american literature:

1. American Literature: Literary Eras and Authors Week Seven

2. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008

3. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 William Cullen Bryant Born Nov. 3, 1794 , Cummington, Mass Died June 12, 1878 , New York City American poet and newspaper editor. First American writer of verse to win international acclaim.

4. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) Bryant was considered a child-prodigy, publishing his first poem at age ten and his first book when he was thirteen. Bryant studied both Latin and Greek. The son of a learned and highly respected physician, he was exposed to English poetry and had access to a library full of the classics in his father�s vast library, which explains many of the classical allusions in his poetry. As a boy he became devoted to the New England countryside and was a keen observer of nature. In his early poems such as �Thanatopsis�, �To a Waterfowl�, �Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood�, and �The Yellow Violet�, all written before he was 21, he celebrated the majesty of nature in a style that was influenced by the English romantics but also reflected a personal simplicity and dignity.

5. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) Dr Bryant, his father, interceded in many points of Bryant's life. He pushed Bryant towards the legal profession, helped critique and even sent his poems, without his son's approval, to literary magazines, and helped to publish his first book, Embargo . Admitted to the bar in 1815. He practiced law in Great Barrington, Mass., supporting a wife and family, and wrote very little between 1818-1825. He became associate editor of the New York Evening Post in 1826, after giving up the drudgery of practicing law. From 1829 to his death he was part owner and editor in chief. An industrious and forthright editor of a highly literate paper, he was a defender of human rights and an advocate of free trade (�Laissez-Faire�), abolition of slavery, and other reforms. His influence from the editorial desk of the New York Evening Post was great.

6. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) He also holds an important place in literature as the earliest American theorist of poetry. In his Lectures on Poetry (delivered 1825; published 1884) and other critical essays he stressed the values of simplicity, original imagination, and morality. During his later career Bryant traveled widely, made many public speeches, and continued to write a few poems (e.g., �The Death of the Flowers�, �To the Fringed Gentian�, and �The Battle-Field�). His blank verse translation of the Iliad appeared in 1870, that of the Odyssey in 1872. Bryant received great praise for his poetry, but the critics did not give him unconditional laurels, due to the absence of a full range of poetry, such as epics, elegies, and verse drama. He looked at art as something demanding time and reflection. Although he published little as he became immersed in the journalistic life, he was extremely popular in his time.

7. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 To a Waterfowl Whither, 'midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side? There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-- The desert and illimitable air,-- Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fann'd At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere: Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near. And soon that toil shall end, Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest. Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart. He, who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright.

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9. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) Main Literary Works: Annabel Lee (1849) To Helen (1848) The Raven (1845) The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)

10. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 Edgar Allan Poe One of the greatest and unhappiest of American poets, a master of the horror tale, and the patron saint of the detective story. First gained critical acclaim in France and England. His reputation in America was relatively slight until the French-influenced writers and the Lovecraft school created interest in his work.

11. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents who were itinerant actors. His father David Poe Jr. died probably in 1810. Elizabeth Hopkins Poe died in 1811, leaving three children. Edgar was taken into the home of a Richmond merchant John Allan. The remaining children were cared for by others. Poe's brother William died young and sister Rosalie become later insane. At the age of five Poe could recite passages of English poetry. Later one of his teachers in Richmond said: �While the other boys wrote mere mechanical verses, Poe wrote genuine poetry; the boy was a born poet.� Poe was brought up partly in England (1815-20), where he attended Manor School at Stoke Newington. Later it become the setting for his story �William Wilson�. Never legally adopted, Poe took Allan's name for his middle name.

12. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) Poe attended the University of Virginia (1826-27), but was expelled for not paying his gambling debts. This led to quarrel with Allan, who refused to pay the debts. Allan later disowned him. During his stay at the university, Poe composed some tales, but little is known of his apprentice works. In 1827 Poe joined the U.S. Army as a common soldier under assumed name, Edgar A. Perry. In 1830 Poe entered West Point. He was dishonorably discharged next year, for intentional neglect of his duties - apparently as a result of his own determination to be released. In 1833 Poe lived in Baltimore with his father's sister Mrs. Maria Clemm. After winning a prize of $50 for a short story, he started career as a staff member of various magazines, among which Southern Literary Messenger he had to leave partly due to his alcoholism. During these years he wrote some of his best-known stories.

13. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) In 1836 Poe married his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm. She bust a blood vessel in 1842, and remained a virtual invalid until her death from tuberculosis five years later. After the death of his wife, Poe began to lose his struggle with drinking and drugs. He had several romances, including an affair with the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, who said: �His proud reserve, his profound melancholy, his unworldliness - may we not say his unearthliness of nature - made his character one very difficult of comprehension to the casual observer.� In 1849 Poe become again engaged to Elmira Royster, whom he was engaged to in 1826. To Virginia he addressed the famous poem �Annabel Lee� (1849) - its subject, Poe's favorite, is the death of a beautiful woman.

14. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) Poe�s first collection, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, appeared in 1840. It contained one of his most famous work, �The Fall of the House of Usher�. In the story the narrator visits the crumbling mansion of his friend, Roderick Usher, and tries to dispel Roderick's gloom. Although his twin sister, Madeline, has been placed in the family vault dead, Roderick is convinced that she lives. Madeline arises in trance, and carries her brother to death. The house itself splits asunder and sinks into the tarn. The tale has inspired several film adaptations. Roger Corman�s version from 1960 was the first of the director's Poe movies. The Raven (1963) collected old stars of the horror genre, Vincent Price, Peter, Lorre, and Boris Karloff. Corman filmed the picture in fifteen days, using revamped portions of his previous Poe sets.

15. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) The dark poem of lost love, The Raven, brought Poe national fame, when it appeared in 1845. �With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not - they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.� (from The Raven and Other Poems, preface, 1845) In a lecture in Boston the author said that the two most effective letters in the English language were o and r - this inspired the expression �nevermore� in The Raven, and because a parrot is unworthy of the dignity of poetry, a raven could well repeat the word at the end of each stanza. Lenore rhymed with �nevermore�. The poem has inspired a number of artists. Poe suffered from bouts of depression and madness, and he attempted suicide in 1848. In September the following year he disappeared for three days after a drink at a birthday party and on his way to visit his new fianc�e in Richmond. He turned up in delirious condition in Baltimore gutter and died on October 7, 1849.

16. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) Poe's work and his theory of �pure poetry� was early recognized especially in France, where he inspired many writers. In his supernatural fiction Poe usually dealt with paranoia rooted in personal psychology, physical or mental enfeeblement, obsessions, the damnation of death, feverish fantasies, the cosmos as source of horror and inspiration, without bothering himself with such supernatural beings as ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and so on. Some of his short stories are humorous, among them 'The Devil in the Belfry,' 'The Duc de l'Omelette,' 'Bon-Bon' and 'Never Bet the Devil Your Head,' all of which employ the Devil as an ironic figure of fun. Poe was also one of the most prolific literary journalists in American history, one whose extensive body of reviews and criticism has yet to be collected fully. James Russell Lowell (1819-91) once wrote about Poe: �Three fifths of him genius and two fifths sheer fudge.�

17. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 To Helen ??? Helen , thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o�er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo! In yon brilliant window niche, How statue_like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand ! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land ! ??,??????????? ???????????? ????????????? ?????????????? ?????????????? ??????????????? ????????,?????? ???????????????? ?????? ?????? ?!???????? ???????????? ???????? ?,????? ????????

18. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) When Edgar Allan Poe wrote �The Fall of the House of Usher,� two factors greatly influenced his writing. A first influence was John Locke�s idea of Empiricism, which was the idea that all knowledge was gained by experiences, exclusively through the senses. A second vital influence was Transcendentalism, which was a reaction to Empiricism.�Poe mocks the transcendental beliefs, by allowing the characters Roderick Usher, Madeline Usher, the house and the atmosphere�to travel in a downward motion into decay and death, rather than the upward transcendence into life and rebirth that the transcendentalists depict. The transcendence of the mind begins with Roderick Usher and is reflected in the characters and environment around him.

19. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) The beliefs of transcendentalists are continuously filled with bright colors and ideas, and heavenly-like tones. The character Roderick Usher suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses which refers to his transcendental beliefs. Usher finds his transcendental connection with the oversoul but instead of brightness he finds gloom with black, white and gray colors. Madeline Usher suffers from "a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character�. This results from a loss of contact with the physical world, again a characteristic of a transcendentalist, yet negative instead of positive.

20. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) This work also represents a continuous opposition to the transcendentalist views. The mockery of the transcendentalist views are found through the characters, the environment, and the house; instead of light and life, Poe displays a continuation of darkness and death. The complete decay of Usher is found in the house as the narrator witnesses �my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder�. Poe views the transcendentalist thoughts as much too bright and unrealistic, and the ultimate transcendence downward displays his opposite opinions. The decaying mind of Usher, the gloomy environment, and the downward structure of the house all work together to destroy the traditional bright transcendentalist ideas, and to complete the final "Fall of the House of Usher".

21. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 Reading Assignments: 1. Biographical introduction to William Cullen Bryant (Textbook P.119-120) 2. Study texts of four poems by William Cullen Bryant 3. Biographical introduction to Edgar Allan Poe (Textbook P.126-128) 4. The Raven ?? 5. Audio Poetry: Three Poems by Edgar Allan Poe 6. Short story: �The Fall of the House of Usher� (Textbook P.136-161) Websites: 1. Knowing Poe 2. Poe Museum 3. Edgar Allan Poe at enotes.com