Section 1 Discussion
Review Notes
Kate Frost
January 24
The following
is a brief summary of what we covered in section today:
We touched on some important "housekeeping" issues at the beginning
of class.
-Postings should occur before midnight on Thursday for full credit. Reminder:
Online participation is 20% of your grade. Your responses should be an appropriate
reflection of your careful reading and your engagement with the question.
-Bring the Heath anthology to class each day. No need to bring The Many-Headed
Hydra until we begin to cover it in class.
-Be sure to sign the roll sheet during each class period (MWF).
-My office is in LL349. My regular office hours are MWF from 9:30-11:30 (although
I may be changing these a bit over the next week to accommodate a large number
of students who are unable to come during those hours.) I'm also available
by appointment. Please email me (KFrost@asu.edu) or see me before/after class
if you would like to set up an alternate time.
-A sign-up sheet for the first required office hours circulated. I will attach
it to the roll sheet Monday for those who haven't had a chance to sign up
yet. Please see me if one of these times doesn't work for you.
With regard to the readings done for today, we discussed the need for careful
analysis. We "read" a photograph in class that led us to the conclusion
that we must question several things when we read oral traditions (and other
texts as well). Who originally told the story? Under what circumstances? To
whom was it told? Who told the story to the translator? Who was the translator?
(White/Euro-American? Educated? Part of the culture?) What purpose did the
translator have in committing the story to paper? Ultimately, we found evidence
in the photographs (and in the texts) of cultural clashes, educational differences,
language barriers, gender biases, and political agendas.
We must also consider the purpose of the story. We talked about our own stories
and why we tell them (to caution, to entertain, the pass on history, to inspire,
the establish hierarchies, etc.) and related these purposes briefly to our
readings. (I would encourage students to think more about Columbus in this
regard since we didn't get a chance to delve too far into that in class.)
We questioned the translation of the Columbus narratives. The fact that it
was translated by a "fan" forty years after Columbus' death made
us wary. We discussed the dry, scientific language compared to the Native
American texts. We pointed to places within the text where we felt Columbus
was infantilizeshe Native Americans. We discussed the stated reasons for the
exploration (religious conversion, world exploration, colonialism) and came
up with evidence from the text to support the assertion that greed had overcome
the religious aspects of Columbus' ventures. We talked briefly about bartering
between the Europeans and the Native Americans and how we felt this was an
example of unfair treatment. We also close read sections about Columbus' claim
that Native Americans had no religion.
It was a great beginning to the class!
February 9
Here
are some brief notes on what we covered in section with regard to captivity
narratives and Mary Rowlandson's narrative in particular:
1. Reasons for captures--revenge, ransom, replacement of tribal members lost
in war or to disease.
2. Rhetorical purposes of these narratives--religious expression, justification
for taking land and life, popularity of this genre of literature, reinforcement
of stereotypes (Native Americans as brutes, beasts, souls needing redemption,
innocents, Satanic threat to Puritan religious utopia).
3. Patterns within the narratives--Attack/capture;torment/physical and mental
suffering; transformation and/or return.
4. Recognition of how Rowlandson's narrative is used for religious/political
purposes. I showed the class a picture of the title page of the narrative
(Mary at the doorway of her home, wielding a rifle toward a group of Native
Americans).
5. The need to understand both sides in King Philip's War. Native Americans
experienced hardships at the hands of colonists as well.
6. Rowlandson's account as one of the first bestsellers in the U.S. (What
does this tell us?)
7. Cotton Mather's version of Hannah Dustan's captivity. Religious rationalization
and justification of the murder and scalping of ten Native Americans in their
sleep. Heath intro tells us Mather's narratives are a "psychological
barometer of the Puritans' anxiety over their perceived status as God's chosen
and the status of their colony as a holy community" (495).
The
following is a summary of what we covered in section on Friday:
1. We discussed Franklin as an American icon---inventor, statesman, printer,
philosopher, satirist, and scientist.
2. We talked about four major themes we saw emerging in Franklin's writings:
(a) the creation of a distinct American national identity; (b) an awareness
of the differences between the values and interests of England and those of
America (aristrocracy v. democracy); (c) a tension between romantic idealism
and a more pragmatic rationalism; and (d) a shift from interest in the "other
worldly" (Edwards) to an interest in "this worldly."
2. Key ideas: reason, progress, natural rights, empiricism.
3. We pondered the omission of nature, gender and race in much of Franklin's
writings.
4. We compared Franklin with Edwards, pointing out that Edwards, like other
Puritans, emphasized dependence on God's grace and salvation. Franklin's essays,
especially his autobiography, focus on his own efforts to learn what is virtuous
in this world. Franklin retains the Puritan concern for self-improvement,
but remains grounded in life here on earth. He sees the value of morality,
of being a good person, but differs from Edwards in his belief that experience
plays a larger role than faith.
5. Several students made excellent connections between Franklin's autobiography
and other, more modern texts. We discussed how the rags-to-riches theme inspired
other writers to incorporate (or, in some cases, to subvert) this theme in
later literature. We talked about the value of making these kinds of connections
in a survey course such as this one. It may prove useful to remember Franklin's
autobiography when we get to Melville's Benito Cereno later in the semester.
6. These connections between Franklin and other writers led us into a discussion
of Franklin's international fame. We talked briefly about his time spent in
both Paris and London, and speculated on how his experiences with other great
thinkers and writers may have influenced his own writing.
The
following is a brief summary of what we covered in class on Friday:
1. We looked closely at the issues of authenticity raised in the U.S. News
and World Report article on Equiano. We noted that the research into the veracity
of Equiano's account is ongoing; nothing has been proven as of yet. However,
Equiano's narrative represents an important text both to the abolitionist
movement in the 19th century and to African-American studies today. If, in
fact, it turns out that Equiano was born in the U.S. rather than Africa, does
that negate his work? I asked the class to consider the fact that there are
about 3000 slave narratives that we know about (only a handful of which have
been discredited), many of which support Equiano's vision of the Middle Passage
experience. Do we give Equiano credit for disseminating an especially eloquent
depiction of that experience to an audience that might not have learned about
it elsewhere? Also, how do we feel about Carretta's statement at the end of
the article to the effect that if it turns out Equiano did lie "it may
make him even more heroic"?
2. We discussed further ideas about Equiano's original audience and touched
briefly on issues of voice for writers who operate outside the hegemony. How
these writers use language, how they employ the rhetoric of their time directly
affects their literary success. We related this to Equiano's emphasis on providence
and also his use of rationalist discourse.
3. We talked for a short time about Jefferson, looking most closely at his
letter to Burwell on page 1004. Our discussion brought up "the woman
issue" which we will be covering more in-depth in a few weeks. But we
established that this particular attitude toward the education of women would
not be surprising for the time period. We also noted the attitude toward novels
and poetry, which Jefferson refers to as "unwholesome" and a "mass
of trash." We'll keep this in mind when we get into more fiction and
poetry later.
1. I presented an overhead of the Puritan catechism as an illustration of how clearly the idea of sin played into Puritanism. We batted around the concept of inherent sin as a given and then pondered why the characters in Hawthorne’s texts, including this novel and “Young Goodman Brown,” seem so shocked by the sins of others.
2. I asked whether students felt Hester Prynne was a Puritan, which seems like an obvious question at first. But we found it was more complicated that we originally thought. We discussed passages in the text that supported her adherence to Puritan principles. And then we brought up instances where we felt she was rebelling against Puritanism. We spent some time talking about whether Hawthorne represents Hester as repentant as well.
3. We discussed the ambiguities of the novel and what Hawthorne may be up to here. We talked about how often Hawthorne uses the colors of black and white in his writing, but how ultimately these binaries do not hold up when we delve deeper into the text and so we are left with even more ambiguity. We contrasted the “black and white” nature of Puritan judgment with Hawthorne’s resistance to the binary.
4. We discussed Matthew 13:44-46 (one prepared student was able to read the passage directly from the New Testament) and how this relates to Pearl. This led to a conversation about what Hester has paid to get her daughter as well as what she has gained from her daughter. There was an attempt to connect this text to Faust, which made for interesting discussion.
5. We analyzed a bit further Hester’s A. We read the passage from the first scaffold scene and then discussed what we felt Hawthorne gained by describing Hester and her A so sensuously. We contrasted this image of Hester (and, briefly, the image of her in the woods—also sensuous) with the image of Rev. Dimmesdale on the scaffold later.
April 4
1. I guided students through
"Philosophy of Composition" with an eye for what
sorts of things should be marked in the text for future reference.
2. We discussed Poe's major themes
as a way to talk about a lot of the texts
we read this week. Death, Pride, Love, and Beauty rose to the top of the
list. We pointed out these themes in various short stories and poems.
3. I introduced an excerpt from
"The Importance of the Single Effect in a
Prose Tale" and we talked briefly about Poe's belief that unity of effect
is of
primary importance. The effect should take precedence over character, plot
and
setting, and the story should take no longer than one sitting to read since
interruptions detract from the overall effect of the text. We also discussed
how Poe influenced future writers and readers through his literary criticism
and his psychological prose and poetry. We tried to find more recent
comparisons to Poe---Hitchcock seemed like a good one.
4. I brought up some interesting
paradoxes in Poe. Poe was a romantic writer
and yet so much of his work privileges rationality. Individual creativity
was
important to him, yet he advocated traditional forms (or suggested his own
fairly rigid forms). He stressed gothicism, yet wrote somewhat realistically.
His personal life was a bit of a mess, yet his work was carefully crafted.
5. We spent a little bit
of time talking about gender. We discussed the
importance of dead women in his love poetry and how this might reflect cultural
norms of the time. We briefly touched on "true womanhood" and "the
angel in
the house" as images of ideal femininity in 19th century society. We'll
address these ideals again in two weeks when we talk about "The Woman
Question."
April 11
1. Because transcendentalism is such a crucial term when we’re talking about
Emerson and Thoreau, we took some time to explore it. We came to see transcendentalists
as a group of people who were interested in the struggle between the new understandings
of their age and spirituality/religion. We discussed this struggle in terms
of the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on logic and reason and contrasted
it with Romanticism, which we see as more intuitive, more interested in the
human spirit. We talked briefly about new biblical criticism (analyzing Christian
and Jewish scripture as we would literature) and how this challenged old religious
assumptions and opened the gate for non-Western religions to be considered
more seriously. We also connected transcendentalism to the belief that it
was time for a new American literary independence. As a result, we see this
new integrated approach to human spirituality in their work. We don’t see
the movement as a rejection of reason but of a desire for a more Blake-ian
balance
2. We spent some time comparing Emerson to Thoreau, noting the obvious similarities, but then we quickly moved into some of the problems with our usual assumptions about the two. Several students noted that it was easy for Thoreau to advocate for civil disobedience because of his privileged position. It is much harder for people in oppressed positions (women, minorities, working class) to act out in these ways. The one night in jail wasn’t that impressive to some students; we discussed the dramatic license Thoreau uses in his description of his time in jail. In the end, we decided he couldn’t be sainted (despite what we’ve been taught in the past), but that his work remains a valuable part of our literary heritage.
3. We talked a bit about the problem of Thoreau’s essay in defense of John Brown, noting that there appears to be a contradiction between his views on non-violent resistence and his approval of Brown’s violent actions at Harper’s Ferry. We discussed briefly what issues might have warranted non-violent resistence vs. what issues might have warranted violence on Thoreau’s eyes.
4. We noted how over the years
the works of both Emerson and Thoreau have been appropriated by various organizations
who often separate out the environmental messages from the more overtly political
ones depending on their group’s needs. Environmentalists and Civil Rights
activists alike use these works, but emphasize different aspects of them.
We made some interesting connections between these two writers and more contemporary
figures. One student expressed an interesting similarity between Emerson/Thoreau
and Martin Luther King, Jr./Malcom X.
April 18
1. We tied up some loose ends with regard to the Woman Question. We made some
further connections between the rhetoric used in both the anti-slavery
literature and the "woman" literature. We also discussed the joint
efforts of
the two movements prior to the split after the passing of the 14th and 15th
Amendments.
2. We spent some time
discussing the Frederick Douglass narrative in terms of
audience. Who is his audience and how does he attempt to engage their
sympathies? We connected the rhetoric of this narrative (and the other texts
we read this week) to the rhetoric used by other writers we've read this
semester, including Equiano, Murray, Apess and others. This led us into a
discussion of a more radical essay vs. a more polite essay. Students pointed
out that, while dynamic, David Walker's essay was probably hard for his
audience to read. But the style of Douglass allows for greater sympathy.
3. We talked a great deal
about the importance of literacy to slave narratives
(and to the women writers as well). After some discussion, we decided that,
while literacy wasn't necessarily imperative to slave uprisings, it certainly
gave slave writers a way to spread the word. We noted that the call for
education appears in the Douglass narrative as it has in many other protest
writings.
4. I asked about the function
of the prefatory materials to Douglass'
narrative. We noted the need for a white, male endorsement of the text, but
also questioned the appropriation of the narratives of "Others"
for the
specific political gain of others.
5. We looked specifically
at pages 1852-3 and discussed the imagery of flight
and transcendence. We also looked specifically at the fight Douglass has with
Covey and how it represents a turning point for Douglass. A discussion of
the
violence led students to believe that despite his idea of civil disobedience,
perhaps Thoreau would have endorsed this use violence in the same way he
endorsed John Brown's at Harper's Ferry.