1830s to c. 1880 (?) C:\Users\Jeff\Desktop\Habilitation thesis\6) LATE\Literature and nat'l lit\New England Renaissance -- possible first mention, 1888.jpg http://img2.imagesbn.com/p/9781435108509_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG http://img2.imagesbn.com/p/9781435108509_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Walt_Whitman,_steel_engraving,_July_1854.jpg ralph-waldo-emerson-2 Henry_David_Thoreau FFNathaniel_Hawthorne 240px-herman_melville_1860 http://img2.imagesbn.com/p/9781435108509_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Walt_Whitman,_steel_engraving,_July_1854.jpg AEAbolitionists_FrederickDouglass_t700 ralph-waldo-emerson-2 Henry_David_Thoreau FFNathaniel_Hawthorne 240px-herman_melville_1860 Edgar-Allan-Poe-4 Black-white_photograph_of_Emily_Dickinson_(Restored) http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/1-harriet-beecher-stowe-1811-1896-author-evere tt.jpg > http://www.theamericanconservative.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Anthologies.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p45RaX8lJx4/Uz1jKKJO37I/AAAAAAAAHj0/VSI7E5bq4ow/s1600/Norton.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VPmXfq2hL._SX316_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7uY8sDoAL18/TQUHFh1RPfI/AAAAAAAAC08/cI0DS3WNbfs/s1600/The%2BNorton%2BAnth ology%2Bof%2BLatino%2BLiterature%2Bcover.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/United_States_Capitol_-_west_front.jpg http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l631/cipster316/Cipster%20Coins/612_zps408f1166.jpg http://www.fatpappysplace.com/photos/onedollar.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/Great_Seal_of_the_United_States_%28reverse %29.svg/521px-Great_Seal_of_the_United_States_%28reverse%29.svg.png http://art200cuestacollege.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/horatio-greenough-george-washington-1832-184 1-marble-114-high.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/George_Washington_Greenough_statue_right.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/40/8f/02/408f0284c4eaf8a334c847874618577c.jpg http://lf-oll.s3.amazonaws.com/people/3872/ApotheosisWashingtonColour448.jpg apotheosis of lincoln American literature “is all imported. ….why should the Americans write books, when a six weeks' passage brings them, in their own tongue, our sense, science, and genius, in bales and hogsheads [barrels]?” ~ The Edinburgh Review, 1819-20 “In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? Or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue?” “Prairies, steamboats, grist-mills, are their natural objects for centuries to come. Then, when they have got to the Pacific Ocean — epic poems, plays, pleasures of memory, and all the elegant gratifications of an ancient people, who have tamed the wild earth, and set down to amuse themselves. — This is the natural march of human affairs.” ~ The Edinburgh Review, 1819-20 “There are no dramatic subjects in a country which has witnessed no great political catastrophes, and in which love invariably leads by a straight and easy road to matrimony. People who spend every day in the week in making money, and the Sunday in going to church, have nothing to invite the muse of Comedy.” ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, 1831 / 1840 üAmericans are too busy with their practical concerns; it will be centuries before they’re fully settled down and civilized ü üA country in that condition produces no subject matter for great literature ü üIt’s not “American literature” just because Americans write it ü üThe literature being produced in America is derivative, “retrospective,” “second-hand” ü üTo have an American literature, “an original idea must animate this nation” üAmericans must find a way to express their “national genius” üAmericans must find a way to express their “national genius” üAmericans must find a way to express their “national genius” Wordsworth Shelley Byron Blake Coleridge Carlyle Goethe Novalis Pushkin Literary Religious Literary Religious Communes, alternative lifestyles Experimental schools Church reform Social reform Literature Literary criticism feminism Philosophy ralph-waldo-emerson-2 Ralph Waldo Emerson “We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe.” ~ “The American Scholar” ralph-waldo-emerson-2 “Banks and tariffs, the newspaper and [political] caucus … are flat and dull to dull people, but rest on the same foundations of wonder as the town of Troy, and the temple of Delphos, and are as swiftly passing away. “…the northern trade, the southern planting, the western clearing, Oregon, and Texas, are yet unsung. R. W. Emerson Yet America is a poem in our eyes….” ralph-waldo-emerson-2 “….Time and nature yield us many gifts, but not yet the timely man, the new religion, the reconciler, whom all things await.” “We do not, with sufficient plainness, or sufficient profoundness, address ourselves to life, nor dare we chant our own times and social circumstance. ralph-waldo-emerson-2 “….Time and nature yield us many gifts, but not yet the timely man, the new religion, the reconciler, whom all things await.” “We do not, with sufficient plainness, or sufficient profoundness, address ourselves to life, nor dare we chant our own times and social circumstance. Poets are “liberating gods” Needed: “not a dead letter, but a perpetual Scripture” The “highest problem of authorship”: “We too must write Bibles” ralph-waldo-emerson-2 Needed: “not a dead letter, but a perpetual Scripture” ralph-waldo-emerson-2 The “highest problem of authorship”: “We too must write Bibles” ralph-waldo-emerson-2 “I look in vain for the poet whom I describe.” “I look in vain for the poet whom I describe.” “The priest departs; the divine literatus comes” http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Walt_Whitman,_steel_engraving,_July_1854.jpg “The priest departs; the divine literatus comes” “the Great Construction of a New Bible” http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Walt_Whitman,_steel_engraving,_July_1854.jpg “the true son of God, the poet” http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Walt_Whitman,_steel_engraving,_July_1854.jpg http://www.extravaganzi.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Walt-Whitmans-Leaves-of-Grass1.jpg C:\Users\Jeff\Desktop\COURSES and lectures\Lectures\Regensburg (Erasmus)\Whitman + Dickinson.jpg [USEMAP] The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever. Psalm 23, King James Version (KJV) Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto Thee. Hide not Thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline Thine ear unto me. In the day when I call, answer me speedily. For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as a hearth. My heart is smitten and withered like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin. I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am like an owl of the desert. I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop. Mine enemies reproach me all the day, and them that are mad against me are sworn against me. …… Psalm 102 Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind: Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire: Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever. Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. ….. O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. ….. The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works. Psalm 104 4 I loved well those cities; I loved well the stately and rapid river; The men and women I saw were all near to me; Others the same—others who look back on me, because I look’d forward to them; (The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.) 5 What is it, then, between us? What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not. 6 I too lived—Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine; I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it; I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me, In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me, In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me. Whitman, from “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” 3 Fecund America—today, Thou art all over set in births and joys! Thou groan'st with riches, thy wealth clothes thee as a swathing-garment, Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions, A myriad-twining life like interlacing vines binds all thy vast demesne, As some huge ship freighted to water's edge thou ridest into port, As rain falls from the heaven and vapors rise from earth, so have the precious values fallen upon thee and risen out of thee; Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle! Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty, Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns, Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle and lookest out upon thy world, and lookest East and lookest West, Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles, a million farms, and missest nothing, Thou all-acceptress—thou hospitable, (thou only art hospitable as God is hospitable.) Whitman, from “The Return of the Heroes” “…The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth, have probably the fullest poetical nature. The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem. In the history of the earth hitherto the largest and most stirring appear tame and orderly to their ampler largeness and stir. … ~ Whitman, from the Preface to Leaves of Grass, 1st ed. (1855) “…The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth, have probably the fullest poetical nature. The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem. In the history of the earth hitherto the largest and most stirring appear tame and orderly to their ampler largeness and stir. … ~ Whitman, from the Preface to Leaves of Grass, 1st ed. (1855) “….of all nations the United States with veins full of poetical stuff most need poets and will doubtless have the greatest and use them the greatest. Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall.” ~ Whitman, from the Preface to Leaves of Grass, 1st ed. (1855) “A great literature will yet arise out of the era of those four years, those scenes … an inexhaustible mine for the histories, drama, romance, and even philosophy, of peoples to come … far more grand, in my opinion, to the hands capable of it, than Homer’s siege of Troy, or the French wars to Shakespeare.” ...the American Civil War: “….the immeasurable value and meaning of that whole tragedy lies, to me, in senses finally dearest to a nation, (and here all our own)—the imaginative and artistic senses—the literary and dramatic ones. …..Why, if the old Greeks had had this man, what trilogies of plays—what epics—would have been made out of him!” ...the assassination of Lincoln: http://www.retronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Machinery-Hall-1.jpg http://www.retronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Machinery-Hall-35.jpg (1871, ’76, ’81) …… Come, Muse, migrate from Greece and Ionia; Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts, That matter of Troy, and Achilles’ wrath, and Eneas’, Odysseus’ wanderings; Placard “Removed” and “To Let” on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus; Repeat at Jerusalem--place the notice high on Jaffa’s gate, and on Mount Moriah; The same on the walls of your Gothic European Cathedrals, and German, French and Spanish Castles; For know a better, fresher, busier sphere--a wide, untried domain awaits, demands you. Responsive to our summons, Or rather to her long-nurs’d inclination, Join’d with an irresistible, natural gravitation, She comes! this famous Female--as was indeed to be expected; (For who, so-ever youthful, [a]cute and handsome, would wish to stay in mansions such as those, When offer’d quarters with all the modern improvements, With all the fun that’s going--and all the best society?) She comes! I hear the rustling of her gown; I scent the odor of her breath’s delicious fragrance; I mark her step divine--her curious eyes a-turning, rolling, Upon this very scene. The Dame of Dames! can I believe, then, Those ancient temples classic, and castles strong and feudalistic, could none of them restrain her? ….. Yes, if you will allow me to say so, I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see Her, ….. Making directly for this rendezvous--vigorously clearing a path for herself--striding through the confusion, By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay’d, Bluff’d not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilizers, Smiling and pleased, with palpable intent to stay, She’s here, install’d amid the kitchen ware! Black-white_photograph_of_Emily_Dickinson_(Restored) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Walt_Whitman,_steel_engraving,_July_1854.jpg Exuberant, Public, Flamboyant, Expansive, Explicit, Easygoing, Footloose, Attentive to history and politics Anxious, Private, Reclusive, Terse, Cryptic, Meditative, Inward-looking, Homebound, Attentive to immediate surroundings C:\Users\Jeff\Desktop\COURSES and lectures\Lectures\Regensburg (Erasmus)\Whitman and Dickinson.jpg C:\Users\Jeff\Desktop\COURSES and lectures\Lectures\Regensburg (Erasmus)\Whitman and Dickinson.jpg Black-white_photograph_of_Emily_Dickinson_(Restored) C:\Users\Jeff\Downloads\download.png C:\Users\Jeff\Desktop\COURSES and lectures\Lectures\Regensburg (Erasmus)\Untitled-1.png C:\Users\Jeff\Downloads\Dickinson 315 manuscript.png C:\Users\Jeff\Downloads\American Renaissance 2016.gif C:\Users\Jeff\Downloads\American Renaissance 2016.gif Who is “He”? üGod? üA great preacher? üA great poet, like Keats or Shakespeare? üDickinson’s own “muse” or poetic inspiration? üA thunderstorm – the power of nature? üAn epileptic seizure? üA doctor administering ether (= anaesthesia)? üA violent or abusive man? C:\Users\Jeff\Downloads\American Renaissance 2016.gif Why is he “fumbling”? üIs he warming up? üDoes he play piano badly? üIs he clumsy? (is God clumsy?) üIs he fumbling at something else, like a locked door? (a real door? a metaphor?) Why “in the paws”? …..etc. ..... thoreau Henry_David_Thoreau Henry_David_Thoreau “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. …we live meanly, like ants; …Our life is frittered away by detail. “…..there is not always a positive advance [with our “modern improvements”]. …Our inventions are [likely] to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at…. Henry_David_Thoreau Henry_David_Thoreau “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; Henry_David_Thoreau “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; Henry_David_Thoreau “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. ….As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly.” FFNathaniel_Hawthorne http://www.brunswick.k12.me.us/hdwyer/files/2012/08/Young-Goodman-Brown-for-web.jpg http://cdn.nybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/robinson_1-020515.jpg 240px-herman_melville_1860 240px-herman_melville_1860 “Intolerance has come to exist in this matter. You must believe in Shakespeare’s un-approachability, or [leave] the country. But what sort of a belief is this for an American…? Believe me, my friends, that Shakespeares are this day being born on the banks of the Ohio” River. Herman Melville, 1850 “Intolerance has come to exist in this matter. You must believe in Shakespeare’s un-approachability, or [leave] the country. But what sort of a belief is this for an American…? Believe me, my friends, that Shakespeares are this day being born on the banks of the Ohio” River. Herman Melville, 1850 240px-herman_melville_1860 240px-herman_melville_1860 240px-herman_melville_1860 http://rarelibrary.com/res/img/6/mobyb.jpg http://rarelibrary.com/res/img/6/mobyb.jpg 240px-herman_melville_1860 “an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact”” 240px-herman_melville_1860 http://www.southwestern.edu/infoservices/departments/specialcollections/exhibits/melville/images/Cl ipping-large.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Melville_obit.jpg/220px-Melville_obit.jpg http://livre-se.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/7fe5810ae7a0a8c48e44a110.L.jpg > Moby (4).png > Moby (3).png > Moby (5).png C:\Users\Jeff\Pictures\vlcsnap-2017-12-04-15h38m48s164.png > Moby (6).png > Moby (7).png > Moby (12).png > Moby (14).png > Moby (15).png > Moby (11).png C:\Users\Jeff\Pictures\vlcsnap-2017-12-04-15h38m34s236.png > Moby (5a).png > Moby (22).png > Moby (18).png > Moby (19).png > Moby (21).png C:\Users\Jeff\Desktop\COURSES and lectures\Past courses\Shakespeare and American Literature\Moby-Dick\Moby-Dick map.jpg > Moby (25).png > Moby (26).png > Moby (27).png > Moby (28).png > Moby (24).png Though but a point at best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights…. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee. (Ahab, in Moby-Dick) Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. (Emerson, Nature) Though but a point at best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights…. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee. (Ahab, in Moby-Dick) Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. (Emerson, Nature) Though but a point at best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights…. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee. (Ahab, in Moby-Dick) Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. (Emerson, Nature) Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. (Emerson, Nature) Though but a point at best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights…. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee. (Ahab, in Moby-Dick) Though but a point at best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights…. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee. (Ahab, in Moby-Dick) Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. (Emerson, Nature) What is the work’s “aesthetic”? Are there any traces of the neoclassical interest in balance, order, harmony, the greatness of the past, etc.? What values are replacing these – what effect(s) does the work aim to have, and by what literary techniques or devices? Where specifically do you see this happening? Do you think the effects and devices work well? Is the work attempting to be specifically American, or to make use of “American” ideas, themes, materials and/or styles? Where and how? Do you notice any similarities with older or European works? Is this work in any way “appropriating” older ideas or elements, but putting them to new “American” uses? What problems does the writer see either with life in the modern, technical and scientific age, or with life in a democratic and/or commercial (as opposed to a traditional or aristocratic) nation, or with life in America specifically? In what ways do modern, democratic and/or American conditions resist being made literary or dramatic? On the other hand, what interesting new themes and possibilities for literary art does either America or modern life provide? What’s bad and what’s good? Is the work optimistic? What does this writer seem to regard as evil or disturbing, and where does it come from? How do we avoid it? Is literature seen as helping us avoid it? In what sense is literature seen as serving more than a merely decorative purpose – a political, philosophical or religious purpose, for instance? A picture containing text Description automatically generated