Wykład 15.11 2010

MAKING OF NATIONAL LITERATURE

1800-1865

Historical Backgrounds

• Expanding territories

• Imigrants are coming

• Shift from agriculture to industry

• Steamboat

• Locomotive

• cotton gin

• Abolitionist movement

• Native americans removal

• Women’s movement

• Debating societies, lyceum

• Newspapers and magazines

William Lloyd Garrison

Founded the anti-slavery journal, „The Liberator”, to promote the Abolitionist movement

The “Trait of Tears”

1830- The United States Government forced the removal of Nativ Americans from their Land

Washington Irving (1783- 1859)

One of the first American writers to achieve international fame

W. Irving – his works

• “Salmagundi”(1807, 1808)magazine – satirical essays about social climbers, politicians, military men, critics, belles written by W. Irving, his brother William and by James K. Paulding

• “A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty” (1809) written under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker

• “The Sketch Books of Geoffrey Crayon Gent –(1820) a collection of tales and sketches including “Rip van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

W. Irving other collections

• Bracebridge Hall, The Humorists: A. Meddley (1822)

• Life and Voyages of Columbus (1828)

• Conquest of Granada (1829)

• The Life of Washington (1855-1859) and others

Washington Irving style

• Humor – it is not what he says, but how he says it.

• He exaggerates with a straight face

• Makes ironic remarks

• Says the opposite of what he means

• Uses long sentences and many words of Latin derivation

• And exaggerates grandly the seriousness of situations

Washington Irving

Ebraced the spirit of the new Romantic Movement

• Emphasis upon emotions

• A great interest in the picturesque elements of the past

• Enthusiasm about portraying national life and character

• Drew from German literature for the suggestion of legends

• Master of descriptions( sights, colours, sounds, feelings)

• Creator of an atmosphere indicating mystery and evil

Rip van Winkle

Forerun of romanticism

• Rip – a man of nature

• Supernatural phenomena

• The genre used (legend)

• Nostalgia of the past

• Concern for individual freedom

• Love for the beauty of the natural landscape

• Rip starts a certain traditions of American heroes – the counter-hero

James Fenimore Cooper (1787- 1851)

Works

• Precaution (1820) – a dynastic novel of manners, political satire, allegory

• The Spy (1821)- about a secret agent (Harvey Birch) who spied upon the British during the Revolutionary War (Cooper’s first successful novel)

• The Pilot (1823)- a sea novel, with the daring character Long Tom Coffin, and old “sea dog”

• Leatherstocking Series – five novels, uniquely American, with a frontier setting, including Indians as characters (their codes, ways of fighting, or treating their captives), and the westward migration as the social background (American frontier of 1740- 1804)

Leatherstocking Tales

• Based on history, full of action, danger, escapes, and brave deeds; arrival of the first Whites as scouts, soldiers, traders, and frontiersmen, the coming of poor, rough settler families; and finally the arrival of the middle class, bringing the first professionals (layers, judges, physicians, bankers)

• Each incoming wave displaces the earlier. The ongoing and inevitable wave of settlers is seen not only as gains, but also as losses.Deep tension between the lone individual and society, between the nature and culture, and between spirituality and organized religion; contrasts and conflicts within and between characters; examination of human nature and society; Indians: both good and bad

1. The pioneers (1823) – Natty Bumppo (White Scout) is middle-aged and has difficulty setting in a “civilized” community. His friend Chingachgook (Mohican Indian) dies despite Natty’s efforts to save him.

2. The Last of the Mohicans (1826)- Bumpoo is called Hawkeye during Seven Years’ War between the Fench and the British in North America

3. Prairie (1827)- Bumpoo is a trapper in his 80’s. He joins the westward movement and dies in Nebraska

4. The Pathfinder (1840)- Bumpoo (pathfinder) is a scout during the conflict between French and British. He thinks of marrying, but the woman loves someone else. He accepts this and disappears in the wilderness

5. The Deerslayer (1841) – A young Natty Bumpoo (deerslayer) kills an Indian in a fight who gives him the name Hawkeye. This is the initiation of the hero into manhood

To read the story of Natty Bumpoo from youth to the old age, one must read these novels not in the order of composition but follows this order 5 2 4 1 3

The American Frontier

The leatherstocking novels move the reader back in time, further into the American past emphasizing the youth and the innocence of the hero, who is further away from civilization, and from social realism

The Original American Hero

Natty Bumpoo:

• And outstanding woodsman

• A peaceful man adopted by Indian tribe

• Loves nature and freedom

• Is chaste, high-minded, deeply spiritual

• The famous frontiersman in American literature

• The literary forerunner of many cowboy and backwoods heroes

• And idealized individualist who is better than the society he protects

• Is pure, with ethical values

• Can distinguish good from evil

• Complains about the destruction of wilderness

Natty Bumpoo becomes and American Adam (natural wisdom, natural morality; reliance on action and instinct rather than thought, reasoning, education, and convention)

Questions

• Are human beings basically good or evil?

• What kind of society is needed in the New World

James Fenimore Cooper

Writing style:

• Long, complex descriptions

• Careless about details in his wording

• The characters: men seem self-important, while ladies are sentimental

• At times the character seem to be reading their lines, instead of talking naturally

W. Irving versus J.F. Cooper

• IRVING searched in Europe looking for themes. He imported and adapted European legends, culture, and history

• COOPER grasped the essential myth of America – the wilderness, and created distinctive American characters and themes

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