Men That made Literary History.

1. Men That made Literary History. A look at the works and lives of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Walt Whitman for grades 9-12.

2. Your Task • For this online assignment, you will read about three different poets who each had a great impact on literary history. This is an interactive reading where you will decide the order in which you learn about the poets, and then, once you have finished the three readings, you will take an online quiz to test your knowledge. Good luck and have fun! Click here to select your first poet!

3. Select your poet. Emerson. Poe. Whitman. QUIZ!

4. Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature Select another Poet. • Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in the year 1803, in Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard at the young age of eighteen, and went on to be a schoolmaster. He married once, but his wife died after only two years of marriage. He himself died in 1882. • Emerson is most well known for his transcendental style of writing and his collection of poems and essays entitled “Nature.”

5. Edgar Allan Poe The Raven Select another Poet. • Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1809. His mother died when he was very young and he was raised in the home of John Allan and his wife. He spent time at the University of Virginia and also as a private in the United States Army. He was married once, to his thirteen year old cousin, Virginia Clemm, when he was twenty four. She died at the age of fifteen due to tuberculosis (1837). Edgar died in the year 1849. • Poe is best known for his works written in the Gothic and dark romanticism genres. One of his most famous and widely read works is the poem entitled “The Raven,” published in 1845.

6. Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass Select another Poet. • Walt Whitman was born on Long Island, New York, in the year 1819. Throughout his life he worked as a journalist, a teacher, a clerk, and a volunteer nurse. Whitman was never married and his sexual preferences are still a mystery today. He died in the year 1892 at the age of seventy three. • Whitman wrote the majority of his poems between the genres of Transcendentalism and Realism, incorporating the views of both into his major writings. His most well known collection of works is entitled “Leaves of Grass” which he was revising and editing until the year he died, despite its earlier publishing. Now, Whitman is known as the “Father of Free-verse.”

7. A clip from Chapter One of “Nature.” “To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile…”

8. First and second stanzas of “The Raven.” “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -Only this, and nothing more.'“Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrowFrom my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -Nameless here for evermore.”

9. “To the Garden the World” from “Leaves of Green.” “To the garden, the world, anew ascending,   Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,   The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,   Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber;   The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, have brought me again, Amorous, mature—all beautiful to me—all wondrous;   My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons, most wondrous;   Existing, I peer and penetrate still, Content with the present—content with the past,   By my side, or back of me, Eve following, Or in front, and I following her just the same.”  

10. It’s Quiz Time! • Now that you have completed your reading, you are ready to take the quiz! This quiz consists of four questions, so I hope you read carefully! Good Luck! Let’s get started!

11. Number One • Which poet married his younger cousin, Virginia? a. Walt Whitman b. Edgar Allan Poe c. Ralph Waldo Emerson

12. WRONG! Try Again!

13. CORRECT! Question Two!

14. Number Two 2. Which poet was born on Long Island in New York? a. Walt Whitman b. Edgar Allan Poe c. Ralph Waldo Emerson

15. WRONG! Try Again!

16. CORRECT! Question Three!

17. Number Three 3. Which poet was born the earliest? a. Walt Whitman b. Edgar Allan Poe c. Ralph Waldo Emerson

18. WRONG! Try Again!

19. CORRECT! Question Four!

20. Number Four 4. Which poet is know for his Gothic style writing? a. Walt Whitman b. Edgar Allan Poe c. Ralph Waldo Emerson

21. WRONG! Try Again!

22. CORRECT! FINISH!

23. Congratulations! • Congratulations, you have completed this assignment. Hopefully you have learned some interesting facts about three extraordinary men of America’s Literary past! “Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.”--Edgar Allan Poe--