English 241
American Literature to
1860
Spring 2003
Final Examination Model Questions
(1) Emerson’s writings are full of bold claims,
of passages that read like self-confident epigrams (“Life only avails, not the
having lived”; “Power ceases in the instant of repose”; “What I must do is all
that concerns me, not what the people think”; “Traveling is a fool’s
paradise”). Such claims are not as
self-evident as they are asserted.
Sometimes they propose a position that Emerson struggled hard in his own
daily practice to maintain, or about which he had considerable doubts. Contrast Emerson’s rhetorical positions to
those of another writer – for example, Whitman, Douglass or Paine.
(2) Compare the protest poetry of John Greenleaf
Whittier to the contemplative poetry of Emily Dickinson. How do they establish different
relationships between poet and reader?
If Dickinson seeks to disrupt easy reading relationships with the text,
then how might Whittier be contrasted or compared on this point? How does Dickinson perceive her calling or
duty as a poet?
(3) Compare and contrast the ideas of Frederick
Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” with Thomas Paine’s Common
Sense and The American Crisis.
In particular, how might appeals to nationalism serve their
argumentative purposes similarly or differently in these texts?
(4) Choose two texts that serve to illustrate
central features of early American regionalism? With these choices as examples, what are the defining qualities
of regionalism? How do these texts
frame daily life? How do they employ
both heroic and parodic elements?
Derive a description of regionalism based on such considerations.
(5) Elias Boudinot, Sarah Moore Grimke, and
David Walker all share the narrative position of disenfranchised speakers. What are their respective rhetorical
strategies towards co-equal citizenship?
How does gender shape Grimke’s Letters differently from either
Boudinot or Walker?
(6) Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” share a reliance
on Christian imagery together with representations of evil, but have profoundly
divergent religious impulses. How are
these two texts linked and how are they opposed texts?