Combo with CLEP American Literature 1 and 6 others
Harriet Jacobs
"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl"
William Cullen Bryant
"Thanatopsis"
Henry James
wrote of the confrontation of innocent Americans with subtle Europeans. His novels frequently included women as the central characters, exploring their inner reactions to complex situations with a skill that marked him as a master of psychological realism.
John Winthrop
"A Model of Christian Charity"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"A Psalm of Life", "Paul Revere's Ride"
Herman Melville
"Bartleby, the Scrivener", "Moby Dick"
Emily Dickinson
"Because I could not stop for death", "A narrow fellow in the grass"
Thomas Paine
"Common Sense"
Henry James
"Daisy Miller", "The Portrait of a Lady"
Margaret Fuller
"Four Kinds of Equality", "The Dial"
Walt Whitman
"Leaves of Grass", "Song of Myself"
J. Hector st. John de Crevecoeur
"Letters from an American Farmer"
Cotton Mather
"Magnalia Christi Americana"
Frederick Douglass
"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Nature", "Self Reliance"
Ambrose Bierce (bitter bierce)
"Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
William Bradford
"Of Plymouth Plantation", "The Mayflower Compact"
Phillis Wheatley
"On Being Brought from Africa to America"
Philip Freneau
"On the Emigratiion to America and Peopling the Western Country", "To a Honey Bee"
Edward Taylor
"Preparatory Meditations", "Huswifery"
Washington Irving
"Rip Van Winkle", "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
Jonathan Edwards
"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"
John Greenleaf Whittier
"Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl"
Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens)
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", "Tom Sawyer", "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses"
Benjamin Franklin
"The Autobiography", "Poor Richard's Almanac"
Thomas Jefferson
"The Declaration of Independence"
John Smith
"The General History of Virginia", "A Description of New England"
Olaudah Equiano
"The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano"
Nathaniel Hawthorne
"The May-pole of Merry Mount", "The Scarlet Letter", "The Birth Mark"
Mary Rowlandson
"The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson"
Emma Lazarus
"The New Colossus"
Bret Harte
"The Outcasts of Poker Flat"
James Fenimore Cooper
"The Pioneers", "The Deer Slayer", "The Last of the Mohicans"
Anne Bradstreet
"The Prologue", "The Author to Her Book", "Some Verses on the Burning of My House"
Edgar Allen Poe
"The Raven", "Annabel Lee", "The Fall of the House of Usher"
Harriet Beecher Stowe
"Uncle Tom's Cabin"
Henry David Thoreau
"Walden, or Life in the Woods", "Civil Disobedience"
Edward Taylor
(1642-1729) Puritan minister considered to be the most gifted and complex writer before Emerson and Whitman, wrote Huswifery
Ambrose Bierce
-union officer in civil war (developed pessimistic view) -raised on farm, left to go to military acadamy, went to war -dealt with futility of war, cruelty of death, and indiffernce of death -bitter -became journalist for newspaper after war...published several short stories -tragic personal life...wife divorced, 2sons died at early age -after tragedies, traveled to mexico to cover the mexican revolution
Harriet Jacobs
1861, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Pseudonym Linda Brent. "The cruelty of slavery destroyed the virtue of an entire society..." Her book is devoted to the protagonist's struggle to free her 2 children after she runs away herself. She spends 7 years trapped in a tiny space built into her grandmother's barn to occasionally see her children.
points of view
1st person, 3rd person limited, 3rd person omniscent
aphorism
A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life.
iambic pentameter
A line of poetry that contains five iambic feet.
extended metaphor
A metaphor developed at great length, occurring frequently in or throughout a work.
William Bradford
A pilgrim that lived in a north colony called Plymouth Rock in 1620. He was chosen governor 30 times. He also conducted experiments of living in the wilderness and wrote about them; well known for "Of Plymouth Plantation."
romance
A story that presents remote or imaginative incidents rather than ordinary, commonplace experiences.
iambic foot
A two syllable foot with the stress on the second syllable; the most common foot of the English language
Bret Harte
A writer who depiced life in the rough mining camps of the west.
Phillis Wheatley
American poet (born in Africa) who was the first recognized Black writer in America (1753-1784)
Walt Whitman
American poet whose great work Leaves of Grass (first published 1855), written in unconventional meter and rhyme, celebrates the self, death as a process of life, universal brotherhood, and the greatness of democracy and the United States.
Benjamin Franklin
American public official, writer, scientist, and printer. After the success of his Poor Richard's Almanac (1732-1757), he entered politics and played a major part in the American Revolution, negotiated French support for the colonists, signed the Treaty of Paris (1783), and helped draft the Constitution (1787-1789).
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.
Washington Irving
American writer remembered for the stories "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," contained in The Sketch Book (1819-1820).
Herman Melville
An American writer in the 1800s who drew on his experiences at sea and living on South Pacific islands for material and also wrote "Moby Dick". In addition, he rejected the optimism of the transcendentalists and felt that man faced a tragic destiny.
John Winthrop
Calvinist, devised concept of "city on a hill" ("A Model of Christian Charity"); founded highly successful towns in Massachusetts Bay
John Smith
English explorer who helped found the colony at Jamestown, Virginia
Olaudah Equiano
Enslaved African writer. In 1789, he wrote an autobiography describing his life in slavery
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essayist, poet. A leading transcendentalist, emphasizing freedom and self-reliance in essays which still make him a force today. He had an international reputation as a first-rate poet. He spoke and wrote many works on the behalf of the Abolitionists.
Thomas Jefferson
He was a delegate from Virginia at the Second Continental Congress and wrote the Declaration of Independence. He later served as the third President of the United States.
Mark Twain
Master of satire. A regionalist writer who gave his stories "local color" through dialects and detailed descriptions. His works include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, "The Amazing Jumping Frog of Calaverus County," and stories about the American West.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Originally a transcendentalist; later rejected them and became a leading anti-transcendentalist. He was a descendant of Puritan settlers. The Scarlet Letter shows the hypocrisy and insensitivity of New England puritans by showing their cruelty to a woman who has committed adultery and is forced to wear a scarlet "A".
William Cullen Bryant
Puritan author wrote "thanatopsis" one of the first high quality poems produced in America.
Thomas Paine
Revolutionary leader who wrote the pamphlet Common Sense (1776) arguing for American independence from Britain. In England he published The Rights of Man
Jonathan Edwards
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Part of the Great Awakening, gave gripping sermons about sin and the torments of Hell.
Margaret Fuller
Social reformer, leader in women's movement and a transcendentalist. Edited "The Dial" which was the publication of the transcendentalists. It appealed to people who wanted "perfect freedom" "progress in philosophy and theology and hope that the future will not always be as the past".
"Magnalia Christi Americana"
The book Cotton Mather published in 1702 about the religious development of Massachusetts, and other nearby colonies in New England.
rhyme scheme
The pattern or sequence in which end rhyme occurs throughout a poem. The first end sound is represented with an "a," the second end sound is represented with a "b," and so on. When the first sound is repeated at the end of another line within the poem, it is also designated as "a."
refrain
The repetition of one or more phrases or lines at definite intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
United States poet remembered for his long narrative poems (1807-1882), "Paul Revere's Ride"
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, a book about a slave who is treated badly, in 1852. The book persuaded more people, particularly Northerners, to become anti-slavery.
John Greenleaf Whittier
Wrote the poem "Snowbound" about childhood memories where his family prepared for a snowstorm.
metaphor
a figure of speech comparing to unlike things without using like or as
simile
a figure of speech that expresses a resemblance between things of different kinds (usually formed with 'like' or 'as')
Edgar Allen Poe
a gifted lyric poet, short story writer, who was fascinated by the ghastly and ghostly themes in his poems, he is most famous for "The Raven"
foot
a group of 2 or 3 syllables forming the basic unit of poetic rhythm
stanza
a group of lines in a poem or song that constitute a division (in prose: paragraph)
meter
a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry
"A Description of New England"
advertisement promoting the settlement of the New World, written by a boastful and self confident explorer
James Fenimore Cooper
american writer of adventure stories that idealized the american indian and the frontier.
"The Mayflower Compact"
an agreement by those on a ship to make and obey laws for their colony; this was the first self-rule by American colonists
"Huswifery"
compares a pious life to a spinning wheel
stages of plot
exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution
"The Author to Her Book"
metaphor for her literature as her children, "Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain"
Frederick Douglass
one of the most prominent african american figures in the abolitionist movement. escaped from slavery in maryland. he was a great thinker and speaker. published his own antislavery newspaper called the north star and wrote an autobiography that was published in 1845.
conflict
opposition between or among characters or forces in a literary work that spurs or motivates the action of a plot (internal, external; person vs. person, self, nature, society)
Emma Lazarus
poet, wrote "The New Colossus" (5 lines of which are on the statue of liberty)
Anne Bradstreet
published the first wolume of poems by an America (The Tenth Muse Sprung up in America), wrote To My Dear and Loving Husband, which uses a heroic cuplet
Philip Freneau
sometimes called the "Poet of the American Revolution". The non-political works are a combination of neoclassicism and romanticism. His nature poem, "The Wild Honey Suckle" (1786), is considered an early seed to the later Transcendentalist movement
antagonist
the character or event who works against the protagonist in the story
point of view
the perspective from which a story is told
protagonist
the principal character in a work of fiction
rhyme
the repetition of sounds at the ends of words
plot
the sequence of events in a story
couplet
two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme
blank verse
unrhymed verse (usually in iambic pentameter)
free verse
unrhymed verse without a consistent metrical pattern
J. Hector st. John de Crevecoeur
was a French-American writer. He was born in Caen, Normandy, France, to the Comte and Comtesse de Crèvecœur (Count and Countess of Crèvecœur). he published a volume of narrative essays entitled the Letters from an American Farmer
Cotton Mather
was a socially and politically influential New England Puritan minister, prolific author, and pamphleteer. He is often remembered for his connection to the Salem witch trials.
Mary Rowlandson
was captured in 1675 during King Philip's War. She wrote a book about her experiences called "A Narrative on the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson"
Emily Dickinson
wrote "Wild Nights--Wild Nights!;" "I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died," and "Because I Could Not Stop For Death--;" 19th century poet; major themes: flowers/gardens, the master poems, morbidity, gospel poems, the undiscovered continent; irregular capitalization, use of dashes & enjambment, took liberty with meter
