Esquema-resumen de los autores y lecturas de los 12 primeros temas PDF

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Primer trimestre: Esquema-resumen de los autores y lecturas de los 12 primeros temas. Muy breve....

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Author

Title

Summary

Metrical pattern, rhyme, rhetorical devices

Context

Main ideas of the author

English first colonies in USA (The New World).

Manifest destiny: idea that America made manifest the destined expansion of European civilization and European had the right to colonize it. Describes natives a derogatory way. Aim: justification of colonisation. He was well treated though.

The Pilgrim Fathers. Move to USA due to religious reasons to establish their own faith in another land.

Pilgrims interpreted all events as symbols with spiritual meaning. God’s favour. The Pilgrims were like character from the bible, struggling against elements to do God’s will. Only source of comfort is to look at the sky and think about heaven. Thanked God for their safe landing. Attitude to savages: considered as excluded from Redemption. Opposition between wilderness and civilisation: horror of the wild (first passage) changed after one year of colonisation (second passage)

Early American Literature to 1700

1

2

3

John Smith

William Bradford

The General history of Virginia

Of Plymouth Plantation

John Smith’s portrayal of how he was captured, and managed to escape due to his wit and eloquence, and Pocahontas’ intervention.

1st: a clear account of the Pilgrim voyage through the Atlantic and the colonies’ beginning and impression of the New World. 2nd: annals covering years, reflect disappointment decline of the community.

Anne Bradstreet

The author to her book

To my dear husband

Book as an offspring (extended metaphor). Mother who lacks the resources to care for her baby.

Speaker expresses her passionate love for her husband. Loves him so much that only heaven and love in eternity can

Travel writing tradition. Third person: create an effect of objectivity. Quotation from classical writers (Seneca) to add dramatism. Role of the hero. Exaggeration, selfpromoting ways of writing, justifies and defends himself. Mixes facts and fiction. Use of military technical terms + words of the natives. Ornate style. Informative and entertaining. 3rd person plural and 1st person, to refer to the Pilgrims (and himself) and introduce comments. Puritan History: human history as a progress of mankind to a predetermined end. Providentialist historiography. Puritan plain style: humbled mode of inform and instruct but style not so plain. Influence was the Bible, biblical references: Saint Paul shipwreck. Didactic. Heroic couplets, rhyme in consecutive lines. Iambic pentameters. Balanced and control, sense of movement. Puns. Ironic words to hide her pride as if she were humble. Allusive biblical language (Ephesians 5:25, old testament, Song of Salomon)

Women were not to write, should remain at home being a midwife.

Struggle to reconcile both aspects: public voice, imitative. Private voice: original. She presents her book as an illegitimate child, sprang from her mind without masculine intervention. False modesty. Contrasting image of Puritan love (reserve and restraint). Too much love seen as dangerous, lose sight of God.

surpass it.

Upon the Burning of our House

On my dear grandchild Simon Bradstreet

4

Mary Rowlandson

A narrative of the captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

Rhymed iambic pentameter. Metaphors (gold, the riches of the East) Paradox: their love will outlive death. Rhyming couplets, formed by iambs, eight syllables. Four metrical feet: tetrameters, rhyme iambic tetrameters. Setting: desolation, description of the material things burned and which made her happy. Sensory language: sight, sound/silence. Verbs of movement. Time: past, future, present, proves the difficult time in the speaker’s mind.

Tension between her domestic concerns and her spiritual aspirations Abrupt change in line 36, she turns to the bible and finds comfort in the promise of a permanent house in heaven. Everything is God’s plan. Don’t give too much importance to material goods, real heaven is above.

Speaker shows her grief and incomprehension of the death of her grandchild. Questions God.

Rhymed iambic pentameters. If irony of poem emphasised, can be seen as a direct critique to God.

Don’t break tradition of seeing death as God’s plan but questions it. Internal conflict. Control her sadness thanks to the expectation of immortality.

Author writes how she and her family were attacked and kidnapped in Lancaster and how she lived in different places with the Native Indians.

Captivity narrative. Chronological. Style: natural “artless”, plain manner. First person narrator. Biblical allusion. Four narrative modes: description, report, speech and comment.

British colonies. Clashes between them and the Natives Indians during Philip’s War.

Didactic Purpose. Puritan idea: captivity and ransom as a demonstration of the truths biblical stories and teaching. Puritan providence. Indians: instruments of punishment. First, considered “savages”, she adapts to them and sees them as “Indians”.

People losing religious faith.

Great Awakening: a wave of exaltation to awake dormant religious feeling. Focus sermon: sinners dangling over the abyss, time to repent from plunging into eternal agony.

Speaker expresses grief after seeing how her house is burned and questioned God’s plan but finally acknowledges that her house is in Heaven.

The American Enlightenment

5

Jonathan Edwards

Sinners in the hands of an angry God

Author’s sermon aiming at converting people to Puritanism and thus escaping God’s punishment for their sinful behaviour. He wanted to produce an impression on them.

Biblical quotations. Tripartite structure: Text, doctrine and application. Filled with tension and suspense. Imaginary and sensory experience. “lake of burning brimstone”, “spider’s web”, “bottomless gulf”, “slippery places”, “black clouds”, “waters are dammed and constantly rising”.

6

7

Benjamin Franklin

Olaudah Equiano

Autobiography

Author looks back at his youthful years and describes his plan for selfimprovement through the practice of virtue. Modify his behaviour with a practical scheme, not to Christian Salvation but to earthly success.

Motive: provide a model for the public conduct. Achieved moral perfection. 13 virtues enlisted so the one will pave the way to the next. One by one. Metaphor: a garden that need weeding. Diction: vocabulary simple, colloquial.

The interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African, written by himself.

Author living with his family and the kidnapped. Recounts horrors lived passage through the Atlantic and descriptions of how slaves were sold. Three parts: begins recount life in family and captured, 1; terrible scenes in the ship, naive: thinks he’ll be eaten, ship is magic and people are wizards. 2; freedom, gain responsibility of his life. 3; tone more pious, style of a spiritual biography

Slave narrative. Travel literature. Picaresque novel. Anti-hero rises in society.. Biblical sources to attest piety of Christian readers and gain moral authority. Rhetorical devices: emotional appeal, citation of authoritative sources, logical proof.

8 Phillis Wheatley Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral

On being brought from Africa to America

To the university of Cambridge

Author thanks for having known the faith, not really a denigration of her homeland. Critique to injustice on people for being black. Central idea: there’s always hope for redemption for pagans.

. Central idea: students should be conscientious and righteous.

Heroic couplets: iambic pentameters rhymed in consecutive lines, each line ten syllables, five feet, first unstressed, second stressed. Alexander Pope model. Italics: Christians, Negroes, Cain. All descendants of Adam and Eve, equally able to redeem. Biblical allusions: linked Negroes with Jews. Pun: Cain pronounced like “cane”, to be “refined”, transformed to a saved soul as cane can be refined into sugar. Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameters do not rhyme. Superficial reading: ashamed of her blackness, but third stanza Biblical connotation: “Ethiop”. Author identifies with the character due to

Colonial America and American Revolution

American Enlightenment ideals. In spite of Deism, Puritan habits: devotion to hard work, public duty, desire to better himself and the community.

Slavery as a social, economic and political institution.

Slavery dehumanised black people. Deprived them of right and literacy. . Aim: excite in assemblies a sense of compassion of the miseries which slavetrade entailed to my country-men. Highlight he wrote it, portrait with a bible in the book. No display of more gruesome parts to avoid being considered exaggerated.

Slavery as a social, economic and political institution

Difference between first and second part, divided in quatrains: 1; gratitude being introduced to Christianity, confessional voice. 2; accusatory tone, direct challenge to racial prejudice.

Paradox: students need advice from someone who is unschooled. Rational thought cannot make compatible with religious belief. Line 28: hypocritical Christians profess not practice what they preach.

their ethnic origin and strong faith.

To his Excellency General Washington

Poem dedicated to General Washington, very patriotic

Tone: adapted heroic subject. Embrace classicsm by choice pagan themes. Irony: “the land of freedom, heavendefended race” where Africans were enslaved cannot be called that.

In her quest for authority or search for validation, invokes the muses rather than relying on the biblical prophets.

Romanticism

9

10

Washington Irving

James Fenimore Cooper

The Alhambra – Legend of Don Munio Sancho de Hinojosa

Don Munio, Spanish knight, is hunting and find a group of Moors who are about to get married. He, instead of capture them, celebrated the nuptials in his castle. Years later, in a battle, Abadil killed Don Munio without knowing. He returned the corpse to Doña Maria. Don Munio is seen visiting Jerusalem as he promised to his wife before the battle, as it was going to be his last one.

Short story. Story presented as a second hand. Intermediary allowed him to justify and distance himself from the tale because he is the mere editor of an old manuscript or mysterious papers found by accident.. Sentimentality: excessive reliance on emotional effect or pathos. Style: detailed, pompous. Diction: formal. Noble characters. Imaginary: Pace: not chronological order. Quick.

The last of the Mohicans

Fort William Henry was commanded by Munro who had two daughters, Alice and Cora. They traveled from Fort Edward in search for their father. They were guided by a Huron Indian named, Magua and Major Heyward. The Hurons kidnapped Alice, Cora, Heyward, and Gamut. Cora has affection for Uncas, but is threatened by Magua to marry him. If she marries, Alice will be free. The final battle occurs, resulting in the deaths of Cora, Magua, and Uncas

Historical narrative but blend history and romantic fiction. Captivity narrative, epic tradition. Visual accuracy: vivid description with the report of fastpaced action. Milton’s Paradise lost echoes in the figure of Magua. Narrative voice: intrusive, derogatory terms for “bad” Indians, third person, powerful-self assurance, combative.

Spain in the 19th century but story set in 13th.

Themes: Love and death. Relies on the marvellous thru the use of magic spells, incantations, charms, talking animals and weird phenomena. Illusion, mystery not to be mixed with real facts. Frame story: author mediator between the original story and the reader. Free to adapt legends without historical accuracy and turn into serious his crafted elaborations

The book takes place during the French and Indian War

Theme: interracial relationships and friendship. Religion and belief played at the time in the wilderness. This is clearly displayed by the Calvinist views of David Gamut who speaks much of God and predestination. Indian allies of the English depicted as good, French Indian allies savages. Both unable to be acculturated, “ideology of savagism”. Commercial purpose: filled reader with hate to natives.

Nature

11

12

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Henry David Thoreau

Hamatreya

Walden: Economy

Philosophy of nature as the embodiment of divine law. Too much reliance on the past EU philosophers, time to create their own. Nature is the reflection of beauty. No man can possess it, men can only value it thru child’s eyes. Harmony between man and nature makes him see all the beauty in it and become a transparent eye.

Deals with the issue of ownership. Landlords see the crops as result of their work, rather than a result of nature’s processes. Earth Song: Nature answer to the landlords. Nature really owns the land. They will die, nature will prevail.

Record of author personal experience living at Walden Pond. Aim: spiritual enlightenment. Time to meditate, read, write. No hermit, received visitors, purchase necessary things.

Not me: everything but the self. Nature: essence unchanged by man. Art: mixture of his will things such as houses, a canal... Transcendentalism: individual religious experience more impotant than dogma or religious institutions. Only by inner observation one can gain acces to the Universal Soul.

Rethorical questions to wonder why Americans have to look to EU for answers. Paradox: I am nothing I see all. Metaphor: eyeball. Pun: I and eye same pronunciation. Meteorogical metaphors.

Earth Song: change in lines: shortened and broken into stanzas. Language become formal. Last stanza Hamatreya converted to Nature’s way of thinking and language structure. Four line stanza: quatrain. Alliteration.

First person narrative: people interest in him. Rhetoric questions on people excess workload. Parody of the manuals: mimics their language while offering different concept of true wealth, based on time to enjoy life not material things. Travel narrative: inward journey to better himself.

Nothing except Earth is permanent.

American Renaissance. Break with the EU dependence create own culture.

Dense intertextuality: readers not literature reference miss points. Greek, Roman classics, English literature middle ages. Renaissance. Social criticism. Change individual, change society. Antislavery. People should not be driven by materialism, enjoy simple life. Work only the necessary One should believe in himself not other’s opinion. Age does not give you wisdom, don’t trust elders. Technology does not change the essence of men. True philosophers solve problems in theory and practice....