15.12.11 – American literature class

Washington Irving (1783-1859) the first professional American author. He managed to achieve an
incredible success. He spent many years In England and so his works are considered simultaneously
American and European. He was the writer in between.

- The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1820)

James Fenimore Cooper 1789-1851 “Leatherstocking tales” including “The Last of the Mohicans”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Hathorne) 1804-1864 “The house of Seven Gables” 1851, “The
Blithedale Romance” 1852, “The Marble Faun” 1860, “The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings”

Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882 – Transcendentalist Club

Small world of American writers – they could fit in one room

1850s - American romanticism

American literature became recognizable as an American (in writing).

Manifest Destiny – 19

th

century doctrine suggesting that American have the right to possess more

and more lands. Belief in progress.

Many people in 19

th

century were xenophobes or racists. The question was where the America was

heading to? Could it accept everyone who came there?

In 1800 – there were 900.000 slaves and in 1850 there were 3.200.000 slaves and it was the biggest
problem of that times.

Situation of women – they had no access to education, they could not vote or have a profession.

Edgar Allan Poe – (born 1809 in Boston, died 1849 in Baltimore)

His father left his family soon after he was born and his mother died afterwards. His uncle John Allen
took care of him and performed the role of his father although he has never adopted him. Their
relationship wasn’t very happy. In 1835 he married his 14 years old cousin. He was addicted to
gambling and to the alcohol. He was a gloomy figure who is depressed and gothic, crazy. In 1849 he
was found in the street of Baltimore, bubbling, in agony. He might have had an attempt to suicide or
been attacked.

The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)

(…)

ID – the most primitive aspect of personality, the most primitive drive (popęd)

EGO – this is the mediator between id and reality. Part of the ego is conscious and the part is
unconscious

SUPEREGO – represents the demands of the culture and the society. This is the ‘policeman’.

Defence mechanisms – (denial – it’s like forgetting that something happened, erasing something
from the memory => the will to forget)

Displacement - the example of child wishing to kill his or her little new born brother or sister (being
jealous for somebody, being afraid of losing someone’s eye on you, stop being the important one)

Sublimation – instead of killing somebody you write a story about killing him or her.