HISTORIA LITERATURY AMERYKAŃSKIEJ / W-1 / 14-10-2008
First English Settlement
1607 - Jamestown (Virginia)
secular setllement (gentelmen adventures and their band servants)
trading part of Virginia Company of London
main surrvival crop: tobacco
gave rise to the South of the plantation system and slavery
1st governor: John Smith
his chronicle of the colony: A Description of New England - written by John Smith
story of Pocachontas
3 basic settlements:
Jamestown - secular settlement
Plymouth
Massachusetts Bay Colony
Bradford's chronicle is much more realistic, Smith's is rather idealistic.
Plymouth & Massachusetts - mostly religious people, religious settlement.
Pilgrim Fathers travelled from England Plymouth, first settlement in Holland as Puritan but went to America because of persecution. In Massachusetts the Puritans were much austere, they started to persecute others.
1620 - Plymouth - rather poor, simple Puritans, simple carpenters, soldiers. 160 arrivals, 50 survived, religious mission.
1630 - Massachusetts - much richer, better of educated, strong elite could govern colony, called themselves theocracy (it's not rule of God, as God does not rule on Earth) so it's form Government by religious readers. 17 ships, 20 times as big as the survivor, John Winthrop - first governor.
Samuel Sewall - was on of the judges in Salem trials, the only who apologised publicly, another was the grandfather of Nathaniel Howthorne, but never apologised for Witchcraft trials
Background of American Literature:
cosmopolitism - nothing like American literature for almost a century only 200 years later the transcendentalism appeared as a movement, who declared cultural & literary, Declaration of Independence of America in terms of science, literature, ------- - half of the 19th century. But declaration of politic independence 1776, in most cores literature was not distinct at that time, Poe, we can't talk he's American, he is so universal, he doesn't maintain anything that is American, setting, problems not American, but some critics try to discover the americanism of the works of Poe.
French symbolic poets admired Poe, they modelled on his poems, example of cosmopolitanism.
Transcendentalism - American romanticism
Cosmopolitism also by Henry James 19/20th centuries, The Portrait of a Lady, he was American, but spent most time in England, he come to Europe to write.
American writers became expatriate writers (emigranci,
puritanism
frontier
mysticism
5 Calvinist Points (TULIP)
- Total Depravity - man is depraved (zdeprawowany, evil) - once a sinner always a sinner -
- Unconditional Election - (Predestination) - to be either saved THE ELECT or damned THE DAMNED
- Limited Atonement - zadośćuczynienie - Christ suffered only for the elect, not for damned, that's why limited.
- Irresistible Grace - grace of God given to the Elect., refer to the Elect. The grace of God can't be rejected, no tricks of the devil can spoil the salvation for the elect, the devil is helpless, he cannot tempt them.
- Perseverance of Saints - the Saints, the Elect, persistence endurance, wytrzymałość, they were endure to the hardships, thanks to the God's grace
If somebody was wealthy it means he's elect and God meant him to be wealthy. Wealth, prosperity, health, education meant they were elect. Poverty meant the damned.
America is predominantly protestant.
Effects of Puritans:
bondage of will - as appeal to free will (frontier) - resulted from Puritan's belief, God has the will which dominates people's, your will depended totally of the will of God.
Puritanism came to America with Pilgrim Fathers, first settlers
Frontier - moving of the settlement line, once the settlers reached California, opened about in the 18th century - up to the 19th century with the Gold Rush.
Theocracy democracy
Theocracy - rule of the elite, very elitist society, aristocratic tendencies, no competition between the elect and the damned, once a sinner always a sinner, social inequality
Democracy - (Frontier), social equality, egalitarianism, spirit of enterprise and competition.
Special providence of God - -God's care for the Elect, good events signs as God's favour, bad as sings of the punishment.
God's sovereignty - God's rule, chose who was to be saved or damned
Righteousness - prawość, the Elect believed as chosen by God, they can also act in the name of God, puritan mentality, inscribed in American society.
In Frontier - self-reliance, individualism - typical American but resulting from the Frontier nor from Puritanism they derive from Transcendentalism.
Mood of buoyancy, enthusiasm, optimism, idea of Christian perfection, you can perfect yourself, they could became better improve the power of a man, free will of man.
HISTORIA LITERATURY AMERYKAŃSKIEJ / W-2 & 3 / 25.10.2008
The Puritans had specific kinds of literature dictated by theology
Forms of puritan literature:
Sermons (Jonathan Edwards: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God)
Chronicle (William Bradford of Plymouth Plantation) - Perceived history in a special way, as God's second chance to start life from the scratch, after the primary sin. Puritans believed in predestination, to create new garden of Eden with a new Adam who will not sin possibility to create sinless world, religious mission - the setting of new world.
Diary (Samuel Sewall Diary) - personal character, important but later, Sewall was member of theocracy, member of elected, he was listened to.
Spiritual Dairy (Jonathan Edwards Personal Narrative)
Biography (Cotton Mather Magnolia) - biographies were in high regard, as regard written by elected people, preachers, powering body, treated as virtue to imitate by others.
Puritan poetry is not worth much in literary sense, just to spread Puritan message, only the 2 poets are more sophisticated, they seem to question virtues of Puritanism, they were unorthodox
Supposed to be simple (imitation of biblical style, simple diction for the people at that time)
Homely imagery - suggest connection with home, which would be familiar for Puritans, recognizable for Puritans as they use it at home (a spinning wheel - kołowrotek, a loom - krosno)
EDWARD TAYLOR, Housewifery
Metaphysical conceit (Meditation Six)
Conceit - unexpected way of thinking, shock value, metaphor employed by poets it was far-fetched (going too far, negative feature), metaphysical, mechanical,surprising.
Allegory - (Upon a Spider Catching a Fly) - is larger, series of metaphors, 2 meanings: literary and figurative - suggests some moral lesson, conveys it.
ANNE BRADSTREET - born in England, moved to America with her fathers, married, well educated in England, a poetess, she had a big family, many children, quite modern, different interests in her poetry, enlightened lady for her time.
Her poems more sophisticated, are unorthodox, not predictably puritanical denying certain features of Puritanism.
To My Dear and Loving Husband
Not typical Puritanical poem, she shows her feeling and emotions, not reserved as expected. The tone is not gloom, she's happy, gentle in tone, tender.
Anne stresses her feelings not responsibilities, compares love to mines of gold, wealth of earth, to the fire or thirst, she stresses it as physical love, the passion, the desire rather than spiritual love, she values it, it is very precious for her. She is missing - no God reference but he should be rewarded for his love for her, does not treat spiritual love but human love.
Gentle tender tone vs. strict austere mood of Puritan literature
Lover's passion vs. wife's duty
Human love vs. love of GodBefore the Birth of One of Her Children
Occasion: before the birth of her child (one of her children).
What prompts her to write it: she fears death, afraid of it, not religious fear, not about her fear.
First lines: Everything passes, fleeting nature of life, secular way of perceiving passage of time, rising of nostalgia or regret, almost pagan feel, goes to Anglo-Saxon motifs.
She worried of her children's fate when she dies, worries about her husband how they are going to manage.
The tone is sadder, but it is also gentle and tender, she doesn't talk about heavenly matters, but only secular matters - earthly concerns, very unpuritanical.
Upon the Burning of Our House
The poem is varied, religious and secular. She is frightened and scared, then as if she remembers about God, she asks about God's help.
Puritans perceived God: God's sovereignty who can decide about man's life according to his pleasure, God directs human life from the beginning to an end, God is wiser,
EDWARD TAYLOR - born in England, moved to America, studied at Harvard, was a preacher.
Harvard, Princeton, Yale - puritanical colleges educating preachers, priests.
He forbade his family to publish his poems, the poems were found in 1939 in England and published then, he was afraid of persecution as somebody who has unorthodox views.
Upon a Spider Catching a Fly
- literal level
- figurative
(The nightingale does not fit the insects)
Spider, wasp, fly, nightingale
Metaphysical conceit which is not consistent, they were meant to be inconsistent, (niekonsekwentne)
The spider tries to catch weak insects, he's afraid of the wasp, not the fly. The wasp can sting him.
Figurative:
the spider - the devil
the wasp - a saved person, an elect person
the fly - the dammed
the nightingale - the elect in heaven
(the predestination)
the web - temptation
the lesson is: Satan's trying to tempt man, but only the dammed give up and relent to sin, the elect have the weapon - the grace of God.
Communicate - suggests predestination
Man is perceived as totally evil - total depravity
Unconditional Election (a spider)
Meditation Six by Edward Taylor
Puritan doctrine:
What / who is man compared to: man is something precious to God. Man is compared to gold, purse, golden angel in your hand (angel as God's creature and also as English gold coin at the same time - everything is precious to God)
The question refer to:
Am I a new minted by thy stamp ? → Am I your gold coin ?
The stamp identifies the gold, stamp of election, God's grace. Elect will bear this stamp.
Even without the stamp, man is gold and still precious to God, so it's unpuritanical man by definition precious to God, it questions Total Depravity.
Metaphysical conceit in the comparison: what is inconsistent- comparison of man to the purse, man can't be at the same time the content of the purse and the purse itself so its inconsistent.
Even if I am not minted I am important.
God owns the mine, man is gold in this mine, if man is stamped coin so God is the owner of the mint.
God:
- owner of the mine
- owner of the mint
- spectacles - stands out, it's a thing, not person, another example of metaphysical conceit in this inconsistency.
Housewifery
Enumerates different parts of the machine of spinning wheel to convey idea of earning salvation. Imagery relates to the spinning wheel in first half, in second to the loom.
The verb make is repeated, active verb suggests asking for doing, for being granted election.
How to earn salvation: by reading the Bible.
Chronicle 1620 - 1650 by William Bradford
Differences between chronicles of Bradford and Sewell
In time
Bradford's chronicle registers the period of
to arrive they have to cross the Atlantic, the passage through the Atlantic, arrival in the setting of Plymouth, the signing of Mayflower, founding corn
Bradford sees the fact they found corn as God's blessing, as God doesn't want his people to die by starving. He tries to prevent them from starving. God's providence has to do with reward or punishment, it means the reward by sending them corn.
2 trips in land, on the second trip inland they found the corn. William Bradford can be seen as a devout Puritan.
He consciously resolves to the Puritan doctrine, he refers to the doctrine in term of God's special providence.
September 6, 1620
God's providence, God's sovereignty
The whole is perceived from the puritanical perspective.
- the Elect → the Pilgrim fathers
- the damned → the sailors (didn't help each other)
Everything what surrounded was unknown, afraid of Indians, exposed to unknown dangers.
Mayflower Compact - the idea of mission
The purpose: for our better ordering
To make their survival possible, to bring some order in the colony.
Samuel Sewell
Differences between two texts: a chronicle contains very important, historical events, the tone in Bradford - sense of mission, the tone is serious, solemn.
Diary - personal events, also pictures of everyday life, records births, deaths marriages, records daily life, difference in the tone: less formal, humorous at time, lighter tone.
Mostly secular, death of his wife, his pursuit of new wife glimpses of religious life (sermons or religious book as presents for Madam Winthrop, but rather pragmatic time).
The Yankee Period - much more secular, very business like.
He underline the cost of his presents.
How is marriage treated = as a business deal, discussed how much each of them will receive if the other dies.
To keep a coach - he is economising
He speaks in a very matter of fact tone, frank, straight forward even if they show him in rather poor light.
Salem Witchcraft Trials
He stood up in court and asked for forgiveness for his participation in trials.
HISTORIA LITERATURY AMERYKAŃSKIEJ / W4 & W5/ 08.11.2008
Samuel Sewell - humorous tone - discrepancy what the author says and expectation of the reader, the author is serious, but humorous effect is a result of a gasp between serious tone and realisation of the reader that the author does not know he is ludicrous a stingy person he is, he describes how she ignored him in a very matter of fact tone, without recognizing that he should give up, he describes the fact but doesn't see the point.
Yankee period - [1673 - 1729] - time of the new century ---- already more secular, attitude to life, business like, pragmatic attitude, down to earthiness way of thinking.
Sewell is provincial, narrow minded, only describes what concerns him, more interested in well being of his cow than reforming of the world
Edgar Alan Poe - first really great writer of international repute, French symbolists took over him. Short story writer, a literary critic, inverted detective story, brooded since fiction, introduced a new fiction of psychological analysis, he was an aesthete (as oppose to Hawthorne).
Art for art's sake, no moral judgement, describes in order to scare, to frighten reader, just for the sake of scaring, a decadent romantic, to indulge in emotions, aestheticism of writing.
The Philosophy of Composition
death and melancholy
effect of sadness
all other choices are subject to the effect, to achieve effect he has subordinated.
to make other choices
no author ever discuss the process of writing, he breaks the sentence and write about:
poetry
brevity
unity of effect - all elements of the short story should contribute to effect priority of the effect.
death
place, night, late winter, the poet is a speaker - bereaved cover
his way of writing refers to philosophy of universe. (matter exploded)
when reader takes the text and puts the elements spun out into condensed matter (cosmogenic perception of the world)
Suspense in the poem
Gradually
the place - topping from the door he wanted to open the door.
The visitor might be a man or woman.
Gradually tension rises as its not a visitor- it's a bird.
He's amused by the fact that raven appears to be serious almost like a human being
It's surprising that the poet is smiling, comic scene which interrupts the tragic events, all variation of refrain application
HISTORIA LITERATURY AMERYKAŃSKIEJ / W-6 / 20.12.2008
Transcendentalism - American version of European romanticism.
Authentic only American movement, philosophical and theological roots.
New church - Unitarian church
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Unitarian minister, philosopher, theoriticioner
Henry David Thoreau - Walden - practical account of theory of Emerson, practitioner
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Nature (1836)
Transcendentalism on the basis of 3 sources: Unitarianism (theological), philosophical (German idealism), mysticism.
Unitarianism movement as reaction to Puritanism, man perceived as divine, the perception of nature quite different than in Puritanism, nature perceived as pervaded with the spirit of God, penetrated, man was part of nature, his qualities came from spirit, so man is also divine.
Transcendentalism took it bow from Unitarianism.
German idealism - imamate Kant's innate ideas, human knowledge result from intuition
Mysticism - complete spiritual identification of man with some special superior nature like God (the Quaker's belief in inner light or Christ within every individual)
[Puritanism believed in two baptisms: child and adult]
Transcendental experience is a mystical experience,
leave society to nature, be aware of his part of nature and divine spirit in it.
Transcendentalism did not call divine spirit God but OVERSOUL.
Emerson - founder of Break Form community, they lived in the minds of nature in the community (Hawthorne was there also but he criticized it later as well as Mellville)
Transcendentalism had the greatest impact on American mentality.
Self-reliance - became the prevalent American attitude, absence of National Health service is result of self-reliance.
Individualism - it is feature of nature
Non-conformism - a rebel
Emerson's self-reliance
Trust yourself, it is egoistic philosophy, against the charity, importance of duty to yourself.
Society secures safety, clothing, food, shelter, forces men to stay within it. It conspires against the individualism of every individual, it hampers men's development, man has to leave the society, leave your family behind and go out into nature, and provide for yourself (Robinsonian way) in nature, you can recapture your individualism and be enriched spiritually. Society blackmails the individual somehow, to be full man, you've got to be a non-conformist.
Thoreau - in Walden describes two years living on the point (pod Jeziorem) image of rebirth, spiritual regeneration, image of a slake which casts his slough in spring, throws away its own self and becomes reborn.
Transcendental experience - can be achieved by a direct contact with Nature seeing its greatness divinity leads a man to comprehending (????) the divine within himself.
Nature:
Instead of reading books on nature, we should go back to the source into direct contact with nature, first hand experience will give us more insight into nature, tradition is used negatively.
Man does not appreciate stars because they are common. A poet has best view of nature, because he does not see object separately but as whole picture.
the poet - aesthetic
Names of farmers - they perceive it as sth they can use, which brings the profits, they perceive it on property, but none of them owns the landscape, when they die it turns out that the land owns them when they are buried.
Child has similar.
Child is more sensitive to nature an adult can also but he has to have ability, innocence, freshness of perception.
Snake & slough
Transparent eye-ball-reflects the nature.
Man in nature becomes the transparent eyeball, nature is reflected in his eye, poet loses his identity and becomes one with nature and with God Oversoul in nature you became self-reliant, nothing and nobody else matters.
HISTORIA LITERATURY AMERYKAŃSKIEJ / W-7 / 20.12.2008
Young Goodman Brown - Nathaniel Hawthorne
A respectable man, his parents were respected, the name is suggestive of respectiveness.
All names have “good” in it, the names suggests they are good Puritans, members of theocracy.
He is newly-wed, he decides to go into forest at dark and he comes at dawn, what difference does, it makes - it change the way he perceived the community, evil ritual of initiation into evil, new faith.
He's prevented an the boarder line / truth.
The consequences are the same - the change in the main character.
He discovers hypocrisy of Puritan elect, so he discovers the Puritan theory is fake - it told them to believe in the division between elected and (theology) the damned, belief in predestination.
As he discovers there's nothing like purify of the elect, they are as sinful as the others, all people have sin in themselves.
He loses faith in Puritanical doctrine - he discovers reality, mix the good and evil in the people.
He is alienated - he has nothing to stick to, he discovers evil in the elect.
Faith also has seeds of evil in her heart.
It is not certain if she has resisted devil (or not - very Hawthorian) - he leaves readers in doubt, appearances / reality. He's very suggestive, but not determines this was that and this was so much uncertainty in his stories.
He can't expect the evil he discovers, the reality is ambiguous.
Pink ribbon of faith - red & white.
Pink - mixture combination of good and evil in human soul
Red - blood in context of evil, negative symbolism
White - innocence
Puritans were wrong - as there's always good and bad elements.
Pink ribbon - symbolic of Young Goodman Brown unacceptability of Puritan doctrine, he loses faith in Puritan doctrine, the reality is different.
There are many interpretations to the story.
One of them is archetypal - refers to the very idea of Brown's initiation of the evil.
Does he become mark with blood? - no as he passes out, we don't know whether he was initiated.
But he sees the evil in the elect, the falsity of Puritan doctrine, but whether he's baptised to evil - he's not
He doesn't go down to hell, so he can't become purified ascended (as Christ was), he was not baptised into evil, so he can't know the good.
Knowing evil is essential to be virtuous, you can't rise.
He became embittered as there was no redeeming guilty, he saw evil but did not experience it, he saw in others not in himself.
Difference between Hester & Brown
Hester - she's willing to accept the punishment, exposed to evil directly.
Brown - he only sees it in others, knowledge of evil kills him, he can't accept it, while faith accepted the complexity of the humans.
The letter A suggested later from Adulatory to Able and Angel. She becomes redeemed.
The man met at forest is very similar to him, continuity of linage, they all inherit status of elect, negative.
Symbol - snake, evil, sin, Satan, some kinship goes beyond, kinship of evil.
The stick suggests the evil, but Hawthorne suggests in might be an illusion. The truth is illusive, reality is much more complex.
Vagueness of a story was a --------- at that time. Made up for by the clarity of structure. Vagueness is compensated by clarity of structures. Dusk - dawn, town - forest, dark - light.
Both Hawthorne and Poe used it, but the purpose was different. Hawthorne criticised Puritanism as too simplistic.
Puritanism believed that forest, nature associated with evil, town a place of moral stability as puritans elect lived there.
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Removal of “A” letter and hair - kind of liberation from society, from her sin, return to the prelapsarian time(from before her fall, state of innocence)
Gradation of sin - Hawthorne introduces it, adultery seems less severe than falsehood, hypocrisy and both less severe the unpardonable sin id Roger Chillingworth - he's cold to as a doctor, pretends to be a good friend of Dimsdale, but he is hateful and revengeful. As a doctor he should cure the patient, he uses it increase patients' suffering, to destroy, experiment on.
Premeditated revenge, manipulates the patients, uses head over hand.
Hester's sins - her exposure to the evil was direct, she committed it unlike Brown.
Felix culpa - according to Puritanism - once a sinner couldn't be saved. Hawthorne shows however, she's redeemed overcomes her alienation because of sin.
Salvation from sin thanks to sin - to virtue is felix culpa (the happy guilt, a fortunate fall (szczęśliwa wina)
Hawthorne denies Puritan theory.
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