Same thing for Romantic Period
· Irving
· Bryant
· Longfellow
· Lazarus
· Poe
· Hawthorne
· Melville
posted by d | 8:42 PM
Contributors
- neoclassical period
- A General Overview of Romanticism
- And Now for a Few Notes on Neoclassicism
- List of Authors and Works (Correct if incomplete)
- Billy's Thoughts on the "Woman Warrior"
- Huck Finn
- Ranna talks about whitman
- On the Long Brown Path
- Foray into non-musical madness
- A Poetry Event
15 Comments:
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Reasons for popularity and significance: easy rhyme; obvious theme
Background:
He was among the first of American writers to use native themes. (example. American scene and landscape, American Indian, American history and tradition, etc.)
Born in Portland, Maine, he was influenced by the activity at the harbors and thus gained a interest in “life beyond his own immediate experience.”
He said that the book he was most influenced by was Washington Irving’s ‘Sketch Book.’
A Psalm of Life
structure:
Rhyme – ABAB
9 stanzas = 3 x 3 (perfect number?)
“Important” Quotes:
“… But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.”
Kind of say that though life is a struggle we continue to live and go through it, which is the important thing.
“…Let the dead Past bury its dead !
Act,— act in the living Present !
He is saying that we shouldn’t let our past mistakes hinder our present progress and that we should live life to the fullest.”
“Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.”
Romanticism v. Transcendentalism. esp. “grave is not its goal” which is saying that our live should not be based/focused on dying.
Line by line analysis: http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/PsalmA.htm
Edgar Allen Poe
Gothic Romantic
Background:
Orphaned at an early age
Forced to gamble because his adoptive father wouldn't provide enough money
Dropped out of school due to debts and joined the army
Eventually married his cousin
Virginia who was just 13
The Raven structure: Easy to identify by stunning Rhyme scheme and alliteration. Look for words that rhyme with Lenore.
Why it is Gothic: Psychological thriller, it is filled with paranoia, longing for what once was, and an attempt to rationalize a mysterious event.
Exemplary stanzas:
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating` 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more,'
This is the rationalization of the paranoia he feels.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven. Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore -Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore! 'Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'
Again Poe is trying to rationalize the fear that he feels from this mysterious raven that visits him.
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William Cullen Bryant-Thanatopsis
Romantic characteristics:
-poem shows nature's power and significance towards humans both in life and as death approaches: "TO HIM...Nature...for his gayer hours (i.e. youth/good health)has a voice of gladness...eloquence of beauty," "When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come...Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teaching"
-but also shows man's greatness: "the hills...the vales...the woods...rivers...Old Ocean's gray...are but the solemn decorations all of the great tomb of man!"
-talks about people returning to nature and being a part of it in death: "Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again...To mix forever with the elements"
-talks about individuals: "thine individual being, shalt go To mix forever with the elements"
-and that the dead will be separated from the living: "the dead reign there alone" (i.e. alone from the living)
-but also states that death is communal and even if the living don't notice a person's death too much, the living will inevitably join the person in death someday: "and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend take notice of thy departure? All that breathe will share thy destiny...shall come and make their bed with thee"
-encourages people to complete what they wanted to on earth, so that death is a reward: "Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night...but sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams"
Ways to recognize this poem and Bryant's writing style:
-Bryant capitalizes Ocean and Nature, and lower cases him and man (except for HIM which is all in capitols in the first line)/is a way to venerate nature
-usually has long sentences in poem (left over from Neoclassicism), but doesn't rhyme (romantic freeness in rules concerning the arts)
-in this particular poem, Bryant uses no symbol for death, or an animal to symbolize man, but talks about death outright
-although Early romantics were concerned about nationalism, but this poem is not nationalistic, but universal
--Caroline
Emma Lazarus-In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport
-starts by talking about the sad remembrance of the people who once were at the synagogue: "the light of the 'perpetual lamp' is spent," "What prayers were in this temple offered up, Wrung from sad hearts that knew no joy on earth"
-then talks about how this site brings back wonderful images from the Bible: "as we gaze, in this new world of light..the present vanishes, and tropic bloom And Eastern towns and temples we behold...Again we see the patriarch with his flocks...The slaves of Egypt...A man who reads Jehovah's written law (i.e. Moses?)"
-then talks about pulling out of this sort of daydream and sadness reappearing: "Alas! we wake: one scene alone remains,--The exiles by the streams of Babylon. Our softened voices send us back again But moutnful echoes through the empty hall"
-then talks positively about how that synagogue was a comfort: The weary ones, the sad, the suffering, All found their comfort in the holy place, And children's gladness and men's gratitude 'Took voice and mingled in the chant of praise."
-then talks mournfully again: "The fuberal and the marriage, now, alas! We know not which is sadder to recall"
-closes with the hopeful message that the Jews will find a homeland, if not on earth, then in heaven: "the sacred shrine is holy yet...Take off your shoes as by the burning bush, Before the mystery of death and God."
Why this poem is early romanticism:
-the poem is about memories that the site gives to the people in the poem who are visiting it, but switches back and forth between a happy and mournful tone, showing emotion as well as almost irrationality
-the lines, "For youth and happiness have followed age, And green grass lieth gently over all," seem illogical that youth would follow age
-although the poem is nostalgic, it is nationalistic by closing with the belief that there will be a Jewish homeland
This poem vs. Longfellow's "The Jewish Cemetary at Newport":
-both have Bible references
-this poem is in the ABCB rhyming pattern, but Longfellow's is in the ABAB pattern
-both are in four line stanzas
-this poem talks about sad and happy memories of the synagogue site, while Longfellow's poem talks about the cemetary and death and is soley mournful in tone
-this poem is optimistic in the end, while Longfellow's concludes with, "And dead nations never rise again."
--Caroline
HAWTHORNE : THE BIRTHMARK
Sorry, guys. I didn't read his biography. Maybe someone who has Hawthorne's other stories can provide the background? Sorrryyy
But, there are 2 MAJOR THEMES of Hawthorne that should be important.
1. secret sin / ancestral guilt (ex: Young Goodman Brown, The Black Veil)
2. science / technology = death of us all
(ex: The Birthmark)
Anyway, quick summary: Aylmer, a scientist, hates this birthmark on his wife, Georgiana's cheek (shaped like a small human hand). Eventually, Georgiana starts to hate it too, and Aylmer tries to remove it, leading to Georgiana's death.
WHY IT IS ROMANTIC:
-Aylmer's attempt to "perfect" Georgiana fails because nothing perfect can exist. Rejection of Neoclassicism's belief that perfection can be achieved.
-Aylmer's scientific approach to everything is obviously portrayed in a very negative light. To treat society as if it were a science experiment - void of emotion - is wrong.
-Georgiana's birthmark is said to have come from a fairy, who touched her cheek, making it NATURAL. This is consistent with the Romantics' reverence for nature. (remember that Hawthorne hated science; his 2nd major theme!)
-Science is characterized as rational and logical thought. Hawthorne's rejection of science is a rejection of Neoclassicism again.
"'My poor Alymer,' she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, 'you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!'"
Georgiana thinks that Aylmer aimed too high in his expectations. Aylmer's intellectual cockiness leads to him murdering his own wife.
http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-lit/hawthorne.html
That's a pretty good REALLY EXTENSIVE analysis of The Birthmark.
Hawthorne
The Minister’s Black Veil
Main ideas/themes/etc:
- Alienation (Reverend Mr. Hooper separates himself from society by donning the black veil to symbolize how everyone has a hidden secret sin…)
- Hawthorne’s ancestral guilt (set in Salem)
- Black veil symbolizes sin, which keeps people apart from God - - > by wearing the veil, Hooper acknowledges the existence of his sin
- Everybody wears a metaphorical veil—nobody presents their “true self” to society
- When you die, your “veil” you wear is removed, your sins are revealed, and God judges you
- Theme: the shame attached to sin (nobody wants to fess up to their sins and thus will not even recognize Mr. Hooper’s veil for what it symbolizes)
good website: http://www.k- state.edu/english/baker/english251/Symbol_MBV.htm
To identify this reading, look for the words Hooper / veil / Reverend.
Important quotes:
- “That piece of crape, to their imagination, seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them.”
- “Mr. Hooper’s smile glimmered faintly. ‘There is an hour to come,’ said he, ‘when all of us shall cast aside our veils. Take it not amiss, beloved friend, if I wear this piece of crape till then.’
‘Your words are a mystery, too,’ returned the young lady. ‘Take away the veil form them, at least.’
‘Elizabeth, I will,’ said he, ‘so far as my vow may suffer me. Know, then, this veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar friends. No mortal eye will see it withdrawn. This dismal shade must separate me from the world: even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it!”
- “‘Have patience with me, Elizabeth!’ cried he, passionately. ‘Do not desert me, though this veil must be between us here on earth. Be mine, and hereafter there shall be no veil over my face, no darkness between our souls! It is but a mortal veil—it is not for eternity! O! you know not how lonely I am, and how frightened, to be alone behind my black veil. Do not leave me in this miserable obscurity forever!’”
- “Thus, from beneath the black veil, there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which enveloped the poor minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach him.”
(Repost of Ranna’s thoughts on this in April):
- Mr. Hooper] was trying to make a point to the community that sin and secrets are amongst them; however, the barrier between people is not tangible and outwardly noticeable (as was the veil upon his face).
- Sin and secrets are feared in the Puritan community; therefore, if we look at the black veil as a symbol of secrets and sins, then we can see its effects clearly.
- The one bearing the secrets and sins became inwardly lonely as a result of being shunned.
--Danielle
Poe’s Masque of the Red Death:
I’ll give a little summary and add some extra notes I have.
The Red Death was marked by sharp pains, sudden dizziness, and profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. Prince Prospero built a castellated abbey for the seclusion of a thousand of his friends, all of which were unaffected by the Red Death. During the 5/6 month of the seclusion Prince Prospero decided to have a masked ball. There were seven rooms, all of different colors, and a huge ebony clock. When the clock struck twelve times everyone noticed a masked figure they had not seen before. Prince Prospero confronted this figure and was stabbed with a dagger. The other people dropped dead one by one.
-The unknown masked figure symbolized the presence of the Red Death.
-Prince Prospero tried to help his friends by secluding them from the outside, from the Red Death. This did the complete opposite because the people were trapped and had nowhere to go, and evidently killed them all.
-Poe tries to make the point of “what goes around comes around” in this story. Prince Prospero was responsible for the lives of his friends and should have taken good care of them. Poe demonstrated the idea that “one receives exactly what he deserves” through the death of Prince Prospero.
-When Prince Prospero dropped dead, the story says “…the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror…”
I remember having a discussion in class about the people running towards the figure and whether it was an involuntary movement or not. I’m still not sure if it is so, but just going to put that out there.
Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher:
These are some answers/notes:
The narrator received a letter from Roderick saying he wished to see him, his best friend.
Roderick suffers “a morbid acuteness of the senses”:
Food was endurable, he could only wear clothes of certain textures, smells were all oppressive, light hurt his eyes, and the only sound he could bear were from string instruments
He fears:
The severity of his condition will kill him, any future event that may cause his senses pain, losing life and reason
The other person in the house is Roderick’s sick sister Madeline. They were the last two of the Usher family.
After Madeline died, Roderick decides to preserve her in a vault in one of the main walls because he fears the inappropriately inquisitive doctors of Madeline, the exposed position of the family burial ground, and Madeline’s odd personality.
Description of the vault:
It was small, damp, and underground beneath the narrator’s bedchamber. There was no way to light the vault. It was used as a dungeon, then as storage for combustible powder. Most of it had been sheathed in copper.
Roderick eventually admits that Madeline was alive when they put her in the tomb.
The three sounds they had heard:
The ripping sound was the breaking of her coffin. The scream of the dead dragon was the grating of the hinges of her prison. The sharp sound was her struggle in the copper archway of her tomb.
Madeline appears and collapses on Roderick. They both die. The house is destroyed from the wind and storm. The familial “House” also died because Roderick and Madeline were the last two people in the Usher family.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown"
ANCESTRAL GUILT FOR HIS PURITAN ANCESTORS (re: Crucible)
Brief Summary:
Young Goodman Brown leaves his wife, Faith one night for a mysterious journey into the woods. Along the way he is met by a guide with a serpent (evil) staff that seems to be magical. Brown is ashamed by the journey and by his guide so he tries to avoid all the "pious" townspeople that they come across on the path in the woods. Much to his surprise, these people are not acting so pious and seem to be up to somehting. He arrives at a clearing in a field to find the "pious" people congregated with the wicked townspeople and savage Indians. This group is going to induct Brown and Faith into their wicked society but Brown refuses and urges Faith to do the same. Brown wakes up in the woods, all alone and wonders whether that experience was a dream. He returns home but will not interact with any of the townspeople, including his wife, because he is now exposed to their wicked ways.
- main theme is SECRET SIN. Brown sees the sin of all other townspeople but is in denial of his own sin
- believed all the pious people were sinless, but the meeting reveals that all people have sinned
- Brown believes he knows the distinction between good and evil, but the meeting shows that the line between good an evil is very blurred
- Brown rejects his faith/Faith (haha) becuase he is denial about his sins
YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN + THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL
- "Veil" is an inversion of "Brown"
- Brown thought he could see through everyone else's veil and that he didn't have one (had no sins to hide from God)
- Brown and Hooper are not holier than anyone else and they don't feel that they are
- they just can't deal with the hypocrisy of sins so they must respond to it
NOTABLE QUOTES
"But, irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of disolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scattered also among their pale-faced enemies were the Indian priests, or powwows, who had often scared their native forest with more hideous incantations than any know to English witchcraft."
"Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened withthe heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a heaven above him. Yet there was the blue arch, and the starts brightening in it.
'With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!' cried Goodman Brown.
While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament and had lifted his ands to pray, a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried across the zenith and hid the brightening stars. The blue sky was still visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly northward."
"'My Faith is gone! cried he, after one stupefied moment. 'There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this world given.'"
"At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart."
"'Depending upon one antoher's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again my children, to the communion of your race.'"
This story fits in with the Gothic Romantics because it is an investigation of the psychological. Hawthorne wants to find out why we don't recognize the sin of others and why we don't always acknowledge our own sin. He understands and shows the reader that all humans have a barbaric nature (the ID), but we present a civilized nature (the EGO) to society.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Jewish Cemetery At Newport
Stanza 1: The Hebrews silent in their graves are contrasted with the bustle of the town and sea nearby.
Stanza 2: The Hebrews have been led out of the material world into their promised land of Death. And yet, this is contrasted with the image of trees, white with dust, waving over them.
Stanza 3: A comparison is drawn between the cracked, decrepit sepulchral stones and the tablets broken by Moses. This cemetery is old and run down.
Stanza 4: Portuguese and Spanish names interchange with Biblical names: the Jewish diaspora.
Stanza 5: The mourners bless God for creating a restful, peaceful Death. And then, "in the certainty of faith" bless him for giving Life that won't end any more. Paradox of faith?
Stanza 6: The Synagogue is abandoned.
Stanza 7: No more Jews here, but the dead. And yet, despite being along, some divine hand seems to be keep their graves intact.
Stanza 8: The Jews were driven here by persecution by Christians. They are always wandering.
Stanza 9: They are exiles even in their own homes. "Taught in the school of patience to endure the life of anguish and the death of fire."
Stanza 10: Jews live lives of fear, exile and loneliness.
Stanza 11: They are spurned by Christians everywhere despite the fact that they have their roots with the Jews.
Stanza 12: Despite their humiliation, the Jewish people are proud. Trampled, yet unshaken.
Stanza 13: What keeps them going is the memory of their patriarchs and prophets and the expectation of the blossoming of the "great traditions of the Past" in the future.
Stanza 14: But unlike everyone else at the time, they live life with a reverted look, always looking backward, "till like became a Legend of the Dead."
Stanza 15: In the end that doesn't work, 'cause races rise and fall, but don't get a second chance. "And the dead nations never rise again."
Analysis: Longfellow equates races with nations as many did at the time. This was a big issue as Lazarow mentioned because of the influx of new immigrants. What does it mean to be an American?
The poem seems to dwell on the tragedy of the Jewish people and their inability to live in the modern world because of their preoccupation with the past. This sustains them in their lone wanderings, but also works to their undoing.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the so called Jewish Question, could Jews, even if they wanted to (and not all did), assimilate into modern Western Society, was a hot issue, well before Hitler and WW II.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jewish_Question
The views expressed here remind of from Euro when we talked about Bruno Bauer's book, "The Jewish Question" where essentially he said that because Jews look backward they cannot and must not assimilate into modern society which they would taint. Modern Christain society is so great because it constantly innovates and looks forward. The idea of Reformation, of questioning and improving your religion, just like you improve anything else in modern life, was supposedly unknown to Jews. Therefore, they were inferior.
In terms of Romantic literature, this poem belongs in the Early Romantic period. It has elements of national preoccupation as well as personal meditation. Images of nature are used throughout: "Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain, still keeps their graves and their remembrance green."
From wikipedia; "The ideologies and events of the French Revolution and Industrial Revolution are thought to have influenced the movement. Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as misunderstood heroic individuals and artists that altered society. It also legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority which permitted freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability in the representation of its ideas."
Hey.
I wasn't assigned this poem, but I came across this site, and thought it might help for Longfellow's A Psalm of Life:
http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/PsalmA.htm
Thanks for reading my post Tina.
-.-
jk
Hah. Sorry?
HAWTHORNE'S "ETHAN BRAND"
Brief Summary:
A limeburner and his son Joe are sitting by the fire, when a stranger, Ethan Brand approaches. Brand used to watch this kiln but he then went in search of the unpardonable sin. The lime-burner calls up the townspeople who used to know Brand; these people did, and still do, believe that Brand was a crazy fool so they come see him and then leave. The lime-burner and Joe go to bed while Brand tends to the kiln for the night. The next morning the lime-burner finds Brand's skeleton, along with a marble heart in the kiln's fire (Brand had a heart of stone).
The major theme of this story was UNPARDONABLE SIN
- Brand believed the unpardonable sin to be an external one, so he went to search for it.
- during this search, he treats the people he meets as experiments in order to find out the unpardonable sin, but he cannot find it
- At first, he searched for it for the benefit of humanity & for personal enlightenment
- As the search continues, his motives for searching change -- he wants to fulfill his own curiosity
- Through this search, Brand oversteps the boundary between human and God, thus committing the unpardonable sin
-- by overstepping this boundary, Brand pushed the rest of humanity away and thus finds the unpardonable sin
- Brand was so harrowed by the thought of the unpardonable sin that he became locked inside his own heart/mind
- the image of his soul (heart) is hardened to a rock by the unpardonable sin
NOTABLE QUOTES:
"The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father and begged him to shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not be so much light; for that there was something in the man's face which he was afraid to look at, yet could not look away from. And, indeed, even the lime-burner's dull and torpid sense began to be impressed by an indescribable something in that thin, rugged, thoughtful visage..."
"'If the question is a fair one,' proceeded Bartram, 'where might it be?'
Ethan Brand laid his finger on his own heart.
'Here!' replied he.
And then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if moved by an involuntary recognition of the infinite absurdity of seeking throughout the world for what was the closest of all things to himself, and looking into every hear, save his own, for what was hidden in no other breast, he broke into a laugh of scorn."
"A sin that grew nowhere else! The sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for God, and sacrificed everyting to its own mighty claims! The only sin that deserves a recompense of immortal agony! Freely, were it to do again, would I incur the guilty. Unshrinkingly I accept the retribution!"
"But where was the heart? That, indeed, had withered, -- had contracted, -- had hardened, -- had perished! It had ceased to partake of the universal throb. He had lost his hold of the magnetic chain of humanity."
ROMANTIC THEMES
- Hawthorne uses great imagery and goes into detail describing the surrounding area and each of the characters
- Ethan Brand's journey to find unpardonable sin was a very Romantic one
-- he wanted to find out what the worst thing a person could do was
-- explored the minds of other people in order to find an answer to his quest
-- then learns he must look inward to find the answer
IDENTIFYING FACTORS
- any descriptions of kilns, lime-burning, etc.
- great imagery of countryside and hills off in the distance
- heart, esp. turned to stone
- unpardonable sin (duh!)
GOOD LUCK ALL
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