The romantic period 1820-1865
"I heard i fly buzz-when i died" emily dickenson
After announcing that she heard a fly buzz when she died, the speaker describes the moments that led up to this event. The first stanza describes the silence of the room before she died as like the quiet between two phases of a storm. The second stanza describes the people present at the deathbed. They are also quiet, exhausted from their watch and preparing now for the final loss. In the third stanza, she says she had just made her last wishes known when the fly "interposed." The last two lines of this stanza begin the long sentence that continues through the final stanza. This sentence describes how the fly seemed to blot out the light, and then all light ceased, leaving her conscious but utterly blinded.
Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)
American poet and author of Gothic horror short stories, including "The Fall of the House of Usher," which reflected a distinctly morbid sensibility for Jacksonian America.
Walt Whitman
American poet and transcendentalist who was famous for his beliefs on nature, as demonstrated in his book, Leaves of Grass. He was therefore an important part for the buildup of American literature and breaking the traditional rhyme method in writing poetry.
Henry David Thoreau
American transcendentalist who was against a government that supported slavery. He wrote down his beliefs in Walden. He started the movement of civil-disobedience when he refused to pay the toll-tax to support him Mexican War.
"the american scholar" Ralph Waldo Emerson
In his lecture, Emerson suggests that it is time to create a new American cultural identity. After declaring independence sixty years earlier, he says, it is now time for the United States and American culture to break free from European influence.
What early Romantic writer is known for the The Leatherstocking Series about the difficulties Native American faced in post-colonial America?
James Fenimore Cooper
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Leaves of Grass (1855),
Which of the following writers is often credited with inventing the genre of the "detective story"?
Edgar Allan Poe
Which of the following writers was particularly important in the development of the short story as a literary form?
Edgar Allan Poe
"a bird came down the walk" Emily dickenson
The speaker describes once seeing a bird come down the walk, unaware that it was being watched. The bird ate an angleworm, then "drank a Dew / From a convenient Grass—," then hopped sideways to let a beetle pass by. The bird's frightened, bead-like eyes glanced all around. Cautiously, the speaker offered him "a Crumb," but the bird "unrolled his feathers" and flew away—as though rowing in the water, but with a grace gentler than that with which "Oars divide the ocean" or butterflies leap "off Banks of Noon"; the bird appeared to swim without splashing.
"spring" Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau notes that doctors often recommend a change of scenery for the sick, but he slyly mocks this view, saying that the "universe is wider than our views of it." He argues that it is perhaps a change of soul, rather than a change of landscape, that is needed. Thoreau remarks that his reasons for leaving Walden Pond are as good as his reasons for going: he has other lives to live, and has changes to experience.
"resistance to civil government" Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau's Civil Disobedience espouses the need to prioritize one's conscience over the dictates of laws. It criticizes American social institutions and policies, most prominently slavery and the Mexican-American War.
Herman Mellville
Author of Moby Dick
Which of the following writers, born into a family of New England ministers, achieved popular success with an abolitionist novel?
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Jacobs
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
"Call me Ishmael" is the famous first line of what novel?
Moby Dick
"i died for beauty-but was scarce" emily dickenson
The speaker says that she died for Beauty, but she was hardly adjusted to her tomb before a man who died for Truth was laid in a tomb next to her. When the two softly told each other why they died, the man declared that Truth and Beauty are the same, so that he and the speaker were "Brethren." The speaker says that they met at night, "as Kinsmen," and talked between their tombs until the moss reached their lips and covered up the names on their tombstones.
Natheniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
author of "my kinsman, major molineaux", "young goodman brown", "the ministers black veil", "the birth mark"
William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)
author of "thanatopsis" and "To a Waterfowl"
"annabel lee" Edger Allen Poe
"Annabel Lee" is about a beautiful, painful memory. The speaker of the poem is remembering his long-lost love, Annabel Lee. The speaker knew Annabel Lee many years ago, when she was a girl, and they both lived "in a kingdom by the sea." Even though they were only children, these two were really, seriously in love. So in love that even the angels in heaven noticed and were jealous. Maybe that was a bad thing, because our speaker blames the angels for killing his girlfriend. Apparently a wind came down from the clouds, which made Annabel Lee sick and then eventually killed her. When this happened, her relatives came and took her away from the speaker, and shut her up in a tomb. Our speaker wants us to know that his love for Annabel Lee wasn't just a teenage crush. A little thing like death isn't going to separate him from Annabel Lee. Not even angels or devils could do that. He still sees her everywhere, in his dreams and in the stars. In fact he still loves her so much (here's where it gets really weird) that he goes and lies down with her in her tomb every night.
"I would prefer not to" is a statement often made by a character in which of the following?
"Bartleby the Scrivener"
"one's self i sing" Walt Whitman
"One's-Self I Sing" is the first poem in Inscriptions, which is the first book of Whitman's Leaves of Grass. The poem sets the tone for the rest of the volume because Whitman introduces the themes that he, the poet, will "sing" about. The poem delves into themes of the self, the all-encompassing "I," sexuality, democracy, the human body, and what it means to live in the modern world. Though this poem is short, it alludes to the broad scope of ideas that Whitman will explore in the rest of the poems in Inscriptions and Leaves of Grass.
"the Jewish cemetery at Newport" Henry wadsworth longfellow
"The Jewish Cemetery at Newport" is structured by a series of contrasts. The silent "Hebrews" in their graves are contrasted with the motion of the waves. Death, declare the mourners, "giveth Life that nevermore shall cease." The central contrast is the one between the living and the dead. The synagogue is closed, and the living have gone, "but the dead remain,/ And not neglected; for a hand unseen,/ Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain,/ Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green." The dead seem to be especially blessed by that "unseen hand" of nature or God. Longfellow then traces the historical situation of the Jews, however, showing that no "unseen hand" has protected them from persecution.
"the legend of sleepy hollow" (Washington Irving)
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" tells the story of Ichabod Crane and his hapless attempt to win the heart and hand of Katrina Van Tassel in the context of a comical ghost story. Katrina Van Tassel, a beautiful young woman of eighteen, is one of Ichabod's students. also the only child of Baltus Van Tassel, one of the more successful farmers in the area. Ichabod is quickly taken in by her flirtatious charms, but it is when he first visits her father's abundant farm that he considers himself truly in love with her, or at least her likely inheritance. He quickly sets out to win her hand in marriage, coming by the Van Tassel farm frequently to woo her. he is not alone however, as her beauty, charm, and wealth have entranced many other men in the village, especially the formidable Brom Van Brunt, Brom is something of a village hero. one night, after a party at the Van's, Ichabod finds himself in the dark forest where he encounters the headless horseman and is said to never be heard from again.
Bread and Cheese Club
A literary society founded in part by James Fenimore Cooper, which housed romantic painters of the Hudson River School and even William Cullen Bryant.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
A successful abolitionist who was active in social reform and a part of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Wrote several successful books about abolition and black rights
"the fall of the house of usher" edger allen poe
An unnamed narrator approaches the house of Usher on a "dull, dark, and soundless day." This house—the estate of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher—is gloomy and mysterious. The narrator observes that the house seems to have absorbed an evil and diseased atmosphere from the decaying trees and murky ponds around it. Roderick's sister, Madeline, has taken ill with a mysterious sickness—perhaps catalepsy, the loss of control of one's limbs—that the doctors cannot reverse. One night, the narrator cannot sleep either. Roderick knocks on his door, apparently hysterical. He leads the narrator to the window, from which they see a bright-looking gas surrounding the house. The narrator tells Roderick that the gas is a natural phenomenon, not altogether uncommon. The wind blows open the door and confirms Roderick's fears: Madeline stands in white robes bloodied from her struggle. She attacks Roderick as the life drains from her, and he dies of fear. The narrator flees the house. As he escapes, the entire house cracks along the break in the frame and crumbles to the ground.
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. . . . It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. The sentence beginning "He who would gather immortal palms . . . " is best interpreted to mean which of the following?
Anyone who wishes to achieve greatness must examine society's fundamental values.
"Nature" Ralph Waldo Emerson
Around 1830 a philosophical movement called Transcendentalism emerged, led by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The publication of this book, Nature, in 1836 was the milestone event where transcendentalism became a major cultural movement.
"Ligeia" Edger allen poe
As the story begins, the narrator tells us what he knows about Ligeia - or, rather, what he doesn't know. He can't remember when they met, where she came from, her family history - well, aside from something vague about an old city by the river Rhine. He can't even remember her last name. but he has an intense pasion fir her that survives both after her death and the death of his second wife.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Author of "a psalm of life", "the jewish Cemetery at newport", "my lost youth", "the slaves dream"
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Author of "nature", "Self-reliance", "the american scholar", "each and all", "merlin", "Brahma", "Concord Hymn" , and "the Rhodora".
Margaret Fuller (1810-1850)
Author of "the dial" and "women in the nineteenth century"
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Author of Uncle Tom's Cabin
James Fenimore Cooper
Author of the Leather Stocking Series
Washington Irving (1783-1859)
Author, diplomat. Wrote The Sketch Book, which included "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." He was the first American to be recognized in England (and elsewhere) as a writer.
"the birth mark" Nathaniel Hawthorne
Because Aylmer thinks the birthmark is ugly, Georgiana now thinks herself ugly, and both partners become increasingly unhappy in their marriage. In Aylmer's mind, the birthmark becomes the symbol of human imperfection. Some time later, Aylmer tells his wife of a dream he had, in which he tried to surgically remove the birthmark. The deeper he cut, he explains, the deeper the birthmark went, until it was a part of Georgiana's very heart. In the dream, he wanted to keep cutting through her heart to get it out. Aylmer brings it to his wife a potion. she drinks it and falls asleep. Sure enough, the birthmark fades almost entirely from her face. Aminadab laughs at the outcome rather cryptically. Sadly, Georgiana wakes up, she tells Aylmer that she is dying. Then, as we might expect, she dies. Aminadab laughs again, which we have to say is rather untactful. The narrator then takes over for the conclusion to tell us that Georgiana couldn't live as a perfect being, since human beings are necessarily imperfect. Also, he says, Aylmer is kind of an idiot for throwing away a good thing (a good thing being the beautiful woman who is now perfect, but also dead).
the American Renaissance
Begun in the Romantic period, it was a the period in which the first "american" literature was created.
"young goodman brwon" Nathaniel hawthorne
Brown sets off on a journey into the forest near his hometown. The scenery becomes scarier and scarier, and the challenges become more and more difficult. First he encounters an elderly witch, then a couple of devil-worshippers, then a spooky "black mass of cloud". At last, everything culminates in a big, spectacular showdown with a final boss (the devil himself) and his minions. And then, finally safe from harm, our hero returns home to the quiet village of Salem. There's a hitch, though. Instead of collecting glowing gold rings or pink health potions, young Goodman Brown gathers up... distrust and anger.
"Concord Hymn,"
By the rude bridge that arched the flood Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
"i taste a liquor never brewed-" Emily dickenson
Dickinson wants us to come out of the air conditioning and remember how glorious it feels to have the sun on our face. The intensity of the high described in the poem might be a little tongue-in-cheek, but there certainly is a certain buzz that you can get just from a nice breath of fresh air and some sunlight.
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
Eliza has just learned that her husband George, who lives on a neighboring plantation, has planned his own escape. He can no longer bear the cruelty of his master. Eliza has no one to turn to for help, but she will not, as a mother, tolerate having her child torn from her. She resolves to escape and in the middle of the night carries young Harry to the Ohio River. When she finally reaches the river, it is so choked with ice that no boats can cross. But the slave trader Haley has caught up with her. In desperation and with grim determination, Eliza grabs her son, leaps onto the ice floes, and crosses to the Ohio shore. Eliza first seeks refuge in the home of Senator Bird, who has just voted "yes" on the Fugitive Slave Act. When he is actually confronted with the sight of this poor woman and her son, though, he realizes he must disobey the very law he helped pass. As Eliza travels further north, she is protected by whites of the Quaker faith. Finally, she is reunited with George, and they head north to Canada. Uncle Tom reacts quite differently to the news that he is being sold. A pious Christian, he submits to his fate and sadly bids farewell to his wife and children. He is taken south down the Ohio and then the Mississippi rivers to the big slave auctions in New Orleans. On the way, he witnesses the anguish of fellow blacks in bondage.
"My kinsman, Major Molineaux" Nathaniel Hawthorne
Everyone Robin had met is present in the mob, full of wild laughter and merriment. Robin soon joins in the laughter, louder than all the rest. It is noteworthy that though publicly humiliated, Major Molineux maintains an air of dignity and majesty. This, along with his severe depictions of the townspeople, showcases Hawthorne's sympathies for Molineux. The tarring and feathering of Molineux was an act enforced by American colonists to demonstrate their displeasure with the British ruling power. By choosing to laugh at his uncle, Robin demonstrates two things. He is wise enough to understand that not laughing along with the townspeople would brand him as a sympathiser and an outsider, and would likely cause the mob to turn on him. It also symbolises a personal and political independence for Robin, and a significant moment in his coming of age. The themes of coming of age, independence, and a quest for identity are doubly present in the story, often considered a parable for America's coming of age, or quest for independence from the British.
"women in the 19th century" Margaret Fuller
Fuller conveys to her readers just how bad the situation of women is by comparing them to slaves. Women in the nineteenth century may have seemed "freer" than slaves, but in fact they were restricted in so many ways that they were essentially "owned" by men. At the time that Fuller wrote this book, slavery, and abolition, were hot topics. The Civil War, after all, was starting to stew, and soon it'd be hot on the burner. So at that time, many white Americans were beginning to question the morality of slavery (as if owning other people could ever be moral). By drawing a parallel between slavery and patriarchy, Fuller shows that many women were, in fact, as "enslaved" as actual slaves.
"snow bound: a winter idyl" John Greanleaf whitter
Generally considered Whittier's masterpiece, "Snow-Bound" is dedicated to "the Household It Describes" and prefaced by a quotation from the Renaissance occultist Cornelius Agrippa on the powers of sunlight and firelight over "Spirits of Darkness," and a passage from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Snow Storm." Whittier wrote this work of high nostalgia shortly after the death of his beloved sister, Elizabeth, who had long taken care of him.
"economy" henry david thoreau
He tells us he is recounting the rudimentary existence he led there so that others might see the virtue of it. He argues that excess possessions not only require excess labor to purchase them, but also oppress us spiritually with worry and constraint. As people suppose they need to own things, this need forces them to devote all their time to labor, and the result is the loss of inner freedom. Thoreau asserts that, in their own way, farmers are chained to their farms just as much as prisoners are chained in jails. Working more than is necessary for subsistence shackles people.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in disgust. The sentences are taken from the opening pages of?
Henry David Thoreau's Walden
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in disgust. The phrase "the furniture of my mind was all undusted still" can best be paraphrased by which of the following?
I had not examined my ideas and beliefs.
"ethiopia" frances ellen watkins harper
In the poem "Ethiopia," Harper personifies the nation of Ethiopia. She vividly describes Ethiopia surrendering to the power of God and becoming saved. She speaks of this nation in a battered state, crying out in agony with bleeding hands. This cry expresses the desire to be free from her captors. These captors are the European colonizers who have terrorized Ethiopia's people and brought destruction to the land. Harper describes the joys of salvation Ethiopia shall receive after surrendering to God toward the poem's end.
"because i could not stop for death" emily dickenson
In this poem, Dickinson's speaker is communicating from beyond the grave, describing her journey with Death, personified, from life to afterlife. In the opening stanza, the speaker is too busy for Death ("Because I could not stop for Death—"), so Death—"kindly"—takes the time to do what she cannot, and stops for her.
"when i heard the learn'd astronomer" walt whitman
In this poem, Whitman uses the example of the astronomer to show the difference between academic learning and experiential learning. The speaker finds the astronomer's lectures stars and mathematical formulas to be boring. He does not feel any sort of connection to the subject matter until he goes outside and sees the stars for himself. Looking up at the night sky is not an experience that one can experience in a classroom, no matter how "learn'd" the teacher might be Whitman felt very strongly that experiencing life's marvels was the only real way to learn.
"Self-Reliance" Ralph Waldo Emerson
It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow their own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."[1] This essay is an analysis into the nature of the "aboriginal self on which a universal reliance may be grounded."
"Rip Van Winkle" (Washington irving)
It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains and wakes up 20 years later, having missed the American Revolution.
"the tell tale heart" edger Allen Poe
It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by cutting it into pieces and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately the narrator's guilt manifests itself in the hallucination that the man's heart is still beating under the floorboards. It is unclear what relationship, if any, the old man and his murderer share. It has been suggested that the old man is a father figure or, perhaps, that his vulture eye represents some sort of veiled secret. The ambiguity and lack of details about the two main characters stand in stark contrast to the specific plot details leading up to the murder.
"a psalm of life" Henry wadsworth longfellow
It is didactic, intending to provide advice and counsel to young men earnestly endeavoring to discern how to live this ephemeral life. The poem concerns a young man who is responding to a psalmist after the older man gives an answer to the putative question of what the meaning of life is; we do not have the psalmist's response but can guess that it consisted of Bible verses and a prosaic, Puritan-style claim that the sublunary life is meaningless and humans should focus on meeting their creator in the afterlife.
"the raven" edger allen poe
It's late at night, and late in the year (after midnight on a December evening, to be precise). A man is sitting in his room, half reading, half falling asleep, and trying to forget his lost love, Lenore. Suddenly, he hears someone (or something) knocking at the door. He calls out, apologizing to the "visitor" he imagines must be outside. Then he opens the door and finds...nothing. This freaks him out a little, and he reassures himself that it is just the wind against the window. So he goes and opens the window, and in flies (you guessed it) a raven. The Raven settles in on a statue above the door, and for some reason, our speaker's first instinct is to talk to it. He asks for its name, just like you usually do with strange birds that fly into your house, right? Amazingly enough, though, the Raven answers back, with a single word: "Nevermore." Understandably surprised, the man asks more questions. The bird's vocabulary turns out to be pretty limited, though; all it says is "Nevermore." Our narrator catches on to this rather slowly and asks more and more questions, which get more painful and personal. The Raven, though, doesn't change his story, and the poor speaker starts to lose his sanity.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl- Harriet Jacobs
Linda starts her story at age six. She's a happy kid, living with her mom and dad, both of whom are skilled, educated, and light-skinned slaves. Her mom dies, but she goes to live with her mother's young mistress, a pretty nice lady (for a slave-owner) who teaches Linda how to sew and read. After her mistress dies, twelve-year-old Linda has to go live with a new mistress, five-year old Emily Flint. As soon as Linda hits puberty, Dr. Flint attempts to convince Linda to enter a romantic relationship with him. Linda, instead, sleeps with Mr. Sands. The idea is that she's going to get pregnant, and Dr. Flint is going to be so disgusted that he sells her off. Well, the plans works right up until the point where she realizes that Dr. Flint is even crueler than she thought. He's totally uninterested in selling her off. In fact, he consoles himself with the thought that at least her child is going to be his slave. Eventually, Dr. Flint ups the stakes. If Linda agrees to a sexual relationship with him, he'll set her and her children (she has two by this point) free. The alternative? Going to work as a field hand on his son's plantation. But Linda has a secret plan. She refuses the offer of freedom and heads to the plantation. One month later, she's out of there... and right into a teeny crawlspace in her grandmother's shed, where she can peek out to see her children. The space is so small that she can't even stand upright, but she figures Dr. Flint will assume she's gone north and sell her children out of revenge. Eventually an elaborate network of friends, family members, and abolitionists helps Linda escape to New York. There, Linda works for a woman named Mrs. Bruce until she hears that Dr. Flint was nasty until the day he died—his will has left Linda and her children to a new master, who's hot on her trail. At this point Mrs. Bruce steps in and secretly arranges to buy the freedom of Linda and her kids for a pretty measly sum of money, and, bam! Decades of bondage are over. Linda is surprisingly not as happy as you'd think.
Which one of the following was not a Fireside poet?
Margaret Fuller
"the purloined letter" Edger allen poe
On a windy, fall night in Paris, sometime in the 1800s, the narrator and C. Auguste Dupin are smoking pipes in the dark, thinking their thoughts. Suddenly, G—, the head of the Paris police, enters. Do they want to hear a mystery? Do they ever! So G— tells a story: A few months ago the royal lady (probably the queen) gets a letter. She's in her sitting room reading it when another royal person walks in (probably the king). She wants to hide the letter from him, but she can't get it into the desk drawer fast enough. Instead, she puts it on the desk, with the address showing. In strolls dangerous Minister D—. He notices who the letter is from (the readers aren't told), notices that the royal lady is acting funny, and realizes she wants to hide the letter from the royal man. Right in front of everyone, D— switches the royal lady's letter with one of his own and walks out. The lady can't stop him, because she's afraid D— will show her letter to the royal man. So, now he's using the letter to make the queen grant some vague but no doubt nefarious political wishes. Enter G—, whom she's called in to find the letter for her. Thinking that D— must have the letter either on his body or in his home, G— has searched and search—like, every night for the past three months—and still found nothing. Dupin takes an interest, asking G— to describe the letter, inside and out. Finally, G— leaves, resolved to search again. About a month later, he comes back. Still no luck. By this point, he's totally frustrated and offers to pay fifty thousand francs of his own money to whomever can find that letter. Great! Dupin says—and hands over the letter. After G— leaves (50,000 francs poorer, but stoked about the promotion this probably means for him), Dupin tells our narrator how he found the letter: He knows that D— is smart, definitely smart enough to have known how and where G— would search for the letter. He concludes that D— probably hid the letter out in the open, where G— (who's not so smart) would never think to look. So he waltzes over to D—'s house for a friendly little visit, wearing green glasses to hide his eyes. He sees the letter, disguised as another letter, in an organizer box hanging from the fireplace. The next day he returns with a copy of the disguised letter. Dupin then creates a distraction in the street, so that D— wouldn't notice as he swaps the copy for the original. The final touch? Inside the fake letter, Dupin wrote a snide little note to gloat about how he's outsmarted D—.
Who wrote Nature and headed the Transcendentalist movement?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. . . . It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. The passage is excerpted from
Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance"
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. . . . It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. The philosophy expressed in the passage is best paraphrased by which of the following statements?
Society and individuality are at odds, so those seeking to be individuals must define their own terms for living.
"the slaves dream" henry wadsworth longfellow
The desert and the forest are personified, each conveying an exultant cry of freedom. The forest of his dream can boast of a "myriad tongues." On the other hand, the desert "blasts" a claim to uninhibited freedom. Both prospects move the dreaming man so forcefully that he is startled by the mere possibility. They each gleefully, perhaps recklessly, suggest the potential for life without chains, without limitations. This freedom, this wild abandon, is what the slave most desires. In the final stanza, the wearied dreamer has been discovered and is lashed repeatedly with "the driver's whip." Although he is lying in direct sunlight, he neither feels the scorching sun nor the stinging lashes. His body is "lifeless." He has dreamt his final dream and his soul has been freed from the bonds of slavery. The system that perpetuates his enslavement offers no paths to freedom. Rather than live a life of enslavement, the dreamer dies because death is the only means of attaining freedom of any kind.
"eliza harris" frances ellen watkins harper
The poem is about Eliza Harris's escape as she crosses the Ohio River at night.
"the Portent" Herman melville
The poem opens with the imagery of a body swaying from the beam where it was hanged by the rule of law. The letter of the law being carried out here is portrayed as a shadow cast upon the greenery of the Shenandoah Valley in the slave-owning state of Virginia where the execution took place. The implicit suggestion here is that while Brown may been rightfully executed for breaking the law, the letter of the law allowing people to own other human beings casts a far darker shadow upon Virginia than any trespass of its law Brown committed. The poem concludes with a metaphor that fiery integrity and perhaps slightly mad zeal to correct the wrongs of a nation. "The Portent" is the poem which opens Melville's collection of Civil War poetry Battle-Pieces and thus situates the violence, madness, shame, anguish and righteous inevitability within John Brown as the "meteor of the war."
"after great pain, a formal feeling comes" emily dickenson
The speaker notes that following great pain, "a formal feeling" often sets in, during which the "Nerves" are solemn and "ceremonious, like Tombs." The heart questions whether it ever really endured such pain and whether it was really so recent ("The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, / And Yesterday, or Centuries before?"). The feet continue to plod mechanically, with a wooden way, and the heart feels a stone-like contentment. This, the speaker says, is "the Hour of Lead," and if the person experiencing it survives this Hour, he or she will remember it in the same way that "Freezing persons" remember the snow: "First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—."
"the sould selects her own society" emily dickenson
The speaker says that "the Soul selects her own Society—" and then "shuts the Door," refusing to admit anyone else—even if "an Emperor be kneeling / Upon her mat—." Indeed, the soul often chooses no more than a single person from "an ample nation" and then closes "the Valves of her attention" to the rest of the world.
"success is counted sweetest" Emily Dickenson
The speaker says that "those who ne'er succeed" place the highest value on success. (They "count" it "sweetest".) To understand the value of a nectar, the speaker says, one must feel "sorest need." She says that the members of the victorious army ("the purple Host / Who took the flag today") are not able to define victory as well as the defeated, dying man who hears from a distance the music of the victors.
"the ministers black veil" Nathaniel hawthorne
The story begins when Mr. Hooper stands before his congregation in a small Puritan town. The people are shocked to see, however, that Mr. Hooper is wearing a veil over the top half of his face. All they can see is his mouth and chin. Mr. Hooper gives a sermon about secret sin and then attends the funeral of a woman. Before the coffin is removed, Mr. Hooper leans over the body, seemingly in communication. People begin to gossip about the veil and what sort of secret sin Mr. Hooper is hiding. Thereafter, Mr. Hooper performs a wedding ceremony, and his black veil casts darkness over the union. Mr. Hooper's fiancee, Elizabeth, implores him to remove the veil. He refuses, and she ends the engagement. Mr. Hooper continues a life of successful preaching and eventually falls ill. Elizabeth visits him on his death bed, where he says that everyone is wearing black veils. He dies and is buried with his veil still intact.
"bartelby the scrivener" Herman Melville
The story paints a picture of the daily goings-on in the law office before the arrival of Bartleby. The lawyer has three employees: Turkey, Nippers and Ginger-nut. Turkey and Nippers are both scriveners, while Ginger-nut is an assistant. Bartleby begins to say, 'I would prefer not to,' to everything he is asked, no matter how small. The lawyer has no idea how to deal with Bartleby's unreasonableness and, as a result, constantly gives in to it. One day, the lawyer attempts to stop into the office on a Sunday, but he can't open the door. His key is blocked. Then, the door unlocks from the inside and out pops Bartleby, who has moved into the office. With Bartleby living at the office and doing no work, the lawyer finally decides to move his office to another building. Finally, the new tenant has Bartleby removed by the police and taken to a New York jail called the Tombs. The lawyer visits Bartleby there. He pays the grub man to provide Bartleby with better food. But Bartleby stops eating altogether, saying he'd prefer not to dine. At the end, the narrator shows up and finds Bartleby dead. In a small epilogue, the lawyer says that he can't shed any light on who Bartleby was or what was wrong with him. All he knows is that Bartleby, before coming to work for him, worked at the Dead Letter Office burning undeliverable mail, much of it letters and packages for dead people. He concludes with the exclamation, 'Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!'
The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper,
The story takes place in 1757, during the French and Indian War (the Seven Years' War), when France and Great Britain battled for control of the North American colonies. During this war, the French called on allied Native American tribes to fight with the more numerous British colonists. Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of an English colonel, travel through the forest to visit their father. They are escorted by English Major Heyward and led by a Native American guide named Magua, who is from the Huron tribe. As they travel through the forest, they encounter the white wilderness hero Natty Bumppo, or Hawkeye, and his two companions, Chingachgook and his son, Uncas, who are the last surviving members of the Mohican tribe. Hawkeye quickly realizes that Magua is leading Cora, Alice, and Heyward towards a trap. He and the Mohicans try to capture Magua, but he escapes. Early the next morning, Magua and his friends attack the group and take Cora, Alice, and Heyward captive. Magua reveals that he hates the girls' father because Colonel Munro had once humiliated Magua. However, he agrees to set Alice free if Cora will marry him. Cora refuses, in part because she has feelings for Uncas. Hawkeye, Chingachgook, and Uncas track Magua's party down and kill all of Magua's friends. Once again, though, Magua himself escapes. Hawkeye and his friends help Cora, Alice, and Heyward finish their journey to the fort where Colonel Munro and his men are in a siege with the French army. The girls reunite with their father. Heyward reveals to Colonel Munro that he wants to marry Alice. The English retreat from the fort, surrendering to the French. As they leave, though, the Indian allies of the French slaughter the English soldiers. Magua returns and takes Cora and Alice captive again. A few days later, Hawkeye, Heyward, Chingachgook, and Uncas find Magua's trail and set off to rescue the women.
"to helen" Edger Allen Poe
Then again, in "To Helen" the speaker compares himself to Cupid, and Helen to Psyche. In other words, the speaker paints his love for Helen as romantic. Either way, Poe's elation at finally having found a caring, older woman—or a mom figure—explain the metaphors he uses in this poem (written much later in life). Poe published the first version of "To Helen" in 1831 in a book simply titled Poems that was dedicated to his fellow cadets from West Point. The poem was reprinted in 1836 in a periodical called The Southern Literary Messenger, a publication that Poe worked for from 1835 until 1837. The poem was published again in 1845, with some revisions, which is the version we use.
"My life closed twice before its close" emily dickenson
This poem by Emily Dickinson uses heartbreak as a metaphor for death. The title of the poem (and the first line) is a paradox she attributes two different meanings to the word close. Here, she is using the term "close" to represent both heartbreak and death at the same time. Although the specific meaning of this "closure" is not disclosed to the reader, it is evident that a loved one parted ways with Emily in some shape or form. Whether her heart was broken by a lover, or someone close to her has passed away doesn't seem to matter we only know that she feels a void in her life that she equates to her own death. This is a short, eight line poem that rhymes lines b and c, and f and h.
"Bury me in a free land" Frances ellen watkins harper
This poem is about the speaker's desire to not be buried in a land of slaves after she has died. Although she is referring to the United States as the land of slaves, she could also be referring to any land of slaves. She vividly describes the horrors of slavery that would interfere with her ability to sleep in her grave. This includes being aware of slaves receiving lashes until they bleed and bloodthirsty bloodhounds capturing their prey (slaves), etc. This poem speaks against and magnifies the atrocities of slavery to the point of them disturbing the dead's rest (although not literally). She wants the reader to know these atrocities are not easily swept under the rug or brushed aside. Being buried in a land of slaves feels like an abomination to the speaker.
"tell all the truth but it slant" emily dickenson
This poem makes the assumption that the poet knows the truth, but makes an active choice to hold it back, to "tell it slant," so as not to dazzle the sensitive reader. In Dickinson's poems, however, it seems more likely that her circuitous paths to the truth, returning to the same themes again and again, from different perspectives, with different metaphors, coming to different conclusions, are not so much to protect the reader from the pure light of the truth, but are because this is how she discovers it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance satirizes which literary and cultural movement?
Transcendentalism
"Walden" Henry David Thoreau
Walden serves as a written account of the two years Henry David Thoreau lived alone in a cabin in Concord, Massachusetts. He built this cabin, grew vegetables, and had transcendental experiences. He uses these to examine the fundamental elements of identity.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Was a famous American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life.
Fireside or schoolroom poets
What group of poets became a favorite in American homes and schools: John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., James Russell Lowell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
"song of myself" Walt Whitman
Whitman calls himself a universe of meanings. He uses the symbol of his naked self in nature to symbolize his own fusion with the world around him. Whitman's self is the whole of America and the whole of nature. This is best seen in Whitman's use of the catalog. Whitman uses a catalog in "Song of Myself" to name a variety of professions and people that he meets on his journey across the States. He says that he becomes part of these people and these people come to compose his own self.
"beat! beat! drums" walt whitman
Whitman wrote this poem at the beginning of the Civil War. Whitman uses the drums and bugles as symbols of the war itself (during the wars of early American history, drums and bugles would signal the beginning of each battle). In this poem, the speaker commands the instruments to play so loudly that they disrupt everyone's lives, just like war changes a society. This was especially true of the Civil War, as all the soldiers were American and all the battles took place on American soil. The war dictated everything that happened during period of American history. In this poem, Whitman does not let his reader escape the incessant drumbeat and trumpeting bugles, just as there was no escaping the Civil War.
The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything gray. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a gray surtout. Flights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled gray vapors among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come. In the passage, the word "gray" is an example of
a motif
"out of the cradle endlessly rocking" walt whitman
a poem about memory—about the ways in which an adult poet remembers and understands his childhood, and the ways in which his childhood prepared him for his adult poetic life. Like other British and American Romantic poets, Walt Whitman was interested in this relationship between the formative years of youth and the creative years of adulthood. Thus, Whitman wrote this poem, which is similar to British poet William Wordsworth's "Lines: Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" and American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "My Lost Youth."
Transcendentalism
a reaction against 18th-century rationalism and a manifestation of the general humanitarian trend of 19th-century thought. The movement was based on a fundamental belief in the unity of the world and God.
"Concord Hymn" Ralph Waldo Emerson
a traditional patriotic poem in four ballad stanzas that Emerson composed to be sung at the placing of a stone obelisk on July 4, 1837, to commemorate the Battle of Concord, fought on April 19, 1775, on land later belonging to the Reverend Ezra Ripley. The lines of the first stanza, now so well known that they are part of American national folklore, demonstrate that Emerson could easily master traditional verse forms when he chose to do so: By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. The images of the "bridge" and the "flood" in the first stanza ripen imperceptibly into metaphor in the poem's implied theme that the Battle of Concord provided the impetus for the American Revolutionary War.
"the Rhodora" Ralph Waldo Emerson
an early poem in which Emerson's attention to sharp and precise details of his New England landscape stands out against his otherwise generalized and formal poetic style. Emerson describes finding the rhodora, a northern azalea-like flower, blooming in the woods early in May of the New England spring, before other plants have put out their foliage, seem incomparably the best. Unfortunately, the second half of the poem shifts from specific nature imagery to a generalized homily on the beauty of the rhodora, cast in formal poetic diction.
"my lost youth" henry wadsworth longfellow
autobiography of the poet's early life, is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's tribute both to his native city of Portland, Maine, and to the boy who climbed its hilly streets and gazed out over its harbor dreaming faraway dreams.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
collections of humorous essays (for example, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, 1858), novels (Elsie Venner, 1861), biographies (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1885), and verse that could be sprightly ("The Deacon's Masterpiece, or, The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay"), philosophical ("The Chambered Nautilus"), or fervently patriotic ("Old Ironsides").
"when lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd" walt whitman
considered to be a pastoral elegy: a poem of mourning that makes use of elaborate conventions drawn from the natural world and rustic human society. Virgil is the most prominent classical practitioner of the form; Milton's "Lycidas" and Shelley's "Adonais" are the two best-known examples in the English tradition. One of the most important features of the pastoral elegy is the depiction of the deceased and the poet who mourns him as shepherds.
"to a waterfowl" William Cullen Bryant
creates a natural scene in order to derive a moral lesson from it. The whole poem encompasses the flight of the waterfowl from two viewpoints. It appears to the poet at dusk as it gently floats overhead and gradually disappears into the horizon. The poet also projects the journey of the bird over vast territories as it flies from its winter abode to its summer home. The immediate image of the bird has the poet reflect on the bird's destination and the nature of its flight. In his whimsical meditating, the poet addresses the bird directly as though to open up a dialogue between nature's creature and the poet's inner soul.
"the wound-dresser" Walt Whitman
describing the suffering in the Civil War hospitals and the poet's suffering, faithfulness to duty, and developing compassion as he tended to soldiers' physical wounds and gave comfort. Published at war's end, the poem opens with an old veteran speaking, imaginatively suggesting some youths gathered about who have asked him to tell of his most powerful memories. The children request stories of battle glory, but the poet quickly dismisses these as ephemeral. He then narrates a journey through a military hospital such as Whitman experienced in Washington, D.C., during the second half of the war.
"Each and all" Ralph Waldo Emerson
echoes the idea—which Emerson voices in many places—that things by themselves are unaffecting and even ugly but that when placed in context, usually their natural context, they become beautiful. Even putrefaction, Emerson writes, is beautiful when seen as the source of new life. Central to the poem is the speaker's interaction with the parts of nature. At the poem's end, in spite of himself, the speaker interacts with the natural world—he sees the parts of nature around him, inhales the violet's odor, and sees and hears "the rolling river, the morning bird."
The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything gray. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a gray surtout. Flights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled gray vapors among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come. The primary purpose of the passage is to
establish a setting
"leaves of grass" Walt whitman
is a collection of poetry written over Walt Whitman's entire lifetime organized thematically into sections. Whitman revised and added to the book throughout his life, the final edition being published only months before his death in 1891. Whitman was intentional in not organizing the book in any chronological way. Instead, he was concerned with the journey of the poetry. He desired that the reader would see a self formed through the words and themes of the book.
"Brahma" Ralph Waldo Emerson
notable for its blend of Eastern and Western thought. Here Emerson assumes the perspective of God or Brahma in presenting his theme of the divine relativity and continuity of life. Just as Krishna, "the Red Slayer," and his victim are merged in the unity of Brahma, so all other opposites are reconciled in the ultimate unity of the universe. This paradoxical logic appealed to Emerson as a way of presenting his monistic philosophy in poetic terms.
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
poet influenced by his Quaker religion; ardent abolitionist; works spoke out against inhumanity, injustice, and intolerance; brought the attention to the abolitionist movement. Author of "Snow bound: a winter idly"
The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything gray. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a gray surtout. Flights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled gray vapors among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come. The tone of the passage would best be described as
portentous
"Thanatopsis" William Cullen Bryant
talking about nature's ability to make us feel better. The speaker tells us that nature can make pain less painful. It can even lighten our dark thoughts about death. He tells us that, when we start to worry about death, we should go outside and listen to the voice of nature. That voice reminds us that we will indeed vanish when we die and mix back into the earth. The voice of nature also tells us that when we die, we won't be alone. Every person who has ever lived is in the ground ("the great tomb of man") and everyone who is alive will be soon dead and in the ground too. This idea is meant to be comforting, and the poem ends by telling us to think of death like a happy, dream-filled sleep.
Harriet Wilson (1807-1870)
the first African-American to publish a novel in the United States — Our Nig: or, Sketches from the life of a Free Black, in a two-storey white house, North. Showing that Slavery's Shadows Fall Even There (1859).
