Lit 2 – Flashcards

Rip Van Winkle -irving: relationship of old: new, takes advantage of real history; makes new world older -Past is frozen -R.I.P.- peace, joke on state- alive or dead? "Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows keener by constant use..." -terrible marriage, not interested in events "Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy age when a man can do nothing with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench, at the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and a chronicle of the old times "before the war... king george to GW, out of matrimony, could do what he pleased ---Representation of past as frozen, "sameness" ---Sleeping vs awake- world isn't very different

The legend of sleepy hollow -crane= superstitious (knows cotton mather) "...carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house; so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction" -IC: appetite for the marvelous -Crane has appetite for stories he is being told & for digesting anything marvelous -Appetite for stories is matched with appetite for stuff -hunger is for food + sex + money (appetite) -Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex; and it is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon found favour in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. -the pedagogue's mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind's eye, he pictured to himself every roasting pig running about with a pudding in its belly ****Crane eats with "dilating powers of an anaconda"; Like corpse (not nourished); food keeps moving through him -@ end of story, it as though he must disappear (he is consumed by himself) -knickerboxer: : "Faith, sir," replied the story-teller, "as to that matter, I don't believe one half of it myself." D.K. -crane is chased off by brom bones: HH→BB d. Haunting for irving works in way that we have material explanation for events which is convincing e. What is haunting sleepy hollow? Ghot of major andre (traitor loyalist) **material evidence f. Old feudal system + old decaying sueprsitions of NE g. Historical problems because of transition between historical epochs

"Nature" -emerson loves lists, and word noble a. nature marks the beginning of the American renaissance american renaissance- after 2nd WW, in period between 1820-30 and civil war; a flowering of American lit --Nature= system of thought being casually developed founded on high points of german philosophy (kant) & transformations into general lit culture -nature is based on ideas of imagination + idealism -nature is published in book form but short; pamphlet= true form, but is published as a book 1. idealism; emerson says thought first material second Idealism acquaints us with the total disparity between the evidence of our own being, and the evidence of the world's being 2. separation between nature and man *emerson- we use nature to self-actualize---nature allows us to realzie our spirit vs paine- we use nature to understand natural principles (triangle); paine--- reason enables us do do thing w world -3 step movement between nature + self + art, which are fist unified in imagination, then the material (emerson) All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature. philosophy= all that is separate from nature 3. connection btwn me and not me = god "visible nature must have a spiritual and moral side." Nature has telos (end purpose, directionality) , which is toactualize sef 4.nature fulfills lack of beauty -beauty is in eye as well ; eye integeates world and masses of objects *even corpse has beauty "A nobler want of man is served by nature, namely, the love of Beauty..." 5. art= engagement with nature "The production of a work of art throws a light upon the mystery of humanity. A work of art is an abstract or epitome of the world. It is the result or expression of nature, in miniature...What is common to them all,--that perfectness and harmony, is beauty... artists work to concentrate nature's beauty on one point 6. virtues of country life- country life is > city life "advantage which the country-life possesses for a powerful mind... 7. establishes a museum piece, columbus becomes noble "noble act is done in a great scene of beauty...Ever does natural beauty steal in like air, and envelope great actions." 8. railroad alters view of lanscape in a positive way "nature made to emancipate us..." "Turn the eyes upside down, by looking at the landscape through your legs, and how agreeable is the picture, though you have seen it any time these twenty years!" What new thoughts are suggested by seeing a face of country quite familiar, in the rapid movement of the railroad car 9. Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy. Every man's condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. ... let us inquire- what is nature? -heiroglyph- egptian symbol; endless process of interpretation *like arabesque in poe

"The Age of Reason" -concerned with social corruption -"my mind is my own church" -metaphor for political change -"churches enslave us", but minds are united by ability to reason -"man has corrupted the chastity of mind...can we concieve anything more destructive to morality than this?..." -can you really know who your father is? -"eclipse of reason"...As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of atheism; a sort of religious denial of God...It has put the whole orbit of reason into shade. " "It would also be ignorance, or something worse, to say that the scientific principles, by the aid of which man is enabled to calculate and foreknow when an eclipse will take place, are an human invention. Man cannot invent anything that is eternal and immutable" -triangle= image of principle..."All the properties of a triangle exist independently of the figure, and existed before any triangle was drawn or thought of by man" -understand natural principles

"ligeia" "From out the most central recess of this melancholy vaulting, depended, by a single chain of gold, with long links, a huge censer of the same metal, Arabesque in pattern, and with many perforations so contrived that there writhed in and out of them, as if endued with a serpent vitality, a continual succession of parti-coloured fires...This material was the richest cloth of gold. It was spotted all over, at irregular intervals, with Arabesque figures, of about a foot in diameter, and wrought upon the cloth in patterns of the most jetty black.... But these figures partook of the true character of the Arabesque only when regarded from a single point of view." -poe's stories are tales of arabesque: design continually followed with eye -ligeia= story about deadness, describes old decaying city in europe "I met her...large, old, deacaying city near the rhine...family...ancient...paternal name...wife of bosom..." -ligeia has ancient family, poe doesnt know the name, origin problem -beauty is via decayingness and unidentified origin * -ligeia's beauty: "not of classic regularity...exquisite...strangeness pervading it...detect the irregularity...trace home my own perception of the strange...skin purest ivory...hebrews similar perfection...sweet mouth...teeth glancing back...scrutinized formation of chin...of the greek...god apollo...cleomenes..athenian" -feminine, gendered beauty -classical references -physiognomy= science of reading faces ligeia= already dead even when she is alive -dead, frozen beauty blazon= inventory of features of the beloved summary: ligeia= met by narrator, has mysterious beauty, ligeia dies, narrator marries, new wife also becomes ill (rowena), but rowena dies and becomes ligeia as corpse

heiroglyph in emerson- representation, try to see world in different way arabesque in poe- looping of script; architecture of story

-deals with questions of 1. originality vs copy (accuses longfellow of plagarism), is WW a copy? nightingale converted to raven 2. death and beauty (liegia) dead/alive boundary poe's horror via 2 foundations 1. narrator 2. young woman -goal is for readers to read stories thinking about double bases -moral sentiments- feelings about where morality comes from *we can sympathsize with others by imaging ourselves in their positions (adam smith) *poe- tries to put us in specific situations so we can sympathesize; and then reveals horrors; horror ends up coming out of us if we can identify with the narrator enough

"william wilson. a tale." -original or a copy? "desks..time-worn...beseamed with initial letters, names, meaningless gashes, grotesque figures, lost what little of original form might have been their portion in days long departed..." -palimpset = writing over writing (18th c, paper is expensive, so common to write over what's already there) summary: -unnamed narrator, other student has same name as him, becomes object of competition -the 2 fight, the narrator leaves and goes to another school to escape WW, but narrator attends ball at school and sees guest named WW again who is wearing same outfit, stabs copy, but WW's own body starts bleeding; it is as if WW has murdered himself

"the raven" -nightingale is converted to gothic double, the raven -raven= emblem of death "nevermore" repeated summary: -narrator hears a tapping at the door -sorrow over the death of lenore -raven enters and keeps saying "nevermore", narrator thinks the raven is an evil prophet -raven keeps saying nevermore

"death of an infant" -infant is frozen -poem of mourning, freezes us on infancy -what does it mean to be a person? -no quotes discusses in class "rose faded...his seal of science...so fixed and holy...death gazed and left it there...ring of heaven"

"slave singing at midnight" -slave is signing about christianity (not really mentioned in class) "what holy angel brings the slave glad evangel?" "the voice of devotion filled my soul with strange emotion"

"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself" -autobiography is in 3 parts; pamphlet-sized book; circulates as book but serves as a pamphlet (intervention in arguments for slavery) -narrative's shaping- 2 letters preface (garrison + williams)- justify truth and his motivations - beginning- says where he is born, but also includes what he is missing (ie birthday) -mom: never saw much (only a few occasions at night), when she dies it's like stranger dying (writing during culture of senimentalism; knows this will affect readers) -audience= white abolitionist -FORMER slave (story can only be told by someone who was in slave system and can contrast) -sorrow songs (now recognizes that he is gone- songs are actualy sad; northerns think theyre happy but "great mistake" -learns to read via mrs auld (teach me the ABC), teaches him not only how to read abs but abcs of slavery -narrative= political + moral manual -douglass' strugge is against slavery (not looking for removal of a negative constraint); looking for a form of power; whatever power he gets at end of struggle is from emerging from system *how he gets power: learns how to use his condition (litearcy w aulds) ; recognizes that enforced black ingnorance maintains slave system sails, covey "beautiful vessels...delightful to the eye of freeman...freedom's angels...i am left in the hell of slavery... there is a better day coming" **uses same motif as equiano and franklin douglass + jenkins old advisor of sandy says to carry a root on his right side to prevent whipping -douglass doesnt fully believe it -root= history (roots) -root= bearer of african culture which isnt integrated into slavery -root becomes a history for douglass (empowers him) frontpieces: 1845: distinguished but respectful 1855- more militant, hands are in fists

David Walker, Appeal in Four Articles -walker says that delaney= colonizing trick; his logic is one of separate and equal, separtism *walker focuses on power relationships *key word= citizen -unmasks truth of society (whites are enriches via black enslavement) -compares to history -distributes it to sailors (controvertial) "are we men? ...whites have always been unjust...Greece...Rome...

"An Indian's Looking-Glass for the White Man" -native american -aims to change ideaology around race

"Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American Continent" -argues for recolonization -if you dont rule, you cant be safe -liberty=self-soveirgnty of body, individual soveirgnty isnt enough (we live in class society with racism) *power -liberty is secured not via assertion of natural rights (ie claiming you have rights isn't how you get it) OR via persuading ruling racist class to be fair or consistent; it is not granted -speaks to national emigration of colored men A people, to be free, must necessarily be their own rulers: that is, each individual must, in himself, embody the essential ingredient--so to speak--of the sovereign principle which composes the true basis of his liberty. This principle, when not exercised by himself, may, at his pleasure, be delegated to another--his true representative...That remedy is emigration

, "Resistance to Civil Government" & "A Plea for Captain John Brown" -JB: -says he is basically insane, "supernatural being...spark of divinity...proof of his insanity" -says JB is 1. insane 2. mono-maniac -presenting brown as insane= way to de-legitimate the radical anti-slavery movement -monomania- what others think americans are suffering from ("american disease") -1848= series of unsuccessful revolutions (in us- great compromise; *france also has revolution in 1848) -civil disobedience: -refuses to pay poll tax (mexico war); in jail & likes it;;; thinks mexico war will turn men into robots

"John Brown" -says JB has "singleness of purpose"

The Scarlet Letter -preface: custom house; views salem through a window -romance is NOT representation of real life; comes through its magic + mystification) -describes "dingy" room, decaying -writes that he has relatives in trials -past is not dead (past and present are fused) -finds scarlet letter (on cloth) "meaning in it worthy of interpretation" is A like a heiroglyph? -magic in novel (because historical romance; assume US lacks a social history- speaks of ghosts) -details= realism and are spiritualized (in contrast to being materialized) -NH describes women in salem as irving describes women in tarrytown (matronly and ancient) -punitive style of puritans- combines punishment of body at level of body (torture of body and soul); scaffold- holds HP there -public shaming= internal discipline -constant oscillation between celebration of women and their degradation as mere bodies/objects -HP's work circulates, there seems to be a fashion to it, BUT it is inseparable from shame (ie brides wont wear it) -shame circulitates like her work-"all of nature seemed to know it" -women recognize other women: eyes of a young maiden glancing at the scarlet letter, shyly and aside, and quickly averted, with a faint, chill crimson in her cheeks; as if her purity were somewhat sullied by that momentary glance -pearl=daughter; always with her -children play (horrible society) playing at going to church, perchance; or at scourging Quakers; pearl as evil? - or is it the children? the A -materialized in preface -HP circulation; is her work popular because fashionable or is there an attraction to something made by her? -solidarity between women in novel -A stands for a; A=A *monological pearl makes her own letter from seaweed "A letter--the letter a" = palindromic -what does A mean? A for hester= sin?, pearl=? -pearl thinks it means same thing as dimmesdale heiroglyphic- fascination with openness of the letter A "adams fall we sinned all"- original sin is produced with every education into language -B= bible, bring us back to proepr education dimmesdale's sermon- thinks A has to do with him hester has positionality as woman dimmesdales speech, has "vocal organ: -1st sermon: not about who sees but who hears -articulated feeling only resonates with HP "lept near spot"/frozen -2nd sermon for all to hear, in marketplace- climactic moment, dimmesdale admits sin and pearl kisses him "spell was broken" "On a field, sable, the letter A, Gules."= ending -scarlet letter doesn't complete its office (duty) because angel=reflection of adultress; sl gets some type of angelic status

"Bartleby, the Scrivener" -scrivner= copyist -barleby, the scrivener, a story of wall street (titles) "no materials exist for a full biography of the man" -life of bartleby= incompelte; lacks original sources -comparing copying to watering things down -nippers= interested in original documents "nippers could not get his table to suit him" -nippers is ill-suited to the desk -is it because desk doesnt fit him or beacause he doesnt want to be a copyist? -nippers tries to move desk as if it is a preverse voluntary agent (narrator says he doesnt even need a drink) -nippers would "seize desk", move it as if alive -bartleby= "fixture in my chamber" commodity fetishism (marx); fetish= inanimate things have mystery and agency in them -value of objects comes from human labor power -thus objects have a relationship to each other "table speaks up and dances"- marx -similar to how nippers tries to move table; transatlantic dialogue -as if things have more life than people -bartleby= "cadaverously gentlemanly nonchelance" gentlemanly= thing of class, vs cadaverously= undead narrator reads Edwards on the Will," and "Priestley on Necessity." -agency= ability to enact will in the world power- can i get what i want? & realize will -narrator finds problem in bartleby's passive resistance; he cant do anything to bartleby because he is not violent adams murder= melodrama of workplace -solitary office= mixture of public and private -lacks public solidarity of factory, but also comfort and safety of private home -colt kills adam in office; narrator aligns with colt and desires for a specific act of violence -word prefer; everyone has specific preferences *bartleby→ "I have given up copying" melville- writes short stories to make $ because his novels dont sell well *melville is currently ~ wage worker; thinking about this comparison to desk in will willson of poe (lots of writing written over itself) *nippers is resting work the boss is telling him to do

"The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids" -address patriachary (not just in home) and social inequality (maids work for the bachelors) bachelors: "dreamy", "heart of london", "sweet kernel" "no wives of children to give anxious thought" -band of fraternal brothers mill: It lies not far from Woedolor Mountain in New England -sad, "dantean gateway" ~ hell/dante's inferno tartarus= hell "the building is a paper mill" -girls are unmarried (not women); cant marry bc factory says no -language of dreams; latent = meaning, manifest= actual content -"could not discover paper mill" - 1518 -problem: bachelors not only ignore mills but prevent their discovery by putting them in a far off place -"conversion of rosy cheeks into rose-hued paper" → as if blood of women is into paper response of narrator: "I'm chill, if anything" *boss has dark complexion against girls cheeks *girls are lifeless like bartleby is cadaverous "Why are girls so sheet white"..response: idk because they handle sheets? -blankly folding blank paper ** PAPER: -relationship to dead letters bartleby read -paper is blank; can be written on and given meaning *exploitation of labor **

"Barnum's Museum" -museum in NY -essentially an ad for the museum -city = spectacle -bearded lady from switzerland

"fresh leaves" -a critique of her work as a man's POV -basically says it is against her gender role to write -dont enter man's space -women who enter man's space= monsters chimera= 2 elements combined

" a law no more than just" -FF puts on her husbands clothes -ejaculates between fits of laughter -power of cross dressing -does it undermine home?