the dexterity of a realist painter. What images of common people can be found in the sections read? To what extent could they have inspired American visual art? Analyse Whitman's powers of observation, his ability to swiftly render realistic details, his attention to individual portraits of people in different occupations, to group portraits and to the portrayal of masses of people.

Section 15 is a large depiction where the readers find accurate portraits of common people of his time, represented by their occupations, alone or in groups: the contralto, the carpenter, the farmer, the spinning girl, the machinist, the groups of newly-come immigrants, etc. Whitman mixes men, women, children and extremely different social classes and professions to highlight the equal importance of each of them in conforming to a society. He paints a precise image of his country at the time, using masses as a valid topic for art representation for the very first time. Other artists, such as talented painters would follow after him. - Critics have commented on Whitman's egalitarian attitude to women, a rather uncommon attitude in his time. The fact that the "mankind" he celebrated specifically included women is illustrated by these often quoted lines: "I am the poet of the woman the same as the man./ And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man". Explain how women are represented in the poem: Whitman uses the idea of equality to convey his belief that God is the divine creator to all things and they should all be treated impartially. Men and women are the same. The author is implying by his catalogues of people that all them are items of equal value, evident in the dissimilarities of the people of what they are doing: "the one-year wife" who gives birth to her first child and the "clean hair'd yankee girl", who works as a seamstress (costurera). The images of these two women can be construed as having a higher social status than a woman who has a child out of wedlock or one who is a beggar. Whitman emphatically reveals that they have one similarity: they are equal because they are all the divine creation of God. - Whitman demanded a new freedom in poetry, breaking with the tradition. Free verse is a particularly suitable vehicle for the expression of Whitman's ideas. Form and content suit each other in Whitman poetry. Unlike the writers that advocated the cult of "Art for art's sake", Whitman valued literature for its moral and political efficacy. His language and his subject matter seemed vulgar and his apparent lack of structure did not suit the strictly rigid patterns of traditional verse. Regarding form, Whitman broke away from the standard metre and rhyme schemes in English poetry and explored the possibilities of free verse instead, with a rhythmic arrangement. Verse lines have different lengths and are fluid because they are structure according to the cadences of natural speech. Whitman developed the predominant form in modern poetry. Regarding content, he introduced subjects that had been traditionally considered unsuitable for poetry. He captured the rhythms of urban life and made the city an appropriate setting for poetical works, including daily lives of ordinary people habitually marginalized. - Whitman's catalogues constitute one of the most important stylistic features of his poetry and an integral part of his poetic theory. They are now interpreted as an effective realistic technique to encompass the nation all-inclusively by capturing the empirical detail of "real" existence. The cataloguing technique may serve as a democratizing device. Whitman uses this to enlist many different profiles of common people of his time. Cataloguing has a great importance to develop an important theme of his, the vision of a democratic and egalitarian society in which all persons, no matter profession or condition, are equals. - Varieties of evil lurk in the poet's field of vision when he portrays the national character of America: physical (sickness and pain); psychological (despair); social (injustice and all forms of oppression, including slavery and prostitution). In spite of such negative aspects, Whitman's catalogue of American attributes is essentially optimistic. He really believes in the transcendent power of Love, brotherhood and

comradeship, and shows a strong and optimistic faith in democracy and equality. He thought that America was the great democracy where each individual could evolve to spiritual perfection. - "Song of Myself" begins with the personal pronoun "I" and ends with "you". The advice the speaker gives to the reader suggests about Whitman's view of life and death, and the ending of the poem is an "articulation of endlessness". From Whitman's point of view, death is nothing but a new beginning, a different part of the life, related to his idea of God: to Whitman, god and nature are the same, and life is perceived as an endlessness cycle movement. For him, each leaf or blade of grass is divine though common, and symbols of life and cycles of birth and death ever renewed. So, like grass, life kept growing, being cut and growing again. Whitman focused on the life cycles of individuals: people are born, they age and reproduce, and they die. - Whitman's diction. He once said about his book of poetry: "I sometimes think the Leaves is only a language experiment". Whitman's use of language sometimes supports and sometimes contradicts his philosophy. He often uses obscure, foreign, or invented words. It is not meant to be intellectually elitist but is instead meant to signify Whitman's status as a unique individual. Democracy does not necessarily mean sameness. The difficulty of some of his language also mirrors the necessary imperfection of connections between individuals: no matter how hard we tray, we can never completely understand each other. The diction is confrontational and conversational. - Whitman thought of himself both as the poet of the city and the poet of nature. Unlike most "Nature writers", he did not focus on the adversarial relationship between human beings and the natural world. He saw humans and their creations, including cities, as inextricable components of a harmonious natural world. He includes cities and citizens in the natural world, considering them as part of nature. - How does Whitman articulate the mélange of lyrical emotion and socio-political didacticism? He articulated in two ways: Relation to socio-political didacticism, he reflects real society much more than the rest of his contemporary poets; relating to lyrical emotion, by creating spontaneous and organic poetry rather than preset and regular poems, divided into sections of varying rhythm and size, and mainly, by drawing everything in his poems from real life, avoiding reduction, simplification and closures. - According to him, as poems should be spontaneous and organic rather than preset and regular, they must be divided into sections of varying rhythm and size rather than constrictive rhyming stanzas. Everything in poetry - verse form, subject matter and vernacular language, must be drawn from life and be true to it. Reduction, simplification and closure, (the effect of finality and completeness) must be avoided. He puts it in practice through: free verse; use of repeated images, symbols, phrases and grammatical units as substitutes for regular rhythm and rhyme; use of enumerations and catalogues; use of anaphora and epanaphora (each line hangs by a loop from the line before); contrast and parallelism in paired lines; varying line lengths with varying number of syllables per line; "envelope": identified a short beginning line, long middle lines, and a short ending line; idiosyncratic spelling and punctuation. - Song of Myself demands great attention to its readers because of his word order, frequent use of ellipsis and his anaphoric frame of reference. How can the author's self-

proclaimed accessibility be compatible with the difficulties that the readers encounter when interpreting his poetry? The concept of celebrating who he is as a human being, even if it is flawed, contradictory, or imperfect. . - Compare and contrast Whitman and Longfellow's poetry. Longfellow thinks that eternal doesn't reflect reality while Whitman looks for the eternity in real and perceivable things. Longfellow was close to abolitionists. Whitman's poetry was influenced by transcendentalists, who tried to make American life more democratic. The similarities stand on both literary schools which popularized democratic ideas. To support democracy Longfellow wrote his most famous poem "The Song of Hiawatha" which reflected the dissatisfaction with the discrimination of the Indians. Whitman wrote a book of poems "Leaves of Grass", where he poeticized nature and democracy. Talking about nature it is also one of their similarities. The "Song of Hiawatha" was also the beautification of nature. The same intention is in "Leaves of Grass". Their poetry nature is the symbol of freedom and democracy. From A Study Guide: Applying an author-oriented approach Whenever we approach a text, we look for meaning, and as we try to make sense of the words printed on the page, we may often wonder if what we infer coincides with what the author meant. Authorial intention, the author's intended meanings or effects, constitutes a controversial matter since many critics completely refrain from speculating about it when they analyze texts. Some objections stem from the opinion that searching for the author's intention encourages readers to seek a single meaning rather than a plurality of meanings. It has also been argued that authorial intention is indeterminable because there is no infallible way of verifying it, since not even the authors who comment on their works can be trusted as reliable guides to their own writings. Some scholars warn readers about the deceptive nature of the debates about "the real author" (the person who wrote the text), and propose instead the concept of "the implied author" (also called "the inferred author") which can be defined as what an author projects when writing a text and what the audience infers when reading it. Instead of discussing the author's intended meaning, we may talk about the implied authorial views that emerge in a text. New Criticism school dismisses any pondering on authorial intention as illusory and futile, and insist on interpreting the texts paying exclusive attention to internal evidence, without regard to any extrinsic factors, including biographical consideration. They are inclined to read literary texts as independent works of art rather than as the reflection of their author's state of mind. Author-oriented critics establish a direct link between the literary text and the biography of the writer. The literary production of a romantic poet can be conveniently be analyzed from this critical stance, since romanticism placed authors at the centre of their writing and emphasized that they found the material for their works within themselves. Consider the concept of persona, which in literary criticism refers to a speaker that is created by a writer to tell a story or to speak in a poem. You should not assume that a poem's speaker is always like its author, but you should not dismiss the possibility that poets may choose to model their speakers on their own personal experience. When the author added lines 6-14 to "SOM", he attached to its first section an autobiographical character that did not exist in the original version of 1855 (e.g. he mentions his age and speaks as an American born of American parents).

Whitman invariably characterized himself as someone sincere and straightforward when addressing his readers. What is the stated purpose of the first section of "Song of Myself"? Is it plausible that the thoughts and feelings expressed by the first-person speaker in this section coincide with Whitman's?

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Several Works:

“This is my letter to the world” “Safe in their Alabaster chambers” “I taste acdliquor never browed” “I felt a Funeral in my Brain” “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died” “My Life had stood – a loaded Gun” st

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-Compared w/ W.W. 1 rank of 19 century poets. Original and innovative style anticipated the modernist movement. 1 -Refused to become a Christian. Listened to sermons and studied the Bible but felt spiritual apathy. -Poems short and compact. Extraordinary sharpness. -Compressed language response to the Civil War period and the Golden Age that followed. Themes: Nature, death, immortality. In her poems: Alliteration, assonance and consonance, simile, metaphor and analogy. -Multifaceted sensibility. Beautifully suggestive Language. -Parataxis: Placing related phrases in a series w/o the use of connecting words. -Capitalization: 18th century. Common to use capital letters for the initials of nouns. She capitalized various words. -Elliptical style: It leaves room for endless speculation about meanings and intentions. 2

-Presented as introduction to all of her work. -Traditional hymn meter. Quatrains of alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimester lines. Stanzas in 4 lines in alternate lines of 8 syllables (4 metrical feet) and 6 syllables (3 metrical feet). Occasionally she changed the meter. -Symbolism: Letter->Her own isolation to the world. -Personification: Nature told with tender majesty. Her message is commited to hands I cannot see. -Emily is trying to say she is secluded and the world doesn’t reach out to her. She doesn’t want to be judged harshly for separating herself from the world, she just wants to belong. 5

-Death of consciousness dashes.

-One of her most discussed poems. -Feminist interpretations. Female creation is perceived as a form of aggression. -Gun: Symbolizes the power and violence -Lines 1,6,17,23: The gun becomes and extended metaphor throughout the poem as it becomes representative of the speaker’s power. -Themes: violence, power, gender, morality. -Extended metaphor. The speaker is closely connected to the gun and it 7 eventually becomes the loaded gun.

UNIT 20 EMILY DICKINSON "This is my letter to the world" - "Safe in their Alabaster Chamber" "I taste a liquor never brewed" - "I felt a Funeral in my Brain" "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" - "My Life has stood -a Loaded Gun"

From A Study Guide: together with Whitman, Dickinson is placed in the first rank of 19th c radically experimental poets; she led a creative life in virtual isolation voiced her thoughts in a corpus of 1789 poems; applying close analysis you can study her formal features, such as the poem's idiosyncratic spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and lineation, to discover hidden meanings bearing in mind that her complex texts defy authoritative interpretation since the writer never asserted her authority as a poet and even questioned authority itself; explore Dickinson's indirection and linguistic economy, paying attention to the conciseness and sharpness of her elliptical style, in contrast with the wordiness or verbosity of her contemporaries; her originality stemmed from her visual power and technical skill in expressing her multifaceted sensibility in a beautifully suggestive language that allowed her to present her main themes fusing experience and feeling: concerning nature, death and immortality, pain and suffering.

The admiration she inspires continues to grow in proportion to the gradual disclosure of her genuine talent. Before her death only ten of her poems had been printed, but at present the Dickinson corpus numbers 1.789 poems, although early editions were made to conform to the conventional standards of her contemporaries. She is often compared with Walt Whitman and placed of 19th c radically experimental poets whose original and innovative style anticipated the modernist movement. Life: Dickinson continued to listen to sermons and studied the Bible, but felt a spiritual apathy that prevented her from experiencing conversion. She never married and tried to avoid domestic duties in order to devote all her energy to reading and writing. It has been argued that she suffered a depression with a serious psychotic breakdown. Her brother married Susan Gilbert, her best friend. Work: Dickinson ceased to visit other people's houses and correspondence remained her preferred means of communicating with her friends, addressing Susan primarily. The Unitarian minister Thomas Wentworth published in the newspaper an editorial entitled "Letter to a Young Contributor", offering advice and encouraging unknown poets to send him their work. Dickinson wrote to him enclosing four of her poems and although he received the impression of a wholly new and original genius and acknowledged her talent, he was disturbed by her metrical unconventionalities. Her letters are her only prose available to the public from which many of them can be read as poems, just as many of her poems can be read as letters, for she challenged traditional notions of boundaries between genres since in some of her letters she even switched from prose to verse in the middle of a sentence. Her poetry makes her enigmatic figure still more complex because she constantly manipulated her appearance

and position through frequent metamorphoses: "When I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse -it does not mean -me -but a supposed person, in fact anyone and anything. " It is interesting the reason that caused most of her poetry to remain "unprinted", more accurately "unpublished", for she chose a method of publishing which consisted in circulating her manuscripts among her trusted friends. Because the conventions of print violated the characteristics of her poetry (the ten poems printed in her lifetime had been altered and given titles without her consent) she valued her autonomy and was reluctant to have her work edited. In 1863 she wrote more than three hundred poems. She copied selections of her poems in ink onto sheets of letter paper that she bound with string, but did not sign or put her name on these hand-sewn albums which would come to be known as "fascicles", nor did she label, number, or given them any titles. After her death, her sister Lavinia discovered about 900 poems in manuscript and wanted to publish them. She first asked Susan, who began work, but unsatisfied with the progress she asked them back and gave them to Mabel Todd, a writer and lecturer who had been Austin's (Susan's husband) mistress for thirteen years. Working with Higginson, Todd produced a collection of 166 poems and together they tried to render them more palatable to 19th c taste by adding titles, dropping capitalization, regularizing spelling, erasing dashes, reforming syntax and changing line and stanza divisions. They selected 192 for a second volume entitled Poems by Emily Dickinson, Second Series. Todd had the sole editorial responsibility for a third collection of 166 new poems. After Lavinias's death, Dickinson niece (Susan's daughter) inherited the collection of manuscripts that had remained in the Dickinson family and published them in volumes that came out in 1914, 29, 30, and 1935. Not until 1955 did the accurate collection of Dickinson's poems appear. Johnson tried to reconstruct the fascicles that had been dismantled, dated the poems and numbered them, leaving them untitled, as the author had left them. Both Johnson's numbers and the first line of each poem have been for years the accepted way of identifying the poems. Johnson's numbers, however, may become obsolete after Ralph W. Franklin's three-volume variorum edition, because their numbers do not coincide. Franklin also brought out a facsimile edition where to observe peculiarities of lineation, punctuation, and calligraphy. Her first editors wanted her poems to be accepted by their contemporaries for which they felt the need to make them conform to the 19th century standards of verse decorum and tended to delete the author's radical experimentation. Recent editors are concerned with rendering her manuscript poems as faithfully as possible into print. All her work defies authoritative interpretation, since she questioned authority itself. Trapped between doubt and certainty, she was willing to admit that there are not final answers to the great traditional questions. Instead of favouring straightforwardness, she preferred indirection. Conveying meaning in an oblique or indirect manner invariably leads to creating a multiplicity of suggestions that are perceived by readers in various, and sometimes conflicting ways. Much had been written about her scepticism regarding her treatment of crucial themes, such as religion. May of her poems indicate that she was deeply concerned with divinity and often explored notions of God.

Dickinson's poems are short and compact in accordance with the brevity and conciseness of her style, characterized by an extraordinary sharpness. Her compressed language had been seen as a response to the pompous verbiage of the Civil War period and the Gilded Age that followed. Her passion for economy in language gives all her utterances an epigrammatic character. Her aphoristic verses are the root of her elliptical style, which often results in obscurity. Readers feel as if they were undertaking an experiment intended to discover hidden meanings. Neither were her main themes new (nature, death and immortality), nor were the formal features unusual (alliteration, assonance and consonance, simile, metaphor and analogy). Her originality stemmed from her power and skill in expressing her multifaceted sensibility in beautifully suggestive language, presenting themes in the full context of intellect and feeling, fusing them together. "This is my letter to the World" In the first volume of her Poems, the editors printed a regularized version of this little piece and turned it into a sort of prelude. It is a humble appeal of the speaker, who sends to the World her letter-poem containing a message that comes from Nature. Concerning form, this poem clearly exemplifies how Dickinson adapted to her purpose the Congregational hymns she often sang. She used the traditional hymn metre, which consisted in quatrains of alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimester lines, stanzas of four lines in alternate lines of eight syllables and six syllables, but she interrupted this regularity in the meter (line 5 has only seven syllables) and rhyme (lines 5 and 7). Self evaluation: The poem subtly refers to Nature as a source of poetic inspiration. It can be interpreted as a message addressed to readers whom the poet fears might be inclined to judge her harshly. It suggests that the poet is a sort of messenger merely conveying the news originating in Nature. The poetess states that her communication was one-sided affair as hitherto the world did not 'write' to 'Me' the simple News that Nature told. As the world fails to comprehend and communicate the principles of Nature she endeavours to do the same. She intercedes on behalf of God who the 'Me' emblematizes. Her message is dedicated to "Hands I cannot see", which points to God with the capitalization of 'Hands', as a metonymy since the part refers to the whole. The 'letter' in the first stanza appears to symbolize the entire collection of Dickinson's poetry. The 'simple news that nature told' refers to what her letter contains; it emphasizes the messages of new information in her surroundings that she desperately hopes to share with the world, so the 'tender Majesty' symbolizes her desperation. Nature continues to give her inspirational wisdom to write about in 'her message is committed' in the second stanza. In addition, 'hands that cannot see' symbolizes the world that never replied or showed itself to Dickinson. The final two lines explain why the world never reaches out to her, it is because what Dickinson included in her poems are causing the editors to show disapproval; they object to Dickinson's poems and are afraid that everyone else will judge her.

This is a narrative poem that stresses the fact that the poet is the actual speaker in the poem. The rhyme scheme is ABABCBDB, in pentameters, which first take off with a trochee and then eventually transforms into regular iambs. Throughout the poem, a figurative language is found by means of the personification: 'the simple news that Nature told'. Also, the apostrophe because Dickinson is not exactly addressing herself to every single person in the world, and the world is absent in action because it never gave her any feedback. "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers" The first version was published in the Springfield Daily Republican, with the title "The Sleeping" added. The punctuation was altered, the capital letters eliminated, and the poet's division into lines was also changed. Todd and Higginson published it as a threestanza poem, arranging its lines in three quatrains. They combined the first stanza with the two versions of the second one. Johnson treated it as a two-stanza poem in two versions. The context is the epistolary exchange between the writer and Susan, who praised the first stanza and criticized the second. The most important remodelling took place when the author replaced the first word of the fourth line in the first stanza, "Sleep" by "Lie", transferring the focus from the notion of slumber into that of stasis (inmobilidad). The earlier version focuses on the marked contrast between the somnolence of the dead and the vitality of the birds and bees. The later version emphasizes how the universe remains in never ending motion while the dead are motionless in their graves. The opening unvoiced "S" sound is the key note of the first stanza, the "S" of silence, that strikes again in "Sleep", "Satin" and "Stone". The various levels of imagery are among the most interesting features of this open-ended poem, which has been interpreted in opposite ways: the expression of the author's belief in Resurrection; or the transgression of conventional piety giving no consolation or hope because its conclusion implies that it is the physical world rather than its spiritual counterpart that continues to exist. Self-evaluation: The poem indicates that life continues while the dead remain in a perpetual slumber. It is framed as a series of iconic contrasts that operate within the poem. It uses the clichés of death-as-night and death-as-sleep to subvert conventional beliefs about death and immortality. Apathy of the living world to the dead bringing forth the understanding that: no matter how grand and mighty you are in life, in death you are nothing. The living world does not care and your death is trivial as "soundless dots on a disk of snow". Gradually the narrator reflects on the nature of death, the eternal rest, safe from sorrows, joys and terrors of the living world. There is no regard for time or living. This poem is ironic because of the safety of being dead is not what we would want to be. 'Alabaster' means expensive and beautiful, but also cold and unfeeling. 'Chambers' begins the metaphor of the tomb being a home and the dead being asleep. If the sleepers are 'members of the resurrection' why are they still sleeping and buried in the ground? The term 'resurrection' and 'meek' call up the promises of Christ that the meek would inherit the earth and enter into the kingdom of heaven.

The second stanza describes the indifference of nature to the dead, the rebirth of spring contrasts with the isolated dead, which does not hear the joyful sounds of nature, for their ears are 'stolid' (unemotional). The gifts and accomplishments of the dead are buried too, making them useless. "I taste a liquor never brewed" For quite a long time readers interpreted it as an innocent nature poem about the intoxication that the author experiences when she is overwhelmed by the beauty of the spring scenery. The air is compared to liquor, and the speaker -like a bird drinking nectar -surpasses butterflies and bees in her capacity to luxuriate in sensuous pleasure. Nature as a source of delight is a theme of Dickinson, but what is unique here is the subversive aspect that is revealed when its last stanza is compared with the lines that inspired it. The literary sources are found in Keats and Thoreau, though the most obvious can be traced to Emerson and his poem "Bacchus" and his essay "The Poet". Dickinson seems to evoke some kind of transcendental experience similar to the ones described by Emerson, but what is original in Dickinson is how wittily she plays with the language of alcohol and inebriation to create an extended metaphor suffused with humour. It is written in quatrains, alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter, with rhymes of various styles between the second and fourth line of each stanza. Two of them end with exclamation marks, which are uncommon in Dickinson's poetry and here aptly emphasize the celebratory tone that pervades the whole poem. Extra: Dickinson whimsically describes the exhilarating effect of nature. She uses the metaphor of drunkenness or intoxication to express how the beauty of nature elates (alegrar) her. Intoxication is a common metaphor: drunk on power. "I felt a Funeral in my Brain" It was published in Poems without the last stanza, through the removal of the terrifying stanza not only becomes less frightening, but the poem may be interpreted as a discourse on death rather than as the description of a psychic breakdown. Todd deleted stanzas illustrating the theme of the descent into madness because she feared they would upset readers, and for an additional reason: she had grouped Dickinson's poems in four categories (Life, love, Nature, and Time and Eternity) and by omitting the last stanza she could easily fit the altered version within the last category. The poem is not about actual death in a biological sense, but about the death of consciousness, which is linked to the experience of depression. The semantic oddness of the first line makes it clear that the poet is working on a figurative level, because nobody can literally "feel" a funeral in the brain. It is the feeling of a funeral that occurs in the speaker's brain while experiencing a disturbed mental state. The articulated ceremony of the funeral serves both to exteriorize and to give structure to a process that is internal and chaotic. The mourners tread to and fro, a church service is conducted, the pallbearers (portador) carry the casket to the graveyard and place it on a plank laid across the grave while, in the belfry (campanario), the bell tolls its monotonous knell (toque de difuntos). In the fifth stanza, the plank (table) suddenly breaks and the coffin, instead of being lowered on ropes into the ground, drops down bumping against the sides of the deep grave until it comes to a halt in the darkness at the bottom.

The extended metaphor of the funeral illustrates a mental process that is characterized by monotony and repetitiveness, conveyed by the sense of hearing: the steps, the drum, the bell. The spatial setting, suggested by the claustrophobic environment of the funeral, is also important. In this gloomy atmosphere, the mind becomes numb. The last line of the fourth stanza, "Wrecked, solitary, here" draws the readers' attention to a different setting: that of an alien land where a shipwrecked mariner endures a solitude compared to that of the corpse in the coffin. Instead of expanding on this new metaphor, the poet returns to the funeral and introduces the final element of surprise. When "a Plank in Reason" breaks, the speaker plunges into an abyss of unknowing, swept up in a vacuum of chaos. Dickinson's use of one's funeral subverts this convention in an original manner and with dramatically effective results. We hear her mature voice as she records in the past tense a sequence of mental events that may reflect a former personal crisis. Her detached tone and the absence of emotive comment in her recollection render the poem exceptionally poignant (conmovedor, emotivo). Self-evaluation: The last stanza has all of the following effects upon the poem: terrifying, clearly associated with a disturbed mental state, clearly related to the confrontation with existential dread. The poem evokes all the terror of the isolated individual. It charts (trazar) the stages in the speaker's loss of consciousness. It establishes and orderly progression of thoughts through a recognizable sequence of events. "I heard a Fly buzz -when I died" Posthumously published under the title of "Dying", it focuses on the experience of death by capturing the last thoughts of the speaker, surrounded by mourners, but much more attentive to the presence of a buzzing fly that blocks out the light. The originality here stems from treating in terms of a grotesque partnership with the fly what is conventionally considered as an absolutely private and serious event. The imagery emphasizes the connection of the senses of hearing and sight by linking sound and colour. The final ebb (reflujo, marea) of consciousness is depicted as a loss of sight, which marks the ending of the poem. It concludes when vision fails, the unequivocal sign that the speaker has just died. As it is written in the past tense, it is assumed that the speaker is addressing readers not during the process of dying, but after death. Sources: the imagery involving dimming light and the buzzing fly has been traced to Elizabeth Browning's Aurora Leigh; also from Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables. Self-evaluation: The insect breaks the silence with an intrusive sound; it moves constantly, in contrast with the stillness of death; it indicates that natural life goes one, unconcerned by the death of one individual. The poet expresses deep feelings with perfect control; links the senses of sight and hearing; emphasizes the contrast between stasis and motion. Dickinson's formal patterns: trimeter and tetrameter iambic lines; rhythmic insertion of the long dash to interrupt the meter; an ABCB rhyme scheme. All the rhymes before the final stanza are half-rhymes (Room/Storm, firm/Room, be/Fly), while only the rhyme in the final stanza is a perfect rhyme (me/see). She uses this technique to build tension, since a sense of true completion comes only with the speaker's death.

"My Life has stood - a Loaded Gun" It exemplifies her technique of the "omitted center", a device by which the author alludes to what seems specific, but in fact does not identify the people involved or locate the events evoked. Instead, she omits information that is crucial to the understanding of the poem, which may either cause frustration or be taken as deliberate signs to indicate the gaps that poetry is purported to illustrate. Adrenne Rich: "it is a poem about possession by the daemon, about the dangers and risks of such possession if you are a woman, about the knowledge that power in a woman can seem destructive, and that you cannot live without the daemon once it has possessed you". She considered this a "central poem in understanding the condition of the woman artist in the 19th c". Feminist interpretations basically emphasize how female creation is perceived as a form of aggression. The speaker sees herself as a loaded gun, a lethal weapon, which is understood as the poet's rejection of conventional femininity because she would be presenting herself as everything that a woman is not supposed to be. The volcanic image of line 11 is interesting because feminist associate it with the female writer, which shows that linguistic expression erupts out of silence, disrupting the social structures of the male organization. Dickinson would have characterized the Vesuvian power of her art by comparing her smile to the aftermath of a volcanic eruption. The poetic image of the volcano in several of her poems becomes a violent and extremely destructive force that burns and consumes. Freudian analyses of the poem point to hypothetical aggressions and frustrations, being a great deal of violence in it. The Owner or Master in feminist readings could be a male muse or an image symbolic of certain aspects of the poet's own personality, the masculine aspect of her psyche. There are also association with God or some kind of divine power. The gun stands for the female artist in feminist approaches. The final stanza has been analyzed to discover an answer to the riddle but there is no absolute certainty. One of the most exciting interpretations is the one that identifies the speaker with Death, that has "the power to kill" but not "the power to die", because it is lethal, but is condemned to immortality. Self-evaluation: It is written in quatrains; combines past and present actions; involves an enigmatic speaker. Exploratory Questions - Scan the poems to find examples of exact (or perfect) and slant (or partial) rhyme: In perfect or exact rhyme the vowel sounds are the same, and it occurs when two words have the same stressed vowels and ending consonants. In slant or partial rhyme, the vowel sounds are close but not identical, two words have either the same stressed vowels or ending consonants, but not both, which makes the ending sounds of the two words alike but not identical. We can find rhyme in: - "This is my letter to the World": in stanza 1 (world/told) and stanza 2 (see/me), exact rhyme.

- "Safe in their Alabaster Chamber": in stanza 1 slant rhyme in noon/stone; in stanza 2 exact rhyme in ear/hear. In version 1861 we find exact rhyme in stanza 2 row/snow. - "I taste a liquor never brewed": in stanza 3 we find exact rhyme door/more; in stanza 4 exact rhyme run/sun; in stanza 2 slant rhyme dew/blue. - "I felt a Funeral in my Brain": in stanza 2 we find exact rhyme drumb/numb; in stanza 3 we find exact rhyme soul/toll; in stanza 1 we find slant rhyme fro/through, remarking the contrast between an inwards and outwards world. - "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died": in the last stanza we find exact rhyme in me/see. In previous stanzas we find slant rhyme in room/storm; firm/room; be/fly, with the purpose of creating tension between the senses of sight and sound. - "My Life had stood - a loaded Gun": in stanza 1 we find exact rhyme in day/away, also in the last stanza I/die; we find slant rhyme in other stanzas head/shared; glow/through. - Dickinson uses certain words related to feelings and sensation because of their associated meanings. She does not need to make use of abstract words to make her a metaphysical poet, specially related to Nature, Death, Immortality or Love. They are just a lexical and metaphorical excuse to allude to other deeper feelings and sensations. - Compare 1859 and 1861 versions of "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers": The author replaced the word "Sleep" by "Lie", thus transferring the focus from the notion of slumber into that of stasis. "Chambers" begins the metaphor of the tomb being a home and the dead being asleep. That substitution was consistent with the contents of each of the two versions, the earlier version focuses on the marked contrast between the somnolence of the dead and the vitality of the birds and bees; the later version emphasizes how the universe remains in never ending motion while the dead are motionless in their graves. - Transcendentalism had a profound impact upon Dickinson, and Emerson's Poems became one of her favourite books. Nature is given metaphysical implications partly due to his influence. To what extent can Emerson be a source of inspiration for "I taste a liquor never brewed"?: This poem has been compared to Emerson's "Bacchus" and some critics have suggested that Dickinson is parodying Emerson's poem. Both poems are quite different in tone, Emerson's communicates an intense pathos much more reminiscent of Dickinson in the poems which deal with her dark contemplations of the mysteries of the cosmic process. - Except for "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers", which emphasizes simultaneity, each of Dickinson's poems presents a chronological sequence. Explain the structure in terms of time: In I Felt a Funeral in my Brain the events are related in the past tense, to offer an explanation of what has happened to the speaker. A nostalgic retrospective represented without a feeling of terror, but with a sense of resignation for her loss, whether her life or her mind. The structure in which the events are portrayed has a beginning: the arrival of the mourners; a middle: they are seated for the funeral service and the ringing of bells; and an end: the burial at the cemetery. This shows a metaphorical relation creating the idea of a progressive loss of her mind just as natural as she views the progression of life into death.

- Dickinson's use of imagery gives expression to main themes. She uses olfactory, tactile, visual, auditory and thermal images, which include patterns of light/dark, bee/flower, mind/body, life/death, all related to her main themes as life, death, immortality and love. In "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers", the imagery is used to describe the tensions between mortality and immortality, the temporality and triviality of human life. In "I taste a liquor never brewed", Dickinson describes an intoxicated unity of self and nature. This poem describes not a scene but a state of mind. The tankards may be places for real alcohol, or they may be her drinking vessel, in which pearl would refer to the preciousness or rarity of the experience. The liquor never brewed must be a spiritual and not a physical substance. She is drunk on the essence of summer days. The formal diction of "inebriate" and "debauchee" spiritualizes the intoxication. She creates a scene of endless summer with the image of "Molten blue" (a fluid sky along with a feeling of dissolving into this shy) and the relatively simple images of bees, flowers, and butterflies being sufficient. In "I felt a Funeral in my Brain", we find a clearly auditory image, used to create a rhythm through repetition, the feeling of a march. The use of sound of the "Bell" is auditory imagery, reminiscent of the sadness when the "bell tolls" signalling the end of a funeral, or of life. In "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died", the significance of the buzzing fly in relation to the dying person, and the double use of "see" in the last line. In quiet and inner calm the dying person proceeds to bequeath his or her worldly possessions and finds his attention withdrawn by a fly's buzzing. It is the culmination of the dying person's preoccupation with cherished material thinsg no longer of use to the departing owner. In the face of death one's concern with earthly belongings is a triviality. -Dickinson's style creates an illusion of simplicity while conveying complex meaning. The meter of "I felt a Funeral..." is the classic ballad meter of Dickinson which gives a somber tone, similar to that of a funeral dirge (música fúnebre). The ABDB rhyme scheme carries us through the poem until the use of slant rhyme wakes us up in the last stanza, which causes us to notice that something of great importance has happened. The rhyme is defiantly used to set a tone for the poem and generate a certain feeling, putting us right there at the funeral. By using slant rhyme instead of exact rhyme for the final paragraph she juxtaposes the ordinary cadence of the poem and startles us to make us understand that something extraordinary has happened. -The main purpose of a narrative poem is to tell a story, whereas that of a lyric poem is to express feelings. Analyse "My Life has stood - a Loaded Gun. Joyous in tone until its almost tragic last stanza, this poem presents an allegory about the pursuit of personal identity and fulfilment through love. It is possible that the joy of the poem conceals a satire directed back against the speaker which may be the chief clue to the meaning of the last stanza. The life of a person as a loaded gun probably stands for all of her potential as a person "but the power to kill" undercuts the earlier celebration of her power. The power to kill does not give identity and its satisfactions are misleading. The last line presents an absolute paradox. The speaker-gun's inability to die will make the owner-lover outlive her. The paradox can be resolved by assuming that "die" may have

a special meaning and possibly means to realize some kind of consummation or identity, the creative and even the sexual. The poem has been interpreted as a comment on the speaker's relationship with God or on her activity as a poet. -Discuss Dickinson's treatment of pain and suffering: Her poems often express joy about art, imagination, nature and human relationships, but her poetic world is also permeated with suffering and the struggle to evade, face, overcome and wrest (arrebatar, exprimir) meaning from it. Suffering is involved in the creative process, it is central to unfulfilled love, and it is part of her ambivalent response to the mysteries of time and nature. -Dickinson employed capital letters to construct patterns of emphasis. The capital letters emphasize significant elements of her poetry. She used irregular capitalization to emphasize certain words; i.e. in "This is My Letter to the World", she capitalized the words Wold, Me, News, Nature, Majesty, Message, Hands, Her and Sweet, because those things were important to her. In "I Felt a Funeral...", Funeral and Brain were capitalized alerting us to the thought that both the funeral and her brain are equally important, and tied to each other. Mourners are awarded equal importance since they contributed to the "death" of her brain in their unrelenting assault on her through the use of repetition. -Kamila Denman has argued that "Dickinson's punctuation is an integral part of her exploration of language, used deliberately to disrupt conventional grammatical patterns and create new relationships between words; and to affirm the silent and the nonverbal, the spaces between words that lend resonance and emphasis to poetry". Dickinson uses the dash to fragment language and to cause unrelated words to rush together. She draws lines through the linguistic conventions of her society. Through her unconventional use of punctuation and the dash, Dickinson creates a poetry whose interpretation becomes a process of decoding the way each fragment signals mean. Her excessive use of dashes has been interpreted variously as the result of great stress and intense emotion, as the indication of a mental breakdown, and as a mere female habit. Extra about the dash: She uses the dash to indicate interruption or abrupt shift in thought; as a parenthetical device for emphasis; as a substitute for the colon since dashes indicate incompletion and uncertainty; the dash both joins sentences so that they have a boundary and resists that joining: it connects and separates; its traditional use is informal. -Dickinson's elliptical style leaves room for speculation and ambiguities; find any particular challenging one: She will say no more than she must, suggesting either a quality or uncertainty or one of finality. -What are the main formal differences between Dickinson's and Whitman's poetry? Whitman is a good example of also death-haunted as much as Dickinson.

Mark Twain

“The Adventures or Huckleberry Finn” [1884] Breakdown

(1835-1910)

1

1st person -> 13 year old unreliable narrator. Provides humor. Innocent eye perspective. Everything is filtered through him. He is naïve and ignorant. -From the very beginning a comic tone is set. There is seriousness below the surface. There is also irony. -When Huck expresses himself as a narrator he uses American English. When he quotes his own direct speech he uses his vernacular language. Ordinary “Pike County”. -Jim uses another dialect. Missouri Negro. -He wrote it as is would be spoken. Twain read it aloud to see if it was accurate. Huck is the illiterate son of the town drunkard. -Breaks grammar rules: *Wrong subjects verbs agreement *Double negatives *Analogous use of irregular past tenses *Ain’t/Waren’t. *Sivilize/civilize

-Lots of talk of death. Many references to death.

2

-Religion: We can see cynicism and mockery. Huck’s encounters with Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas, Twain satirizes the religion sensibility of the day. *Huck finds the widow’s story of Moses boring and unrelated to everyday life. *Twain satirizes the pious Christians who professed kindness and civility but bought and sold slaves. *Huck bases his decisions on his experiences, his own sense of logic. He doesn’t worry about going to hell. *Twain criticizes the overly emotional people of the revival meetings and the hypocrisy of the Christian believers.

-Superstition and folktales. *Jim initially appears foolish to believe so unwaveringly in these kinds of signs and omens, it turns out, curiously, that many of his beliefs do indeed have some basis in reality or presage events to come. -> Huck at first dismisses most of Jim’s superstitions as silly but later he comes to appreciate Jim’s deep knowledge of the world. -> Huck killing a spider which is bad luck (countered this by turning in his tracks three times) then tied a lock of his hair with a thread to keep the witches away. -> Rattlesnake skin Huck touches that brings Huck and Jim good and bad luck. -> Jim tries to interpret the dream that Huck says he had. (It wasn’t a dream, it was real)

-The River *The journey down the river will be an escape from the hypocrisy of society’s corrupt institutions and a search for freedom from that society for both, Huck and Jim. 3

-Humor and Irony

4

*Irony when Huck talks about Tom’s band of robbers and says something about being respectable. *Widow Douglass tells Huck Finn not to smoke when she took snuff too, which is similar or even worse. *Hyperbole *Humor -> Huck pretends that everything that happened during the night of the fog had been just a dream. Jim was confused. At first believed him and tried to interpret the dream. *Picaresque -> Is a type of novel that deals with the adventures of a rascal (Huck Finn in this case) It is a term commonly used to describe this book. -It involves the combination of various elements. -The hero of the book (known as the Picaro) is a realist and someone who adapts easily to new situations. -Other characters often represent a combination of wildness and civility. -River, nature, storm, animals (pigs and dogs mostly) -Huck comes from a non perfect family. (Father a drunk).

UNIT 21 MARK TWAIN (SAMUEL L. CLEMENS) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

From A Study Guide: American literary realism on Twain's work, who aimed at accurately portraying the daily life of common people contributing to the creation of a new national literature of democracy founded on stylistic innovation rather than on the authority of British tradition; Twain made oral usage the basis of linguistic acceptability rendering successfully authentic regional accents, paving the way for the acceptance of vernacular speech; Twain used satire and resorted to wide-ranging humor not merely to amuse, but to expose the flaws of a decadent "civilization" and correct the vices of American society; the two novels wittily satirized the current "model boy" genre; AHF provoked controversy by Twain's treatment of morality, language, race relations and the institution of slavery and also adverse criticism for the way the novel ends; AHF shows a caustic indictment of Southern society, a remarkably well-drawn characterization, an accurate representation of spoken language, an archetypal quest for freedom, and the symbolic role of the Mississippi river. Samuel L. Clemens is best known under the pseudonym of Mark Twain, the pen-name associated with his steamboat years on the Mississippi. His reputation is linked to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He was a master of satire: the art of exposing folly or wickedness by mocking them. He resorted to humour in the name of important values and values for crucial purposes, in order to correct, censure and ridicule the vices of society by making them the target of derision. Mark Twain, as an exponent of American literary realism, aimed at accurately portraying the daily life of common people. One of his main concerns was to record precisely the way he heard ordinary people by working carefully on the transcription of different forms of vernacular expression, thus he avoided the bookish effects that often marred (arruinar) previous attempts to transpose local idiom into literature. He did not simply use slang and dialect words, but strove to reproduce in print the sounds as they were pronounced in order to suggest authentic regional accents. His desire to create a distinct American language based on the colloquial patterns of uneducated people should be analyzed in the context of 19th century American democracy and the struggle for cultural independence. By making oral usage the basis of linguistic acceptability rather than giving an overall supremacy to the conventional English rules of grammar, Mark Twain was questioning the authority of British tradition and transferring its power to a new generation of American citizens, which paved the way for the acceptance of vernacular speech in modern American literature. Life: Clemens-Twain grew up in Hannibal (Missouri) where Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn had their homes. He was apprenticed to a local printer and employed as a typesetter and editorial assistant at various journals. He began his literary career by writing homourous sketches for newspapers in the so-called "frontier humour" which arose from the harsh conditions of frontier life, political controversy and oral story telling (tall tales). In contrast to the sophisticated "urban humour", the subversive "frontier humour" relied heavily on roughness, violence, exaggeration, distorted perceptions, the grotesque and the absurd. Mark Twain's fusion of Southwestern frontier

humour with Northeastern urban humour would contribute to the development of a genuine American humour. At his 24 he became a licensed steamboat pilot. Work: Writing for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise he finally adopted the pseudonym of "Mark Twain", a steamboat call which means "two fathoms deep" or "safe water". In California he listened to tall stories told by prospectors and used them in the plot of the short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". He began a new career as a humourous lecturer. The first long works were travel books in which he poked fun at conventional travelogues. His second book, Innocents Abroad, was very popular because the satire of his loose narrative was directed not only at a pretentious and decadent Europe but also at the "innocent" American veneration of the Old World. Roughing It is a comic account of the author's somewhat fictionalized experiences as a miner and journalist. A Tramp Abroad is about a tour he took though Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and was his most innovative and least successful travel book. Mark Twain's first novel, The Gilded Age was written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner. It was an extended satire of the corrupt materialism that characterized commercial and political life at the expense of public welfare in the post-Civil War period. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was rooted in the author's own childhood memories of frontier life in the river town of Hannibal. It was an environment very suitable for developing such a provocative specimen of the modern "bad boy" literature that clearly satirized the older "good boy" or "model boy" genre. Its popularity was even surpassed by its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and in between he published The Prince and the Pauper. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court emerged from his interest in British history and his desire to experiment with time travel and dream narratives, and is a combination of comic romance and political satire and an indictment of all kinds of human tyranny. The grief caused by the deaths of his son and two of his daughters made his pessimism and bitterness to surface in the gloomy satire and philosophical brooding that characterize the final twenty ears of his literary career. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Twain's most famous work has been very controversial and various schools across the USA have banned and restored it to their curricula. Early reviewers were concerned with the effect that its violent scene could have on young people while more recent commentators raise charge of racism. Objections have been raised to the narrator's historically accurate use of the word "nigger" but the author himself was careful to avoid that offensive term. Twain was against slavery and wanted to demonstrate the harm that the institution had caused to his country, but he did not overcome certain racial prejudices about non-white people. Therefore, he would be judged as racist if today's standards of political correctness were applied to a thorough analysis of all his writings. AHF expressed antislavery feelings but it is not an antislavery novel in the sense that Uncle Tom's Cabin because it was published after slavery had been abolished. He wrote it after the Civil War and Emancipation, a period failing to establish the necessary conditions so that former slaves would be truly free. The novelist relied on his memories of his boyhood in Hannibal, where most slaves were held as household

servants working under better conditions than the field labourers of the typical Southern plantations. The two main characters were drawn from real life: Huck is drawn from Tom Blackenship, an ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed but a good hearted boy; Jim was Uncle Dan'l, a middle-aged slave sensible, honest patient, the children's comrade in adventure, their adviser and ally in time of trouble". Out of the forty-three chapters, the first eleven deal with adventures on land, twenty chapters detail those that take place either on the raft that floats down the Mississippi River or on its banks. The river dominates the geography of the novel and provides a symbolic contrast with the land, where a decadent and perverted culture prevails. The stinging satire of shore life soon becomes an indictment of Southern society and of civilization in general. The dominant notions of morality are questioned and subverted in subtle ways so that the audience may come to sympathize with the author's ideological position. At the greatest moral climax, readers are made to feel that Huck is doing "right" when he decides to do "wrong" by not returning Jim to slavery. The last section has drawn adverse literary criticism, for the concluding episodes have often been deemed weak, and the end seems too elaborate for our contemporary taste, but the consensus is that this works is the archetypal American novel. Its vernacular language remains a crucial feature of its literary quality. When Mark Twain put into literary use the spoken language of the Southern lower and middle-class society, he devoted particular attention to the speech of illiterate children and slaves. Huck as a narrator uses the vocabulary and syntax of the uneducated son of the town drunkard, and employs colloquial phrases and slang or vulgar expression but also breaks grammatical rules. He makes errors of subject-verb agreement, uses double negatives, and gets the past forms of irregular verbs wrong, using also the non-standard "ain't" and "warn't" and misspelling some words ("sivilize"). It is the story of the life of an ignorant village boy, Huck Finn, son of the town drunkard, who runs away from his persecuting father, and from a persecuting widow who wishes to make a nice, respectable boy of him. He escapes with the widow's slave and found a fragment of raft with which they float down the river by night to Cairo as the destination, whence the negro will seek freedom but in a fog they pass the town without knowing it.

Exploratory Questions: - The Notice posted at the beginning of AHF is a typical example of the 19th c American tradition of the cynical anti-preface. It sets the tone for the novel through their mixing of humour and seriousness. In its declaration that anyone looking for motive, plot or moral will be prosecuted, banished or shot, the Notice establishes a sense of blustery comedy that pervades the rest of the novel. It also sets the stage for the themes that the novel explores later and alerts us that the lack of seriousness does in fact exist in the text. Twain's refusal to make any straightforward claims for the seriousness adds a note of irony and charm. It links the novel's sense of lighthearted fun with its deeper moral concern. It serves three purposes: it is a satiric jab (golpe) at the sentimental literary style in direct contrast to Twain's brand of literary realism; it also introduces the use of satire, a harsh and biting brand of

humour that readers will continue to see in the novel; and it is a convenient method by which to ward off (mantener a raya) literary critics who might be eager to dissect Twain's work. - How is the first-person narrator constructed in the first chapter of the novel? Huck's colloquial speech is very important, he directly addresses the readers in a friendly manner so as to engage their sympathies. Twain uses a typical innocent eye perspective that helps readers to see beyond the surface of reality. The effect is to emphasize the narrator's imperfect or naive perception in order to encourage a superior and more enlightened reader's awareness. Huck reports the events and ideas through his own eyes, and often his innocence and truthfulness contrast sharply with the Widow Douglas' sense of propriety. Huck uses the vocabulary and syntax of the uneducated son of the town drunkard, not simply colloquial phrases, slang or vulgar expression but also breaks grammatical rules: errors of subject-verb agreement; the use of double negatives; wrong past forms of irregular verbs; the use of non-standard "ain't", "warn't"; misspelling of certain words "sivilize". Its first-person narrator, a youthful voice that delivers a rather serious scrutiny of racism and slavery, defines the novel. Everything is filtered through Huck, since we have to rely on him to interpret the story. - Huck's preoccupation with death throughout the novel let some critics to consider "his yearning for death". There are many references to it: "I don't take no stock indeed people" when they talk about going to the good or the bad place, meaning going to heaven and hell; "I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead", when he talks about "the dog crying about somebody that was going to die"; "No, you feel like you are laying dead still on the water". - Mark Twain often satirized Christian customs and the hypocritical spiritual guidance of certain religious instructors. Huck not only poked fun at the Widow's saying grace before meals and mocked Miss Watson's conventional conceptions of heaven and hell, but also took the liberty of making iconoclastic allusions to biblical personages such as Moses. Remember Ishmael's mocking allusion to Adam and Eve as "the two orchard thieves" in Moby-Dick, you may compare Mark Twain and Herman Melville in this respect, taking into account that, although Melville could be irreverent sometimes, he was always far from being cheerful. Huck finds the Widow's story of Moses boring and unrelated to everyday life. Miss Watson's concept of the "good place", where one would go around playing a harp and singing all day does not appeal to him. Twain satirizes the pious Christian who professed kindness and civility, but who bought and sold slaves as property before the Civil War. By focusing on Huck's education, AHF fits into the tradition of the bildungsroman: a novel depicting an individual's maturation and development. Huck distrusts the morals and precepts of the society that treats him as an outcast and fails to protect him from abuse. This apprehension about society, and his growing relationship with Jim, lead Huck to question many of the teachings that he has received, especially regarding race. Huck choose to "go to hell" rather than go along with the rules and follow what he has been taught, basing decisions on his own sense of logic. Although sometimes considered a children's anecdote, AHF takes shots at Christianity that clearly illustrate

the author's viewpoint towards organized religion. Twain considers religion superstition, for he has more respect for superstition than for religion. Huck expects bad luck after accidentally killing a spider, and bad luck does follow in the form of Huck's father returning and Jim being bitten by a snake. - Huck plays with respect to these two women the role of an unruly boy who wants to remove himself from the "female" world of conformity and rejects the conventional standards of behaviour and values that both women represent, common in his time. - Superstition is a theme that permeates the novel, to what extent do superstitious beliefs and practices help to give a good insight into the character of Huck in the first chapter? Whereas Jim initially appears foolish to believe in these kinds of signs and omens, many of his beliefs do indeed have some basis in reality or presage events to come. Huck at first dismisses most of Jim's superstitions as silly, but ultimately he comes to appreciate Jim's deep knowledge of the world. Jim's superstition serves as an alternative to accepted social teachings and provides a reminder that mainstream conventions are not always right. -Jim's character is later developed more fully, what does Mark Twain intend this character to stand for? He is a complex character, at once a superstitious and ignorant minstrel show stereotype (white men wearing blackface and red painted lips) but also an intelligent human being who conveys more depth than the narrator is aware of. Some critics have seen a consistency of character in Jim throughout the book, as a slave who wears the mask of ignorance and docility as a defence against white oppression, occasionally giving Huck glimpses behind the mask. -Compare the features of Jim's speech to Huck's. Are there differences of Huck when he expresses himself as a narrator and when he quotes his own direct speech? As a narrator he uses the standard American English, while when he quotes his own direct speech he uses his vernacular language, which is the Ordinary "Pike County". Jim uses another kind of dialect, the Missouri Negro. -One of the major elements in the novel is the characterization of Huck. Twain's choice of a 13-y-o narrator supplies much of the humour in the novel. Huck reports the events and ideas through his own eyes. Miss Watson holds herself up to Huck as an epitome of a virtuous woman. He naively replies about the "good place" (heaven) "well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it". It is this kind of frankness that allows Twain to comment on the hypocrisy of society through the eyes of a young and innocent narrator. The theme of individual freedom is brought out in Huck's aversion to the Widow Douglas and her attempts to change him. The journey down the river will be an escape from the hypocrisy of society's corrupt institutions and a search for freedom. -Analyse the characterization of Jim in the light of your reading of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The three authors emphasize the humanity of the slaves, but the literary techniques by which they construct such characters differ considerably. (No contestada). - Leo Marx: "Huckleberry Finn is a masterpiece because it brings Western humour to perfection and yet it transcends the narrow limits of its conventions". Mark Twain's popularity has rested on his wide-ranging humour, whose cumulative impact is created

by various comic devices. Analyse the use of humour explaining the devices through which such comic effects are achieved (irony, paradox, hyperbole, slang expressions, and funny situations). Consider whether Twain's subversive humour raises any serious issues. Marx Twain was a master of satire. He did not poke fun at trivialities, but resorted to humour in the name of important values and for crucial purposes, in order to correct, censure and ridicule the vices of society by making them the target of derision. As an exponent of American literary realism, he aimed at accurately portray the daily life of common people, recording precisely the way he heard ordinary people talk. He strove to reproduce in print the sounds as they were pronounced. There is irony when Huck talks about Tom's band of robbers saying something about being respectable. The widow Douglas tells Huck not to smoke, when she took snuff too. An example of hyperbole could be when he says that the money they found was more than a body could tell what to do with. Also when he says that he was listening to his heart thump and he didn't breath while it thumped a hundred. A funny situation when everything that happened during the night of the fog had been just a dream. -Huckleberry Finn presents some typical features of the picaresque novel, genre originated in 16th c Spain. Analyse the character of Huck as a picaresque hero, bearing in mind that humour is a key element in picaresque novels. (This connects with Frederick Douglass). The hero of the book (known as the Picaro) is a realist and someone who adapts easily to new situations, with a combination of wildness and civility, and the setting often reveals humans and nature coexisting in harmony. There is a constant mention of animals throughout the book, mostly pigs and dogs, as an example of wildness and civility being intertwined. It is comfortable for Huck to be on the river, it is where he feels most like himself. He interacts with nature on a very intimate level. He is mesmerized by the storm. -Lionel Trilling observed: "Most of the freedom in the use of language has to do with the structure of the sentence, which is simple, direct and fluent, maintaining the rhythm of the word-groups of speech and the intonation of the speaking voice". The way a character speaks is closely tied to that character's status in society. Huck, who was born in poverty, speaks much rougher, more uneducated-sounding dialect than the speech Tom Sawyer uses. Jim's speech seems rough and uneducated, but it is frequently not all that different from Huck's speech or the speech of other white characters. Twain implies that it is society, wealth, and upbringing, rather than any sort of innate ignorance or roughness, that determines and individual's educational opportunities and manner of self-expression. From A Study Guide: Writing about characterization It involves focusing on the process through which the personalities of characters are delineated and disclosed to the reader. When we write about characterization, we must not only, indicate what characters are like, but also analyze the methods, techniques and devices employed by the author to bring them to life and convey them to us. Flat characters are built around a single trait or quality (e.g. the fool), whereas round characters possess a variety of complex traits, which may even be contradictory. Static characters do not change or evolve over the course of a narrative, whereas dynamic characters undergo some kind of transformation.

Studying characterization within realist fiction turns out to be particularly attractive, since the authors who followed the principles of this literary movement were very eager to show characters as if they were real people. In order to be convincing, those writers stove to avoid the kind of stereotyping which had been acceptable in the previous romantic period, and worked hard at displaying motivated and plausible action on the part of the characters they invented, giving credible reasons for their behavior, and making them talk with the naturalness of ordinary conversation. Twain, like many other realistic writers, was more interested in character than in plot. Critics agree on his achievement in some respects, but they also disagree about his accomplishment in certain cases as in the controversy over Jim's portrait which is illustrative because it has been alternatively praised and condemned. Indeed, some scholars contend that the characterization of the runaway slave challenges racist stereotypes, whereas others argue that it reinforces 19th c derogatory stereotypes of African Americans. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain launched the character of Huck in chapter 6, and this piece of information may be relevant in explaining how the narrator of AHF introduces himself in the first paragraph of chapter 1. There are various ways in which approaching characterization, you can make a chart with the names of the characters at the top and list under each name their main physical and psychological features, as long as you take your chart not as an end but as a means of developing the exercise. You should record that both Huck and Jim are superstitious, even though the word "superstitious" never appears in the text, because you will infer this essential quality of both characters from the episode of the spider (Huck) and from Jim's interpretation of his false dream. The commonest methods of fictional characterization correspond to the main narrative modes: description, report, speech, and comment. 1. Description. Characters are often revealed through the description of their physical traits, especially physiognomy, their attire, and surroundings. Some writers are particularly keen on calling attention to the body by providing rather lengthy descriptions, whereas others are able to evoke vivid pictures by providing a few details, just like painters do. Miss Watson is graphically described with remarkable verbal economy as "a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on". 2. Report. The concrete actions performed by characters help us draw inferences about their general behavior. For example, Miss Watson's efforts to teach Huck how to spell demonstrate her engagement with education and contribute to portraying her as a typical social reformer. 3. Speech. Characters may disclose a great deal of information about themselves both by the way they speak, and the contents of their conversation. It is important to examine how language creates differences. Characters may speak in a complicated or a straightforward way, repeat certain words and phrases, rely upon common sayings and proverbs, comment on themselves and state things about each other, and be laconic or loquacious. Miss Watson's insistence on teaching table manners to Huck constitutes clear proof that she is a strict woman, obsessed with etiquette.

4. Comment. Characterization can also be unfolded though the thoughts and evaluations expressed by both narrators and other characters. For instance, the narrator's observations about religion, which lead him to conclude that he sees "no advantage in going where she was going", let us assume that Miss Watson is a pious woman who feels certain about her spiritual salvation, but is utterly unable to attract Huck to the kind of heaven she preaches about. Some characters employ metaphors in distinctive ways displaying significant traits of their personalities. Writers may also resort to establishing metonymic connections: Miss Watson's metonymic identification with her goggles. Names can contribute to characterization in various ways, for they may have symbolic connotations, and they generally provide information about the character's status and their relationships with others. Because huckleberries are small, in the early 19th c the word came to stand for anything tiny, minor, or unimportant. The idiom "I'm your huckleberry" meant either "I'm the person you are looking for" or (when used in teasing self-deprecation) "I'm an inconsequential fellow". Projection characters are the ones upon whom writers consciously or unconsciously project aspects of themselves. The obsession with death which pervaded Mark Twain's career is directly projected onto his portrait of Huck. Characterization is particularly complex in the case of protagonists who are also firstperson narrators. Mark Twain chose an uneducated narrator, and used an innocent-eye perspective. Author's use of irony by means of an unreliable narrator can be recognized, as Miss Watson's saying a prayer before her meal is seen by Huck as "grumbling" (quejarse) over the food. Systematically casting certain groups of people in negative stereotypical roles amounts to derogatory characterization, which may lead to charges of sexism, racism, ageism, or other discriminatory practices. Jim's portrait is a case in point, even though the acknowledged prototype of this fictional character was a real person, Uncle Dan'l. Many readers have perceived Jim as one of the degraded minstrel caricatures that people Twain's works, which include other examples written in the long-standing tradition of American ethnic stereotyping. You may interpret the dialogue in lines 96-144 of chapter 15 in the same light, but be also aware of other views on this controversial matter, for it has been argued that the ending of the chapter subverts the original meaning of the minstrel show by displaying Jim's moral superiority, dignity and eloquence.

Henry James (1843-1916) cd

“Daisy Miller: A Study” [1878]

-One of America’s greatest novelist. Also a major British writer. -Wrote: Novels, plays, biographies, memoirs, travel sketches, essays and reviews. -Intricate style and elaborate syntax (long sentences). -Dense and subtle, various shades of meaning, precise choice of words and well proportioned architecture. -Wrote about upper class (mental state of cultivated people)

“Daisy Miller” *It made him very popular *Written about an anecdote told him by a friend. Heroine partially inspired by his cousin Minny Temple, who died at 24. *James called it a nouvelle. Modern critics call it novella. *Divided into 4 chapters of equal length -> Two set in Switzerland in the winter and two in the summer in Italy. *Daisy ignores class structure and conventional codes of behavior. Gives Winterbourne the impression she is a beautiful flirt. She dies after catching malaria from walking with Giovanelli in the Colisseum at night. -> In the end he assures Winterbourne that she was innocent.

Breakdown *3rd person/intrusive presence (giving opinions) very subjective. *We only know about Daisy what Winterbourne tells us. Her character remains ambiguous. *Ironical and sophisticated. *Limited omniscient narration, told through consciousness of a single character whose thoughts and feelings are known by the narrator. All other characters only known from the outside. *James was a master of form. Wanted perfection in his writing (same as was achieved in poetry all measured). *Lots of exact description. (Physically and more) *Daisy-> Fresh and young. (Like the flower) *Winterbourne -> Old-ish and cold. (Two serious for his age) *Eugenio de Manservant -> Name means well born/noble. Acts like he owns the world. *In general the characters are well spoken. (Exception of Randolph Miller who uses the expression “blazes” -> Shows him as the bumpkin that he is)

Theme *Unconventional behavior of non-conforming American (how Americans behave abroad)*Sophisticated European society VS unconventional American behavior. *Unlived lives. How lives would have been different under different circumstances. *Concerned with “international theme”, drew from his travel experiences.

UNIT 22 HENRY JAMES Daisy Miller From A Study Guide: Realism in American literature peaked in the 1880s in the works of Henry James, regarded as a one of the greatest novelists and critics, also a major British writer; he is a remarkably innovative master of form, famous for his dense, subtle and meticulously polished prose, and as the creator of an intricate style; his primary interest is in exploring his own inner life and the complexities of human perception, the psychological traits of individuals, the refinements of sensibility, and the mental states of cultivated people, bound by the codes of behavior of his wealthy circles; his cosmopolitan upbringing in an intellectual family and his long sojourn in Europe inspired his development of the "international theme" during his first phase of his literary career; Daisy Miller is a best-seller and an extremely controversial novella about the tragic encounter with Europe experienced by a prototypical, innocent and naive American girl. Born in NYC, he spent part of his life in his native land, and remained an American citizen until shortly before his death, becoming an Englishman in 1915, having spent most of his career in his beloved country of adoption. His work is ascribed to the history of American literature and of English literature because the content of the work itself and its influence upon the development of modern fiction on both sides of the Atlantic. The 26 volumes of the New York Edition of The Novels and Tales of Henry James attests the extraordinary production of this prolific man of letters who wrote also plays, biographies, memoires, travel sketches, essays and reviews. His intricate style has discouraged mass audiences because his dense and sometimes obscure prose, together with his elaborate syntax -marked by long sentences- requires close attention in order to grasp the various shades of meaning conveyed by his narrative. James applied to his prose the kind of concentration and scrupulousness that is commonly associated with the writing of verse, thus his extremely precise choice of words in his polished tales and novels contribute to the architecture in which all parts are well proportioned and balanced. His technical experiments in the practice of fiction are appreciated in conjunction with his essay "The Art of Fiction", which marked a turning point in the theory of the novel. He wrote almost exclusively about the individuals he observed at close hand in his own milieu for he was primarily interested in exploring the complexities of human perception, the refinements of sensibility, and the mental states of cultivated people, bound by strict codes of behavior. Life: His father was an eccentric philosopher, and his older brother was one of he most influential American philosopher of his time. Of the many journeys James undertook, the one of 1869-70 stands out as the most important because it was the first time he traveled as an independent adult, at his 26. His Grand tour was a 15-month sojourn in England, Switzerland and Italy. Work: The "international theme" would become one of the great subjects of Jamesian fiction. As he traveled, he drew on materials for creating his characters from the observation of upper-middle and upper class tourists and expatriates he encountered in

the refined atmosphere of luxurious hotels. He depicted the wealthy American families he came upon while they were touring in the Old World which undertook their traveling as if it were a painful duty, rather than an enjoyable activity. James did not remain at the superficial level presenting beautiful scenes, for the development of the international theme meant for him a detailed exploration of the basic oppositions he found between America and Europe. He examined the vicissitudes of American innocence and inexperience when confronted by European moral relativism and social sophistication. he contrasted what he perceived as the cultural barrenness or shallowness of America with the richness of the old European traditions. In his biography Nathaniel Hawthorne, James attributed the narrowness of Hawthorne's thinking to the lack of having a rich literary culture placed before him and stressing the "provinciality" of his native country. He developed the international theme during the first of the three phases which divided his literary career: 1. In the first one, Daisy Miller is about a prototypical innocent and naïve American girl's tragic encounter with Europe. This phase ended with the publication of one of his masterpieces, The Portrait of a Lady, acclaimed as a major achievement of American fiction. 2. The second phase has been divided in three parts: - In the first part he temporarily abandoned he international theme and wrote three long novels in the naturalistic mode. - In the second part of his second phase, he abandoned fiction for five years of writing drama, but his seven plays failed even more completely. - In the third part he returned to fiction taking a new turn, and devoted the following six years to a complex kind of experimental writing in which he assimilated the techniques derived from the theater and probed the serious literary possibilities of a popular genre such as the ghost story. He explored three important themes: threatened childhood in a corrupting adult world, the psychology of supernatural or paranormal phenomena, and the nature of success and failure in literary life. 3. In the third phase, his "major phase", James wrote three very elaborate and polished late novels marked by an increasingly baroque prose style, in which returned to the international theme. Daisy Miller: The technical skill seems much higher which made its author a popular writer, generating an abundance of critical comment characterized by an exceptional degree of controversy. Its publication occasioned such an intense debate that society almost divided itself into Daisy Millerites and anti-Daisy Millerites. The author stated that DM had originated in an anecdote of an American lady whose young daughter had picked up a good-looking Roman of vague identity with whom she exhibited innocently. The mother of this piece of gossip provided James with the basis for the fictional heroine, partly inspired by James's beloved cousin. James referred to DM as nouvelle, and modern critics have classified it as a novella, which is in length neither a novel nor a short story, but half-way between. It is divided into four chapters, from which two are set in Switzerland in the summer, and two take place in Rome during winter. Daisy arrives in Europe cheerfully ignoring class structures and conventional codes of behavior. Winterbourne has the impression that

she is just a beautiful flirt. She also provokes scandal among the Roman community of Europeanized American ladies, who are shocked by her free manners. Eventually Daisy dies of malarial fever. Exploratory Questions - Although he is a minor character, Randolph plays an important role at the beginning of the story, not only by introducing his sister, but also by putting forth the "international theme" that will be developed in the novella. - James was interested in limited-omniscient narration, which would later become his trademark. His stories are generally told through the consciousness of a single character, whose thoughts and feelings are known by the narrator, whereas all the other characters are only observed from the outside. The fact that the narrator may occasionally decide to stay outside and pretend to guess about the mental state or inner life of the character that functions as "the centre of consciousness" is part of this technique. - Intrusive narrators enter their own stories usually for the purpose of giving subjective comments. Check if there are examples of narratorial intrusion in the first chapter. - How are the four main narrative modes articulated? When you analyze speech, pay particular attention to the range of voices that are heard throughout the first chapter and comment on the comic effect or the clash of speaking styles. - Realist writers make their readers aware of the fact that reality is perceived from different, partial perspectives. James was concerned with presenting information from a variety of points of views, each of them somehow limited. How do Winterbourne, Randolph and Daisy perceive each other and themselves? Although the idea of the supreme importance of point of view has come to be closely linked to James's influential theory of fiction, his tenets on perception were not as rigorous. - James was very interested both in the literary treatment of the psychological traits of individuals and in the representation of different kinds of behavior exemplified by such individuals. As he realized that human behavior is partially determined by the environment of each country, he became concerned with the definition of national identity, with special emphasis on "the American character" being tested by cultural displacement. The conflict presented in the fist chapter is the result of the confrontation between two Americans and one Europeanised American, not a typical European. - The narrator has no access to Daisy's consciousness, and thus observes her externally. Why do you think that the author did not use her as "the centre of consciousness" in spite of the fact that she was supposed to be the protagonist of the story? Later on, he developed his simple generic Daisy Miller type into the complex Isabel Archer (The Portrait of a Lady). - Family relations, the raising of children and the vicissitudes of courtship are three themes with which James was deeply concerned about when he cultivated social realism in his fiction. - The diction in DM exemplifies James's verbal dexterity at the age of 35. - James, who was devoted to the highest sense of the aesthetic, wrote essays defending the proposition that fiction was art, as aesthetically significant as poetry.

- What had always been called Daisy Miller A Study, became simply Daisy Miller in the text of the New York Edition and in its preface the author claimed that he no longer remembered the reasons that had led him to call it A Study. - Some issues concerning human relations and gender politics remain highly important topical questions, such as sexism, stereotyping, the pressure of conforming to certain social conventions, the failure of understanding in human communication, and the unknowable nature of human character. From A Study Guide: Writing about point of view Point of view in literary criticism may simultaneously refer to 1) the narrative perspective (the angle of vision, or vantage point) from which a story is told, and 2) the narrative voice with which the story is told. According to Genette, in the analysis of narrative fiction it is necessary to distinguish between two questions: who sees? who tells? The former question is related to narrative perspective, whereas the latter is connected with narrative voice. Some narratologists avoid the term point of view, and employ focalization, which evokes the idea of getting things in focus when looking through some device. Focalization is not restricted to the visual perspective but comprises the narrative voice too. The attitude we develop toward a story may be shaped by 1) the nature of the storyteller, a character whose personality affects our understanding of the events and characters of the story, 2) the language of narration, its tone. We must never confuse the author of the story (a real person) with the narrator in the story (a persona created by the author), just as in poetry we must distinguish between the pot and the speaker. If you are asked about the point of view of a narrative, you will be expected to answer the following questions: Who is observing the events and the characters as well as telling the story? It is an all-knowing narrator? Are the narrative perspective and voice those of a single character throughout the whole story, or do several characters have a share or take turns in the seeing and the telling? You should take into account the difference between: 1) first-person point of view, if a first-person narrator tells the story suing the pronoun I, and 2) third-person point of view, if the voice of a narrator standing outside the story is used, so that the narrative seems to be told from an external source. In first-person point of view, the narrator may participate in the story in varying degrees, and is called 1) observant, when merely reporting, or 2) participant if the function of telling the story is combined with that of a major or minor character actively engaged in the plot. Third-person point of view may be either omniscient or limited: 1. Third-person omniscient point of view uses an omniscient or all-knowing narrator, one who knows the inner thoughts and feelings of all characters involved in the narrative. 2. Third-person limited point of view implies that a story is told through the consciousness of a single character whose thoughts and feelings are known by the narrator, whereas all the other characters are only observed from the outside.

The main difference between the first-person narrator and third-person narration is that the former seems more subjective, whereas the latter helps the author maintain a position of apparent objectivity. In both cases the point of view may be equally partial, incomplete or biased. In the two kinds of narration, the author filters information and therefore may affect our understanding of the story. The omniscient narrator can go back in time, look into the future, and in theory possesses unrestricted knowledge about all the characters, but does not really share all theses abilities with the readers of the story. Although third-person narration may work from inside the consciousness of characters by letting everyone know what they feel and think, the majority of so-called omniscient narrators are in fact detached observers who rarely see into the characters' hidden motives and feelings, but just overhear conversations and recount certain actions while standing on the fringe of events. Henry James thought that the most interesting element of a story may lie not in the tale but in the teller. The narrator's intrusive presence is underscored (subrayar) by the distinctly personal inflections in the first paragraph's use of "particularly comfortable" and "remarkably blue", and by the fact that the pronoun "I" appears four times in the second paragraph. James felt a growing discomfort with the prerogatives of narrative authority, especially those associated with the handling of point of view in realist texts. He was aware that revealing "the truth" was an impossible goal of realist fiction, and in his later novels he called into question the authority of this kind of discourse. To what extent do the limitations in the narrator's point of view enhance the deliberate ambiguity of this story? James claimed that good works of fiction should achieve economy of form by having only a single "center of consciousness", and he made Winterbourne the center of consciousness or point-of-view character of DM. The reader senses that the narrator knows most of what is going on in Winterbourne's mind, but not everything. The story is told from the highly subjective point of view of the narrator. To what extent does the narrator's voice compare with and differ from Winterbourne's? Note that the narrator often penetrates the deepest recesses of consciousness in Winterbourne and reports to the reader what his character is thinking and feeling at a given moment. James creates a significant distance between the telling voice and the character of Winterbourne when he makes the narrator say "I hardly know whether it was the analogies or the differences that were uppermost in the mind of a young American". Note that the narrator allows us insight into some of Winterbourne's most intimate thoughts and feelings, but we get no inside view of the other characters, since we have no access to their consciousness. To what extent does the ironical and sophisticated tone of the narrative voice affect your interpretation of events?

“Désirée’s Baby” [1892] cd

-She was praised for her aesthetic achievement. She was immediately condemned on moral grounds for writing a story about the artistic and sexual awakening of a young woman dissatisfied with her conventional role as wife and mother. -Her Louisan stories accurately depicted the everyday life of ordinary people in an area that seemed particularly exotic to the rest of America. -She was concerned with psychological realism. -In her stories, Chopin’s heroines were gradually becoming less submissive and more independent. From the beginning of her career she had presented female characters forced to endure oppressive to unattractive men.

“Désirée’s Baby” *Main themes: Marriage and motherhood are explored here through a submissive female protagonist who is far from being like the emancipated heroines that people in Chopin’s later fiction. Miscegenation. ->Désirée: Her depiction can be interpreted as an indictment of the patriarchal system so abhorred by the writer. *Simple language and precise vocabulary. *Mood: Lazy in the first half of the story (static verbs: lying, stood, sat) and (adverbs) that anchor the actions in a long space of time (slowly, narrowly, searchingly). ->Also words used to disrupt the peaceful atmosphere. *Contrast: Good/Evil, happiness/sadness, black/white, light/dark (one term depreciates the other). -Désirée is always linked to light and whiteness while Armand is associated with darkness and blackness. She is nameless whereas Armand bears one of the “oldest and proudest” names in Louisiana. ->She uses some fairytale conventions which are incompatible with the typical features of a realist piece of fiction. ->In Chopin’s fiction, female dependence on male characters generally leads to the heroine’s self destructive behavior. -> Armand Aubigny: The stereotypical cruel slave owner in former antislavery fiction like Simon Legree. Most characters in Chopin’s fiction treat their wives as if they were possessions or commodities although not all women submissively see themselves as their husband’s property. *Local – color elements include picturesque landscape, vernacular speech and the singular manners that characterize a particular region. *This story illustrates the problems of miscegenation, a taboo subject tht local colorist were loath to treat.

: -Désirée’s “obscure origin”: Her ancestry included a black African. -“Something in the air”: Désirée detects a change for the worse in the atmosphere at L’Abri when her child is three months old, although she cannot explain what she feels. : -Irony: It occurs most notably at the end, when Armand discovers that it is the who is of mixed racial ancestry. -Alliteration. -Metaphor: Comparison of the atmosphere in Désirée’s room to a mist and comparison of her voice to a knife. -Simile: Comparison of the bed to a throne, of blood to ice, of Désirée to a statue. : -Pillar in front of the Valmondé Home -> Strength and protection. -L’Abri -> Armand’s dark moods. -Bonfire -> Destruction of her memory and the baby. October sunset -> Ending of her marriage to Armand. *Désirée’s baby is a short story centering on human relationships in the southern US before the Civil War. : -The action takes place in the United States in the midth 19 century on two Louisiana plantations, one called Valmondé, a family name, and the other called L’Abri. : -Désirée’s: Young woman described as beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere. Abandoned in front of a plantation home when she was a child. Adopted. -Armand Aubigny: Inherited his father’s plantation. Married Désirée and they lived at L’Abri. -The Baby: Their boy. Person of a mixed racial ancestry. -Monsieur and Madame Valmondé: Childless couple who found her, adopted her and raised her. -La Blanche: Female slave of mixed ancestry. -Zandrine: Female slave who helps her care for her child. -Negrillon: Male slave. Pretends to have suffered a leg burn to be excused from work. -Deceased parents or Armand. Lived in Paris until his mom died. He was 8 y/o. -The Baby is represented in omniscient 3rd person.

UNIT 23 KATE CHOPIN "Désirée's Baby" From A Study Guide: regionalist or local-color fiction is a genre which emerged after the Civil War satisfying new curiosity about different regions in their reunited nation; the historical reception of Chopin's writings shift from early success, followed by a long period of obscurity, rediscovery by feminist scholarship, until the present controversy of her treatment of gender, race and class issues; Chopin's Louisiana short stories are examples of realism and naturalism, considering that she used the conventions of localcolor fiction to undermine and dismantle the conservative ideology which this popular genre nostalgically helped to support; the reception of The Awakening was polemic since this complex narrative conveyed the theme of woman's growth from husband's possession to achieving self-ownership; "Désirée's Baby" subverts the idyllic images of the Old South offered by the plantation novels. Although in her own time Chopin was praised for her aesthetic achievement, she later was condemned on moral grounds for writing The Awakening, a story about the artistic and sexual awakening of a young woman dissatisfied with her conventional role as wife and mother. Feminist criticism has aroused a great deal of interest and encouraged analyses from other theoretical perspectives also. In the 20th century Seyersted edited her Complete Works and the first critical biography, because the only texts in print were short stories illustrative examples of regionalist or local color fiction which reduced her status to that of a marginalized "local colorist". They have been reinterpreted as subversive pieces that use the convention of the genre in order to undermine and dismantle the conservative ideology it helped to support. Chopin's Louisiana stories accurately depicted the everyday life of ordinary people of that area. Life: She is the first major writer in American literature formed outside the Protestant Anglo-Saxon mainstream. Raised by her mother, her maternal grandmother and her great grandmother, Chopin's personality was shaped while growing up in a matriarchal household ruled by strong independent-minded widows. After marrying Oscar Chopin, who had been born in Louisiana, the couple went to live in New Orleans (Louisiana), where a French atmosphere prevailed at the time. Work: She considered herself a dedicated professional writer and a serious artist as well. She started with a poem and tried Missouri local color with some short stories set in St. Louis. But she soon realized that would really sell was farther south, in Louisiana. At 18 spent three weeks in New Orleans and had been impressed by the sensuous life of its bourgeois Creole population. She became fascinated by the sophisticated and refined Creole culture, observing the exclusive milieu of this artistically sensitive elite as an outsider made up of descendants of the early French and Spanish settlers. She also came into contact with the Cajun culture, the descendants of the French-speaking Protestant. Chopin's Louisiana stories belong to one of these two groups, but as she was concerned with psychological realism, she tried to show how these people dealt with universal issues according to the specific values prevalent in their environment.

Her Louisiana short stories represented one part of her literary production, since she wrote more than a hundred short stories, sketches, poems, essays, reviews, a one-act play and three novels. The reviewers praised her style in the first of her novels, At Fault, but objected to her portrayal of an alcoholic wife and to her treatment of the theme of divorce. She wrote Young Dr. Gosse and Theo but destroyed the manuscript. Before The Awakening, her reputation rested on the short narratives printed in Bayou Folk, a collection of 23 stories and sketches of rural life in Louisiana, which won great number of reviews and press notices. A Night in Acadie is her second collection of 21 stories. Several editors asked her to rewrite the stories they considered too indelicate or immoral and she reacted to censure in various ways. Sometimes she altered what she had submitted for publication, and developed and ability to hide encoded meanings that can only be uncovered by a close reading. She resisted pressure and suffered the consequences of dealing with subject matter that was deemed provocative. She never attempted to find a publisher for "The Storm", the joyful sexual fantasy of an unpunished happy adultery. "The Story of an Hour" was refused by the editor, since Chopin's heroines were becoming less submissive and more independent: she presented female characters forced to endure oppressive attachments to unattractive men imagining discontented women rebelling against their situation. Chopin also wrote about sexuality in the lives of men and women with a frankness rarely seen in the work of 19th c. female writers. The Awakening: It is a complex narrative about Edna Pontellier's growth from being her husband's possession to achieving self-ownership. She is a discontented wife and mother who experienced an awakening or process of self-discovery that makes her yearn for sexual freedom and artistic fulfillment. Although many reviewers recognized the aesthetic merit, most of them disapproved her handling of adultery which led to publishers cancelling Chopin's contract for a third collection. Its publication damaged Chopin's literary reputation, but the main reason why she wrote few stories afterwards was her failing health. Style and attitude towards slavery: The apparently clear and direct style of her brilliantly compressed prose had been revised in search of subtle ironies. Her chosen symbolism is now considered not merely decorative, but an essential artistic component of her technique. She has been called a psychological symbolist because she used symbols to project the psyche of her characters. Her narratives, set in the postbellum period, embodied a vision of society deeply concerned not with slavery itself but with its legacy. The few stories she set before the American Civil War, such as "Désirée's Baby", had tragic endings that subverted the idyllic images offered by the plantation novels evoked by Chopin in the deliberately deceptive beginnings of her narratives. "Désirée's Baby": It was published in the fashion magazine Vogue, being an immediate success, also included in the collection Bayou Folk. Her main themes -marriage and motherhood- are explored through a submissive female protagonist who is far from being like the emancipated heroin that people Chopin's later fiction. This is why the piece was not considered particularly threatening. The depiction of Désirée can be interpreted as an indictment of the patriarchal system so abhorred by the writer. It deals with miscegenation, a theme which most local colorist were reluctant to treat that Chopin managed to get through by encoding her profound meanings beneath the surface

of her text. The story is told in Standard English but includes glimpses of French, spoken in the historical context where the plot takes place. Exploratory Questions - Chopin's language is generally simple and her vocabulary very precise. There is a preponderance of concrete nouns in DB, could it express the author's concern with material details that help to create a believable physical world? There is a preponderance of concrete nouns vs. the scarcity of abstract nouns. Chopin used the concrete words to evoke emotions and to foreshadow of what was going to happen or just the actual reality. Race and slavery appear at the end because is when we see the real meaning of the story. - Chopin's diction conveys the lazy mood with the use of static verbs that do not represent an action and adverbs that anchor the actions in a long space of time. - Analyze the eight similes paying attention to what some of the have in common: "as if struck by a pistol shot", "like an avalanche", "like a cowl", "like a sumptuous throne", "like ice". Are they merely decorative, or do they perform a function in the sinister development of the story? Do they emphasize the important of color in the story? - The juxtaposition of disparate or opposed images and ideas is a common literary technique in Kate Chopin's fiction (contrast). The binary logic that opposes such mutually exclusive pairs always privileges or values the term that is considered positive or superior and depreciates the other one as being negative or inferior. She also undermines any confidence in knowing where each character really stands within a firmly established hierarchical system, which is not as stable and "segregated" as one might think. "Désirée's Baby" cannot be interpreted only as a Manichean allegory as it is also a critic to the unfair situation lived by Désirée, who had it all and loses it for the accusation of being descendent of black people. From the beginning, we have clues of Armand's darkness and Désirée's goodness. - Chopin uses some fairytale convention which are incompatible with the typical features of a realist piece of fiction. There is tension or conflict caused by the juxtaposition of the two frames of reference -the old fairy tale framework and the modern realist short story framework, consider whether the author's subversive appropriation of traditional forms provides any new insight. - Chopin described southern life in a detached manner, with the objectivity that marks realist writers. The narrator explains the facts but not what the characters are thinking. She tells the story in a detached way but show her preference towards Désirée as it is patent when he she says about Armand "if he was human". - Analyze how the notion of "arbitrary justice" pervades DB, bearing in mind that the story exemplifies female dependence on male characters generally leads to the heroine's self-destructive behavior. Note that naturalistic writers often emphasize the extreme vulnerability and absolute powerlessness of their characters, faced with strong social and natural forces. Désirée's innocence is foreshadowed by linking her to white colors. - Armand could be viewed as part of the tradition of the "tragic octoroon" is linked to the stereotypical cruel slave-owner (Simon Legree in Uncle Tom's Cabin), find the devices used to present him as the villain. Most male characters in Chopin's fiction, and not only a brutal slave-owner such as Armand, treat their wives as if they were

possessions or commodities, although not all women submissively see themselves as their husband's property. The theme of male possessiveness links DB to some of Chopin's most mature works labeled "proto-feminist" partly because their heroines envisage "self-ownership". Armand is presented as the villain, linking him to black colors and rude behavior towards his slaves. - Chopin provides many small clues, being foreshadowing a device to create expectation or to set up an explanation of later developments: "Oh, mamma, I'm so happy; it frightens me". - Chopin was ahead of her time in her way of addressing race and gender issues. To what extent is "DB" a story about the disastrous consequences of institutionalized racism and sexism upon people's lives? It offers a critique with emphasis on the evils of patriarchy and the slave system. - Reilly commented that Chopin's gift are in DB: directness of approach, sureness of touch, the swift strokes which give the setting and introduce and realize the characters, the amazing economy of words. Reilly, like most early critics, focused on Chopin's "charming" style while ignoring her social criticism. Local-color elements include picturesque landscape, vernacular speech, and the singular manners that characterize a particular region. French proper names appear in the story to the interspersed use of French, as the only phrase uttered by Zandrine is in French. The author chooses not to use dialect so she reduces the description of landscapes and other regional aspects to a minimum. To what extent does she appropriate the profoundly conservative local-color discourse in order to question or challenge it? Note that this short story directly and explicitly illustrates the problem of miscegenation, a taboo subject at the time. - Désirée's remark that Armand can hear the baby from La Blanche's cabin can suggest that he is the father of one of her children. - His marriage to Désirée could have been part of a plan to have legitimate children that would pass for white, and if they had a dark complexion he could always blame Désirée's "obscure origin" without endangering his own statues as a master, which depended on "racial purity" under the "one-drop rule" system. - As a "creative reader", do you enjoy Chopin's multilayered fiction? Chopin was reluctant to give any interpretation of her work which might be taken as definitive. From A Study Guide: Analyzing binary oppositions The purpose is to analyze how one term in each opposition is privileged, and how the contrast between the terms is reinforced or undermined. The binary oppositions to be found within "Désirée's Baby" are: - feminine vs. masculine - black vs. white - good vs. evil Combine or superimpose the oppositions, and carefully examine the resulting pattern of the terms which are favored. Note that binary oppositions should be tested for contradictions and inconsistencies.

Look at the binary opposition feminine vs. masculine, and explain how the author represents social inequality between the sexes and constructs oppositions of gender. What gender issues are featured in this story? Look at the binary opposition black vs. white, and explain how the author represents social inequality between the races. What racial conflicts are emphasized in this story? Look at the binary opposition good vs. evil, and accept or reject the interpretation of "Désirée's Baby" as a Manichean allegory (bearing in mind how the concept is defined in the Glossary at the end of this Guide).

cd

“The Open Boat” [1897] Brief career, he died at the age of 28.

“The Open Boat” -It’s one of his main contributions to the American literary canon, which exemplifies the author’s nature art. -When he wrote it, he had already published newspapers reports of shipwrecks whose imagery clearly prefigures that of his famous short story. -His principal source was his own experience of being drift in the ocean: After sinking of the steamer, Stephen Crane (correspondent) Edward Murphy (the Captain) Charles Montgomery (Steward) and William Higgins (oiler) remained for 27 hours rowing and drifting.

*The short story opens with four men, stranded in the ocean in a small boat and limits itself to their ordeal for there is not a single reference to any of the circumstances leading to the sinking to Cuba or to the filibustering expedition. *Unlike the newspaper report, which is written in 1st person, The Open Boat is written from the 3rd person point of view, although the narrator concentrates on the correspondent’s consciousness and expresses a privileged knowledge of his thoughts and feelings. *The other three characters reveal themselves through their words and actions. * of work: Short story * : Takes place between January 2nd and January 4th 1897 off the eastern coast of Florida, near Mosquito Inlet (now known as the Ponce de León Inlet) about twelve miles south of the present-day Daytona Beach. : Centers on four men in a lifeboat who had abandoned a sinking steamship off the coast of Florida. They are attempting to reach shore against an ocean that becomes increasingly violent whenever they row toward land. rd * : 3 person through a narrator who occasionally reveals the thoughts of the men in the boat. Impressionism: Aesthetic movement. Attempt to accurately and objectively record visual reality. Effects of light and color. Proto-existentialist -> Fiction. Focuses on the nature of humans in the universe. Realism predominates in the story.

* : -Captain-> Levelheaded, trustworthy commander of the 55 Commodore, the ship that sank. He is a rudder who guides and heartens the other men in the boat. -Correspondent-> A newspaper reporter who shares rowing duties with the steamer’s oiler. He represents the author, who was a survivor -The oiler-> Reliable, hard-working, crewman who performs his duties without complain. Dies. -The cook-> Rotund crewman who bails water from the lifeboat. Modeled after the real-life Commodore steward, Charles B. Montgomery. -People on the beach.

*Life as a struggle against nature’s Indifference *Brotherhood *Courage *Alliteration *Metaphor (Comparison of the boat to a colt) *Onomatopoeia *Oxymoron (terrible grace, sinister hospitality) *Simile (Comparison of sea foam to snow) *Black, white, gray: World of the mean in boat takes on cheerless hues. Sense of foreboding. *Fate *Drowning. Refrain that suggests that the men’s fear of death is exacerbated by the unconcern of nature. *Waves: Ceaseless presence. Forces of nature and uncontrollability of life. *Boat -> Human life among the universe’s uncertainties. *Oiler’s death -> Indifference of nature. *Poem -> Correspondent’s understanding of his plight. *Cigars -> 4 wet cigars and 4 dry. Complex symbol of hope for spiritual salvation.

UNIT 24 STEPHEN CRANE "The Open Boat" From A Study Guide: Crane was a brilliantly imaginative poet and fiction writer whose works elude simple classification since they reflect the various artistic trends of the end of 19th c and also anticipate expressionism and existentialism of the 20th c; his bohemian lifestyle together with his experiences as a war correspondent shaped his literary career; the poem "War Is Kind" is a satirical antiwar piece included in the two volumes which earned him a position as a "minor poet" (he stands mainly as a fiction writer); The Red Badge of Courage is an innovative novel hailed as a masterpiece which brought its author international literary fame; "The Open Boat" is a short story inspired by its author's experience in a shipwreck which illustrates impressionism, realism naturalism and symbolism.

In only 8 years (he died at 28) he managed to bring out two volumes of poetry, five novels and over 300 short stories, sketches and articles which supported the idea that he wrote fiction drawing on the events he witnessed and reported for the newspapers as a prolific journalist. His obsessive search for intense experiences was the result of his artistic concerns and the stimulus for his creative achievements. The preacher's unruly son rejected Christianity and lived in scandal with his commonlaw wife, the ex-owner of a brothel. As there is much in his best writings that is original and remains unexplained as his personality, likewise many of his works elude simple definition or classification, for they reflect the various artistic trends of the end of 19th c, especially naturalism, impressionism and symbolism. Furthermore, some critics have seen Crane as a forerunner of the 20th c. movements of expressionism and existentialism. Life: Son of a Methodist clergy and a pious mother who wrote for religious journals, he soon rebelled the discipline of his childhood. Work: In New York he supported himself as a freelance newspaperman and completed his first novel Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. He was obsessed with learning more about the actual existence of the people he wrote about, he decided to study urban vice in one of the worst slums of New York. His journalistic activities allowed him to observe at close hand the shabby tenement districts and the city's police court. Maggie is one of the earliest examples of literary determinism in American fiction for it tries to show that environment frequently shapes lives. Rejected by a number of publishers, this novel was privately printed under a pseudonym but American public did not welcome this grim exponent of social realism that so authentically recreated sordid slum life. The Black Riders is his first book of poetry, 68 short poems in free verse in which the author expressed his bleak worldview and which foreshadowed innovative techniques that would be developed in the 20th c., but which his contemporaries found them too cryptic, too unconventional and too somber in tone. War Is Kind is his second collection of poetry which reiterated the attitudes in his previous volume and included the author's most explicit social poems. These two collections have earned him a position as a

"minor poet" in the canon of American literature, where he stands mainly as a fiction writer. The publication of The Red Badge of Courage brought Crane the international literary fame, and one of the more innovative features of this work is the presentation of the protagonist's personal identity through the development of techniques which are consistent with Crane's devotion to psychological verisimilitude. Another modern aspect is that it parodies historical novels about the American Civil War (Crane does not mention the name of the campaign or a battle). Crane had developed an obsession with participating in a war thus he was commissioned to cover the Cuban Revolution as a correspondent, sailing aboard the Commodore with a large party of Cuban insurrectionists and a cargo of ten thousand dollars worth of arms and ammunition for the Cuban rebels. The steamer sank and the writer and three other men remained at sea for the next 27 hours in a dinghy because the rough surf did not allow them to go ashore. Crane first published newspaper report of the event, and then wrote a short story: "Flanagan and His Short Filibustering Adventure". This experience also became the factual framework for one of his best and most often discussed pieces of fiction, "The Open Boat". "The Open Boat": Its principal source was Crane's own experience of being adrift in the ocean. After the sinking of the steamer, Stephen Crane (correspondent), Edward Murphy (the captain), Charles Montgomery (steward), and William Higgins (oiler) certainly remained at sea for 27 hours rowing and drifting. Higgins and Crane took turns rowing and just before they landed in the morning, the oiler was drowned in the surf. Crane published his newspaper account headlined "Crane's Own Story" in which he gave little information about what had happened during the hours that the four men were floating adrift but included the drowning of seven men, none of whom found room in the lifeboats of the survivors. The horrible scene was omitted from "The Open Boat", except for an allusion to the seven upturned faces that haunt the memory of the young captain in the dinghy. There is no overlapping between "The Open Boat" and "Crane's Own Story" because the former begins where the latter ends. Almost all the newspaper accounts is taken up with the departure, voyage and sinking of the Commodore. The newspaper report is written in the first person, "The Open Boat" is written from the third person point of view, although the narrator concentrates on the correspondent's consciousness and expresses a privileged knowledge of his thoughts and feelings. The other three characters reveal themselves though their words and actions. "TOB" was initially published in Scribner's Magazine and reprinted the following year in a volume of short fiction dedicated by Crane to the three men in the dinghy. Exploratory Questions - How are the four main narrative modes articulated throughout "TOB"? Critics remarked Crane's unusual use of shifting point of view. The story is told alternatively from the perspective of each of the members, as well as from the vantage point of an objective observer. It is suggested that their reactions are archetypal and universal since

anyone would respond in the same way to what they are going through. The correspondent is the only character whose inner thoughts are clearly identified. Some critics have viewed Crane's shifting perspectives as a flaw, because it hinders independent character development. Arguably, the story does not need its characters to develop as much as to experience the same fear and anger. Crane captures the sights, sounds and emotions of a near-death experience. Only at the end they can begin to "interpret" the experience. The shifting point of view appears to emphasize the failure of interpretation by all of the characters, rather than the knowledge that each has gained. - Similes and metaphors can be arranged to suggest a theme, for instance, much of the sea voyage is depicted in terms of land (ocean is likened to "slate" and the waves to "rocks"). Comment on significant metaphors, such as the one linking the men in the boat to "ants". Man's conflict with an indifferent, disordered nature is not concerned with the quality of his actions, and men are like "ants" small and fragile before nature. The sea reminds the forces of nature which can cut lives at any moment, affecting men in the sense that it would be unjust to be drowned after all their best efforts to save themselves. The seagulls are a significant symbol for they appear to be "somehow gruesome and ominous" thus representing human frailty and nature's indifference to it. The attempt of the bird to land on the captain's head demonstrates that men are subject to nature's whim and can exert little control over their situation. Crane's story creates hyper-realism, a vivid nightmare state in which waves resemble horses. He refuses to romanticize the absurdity of experience, and the reader is constantly reminded that experience, like perception, is betrayed by the language by which it is conceptualized. - Comment on the symbolism of the short story. The boat, to which the men must cling to survive the seas, symbolized human life. It is characterized as "open" which supports the interpretation that it is unprotected and thus open to suffering the unexpected turns of fortune that are unavoidable in life. Though the boat, Crane implies that life is not something we can control, but rather life is what we must hang onto as we make our way in the world. The sea serves as a reminder of the forces of nature, by which their lives could be lost at any moment. The Oiler's death reinforces the randomness of nature's whims and symbolizes the indifference of nature toward man. Nature is arbitrary in how it chooses its victims. - In "TOB" we find an omniscient narrator technique, thus the story is written from the third person point of view, although the narrator concentrates on the correspondent's consciousness and expresses a privileged knowledge of his thoughts and feelings. Characters engage in interesting dialogues to fill the boredom but also to help explore each character. - The technique of repetition ("I am going to drown? Can it be possible? Can it be possible? Can it be possible?) seems to lengthen the men's journey, providing the reader with a more vivid impression of the despair and hopelessness they feel. In the repetitions "If I am going to be drowned", the lines reinforces the character's sense of danger and his fear of what might happen next. The entire passage discusses the meaning of life, given the inevitability of death, as an existential situation. - Crane was fascinated with danger, a subject that seems to have acted as an unusually provocative stimulus for his imagination. The sea serves as a powerful reminder of the forces of nature: the lives of the members in the dinghy could be lost at any moment. The passage in which the correspondent asks himself if he is going to die suggests the

absurdity of an individual's sense of self-importance against the mindless power of nature. - Pay attention to the shifts of the dictions, noticing that the syntax of the first paragraph is simple and its tone quite neutral, whereas the second takes the discourse to an abstract level, resorts to irony and has something of the mock-heroic. This points to the existence of two different tones in the voice of narrator. The third tone present in "TOB" is that of the dialogue exchanged by the four characters, who speak in a language that is direct, informal and often colloquial, in short sentences generally aimed at immediate and practical action. The dialogues help to explore each individual character. - Bear in mind when analysing his handling of colour effects that Crane liked intense verbal colorations and often tried to capture the impression of light at different moments of the day. Note that the metaphorical use of colour may suggest emotional states. Crane's impressionistic technique places the readers in the same frame of reference of the characters. The story's first sentence "No one knew the color of the sky" thrusts (forzar) into the position of his characters. Crane enriches his impressionistic technique by juxtaposing close-up, sensory descriptions of the men's experiences in the dinghy with the narrator's detached perspective. - Many scholars have stressed Crane's use of painting devices, those of impressionism, an aesthetic movement characterized by its attempt to accurately and objectively record visual reality in terms of transient effects of light and colour. In this short story Crane's visual imagery is characterized by a clear emphasis on seeing. The tall windmill on shore with its back to the men is the personification of nature, which is indifferent to men's struggle to survive. - Throughout his career Crane was concerned with the indifference of the natural universe to the plight of human beings, carefully developing this naturalistic theme in "TOB". - The death theme is treated especially in the ending of the story, and the Oiler's death pose the existential affirmation of the absurdity of life, since he was the fittest man in the crew and his death denies the Darwinian doctrine of the survival of the fittest. - The role of the narrator is similar to that of war correspondents for at a time journalists included personal comment in their reporting of events and there is no lack of emotion in Crane's fiction, but rather a great emotional power that stems from his visual prose rather from an overt expression of personal feelings. The character of the correspondent is autobiographical in nature and he is the only character in the story whose thoughts are given direct access to the reader. - Although "TOB" is generally labelled as a naturalistic story, it has also been argued that it can be interpreted as a piece of proto-existentialist fiction because it focuses on the problematic nature of human existence in the universe. From this 20th c philosophical perspective, Crane's story is a study in uncertainty that emphasizes the difficulty of knowing the significance of events. One of the main concerns of the Naturalists involved the dilemma of whether human beings could exercise control over their fate or whether their fate was predetermined by their environment; whether humans possess a free will or are powerless to shape external events. The current suddenly frees the correspondent and he is washed ashore by a giant wave, thus Crane

attributes the correspondent's survival more to uncontrollable forces than to his own efforts. - Some critics have argued that, in spite of having traits pertaining to several other aesthetics schools, realism predominates "TOB". Its realistic features would include the use of an omniscient but not intrusive narrator who provides a considerable amount of factually grounded detail, the employment of multiple perspectives that sometimes commit and correct perceptual error, the presentation of plausible physical experiences and the account of credible events. Many critics have contended that other features remove this story from the category of realist fiction. From A Study Guide: Writing about symbolism It implies much more than simply identifying the symbols in any given text, because it also involves explaining how such symbols function within a symbolist aesthetic. To write about symbolism you have to bear in mind the following basic theoretical principles: - Symbol can be defined as something that stands for something other than itself, especially an object that is used to represent something abstract and evokes a range of additional meanings. For instance, national flags are public symbols that stand for the countries. Apart from objects, symbols maybe actions, gestures, events, people, animals, plants, colours, sounds... Spring generally symbolizes new life, while a heart ordinarily stands for love. - Symbolism is a widespread phenomenon that is found not only in texts, but also in social life: for example, rituals and ceremonies. - Symbols do not have a simple one-to-one relationship with what they stand for, and they cannot be restricted to a single meaning. For instance, a rose may symbolize love and beauty, but it may also suggest the transient nature of human life. - There are tow main kinds of symbols: a) Conventional symbols are based upon shared assumptions within a community and have a relatively stable meaning that is widely recognized: for death are night, sleep, sunset, crossing the river, and resting. b) Contextual symbols acquire their meanings within the particular context in which they appear (the white whale in Moby-Dick, where whiteness is associated with "the visible absence of colour" and basically stands for indefiniteness). - Literary authors incorporate both conventional and contextual symbols in their works, being symbols economic devices to facilitate the expression of complex ideas without having to resort to long explanations. For example, writers may emphasize either the spring or the winter settings in their works depending on whether they want to evoke images of youth or of cold age. Conversely, certain conventional symbols may have their fixed meanings deepened and extended by famous literary works. Author sometimes manipulate old conventional symbols and turn them into new contextual symbols in order to challenge their reader's assumptions. - Symbolism nowadays has come to represent the rhetorical opposite of allegory, although not all literary scholars agree when comparing these phenomena in their extensive critical debates. One of the basic difference between the two is that symbolism allows for multiple possibilities of meaning whereas allegory demands a strict correspondence between the concrete reality and the abstract idea it represents.

Within romantic theory, the symbol was widely praised as the proper vehicle for individual literary genius, and highly regarded for its expressive qualities, in contrast to allegory, which was seen as a form of moralizing. Writer often use lexical repetitions to alert readers to details that carry more than literal meanings, and frequently incorporate their central symbols in the titles of their works. When you write about symbolism, to avoid the repetition of the verb "symbolize", you can use the following: represent, stand for, suggest, evoke, point to, echo, and express. Keep in mind that the symbolic mode is a style of writing, and that some authors are particularly skilled in weaving symbols into the fabric of their works. They rely on symbols to convey intended meanings that go far beyond the incidents included in their plots. Their interpretation requires a high degree of bridging inferences analysing the function of each symbol within the larger symbolic structure. Stephen Crane's poetry and fiction are heavily marked with symbols. In order to understand "The Open Boat" you should be aware of the fact that the way the sea is presented makes it a symbol of the terrible destructiveness which Crane believes is at the heart of nature. Consider how the boat is described, bearing in mind that it is also called "ship", "vessel" and "dingey" in his story. Focus on the metaphors and similes concerning the boat. Explain how it functions on both the literal and the figurative levels paying attention to any details related to it that may have significant symbolic value (e.g. "the thin little oar"). What do the four men in the boat represent? What does "the plight of the ants" refer to? To what extent do these men illustrate the theme of human weakness and isolation in nature? Note the recurrence of words that connote colour, and that there is a reference to colour in "the hue of slate". Compare and contrast the firs sentence of the story, "None of them knew the color of the sky", with one that closely follows it, "all of the men knew the colors of the sea". What might the waves stand for? Note that they are also called "rollers" in this story. Why is it important that the story begins and ends at night? Explain how Crane draws attention to the symbolism of day/night and that of light/darkness by making clear associations between the events that happen in different time settings. What changes does the sky undergo throughout the story? What connotations do such changes evoke? What might the symbolic function of "the tall wind-tower" be? What are the symbolic actions like steering, taking the oars, failing into the water, drowning and escaping death from drowning? Examine the symbolism in the character of the man who helps the crewmen when they reach the shore, and the reference to "a halo was about his head, and he shone like a saint". How does Crane create atmosphere by using the symbolic imagery of the natural world? Remember the distinction between image and symbol: images usually evoke the concrete qualities of something other than themselves, whereas symbols bring to mind the abstract qualities of what is associated with them. Note that the wind-tower acquires meaning only within the world of Crane's story.