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VO Survey of American Literary History (Maierhofer)

1.Stunde - 11.03.2014

Structure the exam in two levels. Get somebody hooked: get somebodys attention.

When do we have to hand in the responses: the best would be before we discuss the texts in class. But by the latest 28 of May Wednesday.

Start reading with Cooper and Melville because that are fat books.

Letters from an American Farmer (1782) not on the reading list but ist an important book.

What is American literature?

Utopia =positive, paradiselike. Distopia= the oposite.

Youtube Allen Ginsberg – America

Angry voice about America.

America as Myth opposed to reality.

Walt Whitman: talks about America as the most beautiful poem.

American Literature is connected to the US territory, at least the older books, nowaydays they are also transcultural, national.

While reading look out for hidden objectives.

Cultural manifestations.

Colonial Period – Settlement (1607 – 1783) List of Dates (moodle)

Not learn by heart but understand when, what was written.

1607 Jamestown settled

1620 Pilgrims arrived. (religiously motivated)

1630 Masachusetts Bay Colony founded.

….

1765 Stamp Act.

1776 Declaration of Independence. „common sense“ = Hausverstand, rationality

Structuring principle. Still referred again and again.

Women, slaves when it was written were not seen as those who are independent.

1781 War of Independence.

1783 Benjamin Franklin. Enligthenment.



2. Stunde 12.03.2014

3 Aspects concerning American Literature

1. Aspect: Question of Independence (politically).political aspect of establishing a nation.

2. Aspect: Relatively strong religious aspect. ( comes from the Prespiterians). Idealism.

3. Aspect: Aspect of Geography. (not the beauty or civilisation, but the landscape offers something to the individual person : see Brokeback mountain, etc.) Just in being there, it offers a statement against the cultural restrictions.

4. Question of the old and the new and the story telling.



1607 and 1620 American settlement.

1662 Half-Way Covenant: Protestants -> purifying. -> Puritans (the Puritans even more). Imidiate level of reading the bible, you have a direct line to good. There is no one in between. No one who reads it to you. Protestant church got rid of all the Saints and of the religious power. When the Puritans came to America, they had a very communist kind of understanding. They wanted no instance inbetween to read them their bible. They didn’t want this hirarchy.

The community is breaking apart in terms of religious strictness.  Half way covenant.

Wikipedia:

The Half-Way Covenant was a form of partial church membership created by New England in 1662. It was promoted in particular by the Reverend Solomon Stoddard, who felt that the people of the English colonies were drifting away from their original religious purpose. First-generation settlers were beginning to die out, while their children and grandchildren often expressed less religious piety, and more desire for material wealth.

Why work so hard in the colonies and send all the money back to Europe.  Independence.

Film: new native voice. Out of ancient myths they create new ones. Ancient connection to the land and story telling. All the stories begin with the land. „we“ emerge from the earth. Oral tradition. Songs and stories carried on to the next generation. Myths. Story teller: talking of their own subjectivity. Part of the process. Imigration, assimilation, and integration, are topics of the newer stories. Silko, Orthis,… Authors. Lucy Tapahonso: poet. Navaho language. She borrows from the Navaho creation myth. Uses whole texts for one poem. Orthis: documenting culture and their stories and myths. Uses horse as a symbol: fracture of identity.

World war 2 many Native Americans were sent into war. Experience of war. (Silko: veteran who returns in the story). Young men have been destroyed by the war.

(Points covered in this film are on the Power Point.)

The Social History oft he Western Subject: Oral Culture.

Change is a main subject of our modern culture. Although things are changing, the oral tradition is still there. Unifying system – something remains through the printed version /static. But it still changes through the oral version and it is still handed on orally.

  • No written laws (constant tradition that there is nothing that is right or wrong).

  • Knowledge is based on what is relevant in the present.

  • No authors. (retelling: questions the story of the „author“)



  • No private self (subjectivity, retelling story – establishing yourself in your tribe, both the community and the individual in this reassassing of the story. Therefore the readers become important within it.



    The Social History oft he Western Subject: Renaissance ( 1550-1660)

    The Social……New Testament and Old Testament.

    Restoration/Enlightenment: Language: content and form are important. American: inclusion and exclusion.

    Period of romanticism: American revolution. Nation state. 1776 Independence. 1789 French revolution. Also linked tot he rise oft he middle class.

    The question oft he subject: Modernism. Establishment of a middle class that reads.

    Western subject within modernism: taking everyday objects out of there normal context. Visual arts very important.

    Question oft he self: what kind of I/we is in the texts. Self reflexivity. Question of a psychological and subjective state happens later. Question of representation also happens in the later texts.

    Radical experimentation, fragmentation, parody, irony. Early texts use irony and parody differently.

    They are not only a statement against white society. They are texts within the American culture and literature and not something seperate.

    Ginsberg was a Jew.

    Question of Americanness. Inclusion/exlusion. Reclaiming of Americanness through writing and reading. Writing for ones position, for their Americanness



    3.Stunde 18.03.2014

    Most useful Nachschlagewerke for her course.

    Peter Conn, Literature in America An ilustrated History. Cambridge.

    Richard Gray. A history of American Literature. Oxford 2004

    „America is a poerm in our eyes: ist ample geography dazzles the imagination…..

  • Utopia and Distopia.

    Cite: early English settler. They read the bible as i fit was a manual for their life.

    Columbus: a lot of flowers,…. Didnt understand their language. They discovered Tobacco their.“ It causes a drousiness.“

    „Converting Indians to Christianity“- basis of the colonial thought. To convert and to understand the new, the detection oft he new things.

    Comparing, finding similarities tot he European things. Two levels finding likeness but also then finding something very different. –> Also adaption, but on both sides Indians and Europeans. Things were given European names to make them more similar. Mapping oft he new world. Appropriating the new but with the old.

    MYth of Eden: Return to an imagined past. (Deny or change the new) Cite by Columbus.

    Columbus went tot Carribea.

    Not encountering the future or the present but the past. Was a Juxtuposition of…

    Bible as a manual.

    Level oft he primitive is seen as a recollection oft he natural ( the Indians not wearing much).

    His whole life he believed to find the gold and diamands…. To find the Garden of Eden. And also believed the whole time that he was in India. Was convinced that all the rivers came out oft he Garden Eden, those he had discovered.

    Natural human being. Indians, as the naiv, natural people. the unfallen state.  Adam and Eve before collecting the Apple.

    Both the natives and the Europeans changed. Important thought. 

    (Developed an American Literature.) Columbus was forging a narrative at this time. Was neither old , nor new. Kind of Plurality in his texts. It was both old and new. Meeting the strangers was one aspect oft he American tale.

    Aspect of diversity, plurality. A world of borders and change.

    Whites were coming seen to come over the sea --- water. Some tribes saw themselves originating from the sun.

    Myths: allthough they are invented they use real facts. And therefore they change, and they changed over time. (und die Weißen haben dazu beigetragen)

    Westward removal oft he native Americans (on timetable)

    Act of language/performance. Text + translation. Still can access native American tetxs. Oral tradition. Although they are writing, they are „translating“ from the oral tot he written form.

    Buffallo, horses, tobaco, corn,…. Topic of trickster figure comes up in native american culture. The coyote that tricks othe animals. Spider man as well. Tails of love and war, evolution oft he world -> question of creation. Aspect of endings and beginnings. What tribe do you belong to.

    BRule Siuox „Creating Power“ aspect of endings and beginnings again, and creation-- > somethimes linked tot he coming oft he whites.“ Loss and devision“ also come up in the texts. -> Linking of georgraphy with the vitality. World as a sort of place that is unified  Eden. That is „Eden“ fort he Indians, not in our terms.

  • See literary history.

    Puritans: they than wanted to settle. Had their thought of how to live in the new world. With link to their religion. They thought that in England Henry the VIII with hiss ix wifes that Europe was „bad“.

    Apocalyptic Tales of Encounter between European Settlers and Native Inhabitants: Aspect of how distraction is seen. (Spiderman). Changes that have happened.

    Aspect oft he Spanish Settlement:

    Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. Idea: finding something. He expected to find streets paved with gold. Reporting about cities with gold. Imagination, they are only there, has never seen them. Where intersted in exploiting.

    Stories of captivity. How it was in the captivity, they discribed. (Pocahontas).

    Become the voice of native Americans. Two different ways of seeing the world (couldnt convince them that we were also white christians).

    Glossary: Apocalypse. Captivity narrative, convenant theology (Half way covenant), election, inner light, Jeremiad, Plain Style, Puritans, Separatist and Non- Seperating Typology, Weaned Affections.

    Two Religious groups Puritans and the Quackers coming in search fort he promised land. (Around 16 hundred).

    Plain style: the prose was suposed tob e more pure than poetry.

    Utopian Literature in America.

    Captivity narrative: hardship, illness and death. Zerstören die idealisierten Hoffnungen.

    The use of powerful methaphors oft he bible.

    Shipwreck:

    Puritans: end oft he world, which they believed was on hand. Gemeinschaft war wichtiger als das persönliche Wohl. Saw themselves as „crossing the red sea“ by shipping to America. „promise of a new Christian world“. Saw the Native Americans in two ways, 1. Those who tried to take away theircountry but also allies to help them understand the new world.

    Mary Rowlandson: was a captive of an Indian tribe. Classic example of a Jeremiad = stories that Puritans told when they failed. God will punish us now. When we return to our original way of behaviour, God will return to us. Moralisation: every bodies life is a wilderness life. Story of demnation and salvation. It seems everything is lost but then you survive and everything goes out well. She didnt write the story only herself, but her husband and the chef oft he colony helped her. They wanted an inspiring story.

    Salem witch trials: they lost faith. Salem story ended by about 17 hundred.

    Puritans and Quackers. Ideas clashing against each other. They saw the Puritans as working fort he devil. Had different ideas. 4 Quackers were hanged by Puritans.

    Quackers: were more inclusive in their believes, less stern (Stubern). Pacifism. Live soberly and kindly. Therefore more peaceful co-existent with the native Americans.

    Constitution: quite radical not durchführbare Ideen at that time, but they have proved themselves till today.

    Nation: chosen, exceptional, everytime an American thinks that he thinks the same thoughts as the Puritans did.

    Questions:

    How did the Puritans and QQuakers respond tot he social and political…

    See moodle!!

    4.Stunde,

    Moving from Colonialism to Enlightenment. Moving away from Religion to what is possible for humans.

    Transcendentalism

    In the midst of self determination, we are. No longer god to guide us. French Revolution was important. American Revolution: aspect of independence. (1776). establishment of a middleclass, increasing literacy rate. More is being published and written. Puritan period: little amount of things that were written. Now: Literature as such is being established.

    Benjamin Franklin (1706- 1790): still important for what America believes to be. Being a politican, inventing things (Blitzableiter), he was a true enlightent person. Believed in creating oneself. He did not refer to god (was more a higher being, but he basically believed in what he himself could do). he was very dominant fort he culture at that time and still. Wrote an autobiography. Of Plymoth plantation: could be said as a Group autobiography). Published in 1880 20 years after his death. Begins with his comming to Philadelphia. How tob e successful, he writes about. From Rags to Riches.

    Quote: Dear son….

    References to ancestors. Not important where you come from and who your family is. Power oft he individual, and not listen to others. Trust yourself. Powers within the own self. Wrote how emerged from poverty. The how is something new. He wants tob e instructing. There is a certain selfpurpose there. He is sometimes quite arrogant in the text. Reforcing the aspect of his own! Abilities. Pointing out on the fact that he did it on his own. Self-promotion!. Self help book. If you cant do it yourself it is your fault, you are not trying hard enough. (Gods out of her, but he uses him here.)  ist your fault. (secular aspect that comes in here). Writing also fort he sociatal context ->. Not just about himself. -> also level of education. He becomes in his imagination the prototypical American. New beginnings: went from Boston (old center) to Philadelphia (new center). New beginning and old ending, the same thought again as we talked bei den Puritanern.

    Quote: I have been the more particular.

    Looking back from his now established position. Progress aspect. Autobio journey. The person who gives more has little. How Franklin culturally constructs himself. Even as a person with little money he had enough to pay people on the ship. Not the person for mercy he is. He is not pitting himself. It was just a moment in time. He is a hero – the selfmade man. Later again as a hero in other books, the self made man.

    Puritans: sign of god for everything. Now secular level: sort of welth is something you are proud of. Welth is something that you deserve because you really worked hard on it.

    Self help, self reliance, self reinvention. Franklin doesnt want tob e rich. Is just because he worked so hard and now he deserves it. (moral aspect).

    Quote: It was about…

    Wants tob e this model perfect person. He devises a method: Age of reason (everythings checked). His virtues, he sets up:

    1. Temperance

    2. Silence

    3. Order

    4. Resolution

    5. Frugality

    6. Industry

    7. Sincerity

    8. Justice

    9. Moderation

    10. Cleanliness

    11. Tranquility

    12. Chastity

    13. Humility (certain irony to himself)

    Like manager tips. Ambivalence: He thinks ist important to write down things and refelct on them (Geisteswissenschaften oft als useless seen in comparision to engeneering.)

    Used a week chart: using his virtues. To embody this in the routine oft he day.

    Individual has potential to change himself and help himself. Common sense = Hausverstand.

    Finding quick solutions, not doing things like people did before ( but valuing the traditions). But why should web e enslaved by old traditions. Why not do it new.

    Hard work, reason, common sense i spart of the American dream.

    Others help you: in Eu good, positive, but in America mercy is something bad.

    Self reliance, helping, you do it fort he public but not fort he mercy. Communal aspect. A lot of volunteering. What you can do for public service (American students).

    Franklin: Almanach, he wrote. Like a calendar. Literary style, the content is important. Europeans first said: they have no literary tradition, they just mimic us. But they didnt, wrote in plain style (not that flowery stuff from Europe).

    Writes about: What is an American and what he can do. Art is useful, but not art for ist own sake.



    Letters from an American Farmer (1782) Michel St.John de Crevecoeur.

    What ist he new American man? Cultural narrative oft he newness, new beginning. Shagging oft he past, establishing something new. What devides oft he others (independence). Becoming ist own nation, not abhängig oft he EU, no colony anymore.

    Born in France, then England, than Canada, then New York State. Was a Torey. Developing the newness oft he american. Writes is from the perspective as a quaker, farmer. One hand: religious aspect, trying to keep pure and being strict about their religion  which imploded. Couldnt keep community together. Other hand: believed in equality and pacifism.--> Inlcusion of diversity and different voices in the Americanness.

    Another myth: the Pioneers, explorers. Doesnt know what hes going to find (Fronteersman). The searchers (John Wayne)

    He here is establishing the settler, the farmer. Travel, philosophy, describing different customs (comparing).  to European habbits. Experiences,

    Summary: juxtaposing, who is an American, what is an American, to not be special to do something special.

    Thomas Paine: (1737-1809)

    Culture imbedded in the ideas!/in the abstract.

    Paine believed in the revolution (Crevecour is torn in this terms). He is an American by conviction.

    Published „common sense“. There are no structures there. So he asks for structures. We can construct a government now. He is talking about plain style. Dont be against the tyranny but the tyrant. Started Americas self idenitification. Arrousing opposition = > in terms of common sense.

    Thomas Jefferson: picture with quote.

    Declaration of independence: Stilll used for people who feel excluded from the American dream-„ ist still valid for us“. From 18th century, still valid today. Dont have that in Europe. Even in the 21st century text of inclusion. (4.July 1776)

    James Madison: Notes on the State of Virginia. Establishing a national identity.

    Quote: question oft he land. Simple, independence. Question of arming oneself. Being independent in terms of a tyranny. Which role should government take and have. Abilities and promise of a new government. Land, ownership plays an important role. New Governement: how it deals with the native Americans.

    Abigail Adamas: Remember the Ladies (1776). Wife of President John Adams. Talks oft he Declaration of independence in terms oft he women. Early voice of inclusion, feminist voice. Dont exclude, remember the ladies.

    At this time the husband: the father who was had of household had power over many aspects of life. Women getting disobedient. Women movement grew out oft he antyslavery movement. Women fighting against slavery, that was how it started but they realiced that they even themselves dont have the rights, for exmaple to speak in public.

    Samson Occom: native voice talking about independence, dependence, nation, government. He was not positive about the American Independence Revolution. Wanted to stay native people to stay neutral.

    Lemuel Haynes: (1753-1833). Not only voice in terms of slavery but in terms of political aspects. Position of american africans he discusses.

    Prince Hall (1735 – 1807), tob e a voice oft he African American community,

    Transcendentalism: Ralph Waldo Emmerson (1803- 1882), self reliance, trust thyself. Referred back to nature („Nature“, 1844, quote) romantic aspect (nature) if you associate that with the wild nature. Britain everything is very cultivated. Nature important in terms of asthetics. Next quote: Balance loving….

    Key words/ glossary on the powerpoint.

    America ist he new Rome: establishing something new.



    5.Stunde 25.03.2014

    1629, Seal oft he Massachusetts Bay Company. This was when this Trading Company was set up.

    Im Kreis steht: Come over anf help us.

    His arrow is pointing down so he is not agressive.

    1637 Mary Rowlandson ….sailing out to Massachusetts to make a good marriage.

    William Bradford, Of Plymoutj Plantation: describes of 400 native americans shooting. Put them in a Thal and shooting all oft hem.

    „Victory seemed a sweet sacrifice.“ from the bible (Leviticas).

    Set fire to another bunch of native Americans.

    Some oft he natives were are already Christianised, the „prayed“ indians, so he descirbes them in his text.

    Things were going very wrong at plymouth plantation.

    Also the laws of Leviticas: buggery, with animals, sex with animals. He hast o identify the animals. The animals are executed and Thomas Granger is hanged in front oft he animals.

    Bradford: What is going wrong with this Christian community.

    Why has this Utopian idea of a community gone wrong.

    Gives several reasons:

    The reason, lord is testing us!

    These are the dark corners of American history.



    Mary Rowlandson: losing her children… he has seen people being slaugthered. Survival strategies. She smokes 3 pipes a day -> decides to give up smoking. Tobacco, she becomes then popular for trading it.

    Traumatic experiance.

    Corruption, decay, bestiality. That she was afraid of.

    One oft he reasons to write the book was money. They needed money. Her book becomes quite a bestseller. Thrilling story.

    Last sermon: Is god actually testing our chosen people with destruction. Proof: that you can overcome all things god throws at you. 9/10 of her qotes tot he bible ar from the old testament. Nly 1/10 from the New Testament.

    Savage, Warefare, Escape, Captivity.  old Testament.

    Presence of Jesus Christ -> New Testament.

    New Testament: forgivingness, and Martyrdom.

    Relationship between natives and the white settlers, how the settlers saw themselves at that time:

    Hostility, that brakes out between settlers and natives.

    They do not see the natives as people who can own land because they only fish, and jagen, and wander around.

    They dont follow any laws, they dont fight like gentlement, settlers say.

    We are now shocked that the settlers took for granted to enslave the Indians. World view that they all had at that time, first they start trading with them, but then warfare.

    Cease people, get hold oft hem and turn them into slaves.

    Slavery is taken for granted and fully important sanction.



    Early captive narrative: John Smith.

    Pocahontas-> native simplicity and beauty -> she represents.

    He was an army officer fighting the Turks before coming to America.

    1624. General history, he describes that he was captured by Indians.

    There are three versions oft he 1624 version.

    1630 Pocahontas falling herself in captivity. Pocahontas is not returned but converted to Christianity and married to one of her capturers.

    On the picture: she is dressed up like a European but still has some exotic touch: e.g. the feather.

    She dies 1670

    Firstly: they find a Utopian new country. But there are brutal, wild, savage natives there. Demonic, diabolic.

    Picture: Smith with the huge, handsome Indian Chief.

    Assaulting the mother with the children on the picture. Always troubling.

    Picture with Woman on floor. The natives seem quite heroic with muscles.

    Sacrifical figure, nursing mother. Catholic represantitative for this time. Archetype. Woman, blond hair, blue eyes and pregnant being slaugthered.

    Forgiveness, generosity on the one hand. ( the natives) on the other hand they see them as wild, brutal daemons. Why this opposition.

    Smith: the story of Pocahontas was made up.

    Rowlandson: new kind of heroin. Allthough her husband helped her and provided all the quotations from the bible.

    Captive narrative becomes crucial fort hat time. Because more or less the only written things from the new world and was near to their lives. They also got literature from Britain.

    Happened the other way to: natives adopting people oft he whites and intecrating in their lives. One girl:  native language, and became mother.

    Her parents several times tried to persuade her to come back but she didnt want to.

    Rowlandson: afraid that the Indians could win this kind of „war“. (like the Greeks and the…Both sides had a hero..)

    The Indians ar extinguished but it also could have gone the other way round (also accrording to Rowlandson)

    Quotation: new female kind of heroity. („home to my masters wigwam“““home“)

    Hole network of slavery trading. Imposes on native American. Social structure there that she assambles tot he European structure (King Phillip as being very bad).

    Slavery comes from the old Testament.

    Jeremiah (old Testament).

    Very first biblical allusion: oft he old Testament, („Lot“). Punishmetn for being in a state of absolute sin (Sodum and Gomorra).

    Mary: „Lots wifes temptation“ she knows that she hast o resist.

    She begins to adapt. Spirito of Christian forgiveness not quite part here.

    Slavery: you learn how to trade, how to have an outcome with the Indians.

    Daniel Day Lewis (Movie)

    The Last oft he Mohicans

    6.Stunde 26.03.2014

    Rowlandson: no sexual assault, never, quite surprising.

    Fear of interrational sexuality. Wider issue of early american history. Racial mixes.forbidden kind of desires.

    The Last of The Mohicans (James Fenimore Cooper),

    Eu alle wollten die Koloniale Herrschaft an sich reisen. (Sugar, Tobacco, Tomatoes, Mais, Gold, …)

    Has America a bigger history of violence?

    Business of violence, special meaning given to violence (certain style) -> why they enjoy horror stories, films about stalker, Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained). Pleasure in seeing violence performed ( scream murderer with big knife,)

    The Last oft he Mohicans (excitment, violence,)state of permanent arousel (erotic excitement, the beautiful young woman) stylish story of captivity (captivity narrative).

    Indian alies involved with French army. General: you can march out fully weaponed.

    Both sides had Indian alies and used it against éach other.

    Carrying their arms and flags, allowed to go. No prisoners.

    The massaker: how many were killed, was it 15 or 1500…

    How where the Indians involved (blooddthursty, always a good moment to kill some white people?)

    Written in a odd literary style.

    All the chapters contain a quote by Shakespeare or someone else.

    Identity, fear, desire, unexpectedness (when you go into an American wood at that time).

    Chapter 1: hosts, -> flavour to peculiar conditions, universal kind of Echo.

    Impervious, expended (expend). In quest (host and inquest narratives).

    Complex contradictory reading, quote from chapter 1

    Dark black comedy: also, why would they run through dark, savage forrests to kill each other?!

    „Woods so dark, nor any secret place so lovely“ – Blut und Kampfgeil

    Erotic kind of language

    Style of American violence

    Permanent to and fro between the French and English.

    Wanting of dangerous situations. Make it tot he struggle of death, appealing, ecxiting.

    Coronel Munro, two daughters want to join him. Setting out with Duncan Hayward. Accompanies them through the forrest with an Indian runner, the bad hero of this novel. Devious, powerful, betrayes by the English.

    Younger sister: pure quality, blue, blond hair, somehow he is blaiming her (Fenimore).

    Linking it up with some kind of older greek narrative.

    The Indian, the bad one gliding through the woods (devil gliding)

    Interethnic desire, they didn talk about that. Were aware oft hat but not talk. She is looking at the Indian with desire, pity and also Abneigung/Angst? Handsome nattive American.

    The veil is crucial. Slight movement oft he veil. Lifting it and than replacing it.

    Rowlandson: Indians, you can sleep besides them and they would never lay a hand on you and assault you sexualy.

    Scalping, knifing, torture.

    Indians: mainly eat deer (Fleisch), mainly Fleisch Diät.

    Töten des Tieres in Chapter 3, pleasourous kind oft hing. Blood spitting around and the deer falling on the floor.

    Chapter 6

    Hurons perceived as crouching (animallike). In a sense pornography of violence.

    Hawkeye. Staged as a kind of weired pornographic spectacle.

    Chapter XXIX: Cora Hawkeye are all captive now.

    Speech in one oft he chapters: they were just, they were, happy, they were brave.

    Magua,

    thrilled, erotic scene. Suffering like Jesus on the cross. Again gliding, as at the beginning oft he story.

    Di 01.04.14 habe ich gefehlt

    Mi 02.04.14

    Moby Dick, Herman Melville.

    Whale oil, industrial revolution.

    Explanation oft he whole whaleing history in the book.

    Then they find the white whale.

    The hole crew are committed to success. When they come back with the whale, they dont get there money right away but they get a part (180stel or whatever) and when the whale is sold, they get the money.

    When they got the whale on the harpune they then stab him until they get tot he heart and they stirr around, and when blood comes out oft he whale hole they know that they killed him.

    Economic importance, moral and spiritual ethnical, what constitutes civilization. That is what interests Melville and not no much the heroic nature oft he people.

    Etymology:

    In the book. What is the meaning of whale.

    Verbal and visual imagination of Melville.

    Massive industry, the whale industry, at that time.

    1859 they discovered oil in America (Pennsylvania). So the whal oil was not that important any more. Also discovered gold fields in…

    Chapter 10:

    Thirty dollars in silver (Christian story ->)

    Circum navigation.

    Chapter 11:

    Wicked mother, haunting Ismael.

    Nothing extists in itself. Melville anticipating the voice. Burgoir class that has emerged in America. He wants to represent the working class of America.

    Phylosophical question: what the man is about, in this chapter. In the dark parts of our identity weg et closer tot he truth, our identity.

    Image of peace, smoking (native American image).

    Part oft he love match -> smoking together.

    Examples of whale skelettons.

    Captain Ahab: leg eaten. Flesh vs. Skeletton.

    Reminders of mortality.

    Scientific research and the talking oft he flesh, that is what Melville tries to bring together again and again. So to say the science and the normal life.

    Chapter 42:

    Why is whiteness so terrifying.  white domination over all the ethnic groups.

    City of Lima frozen in whiteness.

    Silent whiteness ist he creepiest of all and even more i fit spreads over the world.

    source of terror and horror. Ist indefinetness.

    It is about the whole universe. Where is god? Not only our world.

    Do people create religion to make sense oft he universe?

    Milky way not unlike a white whale in the sky.

    Want to get the heart oft he mystery oft he universe.

    Chapter 87:

    East Indian ocean, heading to Japan. Surrounded by whole school of whales. Like a little city of whales. And the pet them, as if they were domasticated animals.

    Nursing scene, child at the breast. Try to get the baby whale so that the mother follows.

    Collective silence that comes from the eyes oft he whale. Language tries to annact the sansation.

    Etymology:

    Edgar Ellen Poe: „the pale USher“ ….that was how he was found dead.

    Melvilles way of revealing his universe.

    His breath (unspelled…) h..

    He is setting out what he would do. cyclopedia story and scientific.

    Roling and…they are all in the name oft he whale, if correctly spelled.

    Melville playful subversiveness.

    Chapter 94: businessman structure. Hierarchy.

    Chapter 111:

    Enter the pacific ocean, coming home. Classical pacan god.

    Mississippi Delta. Overladen brooks: coming oft he civil war.

    Chapter 135:

    Grews of railroads.

    Native American history retold in this last chapter in some way.

    Burd of heaven –>Jupiter and the devil.

    5500 BC. Refers back to…

    Leaves of grass: Whalt Whitman.

    Based on old testament biblical parts.



    06.05.14

    Prüfung: Wichtig ist das wir die Topics, die für das Buch/ den Text wichtig sind (die im Buch sind) das wir die wissen. Was taucht im Text/ Buch auf , was sticht hervor, was kann man analysieren, die Jahreszahlen sind nicht so wichtig. How to analyse a text properly. Book and culture of this time how are they linked.

    A text is always a representation oft he culture at that time.

    Filter material realities that are in the text.

    Literature pushes our boundaries, of what we think. Apreciate the unexpected difference about it. Literature fulfills expactations but also subvertes expactations (unexpected stuff)

    Look at our reading journals in that way. Expecting unexpected things. (toolbox = what does author use)

    1900 or 1914 could be marke das the modern period.

    Great Depression

    World War 2

    The golden Twenties

    And the decade after WW2 were prosperous times.

    Wilson, Franklin, Trueman, Kennedy. Important leaders

    War, depression, question of communism, Threat of communism,

    Level of technology: the radio (1920, invention of radio) was also important in terms of literary production, later television, computer,….

    Change: fluidity in change, continuity, these topics oft he new were also there, how do you deal with the new.

    The Roaring 20s, Jazz age, flaming youth, America (young, young nation, new beginnings). Rebellion against the conventions in the 20s, then again with the hippy movement (communism), rebellion again. Throuh radio, cinema, technique, all ideas are more spread. Relationship between sexes,  even stronger afterwards!. Changes happen on different level. Motion cinema: influencing literature, 1920s, 30.000 televisions exist. Advertisements.

    Establishment of institutions: national broadcasting station, many important football players (Babe Ruth). 20s, also age of consuming starts. Establishment of mail catalogues (Otto, Heine). Feeling of picking and choosing and not only take what is really necesarry for you. Advertisments are very important: make products seem atractive. Automobile: Ford Model T, was very important fort hat time. Also important fort he civil rights movement, blacks could own a car before they could own property. Democratization: the right to consume. Question of mobility.

    The crash oft he stock exchange: 1929. Short period of prosperity.

    The Great Depression: extreme poverty, rural America were the poverty struck even more. People struggling to make ends meet. New Deal (Roosevelt): there should be more State control, look more after their population. Roosevelt social program. Couple of institutionalisations, he got through. Goes against a certain cultural grain.

    Dislike of state involvement in the USA. Not giving to much power to a group of people.

    Understand it in terms of a different approach and not ideologize it. !!

    2nd new deal in 1935: Social security act.

    1939: aspect of export import become difficult. Shipping supplies for France and England during the War.

    Pearl Harbour. Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

    Entmilitarization: after war is not that easy. (oft he soldier).

    Longing for peace, suburbian dream after WW2, long sooking: simmering for six hours, not like during war, very short cooking recipies. People move tot he suburbs to flee the chaos.

    Marshal Plan.

    Educational Program in the 50s. Students coming to America to study. Babyboomers.

    Question of containment, US was no global political player before WW2. Only began after WW2.

    Carthy: the new Witchhunts in terms of communism, Artits, filmmakers, communists….Anti American commity. Alleged aspect of being communists. Lead tot he cold war.

    How do you analyse these texts in terms of modernism:

    Aspect of change, in modernism there was still this hope. Through Art you could still create hope. Framing of Art as something whole, as an answer tot he dictation oft he 20s that god is dead. Clamed divsion between state and church (no interference in either way). Not being taken care of in these kind of levels (God, religion). Feeling of hope, optimism, Utopian feeling. Ungleich Postmodernism.

    Manifestos of Art were written at that time, a certain radicalism at that time ( even if you can not save the world, art can still save something). That i staken away in postmodernism.

    PM: so what?!

    Enlightenment were seen as suspekt. Loss in faith, that this enlightennment things could do anything for us. Questioning of values, their is nothing stable there, we have to question them. (narrative referentiality, aspect of progress, domesticity, capitalism, Empire, Industry, )

    Primitive and uncouncious, Art: stream of consciousness, new radical ways of talking of this.

    Marcel Duchant: Ready made art, already made (ist there), he took a mans pisoure and put it in the museum and called it: Fountain. ( was something very radical at that time, now it isnt any longer. In the everyday: find something new, unusual ( that ist he radical about it). Use ready made stuf fas Art. point tot he conventions. Taking it out oft he contexts and make it to us, to see something new.

    The period of Imagism (TS Elliott, Ezra Pound). Made a break with romanticism. This period didnt want to say it but SHOW it. That was radical. Make it new, make it imediate,

    objective correlative: Metaphor vs. Simille. Radical Jaxtaposition that have nothing to do with each other. Lions and Ulysses. Ulysses: king of Jungle, power (doesnt sleep 20 hours a day like a real lion). Wow: now I see Ulysses differently and the Lion as well. To sides oft he metaphor.

    TS Elliot: The Waste Land (Poem). He reastablished understanding of poems. No more overflow of romantic feelings. Reasablished metaphysical poets. Talks about the objective correlative = that you cant anymore say I love, I say, I suffer. Want this feeling tob e there. We need to find objects that correlate. You put an object there, within that context, and that evokes that feeling of love, admirance……

    Lovers as a compass. ? komisch. Zirkel.

    Williams: The Red Wheelbarrow. There is no ideology in it. It is exactly about an objective correlative, about this moment of something feeling something. Moment of suddenly seeing in an everyday object something new, something visual. Something unpopular, muddy, is being centered because it i staken out of ist everyday context.

    What modernism does: it points us tot he gaps that there are in literature. They were always there, but modernism highlights them. Something new, something unexpected = modernism.

    The Great Figure:

    Figure five is moving. (3D effect). Somebodies house is on fire, truck moving to the fire. Just on moment: very unimportant moment. Then the poem speeds up.

    Question of image (modernism).

    Self reflexivity: talking about the process of literary production. Reflecting on the process of Art production. Why you are writing. How you are writing. You are lokking at yourself. Selfies. Putting th author within it.

    Psychological and subjective state: Why are you doing that? Putting youself in the focus of reflection. Reject the question of realism. Art produces something else.

    Rejection of realism or objective representation

    Alternative ways of thinking about representation.

    Postmodernism: you cant understand the world.

    Radical experimentation:

    Fragmentation

    Ambiguity: you dont guide, you dont explain, distrust of language: uncertainty. We loose the feeling of certainty in our world.

    Simultaneity:

    Past: in terms of reinterpretation

    Difference between high and low: no what one should read or can read. Trash literature and reinventing it.

    Use of irony and parody: not taking it seriously but also not making fun o f it.

    Gertrude Stein, Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, very important authors.

    Alienation: gap between us and the others, being an outsider. A whole generation felt alienated.

  • Paris: American context was not that tolerant. Creation of countersociety in Paris. Lost generation, unease, not knowing any more were you belonged, didnt know how to behave = lost generation (Gertrude Stein) – loss of values, what they learned in school and at home didnt match their reality.

    Intolerance, materialistic, unspiritual – that was what they saw in America. So they moved to Paris.

    New Art: they produced.

    Jazz Age: reaction against. Finding of identity, subconcious (feeling yourself as a sbuject), freedom of choice as an individual.

    „A rose, is a rose, is a Rose“ (Gertrude Stein), it is a definition. Is something that natural science does. Reafirmation. Rose= beautiful woman,….specific symbol in English speaking country.  leaves us unsure about what is a rose. Fluidity of identity. Certain feeling of explanation. So we are not completely hopeless.



    Hemingway: innovation, style. Iceberg: top part, the rest under the water. He only wrote about the top part. Had to interprete a lot. The underwater thing was clipped. Clipped sort of style.

    Civil war in Spain: he went there. Macho Heroism, he talked about. More like a journalist. Characters in simingly exotic places.



    Fitzgerald: often seen as the representative oft he Jazz Age. He was a social climber. Loss in his novels. Central topic.



    07.05.14

    A rose for Emily –Faulkner

    Südstaatenschönheit. Rose= junges Mädchen. Reise von der Vergangenheit ind die Gegenwart. Race relationships, south.

    2nd feminist movement: granting these aspects. Rediscovering of many women writers.

    1st movement: to vote, right to own posession, political aspect



    Alice Walker:

    Zora Neale Hurston: we are not just victims. She didnt get that recognition in her lifetime.

    Martin Luther King. Civil rights movement. Bussing system (children from richer/poorer parts going to school in other parts). To regionalize them would give to much borders.



    2. Aspect: southern agrarians. Local atmosphere was important. Regional aspect oft he South. Asociation with slavery. Aspect of having kids born as slaves, didnt move over new ones. Reinforced slavery. Industrial North.



    Southern Bell. Miss Emily as a warped Southern Bell.



    Faulkner: Aspect of slavery, against all grains of honour.

    Modernism: interweaving time and place. Emphasizes aspect of time. Continuity and change. The South was less flexible to change. But there was also not so much industry. –Seemingly unaffected places in the South. Entanglement. Nor from time nor from change. There is no garden of Eden.

    Content: radical changes in terms of style. (Modernism).

    When was something new, when was it going against the conventions, that is important in terms of interpreting a text.



    Faulkner: streem of counciousness, and tob e in ones head. It is not as structured as it was before (particular fort he modernism and also becomes a standard in postmodernism). Ones own perception is questioned. Ones own identity is no longer seen as whole and entire in terms of fitting in the society. How does content and style subvert each other or unterstützen each other. By rebelling against the linear structure he shows it in the sense of using different voices. Plot twist, something unexpected. Soulsearching. His talking about races and having plus and minuses on both side, which leads to a collapse in the end.



    Humans are both good and bad, there is only grey and no black and white. Not that easy to say in modernism who is good, who is bad. Faulkner, white South, he talks about.



    Zora Neale Hurston: intersectionality, race, class, gender. Not one or the other, complicated structure.



    „How it feels tob e colored me“ quite radical to talk about that things.

    Assumptions: talk about it in terms of creation (man –association in terms of biology, women, black, white..)

    Biology is not destiny, ist what we associate with that biology.

    Moment of feelings ones race: experience with discrimination.

    Jewish, Black not just her identity, but it also affects somebody in his everyday life. Social measures, segregation …not getting the job



    Rediscovered in 1973. She was.



    Question of Postmodernism:



    Includes all this aspects. Not just certain sophisticated blabla…



    Similar to modernism  break with the enlightenment. Question of orientalism plays a role. We are rational human beings (enlightenment) does not work. Humanism is no longer seen as possible.

    Question of reverentiality: distrust of language. You can use language to explain something, but that has got los. There s no possibility. We can try to come closer and look at the world.

    Literature: to create something whole (still in modernism) but in postmodernism there is no whole, scepticism.

    Ambivalence: Post modernism is passe.

    Inability to understand the world.

    Scepticism in terms of temporality and progress.

    Question of impericism. All we do is seen through our eyes and done with our hands.

    Using the past tob e ironic within it. (Starting points) Using the Metalevel.

    They adopt, they steel, they recicle, that is what the authors do. cinematic tecniques.



    Post Modern Culture:

    Inability to say exactly what postmodernism is. We are constructing these aspects.



    Question of historical, political, cultural context (Vietnam war)

    Tim O’Brien „How to write a True War story“



    Writes a whole text about a true war story. But also says there is no way to tell a true war story. So he leaves us with uncertainty. Deconstruction, even oft he evil. Ist taken away.

    Question of truth and fiction. There is no truth. There is no way to tell a truth or a story.  on the level on the meta narrative. Deconstructing the master narrative –aspect of establishing truth, conventions of truth.  deconstructing this master narrative.



    Postmodernism 1945 till now: many different aspects o fit.



    Extreme self-reflexivity. (meta fiction, = fiction about fiction).



    Irony and parody. Irony is a certain kind of emotion. Parody is also a distancing device.



    Breakdown between high and low cultural forms.



    Retro: retelling of greek mythology,…

    Questioning of grand narratives

    Simulacrum: not be able to get tot he truth, referring to it

    Late capitalism: capitalism in general

    Disorientation

    Secondary orality.



    Postmodernism: A Philosophy

    See Folie

    Reality and fiction: we are writing our own stories, we are in the fiction.

    Constructedness: deconstruction, no longer valid. There are „truthS“, „historieS“.

    Sign has no referential value: Statue refers back to iteself.



    Artistic Style:

    No longer to say in which category a short story often falls. Often it is a poem, and a poem is something else in terms of category, no clear boundaries

    Short story written like a dictionary.

    Pastiched = collage effect. Borrowing, steeling, doing something else with it.

    Ist not snobbish. break down of High and low culture. But you always have to work with your brain to get tot he grain (meta level, stepping out of story and looking at it), contradictory fact. Very playfull.

    Mix fact and fiction: in ordert o point tot he meaning that there is no established fact. There is no fact, it is also fiction. The gaps, that wat is not there is also important.



    A historical period


    Lyotard: The Postmodernism explained.



    Distrust in language. Language games. The certainty oft he subject is questioned. We do have these longing for truth and who ist he bad and…. But it is just not possible. We have to live with this distrust of reality.



    Lost in the Funhouse – John Barth

    Funhouse (Prater, Labyrinth mit Spiegeln, sometimes ist scary)

    Funhouse is something unneccesary, ist fun but thats it.

    How can you be lost in a Funhouse (prison house of language).



    Thomas Pynchon- Entropy

    Has been very influential but not through his texts. Extreme inteletualism in his text. Huge enciclopedic knowledge, referring to a lot in the past. Paranoia in his texts, conspiracy theories.

    Dont expect tob e sucked into a story, there are many levels and you have to really think about it to get the clue, ist like a riddle.

    His life: there is very little known of him.

    20.05.2014

    Ich habe, glaube ich die letzten 2 oder 3 Stunden gefehlt

    Efficient learning, on the moodle to literary histories for preparation (exam)

    American literature short text on moodle (summary)

    Main advice: Just read a page of each of this aspects.

    Peter Cohens recomendation

    Cambridge History of American Literature

    Classical Definition of Drama: it is a performance or just as a reading text, but they are interlinked. Aspect of Acting plays a differentg kind of role. Comedy and tragedy.

    Other aspect: Drama as imitation. Mimesis: reference to reality, what is reference to reality. There is this connection there in different forms.

    Drama as Action

    Written text  as a piece of literature, but it is definitely different from the performance (who does the light, how to do the acting,…), historical text, what the drama ment at that time. Vs. Performance = what they want to say at that moment. The leway that the director has, reanact it in terms of puppets. Visual images, sound,

    who has written the play, who has staged it.

    Colonial Theater and Drama/Revolution/ Post Revolution

    Indian, fronteersman, George Washington, the heroine are characters in the Drama.

    They become a specific type, (as reasurance of American indipendence)

    What is an American, who is he, how is he?

    William Dunlap, called the father of American drama.

    Ralf Waldo Emerson, Edgar Ellen Poe.

    Nationalism was imortant in Drama.

    Themes are popular (like the Pocahontas thing that was a Disney film than)

    Minstrel Show:

    King Shotaway.

    Grotesk

    Making fun of African American tradition

    „Ist not just a playwright it also depends on how it is produced,“ Drama

    On Broadway /of Broadway Theater, Drama is very established in America.

    Eugene O’Neill: „greatest American dramatist“. He wrote very different texts. Son of famous actor. Began writing Melodramas and there different varitations. He decided seriously to become a playwright. Realistic plays with an epic dimension (Aristotle + Realistic), American History Aspects, geography, American history themes but also extential and lot of death.

    Tennesse Williams

    Arthur Miller:

    Married to Marylin Monroe. Death of a Salesman (failing oft he American Dream) The Crucible.

    Theater has become an industry.

    Anger



    Witch hunts put into the time of 1955 ( the Crucible, Witch hunts-> comunism)

    Edard Albee – The Zoo Story

    American Dream

    Whos Afradi of Virginia Wolf.

    Breakfast at Tiffany’s (novel by Truman Capote, than it became a theater production and than a film)

    Langston Hughes „Harlem“ „What happens to a dream deferred?“ hope that the dream someday might be fulfilled

    Raisin in the Sun

    Violence, question of explosion

    Lorraine Hansberry ( A Raisin in the Sun, 1959)

    Genuine realism. If I portray reality, Im talking abour posibilties that are not there (Utopian, in yer face). She was critised for being to littl challenging.

    Waiting for Godot (Becket)

    The question of civil rights, and for their position in society.

    Pursuit of happiness, this looking for it, claiming it.

    Think about the cultural narratives! Prüfung!!!






















































































































































































































































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