Above is a photograph of the Emily Dickinson House and Museum in Amherst.
Canonical
Nathaniel Hawthorne -- both realism & fantasy -- historical & moral topics; for a time, lived at Brook Farm (a commune), but he soon grew disillusioned with it -- argues against human perfection -- "The Birth Mark" and "Young Goodman Brown" -- associated with Salem, MA (place of 1692 witch trial)
E.A. Poe -- fantasy!!! -- "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," and "The Fall of the House of Usher" -- read by Europeans but wrote for Americans -- associated with Baltimore -- poems meant to be performed -- internal rhyme -- gothic, sensation
Walt Whitman -- first of the moderns -- good gray poet/good gay poet but was transgressive in his day -- Leaves of Grass, Song of Myself, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, O Captain! My Captain -- self-scrutiny/observation of nature & other people -- Civil War & Lincoln -- desire to unify the nation through poetry -- was newspaper editor in New Orleans for a short time -- look at #1, 3, & 13
Emily Dickinson -- first of the moderns -- more concise poetry -- manuscript poet -- rarely published during own lifetime -- interesting publication history -- look at "Indian Summer"/130, 185, 288, 324, 328, 449, & 465 -- correspondence with T.W. Higginson -- http://www.sonnets.org/higginson.htm#010
Herman Melville -- "Bartleby" was written during the downside of his career -- he was known for stories about exotic places; eventually, he chose to stop publishing his work and even writing -- did not become popular until 20th century -- art novel/short story vs. entertainment -- "Bartleby" has a lot to say about America in the 19th century, masculinity, and work
H.D. Thoreau -- Walden and "Resistance to Civil Government" began as lectures -- Walden -- appears to be one year in his book but was actually two years -- Walden Pond was close to Concord -- compare to Alex/Chris in Into the Wild and Timothy Treadwell in Grizzly Man
Non-canonical
Washington Irving (?) -- but he used to be canonical as did Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- remember "The Wife"?
Margaret Fuller -- but she is a Transcendentalist -- our reading was journalism about Blackwell's Island
Harriet Beecher Stowe -- but she was the little lady who started the big war [with Uncle Tom's Cabin], according to Abraham Lincoln -- we looked at her sketches
Fanny Fern -- but she was incredibly popular -- emotional truth -- wanted readers to get beyond the physical details and/or pretty pictures
Catherine Maria Sedgwick-- early American writer -- we can try to figure out where H....but can we? - Mrs. Courland as woman writer/mother/older woman
canonical -- a reading that is central to our definition of literature and is most frequently read or taught -- what comes to mind or up in conversation -- this term has less meaning nowadays (unless of course you are talking about the Simpsons' Raven, which succeeds because most people are familiar with Poe & his poem).
The canon changes over time. What is important to us now?
Comparison between halves of the semester
-- more life writing in the first semester; more fiction in the second half of the semester
-- country/culture becoming more stable, better technology, health care, more established, more urban, less need to explore the frontier, more centralized, change in relationship to landscape (Rowlandson versus Whitman or Dickinson)
-- more American voice than British or French
-- more American readers--starting with Poe
-- not as much religious emphasis in the second half: not as much Puritan writing (Hawthorne—more historical), reflection of religious tolerance (ED – “freethinker” in #324 & 465; WW—of Quaker background-- "First-Day" and "Fourth-Month"--Lincoln was killed in "Fourth-Month"--imagine what a poet like Phillis Wheatley would have done with Lincoln being shot on Good Friday!)
-- how do these works reflect America's political situation (the build-up to the Civil War, conflict over slavery & states' rights; for Whitman, the Civil War & his response to Lincoln's death in "O Captain, My Captain" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd")?
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