Vortragender stellt sich vor, redet über die Geschichte und Literatur Amerikas – nichts prüfungsrelevantes!
2.Einheit
·Literature: works of historical places and times (not only isolated pieces)
·Northern area: New York, New England
·Northern/southern colonies: political views
At the very beginning, not many distinctions, but afterwards: Southern colony – Virginia: founded because they wanted to make many through looking for gold à therefore they took slaves; distinction business enterprise à they run business for the king à a lot of investment (Virginia’s economy worked with money of the British company)
Massachusetts: founded by English Puritans (“reformers”) under the leadership of the Pilgrims (protestants!!) -> Mayflower 1617 (the ship that transported the Pilgrims) à values! Austerity: not a lot of wealth and display, however no poverty anymore; work ethic: “ora et labora”, coming to heaven à determines your moral goodness – work and pray = idea of predestination à Book of revelation by John Calvin à 144 000 people are going to heaven: everyone works hard in order to make sure that you are part of it! However if you are not predestinated to go to heaven, good deeds do not help!
·Calvinist attitudes= very austere
à social life= not supposed to do anything that’s fun (different notion of fun!) =puritanical e.g. 50 times more art from Virginia that form Massachusetts
à historical aspect: Mayflower lands: people consider their land to be their own; it was given to them by God = New Eden à not just predestination (like Moses and the Israelites)
--< during the first years people from the south tried to overtake the land: lots of people diedà it was also the first thanksgiving day together with the native Americans who helped them out à their cooperation disappeared after some time because the Calvinists started to think that they are better: first literature = travel texts!
·Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) “To my dear and loving husband”
She came over with the Mayflower and represents the Puritan mindset/way of thinking
ØHigh level of writing/style: very politely
ØShe capitalized nouns; e.g. hivers, mines
ØExpresses her deep love for her husband and he hopes that they are among the 144 000, her husband = gift from god
ØMoney is not important, love is enough
ØEAST: mythical place of wealth: wonderful land of richness= idea of the south à it doesn’t matter because she loves her husband and they don’t need such a superficial life
ØNot catholic idea (punishment) à if you are acting like a bastard, you’re probably not part of the 144 000 (but you don’t know it) and you can’t confess)
·Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) “A dialogue between Old England and New”
ØWritten in 1672= outbreak of the civil war (caused because of religious reasons)
ØPurpose: it is a summary of the English history packed into a dialogue between old (mother) and new (daughter) England
oOld: depressed, bad stage à was awesome once, but not anymore
oNew: hopeful
ØEngland is described as an old, sickly body because once upon a time there was King Arthur who got ill and the land dies also 25 years after the Puritans had left à England: stable Virginia= direct government by the English Crown; Northern Colonies = not direct conncetions
ØVerse 19/20
o“if you think of my sickness, just don’t care” à old England is too proud to say that somebody need help = passive aggression
oDaughter asks mother whether someone could help to get out of the goodness of the heart
oProblems of the mother/old England are caused by the sins and not by Holland/France/Germany
ØVerse 91
oIdolatry: worship in a wrong god: church of England= Protestants; but the government: catholic
ØVerse 98:
oBeelzebub: devil à problem: devils takes the form of Rome/pope etc
oStrafford/land à put to death by the catholic government (protestants generals)
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o“oh cry, the sword of God and Gideon!” à argues for a holy war
o( not very similar to gentle poem about loving husband)
ØVerse 280
o“and lay her waste, for so’s the sacred doom” à divinely inspired law when we can take care of Rome à solved domom
oPure politics in this poem!
3.Einheit
·Aim of the lesson = TRANSCENDENTALISM
·Nathaniel Hawthorne: his career started in about 1850; he wrote about past times (17th century) and was the American ambassador to Italy; his name was pronounced by his ancestor “Hathorn”,; they were major judges of which trails “The scarlet letter” (reason for writing the scarlet letter); he was also inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann
·“Spirit of an age” (=Zeitgeist) = looking back at specific times with a focus on common ideas/values à nostalgia e.g. 1950s – America hard work, human freedom etc, ; it is often connected with generalizations or discussions about people who have control/power over a country à they create politics and government culture. The broad mass has/had very little voice
ØVery few people were thinking about transcendentalism (workers etc.)
ØThe people liked Hawthorne à characteristics of this time (17th century) (by carful NO generalization); at least he tried to identify a notion of a certain time in history
·EXCEPTIONALISM = an unusual way of thinking, e.g. people believe they go back to Eden (not evil like Adam) = exceptional
Ø“We are a holy experiment” à New England – obligatories? YES! à it forms the road of the story of Young Goodman
·Nathaniel Hawthorne “Young Goodman Brown”
ØPeople are not free from sin although people are apparently very pious (fromm) à Hypocrisy
ØThe man Goodman Brown leaves his wife Faith (her name is meant to be an allegory à belabored metaphor à many allegories in this story e.g. DEATH, EVERYMAN – they also represent/act like they are called)
ØWhy is he going in the woods? We don’t know. Why does Nathaniel Hawthorne leave out his detail? E.g. Faust = wanted to know everything (like Adam) à wanted to know what is good/bad à morals
ØThe individual has the choice, but often we decide for the wrong way à even human history is filled with human failings – everyone is pretending to be like Adam because we have to make moral choices every day à we live in a society and we have to be pious à the only way is hypocrisies because everyone is sinful
oTeacher, minister, priest à all with devil in business ( aren’t ordinary people)
oGoodman/Goody – names are trying to enforce the idea of being good à Goodman had to go despite Faith wanted him to stay - What happens when people in fairytales go into the woods= They got lost and there are animals, natives in the woods and it is dangerous
oGoodman says that the devil looks suspiciously like his Dad. When he meets a stranger he is reluctant to go with the devil
oHe says about his family that they have a blindness to reality
ØYoung Goodman Brown: young, naïve, innocent
ØSalem witch trails à just even talking about sth. Evil leads to be kicked out from New England
ØHawthorne wants to explain the actions of the Puritans à end: Goodman Brown tries to be virtuous/ holy but he never recovers from the shock (=sad end)
ØIn the end he wakes up. It was just a dream caused by God (maybe!) When he wakes up everything look the same but he sees it differently
oBut: he teaches Goodman a lesson à a religious doubt is in everyone but if you don’t hold on this “holy concept” of Salem à either you go crazy or you adopt and pretend to be pious and “dance with him” (devil) during the nights.
oThe author does not say that Salem is only hypocrisy. He just wants to say that we should expect something good/tray to take good but not neglect that we can also act in a wrong way.
oThe author hated rigid views and gives a different view of moral.
·TRANSCENDENTALISM: to reach a higher level, very philosophical, on the other hand the physical body is less important
ØGnostics/ascetic: physical body = work of devil; spirit = work of God
·Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) “Experience”
ØIdea of oversoul (“Überseele”) = spirit that perverts everything ( not Christian notion of God)
ØReally allegorical poem (e.g. Lords of life), power, wealth etc. is not important
ØWords which set up duality: use is not surprise; surface is not dream, succession is not spective/ghostly
Ø“life is a game” à God is the inventor; East ßà West = poetic metaphor fpr the sun
ØEmerson has the same point of view as Nietzsche: God is just a little man and there are different lords of life e.g. Humanism (God is just another part)
ØNirvana: close to exist; everything/nothing = it is simply the same
Ø“We create our own world”
ØIdea of Maia/Buddhism: the world is like an illusion; we are not able to recognize the whole meaning/world
ØThe poem takes place in New York and Whitman describes the countryside by the standards of this time; although New York was at this time already a huge city/metropolis
ØVerse 21,22
oHe is time-travelling
oCrossing a river: generally a negative connotation (e.g. Greek) = hell à in this poem not; your forget everything of your former life
oWalking down the river = plays an important part in literature (= metaphor for life)
oBut his vision/imagination is to cross the river to be “in the middle” of the river
ØVerse 65-67
oBe connected with not just good things à idea of being ordinary
oPriority: being ordinary means being both = dualism: good/bad
4. Einheit
American Renaissance
·started in the 1840s
·1776: beginning of the revolution
·1492 Christopher Columbus discovers America (Amerigo Vespucci)
·First English settlers: beginning of the 17th century 1620 Plymouth: colony in Massachusetts à birth/beginning of the nation 1789: officially – gets constitution Renaissance (=rebirth, bringing back to life): took ideas that were modern in the antic and reestablished them again àAesthetic ideals (art)
Emily Dickinson – The Railway Train
·Ode to the transformation
·Railroad is like an enormous hungry animal à but not destructive, terrifying, scary
·Supercilious: intrusive (=aufdringlich)
·Impression of the railroad because of this poem: positive! Something new, phenomenal! It’s awesome! Understands the potential power of the railroad
Great power rings great responsibility!!
Edgar Allen Poe – The Raven
·Not many poems have lasted that long and are still read in the united states (even adapted in “The Simpsons”)
·Mostly read around the time of Halloween
·Loneliness and depression, insanity
·Hears voice (nevermore), it’s not really the bird talking, he just imagines it (schizophrenia ?)
·Line 49 ff: narrator is still pretty calm à nobody’s ever seen a raves sitting at the chamber door called Nevermore
·Then starts to feel lonely (no friends left)
·Narrator still fairly rational , gets startled, pulls chair up: thinks they’re going to have a conversation
·Piling up a lot of negative adjectives
·Line 73 ff. falling back into his depression – misses Lenore (his dead wife); angels have sent the raven
·Asks raven if there is sth. That will make him feel better?? Bird always answers nevermore
·Ominous poem (Poem had a lot to do with drugs – when we are in a state of mind after we’ve taken drugs, we are more likely to see omens)
·Uncanny: this is where they nightmares come from[Sigmund Freud]
Bartleby, the Scrivener: A story of Wall-streets
·Narrator introduces himself in the first paragraph: elderly man, lawyer, reliable. à economically he’s doing very well: one of the important people in the world. Privileged in the society.
·prudence and method, rationally organized way of doing things
·“I’m a very safe man”
·Meets Bartleby à he’s a lawyer’s copyist: “I prefer not to”: he is doing nothing!! Later comes to prison: does not eat or even move there, lies around and dies.
·Black and white: black ink on white paper (their world in a nutshell)
·Nippers: alcoholic
·Grotesque (gros (latin)- big,fat; ) = means oversized, exaggerated
·Bartleby is a grotesque too - he decides to do nothing (he’s causing pity and compassion )
6. Einheit – 5.5.2010
·Modernism: height of the American Literature (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wright, Steinbeck)
èMost were in Europe when they became famous
·1910-1930: Industrialization! Enormous economic boom followed by crisis! Prohibition (no alcohol was allowed!) à because of mafia; Puritans: alcohol is the devil! Backlash against immigration (Irish, Italian, Spanish people) à Catholicism! Boston, Philadelphia, New York à there they went: Melting pot! Start to assimilate in culture, linguist factors.
·awful working conditions, first millionaires because of this.
·Immigrants started to run illegal alcohol businesses (especially during the crisis)
·What do we associate modernism with?
ØThey write a lot about war (à Hemingway, Pound)
ØBUT: Very few had direct experiences about war
ØWorld War I: a lot of people died (50 times more people died that in any war before) à“we can’t figure out why”
ØNick Adams: figure in Hemingway’s short stories about war! Had a shellshock (he was destroyed by war) à just walks around very slowly – and describes his surrounding à you realize how damaged this man is
Ø1919: women are allowed to vote for the first time in the USA: breakthrough moment in feminism! Women hat short hair cuts and wore pants! à looked like men (20s: first opened gay movement, wild, sexual experience time) changing gender notions, changing race notions
·Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
oAssociated with a group of writers that were not considered very good
oDeep alcoholic
oHarshly satirically poetry about her own times à grim poems about love and human relationships
o“Love Song” (1926)
ØRhymes (abab)
ØBasic meter
ØPublishes her poems in mainstream news papers
ØOne side obsession love
·Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
oFour Sonnets (1922)
ØVERY different from Parkers poem
ØShe’s very serious
ØLine 1,8: Cupid keeps shooting on her à I am NOT following your code (not married at the age of 30) she can be self defined without a man! She has human emotions but she doesn’t need to be married
ØIf you are not married you are not meant to be having sex
ØL. 3.1 ff: where she sees beauty, there she goes. If her partner isn’t lovely anymore, she’ll leave him
ØMen’s love is mobile, changeful à men aren’t virgins most times when they get married (women are expected to be!)
·Susan Glaspell
oTrifles (1916) (means Nichtigkeit)
ØSherriff, attorney, lawyer, Mr. Hale à they represent authority
ØMen don’t know what it takes to keep a house clean (kitchen is probably the most alien room in the house to them)
ØDon’t take the women seriously
ØWife may have killed the husband after he killed her bird!
Ø“How---she---did---chang”à bird stood for what she used to be, man killed bird (didn’t like her anymore) therefore she killed him
·Charlotte Perkins Gilman
oThe Yellow Wallpaper
ØWomen depressed after given birth ( hurt each other)
ØAll men in her surrounding are doctors à don’t ask her how she feels, but just tell her how she should feel and behave
Ø“John laughs at me, but one expects that in marriage” à not normal behavior in a relationship
ØDoes a lot of spontaneous crying à tell her she’s a normal hysteric woman
ØSulphur is associated with the devils
ØBed is nailed at the floor, on walls there are big iron rings à dungeon
ØAlready in nerve hospital
8. Einheit – 19.05.2010
Social transformation – Modernism
Modernism: popular movements, aesthetic movements
Populism (end of 19th century)
Progressivism (turn from 19th to 20th century)
Proletarianism (beginning of 20th century)
POPULISM
èThe common people, the normal person, the working class, about people who were born in the States (we need to treat our OWN people better)
What’s the situation in the 1880’s? à move from the countryside to the cities to get work (miserable dirty factory work) many immigrants! Industrialism
“Robber barons” à Rockefellers, J.P. Morgan (Donald Trump of their time) à first billionaires
Horatio Alger: series of novels – super simplified Charles Dickens stories with ridiculous happy endings! :D his stories never really happened (poor boy becoming billionaire)
“gospel of wealth”/Social Darwinism
·Most capable of surviving à gets billionaire (after Darwin)
·If you have these god given capabilities, you have the obligation to give some of this wealth back (noblesse oblige)
PROGRESSIVISM
Not a great economic epoch – Teddy Roosevelt (introduces 40 hours work week) à to him America owes the national parks you have to make peoples life’s better he forced to change industrialists to change their way they worked (better: the way how people worked for them)
[Sister Carry by Theodor Dreiser (example for progressivism)]
Idea of changing the nation, so that it can move forward!
PROLETARIANISM
after 20 years, Progressivism runs out of actuality
New president: Wilson! Exact opposite of populism and progressivism before he was president, he was president of Princeton-University after WWI focuses more on Europe than on United States John Steinbeck, Richard Wright, John Gold – best literary phase proletarian literary comes to a back
1917-1921: proletarian revolution in the Soviet Union 1929: economy crashes – becomes interesting philosophy
Richard Cory
·Seems to lead a perfect life
·Gentleman, imperially slim
·Everyone wants to be in his place . he glitters, he’s rich
·But still human, greats poor people
·Shoots himself! Why? People had no private contact with him.
9. Einheit - 26.5.2010
The Heart is a lonely hunter (Das Herz ist ein einsamer Jäger)
·Published in 1940
·Written by Carson McCullers
·Title :
oCame up with by her own
oHunter isn’t seeker – more desperate
oLonely – melancholy! Nobody to share your life with
oNot a matter of choice
oUnsuccessful hunter
oHeart is metaphor for emotional center of human existence
·23 years old when she publishes it (21 when she started writing it)
·We can’t presume that she hasn’t experienced it herself
·Central character: Singer à he is only one who is connected with everybody!!
à he is deaf and mute à not capable of communication
à writes notes – very intelligence
à actual communication between Singer and the others: he smiles, looks wise and nods a lot! Just looking like there is communication going on.
à described VERY passively
à book starts with to deaf mutes! Other one is like a child. à irony in his name!! he is mute and deaf – he simply CAN’T sing!
10. Einheit – 02.06.2010
Very sad novel – supposed to have a happier ending that we experience it to be “waiting for the morning sun” à metaphor for hope! all of the characters at the end of the book are going on; there life ISN’T over they haven’t quit, but it’s simply not getting betting for them (but we know that it will still get worse à war)
Singer: isn’t there in the end anymore! He gave up – leaves this world. what do we do with this realization that Mr. Singer is gone? That he has decided that he can’t go on. The other mute: Reduced to a state of really child like behavior author didn’t know any mutes when she was writing the book – just creating characters à metaphors!
M. Singer = like Richard Cory!
All the characters that had difficulties and were discussed in the class meetings, have similarities to the characters that are described in the novel. issues of race, class, politics, social dynamics à Singer reminds us of god; is god-like figure! The people make him into a god; when they feel bad, they go to him (Blount brings him beer and talks to him) God doesn’t talk back, just like Singer does! hints that he is a god-like figure: Portia, street preacher à the only ones in the book that are related to religion
Concept of the “inside room”: the music and Mr. Singer are the only things (person) that can go into the inside room (says Mick) earlier: there were other people in the inside room, but since Mr. Singer appeared he is the only person allowed to go there inside room = fantasy; her heart and her soul (metaphorically); when music stops, she hurts herself à “Mortifying your flesh”: hurt yourself in order to let your spirit get alive (Manichaeism/gnastisicm =related ideas) he life hasn’t any sense – her family falls apart, her brother has shot a child
Mick: erotic sex scene with Harry: “this was the way. This was how it was” not ready emotionally for this experience and also to describe it afterwards asks Portia if she has changed: “Yes you are sunburned” à there is no change in Mick! she’s still a kid; she tries to enforce but she isn’t ready yet (party: she wants to make a clear cut but it doesn’t work) Now: this is the beginning of her adulthood – music is gone in the inside room!!
The novel IS misery! The people feel that they can’t reach their dreams, they can’t accomplish their inside rooms à complete opposite to the American dream author’s life explains why she has written this book