English Cset: Cultural And Literary Terms

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The Native Americans

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-displaced by the American colonists
had a strong oral tradition
-many stories of brave heroes and the interaction of man and nature
-Navajo, Iroquois, etc

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oral tradition

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the passage by mouth of stories and commentary from generation to generation

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The Colonists

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-pilgrims who came to America for a variety of reasons, including religion, business, debt, the acquisition of land
-many Puritans with Calvinist theology
-a sense of manifest destiny

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Puritans

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a group of English Protestants who sought to purify the doctrine that oppressed them in Europe

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Calvinist theology

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emphasis is placed on the sovereignity of God and on the concept of predestination

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election

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the concept that God chooses those he wishes to save

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predestination

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the doctrine that everything has been foreordained by God

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manifest destiny

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the historical belief that the United States was destined and divinely ordained by God to expand across the North American continent from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean

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The Great Awakening

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a religious revival during the 1730's and 1740's

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The Revolutionaries

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-influence of the Enlightenment
-wrote during the Age of Reason
-deism was popular with many
-Neoclassical movement swept through poetry and prose
-the Revolutionary War planted the roots of the American Dream

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The Enlightenment

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a philosophical movement that argued that the nature of the universe (and perhaps God) could be determined through rational thought and reasoning. connected to the Age of Reason

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The Age of Reason

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a phase in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority. connected to the Enlightenment

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deism

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the form of theological rationalism that believes in God on the basis of reason without reference to revelation. popular with many Founding Fathers

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The Neoclassical Movement

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a renewed respect for and imitation of the characteristics of Greek and Roman literature

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aphorism

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a wise saying

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chiasmus

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inversion in the second of two parallel phrases:
"I flee who chases me, and chase who flees me." --Ovid
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair." --Shakespeare, Macbeth I.i

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American Dream

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the idea that any man should be given the opportunity to own land, make a quality living and raise a family in peace and protection. its roots are in the Revolutionary War.

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The American Romantics

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-elements of gothic, death, an inner world, the past, and nature were thematically and physically present in literature
-pre-romantic authors often based their narratives on European stories but placed them in American settings
-many transcendetalists
-strong sense of moral independence that sometimes questioned previously accepted religious doctrine

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Transcendentalism

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the belief that the important things in life may not all be reasoned or appear in front of us, but are beyond our reasoning, often discerned by observing nature (perhaps as a protest to Enlightenment thought)

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Oversoul

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a transcending power. term originates from Emerson's essay by the same name:
"The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-soul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart."

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The New Poets

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-a growing sense of moral independence from governments and churches gave rise to a new kind of civil morality and pantheism
-civil disobedience
-new forms and techniques in poetry and essays, as well as a moral or thematic ambiguity that both energized and enraged readers

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pantheism

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a belief in all gods that apply

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civil disobedience

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the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government, or of an occupying power, without resorting to physical violence. New Poets felt that it was their moral obligation to show no allegiance to established authority

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Fireside Poets

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Oliver Wendall Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and John Greenleaf Whittier were American New Poets whose works were often read in the evenings by families in the firelight

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The Voices

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-a time of moral and political turmoil where voices of passion for human rights and political stability were popular
-slave narrative was a new perspective
-African-American writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe (_Uncle Tom's Cabin) were influential

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slave narrative

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a story of the life and thoughts of an American slave, for example, _The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass_

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The Realists

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-regionalism, local color
-idealistic because of economic and political peace
-growing pragmatism
-strong Naturalism was prominent

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regionalism (local color)

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a kind of literature that showed the gritty, realistic side of America

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Naturalism

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the belief that man must struggle against the often apparently uncaring forces of nature by pulling together with his fellow man

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Modernism

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-work that was popular during the first half of the 20th century
-marked by a growing experimentation in form, style and theme
-growing expressionism (perhaps as a reaction to realism)
-imagism was popular

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expressionism

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the ability to exaggerate for effect or blend fact with fantasy

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imagism

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short verses that consisted entirely of a series of images to convey meaning

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Harlem Renaissance

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the surge in creativity and innovation in music, poetry, literature and art that came from New York's Harlem neighborhood

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The Contemporaries

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-continuing a now established tradition of experimentation
-paid attention to the upheavals of the rapidly changing American society
-beat poets
-stream of consciousness narratives became popular
-growing sense of existentialism
-emergence of cultural relativism
-Hemingway's codes of behavior
-Southern Gothic literature became popular

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beat poets

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a rejection of mainstream American values, experimentation with drugs and alternate forms of sexuality, and an interest in Eastern spirituality

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existentialism

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the belief that all that will ever matter in life or will ever really be is what is happening at the moment

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cultural relativism

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the idea that what may be moral or accepted in one culture is not necessarily so in another

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Hemingway's codes of behavior

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The Hemingway “code” consists of standards and forms of conduct by which a man can confront the realities of nada (of chance, accident, destruction, and death) with dignity, and thus by which he can impose a measure of purpose, order, meaning, and value upon his life. The concept of “dignity” is both the basis and the goal of the code. For Hemingway, dignity is the expression of true moral integrity, and it is the highest possible attainment of character.

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Southern Gothic

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a nostalgic and often dark look back at a section of the United States that was quickly becoming a contrast to the crowded, fast-paced urban areas of the nation