American Literature Week Six－Nathaniel's "Young Good Brown" and "My Kinsman Major Molineux"

A. Suggestion Pages for Self-reading
a.119   b.145   c.213-216   d.234-236, 248-249, 301-303, 305   e.323-324   f.337-340  
g.345-348, 350   h. 467-468, 471-482   i.505-508   j.581

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B. Book Discussion
a. Columbus came to North American in 1492, so the American Literature would start from 1492.

Christopher Columbus

On page 145
b. According to the Bible, human were made with clay initially and transformed to our looks now. So the authors would write something such as "ash to ash" or "dust to dust". Also, there would be many words about invocation. In addition, if there is capitalization shown, it was the remaining of German language.
c. Edward Taylor
"To prove Thou art, and that Thou art the best
    And show Thy Properties to shin most bright.
    And then Thy Works will shine as flowers on Stems
    Or as in Jewelry Shops, do gems."
-- This paragraph is to praise the God. There are some poems like this such as Tiger,Tiger.
* "Thou art" is "You are".
* William Blake's Tiger Tiger

"Tiger! Tiger! burning bright

In the forest of the night

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? "

On page 119

a. Anne Bradstreet's The Author to Her Book is about female subjectivity.

b. "I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,

     Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet."

-- "Feet" is a material feet here and it's also a metaphor. 

 Anne Bradstreet

On page 213

a. There are some concepts of Puritanism here:

(a) original sin  (b) pre-destiny  (c) inherited guilt

b. "Threatening" words keep showing up in this article and the same words would appear over and over again such as fear, angry, wrath. That is because it's sort of religious propaganda.

* Wrath is the keyword here.

c. The image of Dante's Divine Comedy such as pit and hell.

* The picture of hell in Divine Comedy

If you overlook the hell it would be like this.

On page 234-236

a. Benjamin Franklin's famous piece of work is The Autobiography.
b. He was born in a poor family but his career was successful and he was willing to promote others.
c. "He was such a renaissance's man" which mean he was brilliant.
d. "He was a born diploma- detached, adaptable, witty, urbane, charming, and clever."
e. Treaty-- The "Treaty" here is North Atlantic Treaty.

f. The points of "the way of wealth" is to be diligent.

 

On page 248-249, 301
a. Use three words to represent the content here:
(a) felicity  (b) indulge (old Men)  (c) vanity
b. "Old Men" here means the ancient wisdom.
c. Names of Virtue
(a) Temperance  (b) Silence  (c) Order  (d) Resolution  (e) Frugality  (f) Industry  (g) Sincerity
(h) Justice  (i) Moderation  (j) Cleanliness  (k) chastity  (l) Humility

On page 323-324
a. Due to The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine was condemned by some religious people so that his reputation got suffered.

 

On page 337-338, 350

a. Thomas Jefferson wished to be remembered for only three things: drafting the Declaration of Independence, writing and supporting the Virginia Stattue for Religious Freedom, and founding the University of Virginia.
b. "It's about checks and balances."-- legislation to make the law, judiciary to interpret the law, and executive to enforce the law.

 Thomas Jafferson

On page 471-472
a. Setting-- Time + Place
* The literary element setting includes the historical moment in time and geographic location in which a story takes place, and helps initiate the main backdrop and mood for a story. Setting has been referred to as story world or milieu to include a context (especially society) beyond the immediate surroundings of the story. 
b. "Rays" and "crow of glory" here can respond to the relationship between American and Britain.

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C. Vocabulary
a. wrath-- It is the same as rage and anger. "w" is voice less such as wrinkle and write.
b. detached-- "de" stands for away from.
c. treaty-- entreaty: an attempt to persuade someone to do something
d. temperance-- control of your own behaviour (氣質)
e. monarchy-- the system of having a king or queen; "mon" stands for one.
f. advocate-- "Vo" stands for voice.
g. agrarian-- "Ag" stands for agriculture. 
h. innovation and renovation-- "Nov" stands for new.
i. blur-- It is an onomatopoeia.

American Literature Week Five－Henry David Thoreau's Walden

A. Before Formal Class
a. American Dream-- When people came to America, the Statue of Liberty is the first landmark they want to see.
* It is a set of ideals in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility achieved through hard work. The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

b. The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton, book Trailer
-- "Early on, there were signs. She was too alert and too observant."

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B. Quiz of the Day
a. Henry David Thoreau's quotation:
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms."

 Henry David Thoreau

b. Perpetual youth-- Perpetual means everlasting.

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C. American Cultural Discussion
a. Action is Eloquence. --Hillary Clinton (video)
* Actually, it's a quotation from Shakespeare:''Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ ignorant more learned than the ears"

b. American Dream in Working Girl-- No matter how ridiculous or how filthy the dream is, the matter is to fulfill it.
c. Carly Simon's "Let the River Run" (video) (lyrics)

"Let The River Run"

We're coming to the edge,
Running on the water,
Coming through the fog,
Your sons and daughters.

Let the river run,
Let all the dreamers
Wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem. --- America is the new place to gestate new culture.

Silver cities rise,
The morning lights
The streets that meet them,
And sirens call them on
With a song.

It's asking for the taking. --- The most crucial thing is to fulfill our dream.
Trembling, shaking.
Oh, my heart is aching.

d. Using the concept of American Dream to interpret the Great Gatsby.
" Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes — a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night."

e. Amanda McBroom's Errol Flynn 
-- Art is long, time is fleeting. (lyrics)

"Now, fame, it is fleeting and stars, they keep falling, 
(All is Vanity from Ecclesiastes 1. The Holy Bible: King James Version. )
And staying right up there… that's the business of art.
And luck kisses some, and she passes by others.
Disappointment and bourbon are hard on the heart."

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D. Text Book Discussion
PDF file
On page 168 (left column)
a. Author of "Rip Van Winkle" used real natural landscape to describe America and avoided the European topic.
b. In American literature, we can't see any role of "father" because it always escape. 
c. Paul Revere's Ride (1774.04.18)--It's a poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The story is that Paul Revere told a friend to prepare signal lanterns in the Old North Church to inform him if the British will attack by land or sea. He would await the signal across the river in Charlestown and be ready to spread the alarm throughout Middlesex County, Massachusetts. (Poem)

On page 169 (right column )
a. Transcendentalism is belongs to idealism. It is a religious and philosophical movement that was developed during the late 1820s and 1830s in the Eastern region of the United States as a protest against the general state of spirituality. Among the transcendentalists'core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both people and nature.
b. Highlighting keywords
(a) sense knowledge  (b) higher faculty  (c) over-soul   (d) man's self is divine --> the Christianity is fault.

The Norton Anthology of American Literature
On page 581 and 582-- the poem "Each and All"
a. heifer-- Io was transformed in to a heifer by Zeus.
b. We can see lots of  "sense knowledge" in this poem.
* "No man is an island." said by John Donne

 Zeus and heifer

On page 658 and 659-- the poem "A Psalm of Life"
a. Sands of life/ time-- Ancient people used to use an hourglass to know the time.
b. "Act－act" means love.
On page 663-- the poem "My Lost Youth"
a. At the end of every stanza is a sentence- "And the thought of youth are long, long thoughts."
It's just like a refrain of a song.

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E. Boston's Age of Innocent
a. In the age of innocent, American literature built the feeling of American's kindness and innocence such as Mark Twain's works.
b. "Paul Revere's Ride" and Boston-- This story happened in Boston. Paul Revere told a friend to prepare signal lanterns in the Old North Church to inform him if the British will attack by land or sea. (attack by land for a lantern; attack by sea for two lanterns)
* There is a Paul Revere's statue in Boston Common.
* Old North Church is an important place for Episcopal church.

 

* This painting is from Grant Wood.-- People at that time love to paint the past and the present event together.

c. The Destruction of the Tea in Boston (v)-- Because American resident needed to pay the stamp tax to the British government, however, they can't have a member of parliament in British parliament institution.

d. Boston Bomber-- The Boston Marathon bombings and subsequent related shootings were a series of attacks and incidents which began on April 15, 2013, when two pressure cooker bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon, killing 3 people and injuring an estimated 264 others.

e. Make Way for Ducklings-- It is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey. This story was set the scene in the Boston Public Park.

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F. Vocabulary

a. attend + school/ church --attendance

b. perpetual youth-- Perpetual is the same as "everlasting".

c. transcend-- to go further, rise above, or be more important or better than something

d. Episcopal Church-- "Epi" stands for moving out.

e. "Inferiority complex" is a lack of self-worth, a doubt and uncertainty, and feelings of not measuring up to standards. It is often subconscious, and is thought to drive afflicted individuals to overcompensate, resulting either in spectacular achievement or extreme asocial behavior. The term was coined to indicate a lack of covert self-esteem.

American Literature Week Four－Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature

A. Discussion of America
a. American Dream-- It is a set of ideals in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility achieved through hard work. The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
* Everyone holds different American Dreams and comes to American with different reasons.

Statue of Liberty

b. The free gift is the duration gift. (不要錢的最貴)
c. "The heart out of the bosom was never given in vain; Tis paid with sighs a plenty and sold for endless rue." -- excerpted from When I was One-and-Twenty
* It is the informal name of an untitled poem by A.E. Housman. It is the thirteenth in a cycle of 63 poems.

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B. Discussion of American Literature
a. "Rip Van Winkle" is a piece of story which was used for mocking Dutch. "Van" is a noble's surname in Nederland. For example, Van Gogh

 Vincent Van Gogh   James Cooper

b. James Fenimor Cooper-- His works are about the period of reclaiming and the relationship between Indian and American pioneers. 
* He was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. 
c. American Romanticism put focuses on individualistic, humanistic, emotional, and imaginative. Before Romantic period (1812-1865), people used to regard literature as a kind of tool on politics such as journal for sailor and propaganda.
d. Transcendentalism never really a formalized movement, but instead a shared belief among a group of writers in the creative powers of the individual mind and the need to question established institutions and traditions. It is is the reaction and respond to the previous period.
e. Memorize three authors in each period and three pieces of each author.

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C. Issue of Public Vote (News from BBC) 
a. Revolutionary Period-- The Declaration of Independence video

* It's all about alter and abolish.
* "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." (excerpt from The Declaration of Independence)
b. American Dream in China / 海闊天空 (trailer)
* The story of 3 friends who build a successful English language school in China called "New Dream". This school help dream of Chinese teenagers come true. Before stand proudly in American stock market, many story happened with them.

c. The HongKong song-- 海闊天空(song) by Beyond

d. The Land of Opportunity? -- New York Times Editorial (2007.07.13)
"America’s sluggish mobility is ultimately unsurprising. Wealthy parents not only pass on that wealth in inheritances, they can pay for better education, nutrition and health care for their children. The poor cannot afford this investment in their children’s development — and the government doesn’t provide nearly enough help. In a speech earlier this year, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, argued that while the inequality of rewards fuels the economy by making people exert themselves, opportunity should be “as widely distributed and as equal as possible.” The problem is that the have-nots don’t have many opportunities either."
e. Quotations from the movie, Philadelphia and  the book, The Catcher in the Rye
   (a) "I heard the voices of friends, vanished and gone. At night, I hear the blood in my veins. Just as black and whispery as the rain on the streets of Philadelphia."
   (b) "Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays by the rules."

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D. Al Gore's Concession Speech (v)
"   Over the library of one of our great law schools is inscribed the motto, "Not under man but under God and law. That's the ruling principle of American freedom, the source of our democratic liberties. I've tried to make it my guide throughout this contest as it has guided America's deliberations of all the complex issues of the past five weeks.
   Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it. I accept the finality of this outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. In addition, tonight, for the sake of our unity of the people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession."
* Electoral College-- The United States Electoral College is the institution that officially elects the President and Vice President of the United States every four years. The President and Vice President are not elected directly by the voters. Instead, they are elected by "electors" who are chosen by popular vote on a state-by-state basis.

* manifest destiny-- Manifest Destiny was the widely held belief in the United States that American settlers were destined to expand throughout the continent. It was always a general notion rather than a specific policy. There were never a set of principles defining manifest destiny. Ill-defined but keenly felt, manifest destiny was an expression of conviction in the morality and value of expansionism that complemented other popular ideas of the era

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E. Topics of the day
a. Ralph Waldo Emerson-- His the American Scholar is know as "American Cultural Declaration of Independence".
* He was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

b. Paul Revere's Ride (1774.04.18)--It's a poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The story is that Paul Revere told a friend to prepare signal lanterns in the Old North Church to inform him if the British will attack by land or sea. He would await the signal across the river in Charlestown and be ready to spread the alarm throughout Middlesex County, Massachusetts. (Poem)

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F. Vocabulary
a. xerox copy-- It is the same as carbon copy but it was a brand initially. 
* "Xerox" pronounces /z/ or /s/
b. learn by heart-- It is the meaning of memorizing.
c. Public vote
d. Philadelphia (v)-- "Phil" stands for love.
e. The Quaker City (in Philadelphia)-- "Quakers" are members of a family of religious movements collectively known as the Religious Society of Friends. The central unifying doctrine of these movements is the priesthood of all believers,a doctrine derived from a verse in the New Testament.