STUDY GUIDE
Works Covered:
Literature of the Early- to Mid-Nineteenth
Century (686-700)
Washington Irving (739-777)
“Rip Van Winkle”
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
William Apess (789-800)
“A Son of the Forest”
“Eulogy on King Phillip”
James Fenimore Cooper (827-856)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Nature”
“Self-Reliance”
Henry David Thoreau
“Civil Disobedience” (1612-1668)
Hawthorne
“The Minister’s Black Veil”
“The Birth Mark”
Edgar Allan Poe
“The Poetic Principle”
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
“The Tell-Tale Heart”
“The Purloined Letter”
Herman Melville
“Bartleby the Scrivener”
William Cullen Bryant (865-875)
Lydia Maria Child (1485-1502)
Declaration of Sentiments (713-715)
LITERATURE OF THE EARLY- TO MID-19TH CENTURY
Age of Reason
John Locke
Government is a “social contract”
Governments who oppress people should be overthrown
Crevecoeur
Men are like plants: they proceed from the soil in which they’re grown
John-Jacques Rousseau
Men are good!
Neoclassicism- Greek/Roman balance in architecture, painting, gardening
Beliefs
Decline of Christianity
The thinness of the population required tolerance
The liberalism of Puritan fervor
Quakers
Everyone has an “inner light”—thus, no formal clergy
Influx of Quakers through Pennsylvania (founded in 1681).
De ism
God is detached creator of the world
Rationalistic movement that inspired American and French Revolutions
Often has scientific focus.
Famous Deists: Franklin, Jefferson, Thomas Paine
Unitarianism
Response to Calvinistic belief in the Trinity
Denied doctrines of depravity, predestination, and eternal punishment
ROMANTICISM
1.Moral Enthusiasm
2. Individualism
3.Intuitive Perception
4.Natural World = Goodness
5.Humanity = Corruption
TRANSCENDENTALISM
1.Reaction against Calvinist Orthodoxy and rationalism of Unitarian Church
2.Belief in the Divinity of Humanity
3.Belief in the Divinity of Nature
Historical Context
Slave ry
Frederick Douglass
Harriet Jacobs
Mexican-American War
Women’s Rights
WASHINGTON IRVING
-First internationally recognized American Fiction Author
-Man of Letters
-Satirical
-Focused on moods and emotions
-Gothic Writer
“Rip Van Winkle”
Setting: Kaatskill Mountains, New England before and after Revolutionary War
Rip went “hunting” with dog, Wolf. He came upon a man with a keg calling his name who took him
to a group of small men playing games and drinking. Rip drank too, then fell asleep for 20 years. Then he
went to live with his daughter.
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
Setting: Greensburgh/Tarry Town
Characters: Ichabod Crane- School Master
Katrina Van Tassel -18, coquette
(Abraham Van Brunt) Brom Bones – Fun and arrogant, burly, roaring, boisterous
Gunpowder- Crane’s horse
Ichabod Crane seeks to woo Katrina Van Tassel, who is an heiress. He goes to a party at her house
where Brom Bones is telling a story of Sleepy Hollow. As the party is ending, Ichabod seeks our Katrina, but
cannot find her, so he leaves. As he travels home, he encounters the headless horseman who throws his
pumpkin head at Crane. Crane disappears in embarrassment over the event and his pursuit of Katrina being
spurned. The reader assumes the headless horseman was actually Brom Bones.
WILLIAM APESS
“A Son of the Forest”
Theme: Interaction between Pequot tribe and white men, poverty, parental abandonment of children,
the evil of anger and pride, Truth Virtue Morality and Religion, The Noble Savage
“Eulogy on King Philip”
Pequot Indian King
Called Hero of the Wilderness, like Philip of Greece or Alexander the Great
Oeden, in Federal Street, Boston
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
Son Chingachgook
The Noble Savage
The Leather-Stocking Tales
“The Pioneers” (The Slaughter of the Pigeons)
April, Otsego
A flock of pigeons took up the entire sky when the men of the town began taking them down.
Leather-Stocking admonishes them for creating such destruction. Since the pellets from the rifles
don’t kill, but merely wound all the birds, the men realize they have a field full of wounded birds,
having to walk through and wring the neck of each one, making them realize the impact of their
destruction.
“The Deerslayer” (Young Leather-Stocking)
1740-1745 New York
Hurry Scurry- 5’4” age 28
Deerslayer- 6’ younger
(Deerslayer Kills a Mingo)
Deerslayer and a Mingo (member of enemy tribe) argue over a canoe. His name is Hawkeye.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
1.Unitarian, Yankee Puritanism, European Romanticism
2.19th Century most noteable essayist
3. Intuition
4.All-loving, All-pervading God
5.Spark of divinity in everyone
6.A Seer and Poet
“Nature”
1.We have no questions to ask which are unanswerable.
2.The universe is composed of Nature and the Soul.
3.I am part or particle of God.
4. Nature
a. Commodity
b. Beauty
c. Language
1.Words are signs of natural facts
2.Particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts
3.Nature is the symbol of spirit
d. Discipline
1.All things are moral…therefore is nature glorious in form, color, and motion.
e. Idealism
f. Spirit
g. Prospects
1.Man is a god in ruins.
2.The Problem of restoring to the world original and eternal beauty is solved by the
redemption of the soul.
“Self-Reliance”
America’s Spiritual Declaration of Independence.
1.To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true
for all men, — that is genius.
2.Trust thyself
3.Virtues and good actions are not necessary.
4.Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of good
by the degree in which it enters into all lower forms.
5.Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
“Civil Disobedience”
Thoreau’s disgust regarding slavery and the Mexican-American War.
1.The government is a source of corruption and injustice
2.Men should rebel and revolutionize
3.The Constitution contains slavery and should be abolished
4.That government is best which governs least. That government is best which governs
not at all.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
“The Minister’s Black Veil”
A PARABLE
Milford
Parson Hooper
Elizabeth
Theme: The secrecy of sin
“The Birthmark”
Aylmer - man of science
Georgiana – Tiny red hand-shaped birthmark, beautiful
Aminadab - Alymer’s assistant
Theme: Obsession of human perfection
Summary: Aylmer’s quest to remove his wife’s birthmark causes her death.
EDGAR ALLEN POE
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
Originated the Detective story
Known for criticism
Slippage = Mystery Story
No detective
Knowledge of criminal from beginning
Absence of Reasoning
“The Poetic Principle”
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
Mansion of gloom
Roderick Usher
Friend (Narrator)
Madeline Usher
Summary: A friend of Roderick comes to visit. Roderick is depressed because his only surviving sister, Madeline is
sick and about to die. After she “dies” she is nailed in a coffin and buried. A week later during a storm, the narrator is
reading a story called The Mad Tryst to Roderick in which it seems they are physically hearing everything that
happens in the story. Madeline throws open the doors (having escaped from being buried alive) and kills her brother.
The narrator escapes and witnesses the splitting of the house as it sinks into the tarn.
“The Tell-Tale Heart”
Narrator
Old man
Summary: The narrator is crazy and hates the way the old man looks at him with one eye. He watches the old man
sleep for 8 days before he kills him by suffocating him with a mattress. He cuts the old man into pieces and hides him
under the floorboards. The neighbors heard a scream and the police show up. The man seems calm and collected until
he starts “hearing” the man’s heartbeat and tells the police where he hid the body.
“The Purloined Letter”
Detective C. August Dupin
G---: Prefect of Police
Narrator
Minister D----: The man who stole the letter.
Summary: The prefect of police comes to discuss a case of a stolen letter to the detective and narrator. He
offers 50,000 francs for the procuring of the letter. They know that Minister D--- took it, but are unable to
find it. By describing the game “Odds and Evens,” Dupin explains how he is able to predict the obvious
location of the letter. He goes to D---‘s apt and sees the letter. He goes home, makes a copy of the envelope,
and goes back to D---‘s apt to “get his snuffbox” and switch out the purloined letter and the fake.
HERMAN MELVILLE
“Bartleby the Scrivener” A Story of Wall Street
A Scrivener is a Law Copyist.
Nippers- younger, chronic indigestion, not a morning person but a good worker in the afternoon
Turkey- older, alcoholic, productive in the morning, but drunk by afternoon
Bartleby- goes from being a good worker to completely inactive
Ginger Nut
Summary: Bartleby is a good worker until he starts saying “I would prefer not to” to his assignments, begins
living in his office, and does nothing. The narrator eventually moves to whole business to avoid forcing
Bartleby to leave. Bartleby finds the new place and sleeps on the steps, ends up being arrested. Bartleby dies
of starvation, having preferred not to eat. The narrator discovers that Bartleby used to work in a dead letter
office, lost his job there, and must have been thrown into despair.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
1.Began writing poetry at age 8
2.Published first poem at age 9
3.This guy really likes nature
“Thanatopsis”
Title means Meditation Upon Death
The beauty of Nature
“The Yellow Violet”
This is about a flower
“To a Waterfowl”
This is about how cool waterbirds are
“To Cole, the Painter, Departing for Europe”
Hey Cole, make sure you check out the awesome nature in Europe!
“To the Fringed Gentian”
Here’s another poem about flowers.
“The Prairies”
“These are the gardens of the Desert.” I kid you not, that’s what he said.
“Abraham Lincoln”
TWIST ENDING! This is about how sad it is that Abe died. This guy is on the level with M. Night
Shyamalan.
LYDIA MARIA CHILD
1. Abolitionist
2.Women’s Rights Activist
3.Indian Rights Activist
4.Against Expansionism
5. Unitarian
6.A pretty cranky looking lady
“Charity Bowery”
Story of a colored woman in New York who was a slave and had 16 children.
“The Black Saxons”
Mr. Duncan
Setting: Charleston, South Carolina
Duncan’s slaves were going to “Methodist meetings” where a man named Tom talked of freedom and the
slaves discussed whether it was necessary to kill their masters for freedom. They decided, despite
persecution, whipping, and rape, it was not necessary.
“Slavery’s Pleasant Homes” A Faithful Sketch
Frederic Dalcho
Young Bride Marion
Slaves: Mars and Rosa, George
Setting: Georgia
The slaves George and Rosa fall in love, to the dismay of Mr. Dalcho, who lusts after Rosa. He raper he r and
separates her from George, forbidding them to have contact. Rosa remains obstinant to Mr. Dalcho until he
beats her to death. George kills Mr. Dalcho with his own dagger. Mars is almost hung for it, but George
confesses at the last minute. Emphasis is put on the fact that Rosa’s death was ignored and George remained
unnamed as Mr. Dalcho’s slave in the Georgian and Northern papers.
“The New England Boy’s Song about Thanksgiving Day”
Over the river and through the wood
To grandfather’s house we go!
DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS
1.July 1848 Seneca Falls, NY
2.Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott
3.We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.
4.The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward
woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.
5.Rights Usurped:
1.Elective Franchise
2.Submitting to laws which she has no voice
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Withheld all rights of men
No rights as a citizen
Civilly dead when married
Property and wage rights
Liberty, as she must bow in obedience to her husband
Children in the case of divorce
Absorbitant tax on single female landowners
Right to study medicine, law, or theology
Right to a college education
Rights in ministry
Separate moral standard for men and women
Right to her sphere of action
Right to an independent life
