SESSION 26

Introduction to Naturalism

Quiz

9 questions4 vocabulary words

Quiz: Open Book

1. Define Romanticism

2. Define Realism

3. Define Naturalism

Use your Glossary and Changing Worldviews

Please turn in your two short-essay questions

Next week

38 vocabulary words: choose and highlight ten words and be able to

define them all next week

Schedule Review

SESSION 26 April 7th/8th INTRO TO NATURALISMCLASSROOM: Quiz on Session 25 readings; Open Book Quiz: #1 What

is Romanticism? #2 What is Realism? #3 What is Naturalism?READING: Great American Short Stories: Bret Harte (pub 1870), Luck

of Roaring Camp, pp. 49-57; Stephen Crane (pub 1878), The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, pp. 58-67; Mark Twain: Humorous Stories and Sketches (pub 1870s-90s), pp. 1-74. Louisa May Alcott: Short Stories (1863): Alcott, A Night, pp. 9-22; Alcott, My Contraband, pp. 23-39.

SYLLABUS: pp. 175 - 177 (Alcott); pp. 229-232 (westerns); pp. 211-221 (Melville)

WRITING: Vocabulary lists: Define words (as used in story context): Due Session 27

SESSION 27 April 14th/15th INTRO TO MODERNISM: MELVILLE & STEINBECK

CLASSROOM: Turn in Vocab lists; Quiz: short story details (from session 26 reading) + realism + naturalism (this part is open book); Structured Realism/Naturalism/Determinism Notes: Melville & God in, Bartleby; Steinbeck: Red Pony: Nobel Prize speech (p. 317): In-class reading of both stories: bring book + pen or highlighter.

READING: Great American Short Stories: Melville (pub 1856), Bartelby, pp. 18-48;

SYLLABUS: John Steinbeck: “Red Pony” pp. 319 - 333; “Grapes of Wrath” synopsis pp. 316 - 318; Scopes Trial pp. 265 - 276.

WRITING: Explain naturalism in Steinbeck’s “Red Pony” story: 175/225/275 word minimum before quotes (2/3/4). Utilize syllabus pp. 289, 315, 362 - 368. Due Session 28

Valley of Vision # 26

Reviewing Hawthorne (1804-1864)

writes authoritatively about Puritans although he is himself post-revolutionary. In fact, Hawthorne's life is more accurately placed in a pre-Civil War context and worldview rather than the theistic context of true Puritans. This means that his viewpoint is not that of a Puritan, but is that of a Puritan descendant.

In fact, Hawthorne's writing reflects the disbelief and skepticism of the Enlightenment and the autocracy of the soul found in romanticism. Whereas the Puritan would judge all thought and action by biblical principle the deist of the Enlightenment would question all previously accepted tradition and authority of the past.

The romanticism in Hawthorne betrays his true worldview. These literary features are similar to those found in Poe, Melville, Emerson and Thoreau. The spirit of God becomes a force, or Nature. The conscience tuned by the Law becomes an archaic concept to be eradicated by the use of Reason.

Thus, the reader is reminded that Hawthorne's masterwork "The Scarlet Letter," is a romantic novel, not a Puritan treatise or journal. For the sincere Puritan worldview the reader must meet Bradford, Wigglesworth, Bradstreet, Baxter, Jonathan Edwards, or Mary Rowlandson.

Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)

An American poet, a master of the horror tale, credited with practically inventing the detective story.

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents who were traveling actors. His father died in 1810 and his mother in 1811. Edgar was taken into the home of a merchant John Allan and brought up partly in England (1815-20), where he attended School. He was not legally adopted, but took Allan's name for his middle name.

Poe attended the University of Virginia (1826), but was expelled for not paying his gambling debts. This led to a quarrel with Allan, who later disowned him. In 1827 Poe joined the U.S. Army as a common soldier under assumed name and age. In 1830 Poe entered West Point and was dishonorably discharged next year, for intentional neglect of his duties.

Little is known about his life in this time, but in 1833 he lived in Baltimore with his father's sister. After winning a prize of $50 for a short story, he started a career as a staff member of various magazines. During these years he wrote some of his best-known stories.

At age 27 Poe married his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm. She burst a blood vessel 6 years later, and remained a virtual invalid until her death from tuberculosis five years after that. After the death of his wife, Poe began to lose his struggle with drinking and drugs. He addressed the famous poem "Annabel Lee" (1849) to her 2 years after her death:

Annabelle Lee

It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.

Continued . . .

I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love - I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsman came

Continued . . .

And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulcher In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. . . .

Continued

And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, In the sepulcher there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea.

The Raven

This is also the time period that he wrote the dark poem of lost love, "The Raven," which brought Poe national fame, when it appeared in 1845, as his young wife was dying. The Murders in the Rue Morgue(1841) is among Poe's most famous detective stories. Poe was also one of the most prolific literary journalists in American history.

Poe suffered from bouts of depression and madness, and he attempted suicide in 1848. In September the following year he disappeared for three days after a drink at a birthday party and on his way to visit his new fiancée in Richmond. He turned up in a delirious condition in a Baltimore gutter and died on October 7, 1849.

Poe’s Worldview

Lo! 'tis a gala night Within the lonesome latter years! An angel throng, bewinged, bedight In veils, and drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre, to see A play of hopes and fears, While the orchestra breathes fitfully The music of the spheres.

Continued

Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly- Mere puppets they, who come and go At bidding of vast formless things That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out their Condor wings Invisible Woe!

Continued

That motley drama- oh, be sure It shall not be forgot! With its Phantom chased for evermore, By a crowd that seize it not, Through a circle that ever returneth in To the self-same spot, And much of Madness, and more of Sin, And Horror the soul of the plot.

Continued

But see, amid the mimic rout A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out The scenic solitude! It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs The mimes become its food, And seraphs sob at vermin fangs In human gore imbued.

Continued

Out- out are the lights- out all! And, over each quivering form, The curtain, a funeral pall, Comes down with the rush of a storm, While the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, "Man," And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

Shakespeare (As You Like It)

The melancholy Jacques: “All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchelAnd shining morning face, creeping like snailUnwillingly to school. And then the lover,Sighing like furnace, with a woeful balladMade to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, [hairy as a leopard]

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the canon's mouth. And then the justice,In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,Full of wise saws and modern instances; [well-tried proverbs; clichés]

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shiftsInto the lean and slippered pantaloon [Pantalone, a foolish Italian character made fun of]With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wideFor his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipesAnd whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, (‘his’ is ‘its,’ neuter pronoun not used yet!)That ends this strange eventful history,Is second childishness and mere oblivion,Sans [without] teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

As You Like It, 2. 7. 139-167