American Literature 1865-1918









 
 
Study Questions
 
   
 
 
Round One: Whitman & Dickinson
due Thursday, April 10
 
 
  • In what ways does "Song of Myself" both explain and perform the tensions between community and individuality? What major conflicts in the body politic of America does Whitman call out in "Song of Myself"? In what ways does he attempt, in the poem, to balance and/or reconcile these conflicts? Point out specific sections/stanzas/lines in your discussion.

  • Whitman has said that the poems in Leaves of Grass "could not possibly have emerged or been fashion'd or completed, from any other era than the latter half of the 19th-century, nor from any other land than democratic America." Agree or argue with this statement by exploring a specific section of "Song of Myself."

  • With specific reference to the poem itself, and taking into consideration that "Song of Myself" was the first major free verse poem of American literature, discuss the ordering devices Whitman uses in "Song of Myself."

  • Study a group of Dickinson's poems with related themes, then write an interpretation of one of the poems that includes your expanded understanding of the way Dickinson uses the theme in other poems in the group. Choose from among the following:
    poems about death 49, 67, 241, 280, 712, 1732
    poems about craft 441, 505, 1129
    poems about nature
    		 214, 328, 441,
    (So I admit I'm having trouble with these clumps since I was trying not to overwhelm you with too too many poems to read for our Dickinson day. Feel free to peruse pieces other than the ones that were assigned to help you along with this. You may also identify other themes among a clump of poems to write about.)

  • 1862, a year in which Dickinson wrote more than 300 poems, seems to have been a year of great emotional intensity for her. Drawing on selected poems and her letters to Thomas Wentworth Higginson from 1862, trace some recurrent themes or designs in the poems of that year.

  • Consider the methods of textual production for Dickinson's poems and Whitman's Leaves of Grass and the effects they have on the way we read the poetry today. Each of them were self-published, each produced major texts which were revised (either by the writers themselves or by others) and re-presented to the public. Consider Whitman's unabashed drive to establish an image of himself (writing reviews of his own books, sending anonymous letters to booksellers raving about his book, marketing himself as the "Good Grey Poet" later in his career) and Dickinson's seclusion from the public eye during her lifetime. In what ways are our impressions of these poets altered by the histories of their work, the way they worked, etc.?

  • Consider the work of either of these two female poets in relation to Dickinson's or Whitman's work. What similarlities do you see between them? In what ways do you see Dickinson's or Whitman's work as far better than these poets'? Frances Ellen Watkins Harper "To the Union Savers of Cleveland" "Bury Me In a Free Land" "The Slave Mother"
    Helen Hunt Jackson a list of all poems available online
  
 
 
 
Round Two: Twain & Chesnutt
due Thursday, April 24
 
 
  • Some scholars believe that when Twain began to work on Huckleberry Finn in the late 1870s, he was planning to write the novel as a mystery. Do you see "clues" being planted in the opening chapters (I-XIII)? If Clemens abandoned a mystery plot for Huck, did he weaken the book by doing so? What sort of plot did he replace it with? Is there a plot in this novel?
  • Look carefully at the way that Jim is portrayed in chapters XIV and XV. How would you describe his portrayal in the earlier chapter? In the later one? Does this succession of chapters indicate that Clemens has changed his mind about Jim in the process of creating him? Or are there continuities here that we should observe in thinking about Jim as an imaginative creation? Now look at the way in which Jim is portrayed in chapter XXXVII, and comment on how Clemens is developing Jim at this point.
  • Some critics regard Tom Sawyer as one of the villains of this novel--a young boy who forces the real world and actual people into dramatic forms and types that he has picked up from reading romantic fiction. How many other people in the novel suffer from overexposure to romanticism? Is this a major theme in the novel? If Huckleberry Finn ranks as a major work in the American realist tradition, then is its "realism" evident in the values that are affirmed -- or in the values that are rejected? Offer evidence from the novel in developing your answer.
  • Read carefully the long paragraph near the opening of "The Wife of His Youth," beginning with "There were still other reasons for his popularity." What do you think is being described here? The creation of a false identity? Of a Franklinian new self? Is Ryder pretentious? Is the North, in any way, to be credited or blamed for what Ryder has become?
  • In the moment in which "The Wife of His Youth" was published, at the end of the nineteenth century, does it seem an expression of criticism or shame with regard to the emerging African American society in the North? Could it be read, then or now, as an expression of pride, or as an affirmation of some sort? If so, how?
 
 
 
 
Round Three: James, Chopin & Gilman
due Tuesday, May 13
  
 
  • A standard strategy in American literary naturalism is to deny the protagonist full self-awareness. In other words, to develop a fable of human frailty and powerlessness before vast social and natural forces, naturalistic writers often avoid allowing their characters to see themselves clearly for who and what they really are. What about Edna? Winterbourne? Daisy? How thoroughly do they understand their situation?
  • How does Gilman's realism differ from the realism of Henry James and Kate Chopin?
  • If "The Yellow Wall-Paper" is a story about confinement driving an intelligent, creative person mad, what kinds of "confinement" are in evidence here? Does the wallpaper have several significations--not just for the narrator, but for us as readers? When you look at it, what do you see?
  • Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Chopin's The Awakening both include medical analyses of women's "nervous" conditions. Compare the diagnoses given and therapies prescribed in each of these works of literature in terms of the assumptions the prescribers make about women's positions and capabilites within the characters' contemporary societies.
  • Analyze the ways in which the rebellious women of the literature you've read since the last response (including Freeman's and Woolson's) resist the constraints of their contemporary environments. What does this body of literature tell us about late 19th-century women's realities? What remedies to their situations are available to women today? In what ways were many of these impossible options to the characters of these short stories and novellas?
  
 
 
 
Round Four: Washington, DuBois & Zitkala-Sa
due Thursday, May 22
 
 
  • Examine the rhetorical strategies DuBois and/or Washington use to persuade listeners or readers to their points of view. How do they establish their authority? What types of relationship do they construct with readers? In what ways might it be difficult to argue with them?
  • Consider the chronology of these events and comment on the ways in which the context they provide influence your perspective of Washington and DuBois' work:
    1863

    Emancipation Proclamation signed
    1868 14th Amendment grants ex-slaves citizenship
    1901 Washington's Up from Slavery is published
    1903 DuBois' The Souls of Black Folk is published
    1914 W.D. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation premieres
    1965 Voting Rights Act applies a nationwide prohibition of denial of the right to vote on account of race or color
  • Explain the ways in which the excerpts from Up from Slavery, The Souls of Black Folk, and/or The Birth of a Nation influence your interpretation or deepen your understanding of any one of the poems we read by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
  • Describe your relationship to the persona Eastman creates in "From the Deep Woods." What similarities, if any, do you see between his perspective before Wounded Knee and that of Chesnutt's narrator in "The Wife of His Youth"? Is Eastman's persona ever redeemed in your eyes? In what ways has his perspective changed since Wounded Knee?
  • What does the seven-part structure of "Impressions of an Indian Childhood" accomplish? In particular, how do the titles of each section draw our attention to an image that concretizes her "impressions" that the story title announces? To what in particular do the seven-part structure and the subtitles of "The School Days of an Indian Girlhood" draw our attention?
  • In what ways do "Impressions" and "School Days" link together? How do those links construct a cyclical pattern in which the narrator travels back and forth between cultures, internalizing lessons from both?
 
 
 
 
Round Five: Crane or Wharton
due Tuesday, June 3
 
  You should write your own focused response to Maggie, Red Badge of Courage, and/or Ethan Frome. Create a clear, detailed study question you are responding to and then go from there. Be sure to include the question with your answer.