Paper on early American writers - 1200 words - due Dec 3rd

As your concluding paper, I invite you to write a piece of original literary criticism based on some literary text from the period. Your goal will be to have us look at the literature of this text in some new and different way, to see it in a manner that we have not seen it before. Your paper could focus on influences or on interpretation or on similarities with some other work or on the psychology of characters or on anything that you believe will be interesting and helpful to a reader. The bottom line is this: When a reader finishes your paper, they should be able to read the literary text in a different way.

· Your paper should weigh in at around 1200 words.

· It should use at least 4 quality sources beyond the literary text(s).

· It should be documented correctly using whichever style you’re most comfortable using. (If you want to use other than MLA, APA, or Turabian/Chicago, please check with me first.) 

What can you possibly write? Here are some ideas drawn from Melville's Moby Dick.

· Cultural background: how did whaling and nautical life work?

· Historical background: What was New Bedford, Massachusetts like in the 1850s and why do we care?

· Metaphor exploration: explore/explain whatever metaphors you find in the text.

· Symbolism exploration: why is Queequeg Polynesian? Is there significance? Is it symbolic?

· Textual study: consider the scholarly consensus on how the text is presented.

· Comparison study: What similarities and differences are there between this novel and some other whaling book?

· Source study: What sources did Melville apparently draw upon?

· Influence study: How has this story influenced later works?

· Iconography study: How is this story portrayed in visual art or in film?

· Narrative study: Why does the story flow in the way that it does?

· Feminist reading: What does this story say about the role of women in that age?

Regardless of your choice, the reader should reach the end and feel that they have learned something significant, that they can read the text differently as a result.

Following are the highlights of literary text we covered.

Foundational Era: Contrast the views of exploration and the New World demonstrated by John Smith, and William Bradford.

Colonial Era: Bradstreet, Wheatley, Edwards, Mather and Longfellow. Discuss Bradstreet's notions of America.  Major influences on the literary development of Bradstreet, Wheatley and Edward. The influence of or resistance to New England Puritanism in Colonial-Era writers.

Revolutionary Era: Franklin, Jefferson and other writers such as deCrevecouer  -

Early Republic: Cooper, Irving, Longfellow, Brown, Webster and Bryant. Explain the impact of Native American subject matter and the American landscape on these writers.  Discuss the dependence of these writers on the traditions and forms of Europe as well as the ways these writers deviated from those traditions and forms.

Transcendentalism: Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller and B. Alcott. Identify formative life influences on the literary work. Critique the significance and the relevance of Emerson's message regarding individual autonomy, personal responsibility, and self-trust.

American Renaissance: Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe. Explain the ways Hawthorne adapted the history of a specific place as the focus of his novels and short stories.    Discuss the complexity of Melville's perception(s) of racial, national, and/or legal matters in his novels.   List Poe's contributions to various genres such as the mystery, the detective story, and science fiction as well as incorporation of gothic elements in his literary work.

Civil War (1850-1870): Whitman, Dickinson, Lincoln, F. Douglas, Stowe, Whittier and DuBois. Identify poetic and rhetorical devices in these authors' works. Define common forms in their work. Describe the relationship between the personal lives of Whitman and Dickinson. Discuss Whitman's notions of patriotism and America's greatest achievements.  Explain the mutual influences of the Civil War and the question of slavery in the literary works of Lincoln and Douglas.