Transatlantic Lit. Unit 1

Front 1

Christopher Columbus

Back 1

1451-1506: supported by the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, he planned to find a commercially viable Atlantic route to Asia, an "enterprise of the Indies."

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John Smith

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1580-1631: Wrote "A Description of New England", was a mercenary, a murderer, an adventurer, governor of Jamestown, author, hunter, everyone either loved or hated him.

Front 3

William Bradford

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1590-1657: Authors “Of Plymouth Plantation” in noticeably plain style. Governor of the pilgrim settlement, Plymouth, in 1620. Talks about the Mayflower compact. Pilgrim; NOT Puritan

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John Winthrop

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1588-1649: Discusses socioeconomic relations in “A Model of Christian Charity”, which coined the “city on a hill” typology phrase. Puritan governor, 1630. Common vision - for the good of the group; not individualist. Member of the Church of England.

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Anne Bradstreet

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ca. 1612-1672: Part of the Puritan 1630 group. Poetess with emphasis on divine providence, weaned affection. Writes "To My Dear Children," "To My Dear and Loving Husband," and "Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House"

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Mary Rowlandson

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ca. 1636-1711: Wrote A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration (1682), a first-hand account of her being taken prisoner by a group of natives, the experiences she went through and her restoration.

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Edward Kimber

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Wrote The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson, which was published in 1754. Similar to his main character, he, too, had adventures in the new world. He supported himself as a writer, editor and sometimes mercenary. He became the editor of London Magazine after his father died.

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Jonathan Edwards

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1703-1758: Wrote “Sinners In the Hands of An Angry God.” Preacher, theologian, and missionary. Died of smallpox inoculation soon after becoming president of Princeton University. Is the father of the jeremiad sermon.

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Phyllis Wheatley

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ca. 1753-1784: First black American poetess to be published. Bought into her owner's values with the content and style of her poetry. Some disputation regarding whether she should be credited for starting both African-American literature and African-American Women’s lit. or just the latter.

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Benjamin Franklin

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1706-1790: In his autobiography, he represents the self-made man. Franklin is America, he is a type for American self-hood. His autobiography shows self-correction, and makes an argument for independence to his loyalist son. He also writes “Information to those who would remove to America” making sure everyone knows that they’re not going to be better than anyone else. America is eliminating the high and low, no classes- mediocrity. America is the land of labor. “We don’t live on top of each other and resort to cannibalism.”

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Thomas Jefferson

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1743-1826: Wrote original Declaration of Independence. Locke language, English legal system, Whig political philosophy. Universal statements on the laws of God, nature, the people and their rights, equality, and contingencies. Points out slavery, but this is eliminated, because the age of equality could only be accepted with slavery.

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Hector de Crevecoeur

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1735-1813: Restless adventurer who returns to France after visiting New York at the time of the American Revolution due to Tory sympathies. He writes essays about America based on his farming and travel experiences, sometimes assuming the persona of "Farmer James". Writes “Letters From an American Farmer.” The New World is said to be “melted into a new race of men.” They are fundamentally altered; cultural assimilation. They have industry. America is NOT Europe. Represents American Exeptionalism. Can’t think America without thinking against Europe. America is an absence of extremes: mountains are soft, temperate climate. Work ethic is different.

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Olaudah Equiano

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1745?-1797: He wrote one of the most popular early slave narratives, “The Interesting Narrative of the Life.” It is an archetypal text. It informs every future slave narrative. The story may be his own, or he may actually have been born in the colonies. His cover and title of the second printing suggest a problem of multiple selves/identities.

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Edmund Burke

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1729-1797: Strongly opposed the French revolution. Wrote a pamphlet based on John Locke’s theory of universal rights that actually supported the rights of society in favor of the rights of the individual and consequently condemned the French Revolution. Authored "Reflections on the Revolution in France."

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Thomas Paine

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1737-1809: Author of "Common Sense," "Crisis" pamphlets, and "Rights of Man" (response to Burke). Each generation should choose their own governance rather than relying on the choices of their ancestors. In essence, agency. No one can set up what should be in place for all time, must be willing to come up with your own approach to law. All people are equal, need to take responsibility for this. Writes "The Age of Reason" during a year of imprisonment.

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Anna Barbauld

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1743-1825: English, educated woman, poetess and author of "The Rights of Woman" and political pamphlets that opposed Britain's declaration of war against France. Defends democracy, education, and women.

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Mary Wollstonecraft

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1759-1797: Authors, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." A woman should be a citizen. No entity available for women and this is wrong. No good legal/political resource. Women are treated as if they have no capacity for judgement. Do they have a soul? If they do, then things need to change to give women a place in the system. They need rational education and sensibility so that they can be rational wives and mothers.

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William Blake

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1757-1827: One of the 1st Generation of Romantic poets alongside Wordsworth and Coleridge. Expressed radical religious, political and moral opinions in his poetry. Created and illuminated his own books, was also an artist, including “Songs of Innocence and Experience.” Created his own mythology rather than accepting the beliefs of others, and relied heavily on the visionary and fantastic.

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William Wordsworth

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1770-1850: One of the most prominent poets of the Romantic period. He wrote Lyrical Ballads with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He wrote an introduction to the collection of poems to explain the theory behind the combination of lyric and ballad. Works include: “Tintern Abbey” and “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.”

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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1772-1834: One of the most prominent poets of the Romantic period along with Wordsworth and Blake. Suffered from poor health and subsequent drug addiction. Wrote "Kubla Khan," “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and coined the term “Pantisocracy.” Became highly conservative in later life and contributed much to the field of literary criticism.

Front 21

1490s

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Europeans encounter the “New” World

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1607

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First English settlement at Jamestown

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1610-11

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Shakespeare, The Tempest

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1620

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First English settlement at Plymouth

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1630

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First arrival of Puritans (Massachusetts Bay)

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1675

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Rowlandson’s captivity

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1730s

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Great Awakening begins

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1740

Back 28

Richardson, Pamela

Front 29

1754

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Kimber, Mr. Anderson

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1789 (history)

Back 30

French Revolution begins

Front 31

1789 (literature)

Back 31

Equiano, Interesting Narrative

Front 32

1790

Back 32

Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

Front 33

1791

Back 33

Paine, The Rights of Man

Front 34

1792

Back 34

Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Front 35

1794

Back 35

Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience

Front 36

1798

Back 36

Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads

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transatlanticism

Back 37

“New” World vs. “Old” World idea

Front 38

“special relationship”

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This refers to the bond that is supposedly shared between the US and England because they share the anglophone culture, a common heritage, a legacy of empire and common political and social interests. Phrasing coined by Winston Churchill.

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Anglophone culture

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“fraternal association of English-speaking peoples” - a term used by Winston Churchill in his 1946 address; this speech was the rhetorical beginning of the Cold War; in contrast to native culture

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providence

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"Divine". God asserting His will in human affairs; being able to recognize this. (Bradstreet, Puritans)

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fatalism

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God asserting his will in human affairs; e.g. some are rich, others are poor; it’s your fate, so accept it. (Bradstreet, Puritans)

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exceptionalism

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The idea that America is a city on a hill, so they are an exception to the rule. They are set apart, different, new and original; an example for others to look to and follow.

Front 43

meritocracy

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you gain and prosper according to your own hard work; (John Smith) contrasted with inheriting a government post

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plain style

Back 44

This was typical of the dress, mannerisms and writing of the Puritan people.

Front 45

typology

Back 45

Applying a symbol to other situations. “City upon a hill” is an example - symbolism taken from the Bible and applied to American exceptionalim. Equiano’s slave narrative is a “type” of the common Middle Passage slave story.

Front 46

Puritans

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came after the Pilgrims in 1630 and settled Massachusetts Bay.

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separatists

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The Pilgrims who established the first successful colony in New England were separatists because they wished to separate from the church of England.

Front 48

indenture

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a common way of going to America if you didn’t have the financial means was the indenture yourself; this involved being an indentured servant for 7 years, and when your time was up, your master would give you a small amount of money and land to get a good start.

Front 49

weaned affection

Back 49

A core Puritan value wherein what God’s elect must, over the course of their lives, reconcile themselves to the fact that nothing is theirs. They need to give up and give away, or detach themselves from the things of this world. As they do that they turn and embrace the Divine.

Front 50

acculturation

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the exchange of cultural features that results when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first hand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct. This is specifically what happened with the Indians when the colonists came.

Front 51

the Enlightenment

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the combination of science and feeling. The impartial spectator isn’t exactly God, but society, what society would think of our behavior, even when we’re not looking.

Front 52

noble savage

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Connected to the Man of Feeling. A cultural other who sees and feels honestly.

Front 53

abolitionism

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the idea and movement towards the abolishing of black slavery.

Front 54

sensationalism

Back 54

trying to give emotion, through words, to people. Related to Locke; relying on the senses

Front 55

sensibility

Back 55

a physical and emotional response to the world around you. The belief that you feel an emotion because you have a bodily response to something. Related to the concept of “the Man of Feeling.” In contrast to “sense,” which refers to logic/reason.

Front 56

tabula rasa

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a theory of human nature as a “blank slate;” we come into life blank, and life’s experience works upon us. Theory of John Locke; big idea in the Enlightenment

Front 57

Junto

Back 57

Franklin - his sort of substitute for a church - to work on their “errata.” It was his club of philosophers that got together and talked.

Front 58

errata

Back 58

a printer’s term that Benjamin Franklin uses to reference to his own human error. What it is physically is a mistake in the printing piece’s (the actual letters) arrangement. Enlighten term rather for what was called “sin”.

Front 59

the Great Awakening

Back 59

1730s Western Massachusetts; popular cultural movement, challenges traditional forms of authority. Personal sin = need for grace.

Front 60

jeremiad

Back 60

a form of a sermon, which laments a fall from grace, enjoins people to return to a covenant which they had previously made with God. (Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God)

Front 61

the triangular trade

Back 61

raw goods to Europe, manufactured goods to Africa, slaves to the New World

Front 62

middle passage

Back 62

travel from Africa to New World, slaves as the main good

Front 63

captivity narrative

Back 63

Colonials taken captive by the Indians. Mary Rowlandson was our textual example of this.

Front 64

slave narrative

Back 64

the story about an African American taken from Africa and becoming part of American slavery. Prime examples of this would be Olaudah Equiano (we read in class), “Roots”, Frederick Douglass.

Front 65

romance tales

Back 65

a genre including: a hero, damsel in distress, sensibility and spontaneity, and common experience

Front 66

the novel

Back 66

hybrid genre, combining elements of medieval romance, the epic, drama, the chronicle, history, correspondence
protagonist is middle-class instead of upper class/rich & famous
often a moral commentary
proto-novels include Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels; Richardson’s Pamela one of the first novels in English, preceded by Don Quixote in Spanish and The Decameron in Italian.
1740’s are key in development of the novel
appeared elsewhere in Europe before England

Front 67

natural rights

Back 67

life, liberty, and property. Lockean principles that Jefferson placed in the original Declaration of Independence. It was later changed to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Protection, justice, to work and to benefit from that work, family.

Front 68

neoclassicism

Back 68

This means to go back to the classics, such as in the Greek and Roman world. This involves reason (enlightenment), classical education (takes for granted a grammar school education), imitation (mimesis-mastering the greatest forms and making them your own), outward gaze (get to know the world by studying it), satire, Art and refinement (noble form, place within class system), rules and the heroic couplet (mastery of these), and a conservative attitude (align with the upper classes).

Front 69

Romanticism

Back 69

emotion and sensibility, common experience (such as eavesdropping on tutors; this experience comes from the commoners), originality and imagination, “Romantic I”, Sincerity, Spontaneity, the sublime, Organic form (fits content rather than other way around), poet-prophet, radical.

Front 70

imagination

Back 70

Building upon what’s been created before and creating something unique.

Front 71

inspiration

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sudden creativity brought about through the person’s surroundings.

Front 72

nature

Back 72

internalization of what is seen and known

Front 73

Romantic “I”

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Me. Introspection. Point-of-view common among the Romantic Poets. A view the poet shares attainable by all humans as a whole.

Front 74

introspection

Back 74

Looking inward.

Front 75

spontaneity

Back 75

emotion happening as you experience it.

Front 76

poet-prophet

Back 76

The one who can discover truth through the internalization of experiences; self contemplation and observation.

Front 77

the sublime

Back 77

experiencing both horror and awe at the same time.

Front 78

organic form

Back 78

more natural, free-flowing form of poetry. Characteristic of Romanticism. “Grows” rather than having a predetermined structure.

Front 79

illuminated engraving

Back 79

aka “relief etching” or “illuminated printing”; a metal plate (usually copper, zinc, or steel) is written and/or drawn on in wax or another acid-resistant material. Once this is done, the plate is dipped or washed in acid, which “bites” into the metal. The remaining wax is removed, leaving a “relief.” The plate can then be used to make prints. William Blake used this method to produce Songs of Innocence and Experience and other works, which he wrote, illustrated, and printed. His wife, Catherine, often painted the prints by hand using water colors.

Front 80

pantisocracy

Back 80

term coined by Coleridge, meaning a society where everyone rules and is equal.

Front 81

autobiography

Back 81

a biography of a person written by themselves. Mary Rowlandson, Benjamin Franklin, and Olaudah Equiano employed this kind of writing and presented their own lives in a way that enabled them to pass on some kind of message.

Front 82

heroic couplet

Back 82

Rhyming iambic pentameter; a form of blank verse (alternating unstressed and stressed)

Front 83

satire

Back 83

A genre in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon.

Front 84

pastoral

Back 84

Idyllic, natural and innocent, associated with nature poetry.

Front 85

ballad

Back 85

narrative poems; associated with commoners (low art); written in countryside

Front 86

lyric

Back 86

ancient form; short and fluid; viewed as high art; associated with aristocracy and intellectuals.

Front 87

ode

Back 87

Meditative poem most often in praise of subject

Front 88

blank verse

Back 88

alternates unstressed and stressed (whether trochaic or iambic); does not rhyme

Front 89

radicalism

Back 89

opposite of conservatism; break out of that conformity.

Front 90

conservatism

Back 90

align with the upper classes

Front 91

deism

Back 91

Franklin - men can know things by observation (not prophecy or revelation). God as a powerful Creator who observes Man His creation more than God the Hand of Divine Providence.

Front 92

the Lake School

Back 92

people who wanted to become poets came to this location in England for inspiration. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey.

Front 93

pantheism

Back 93

Nature and God are one and the same; in everything is God. God relates to the Universe. Pantheists do not believe in a personal or creator God. Followers include: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Whitman, Emerson, and Thoreau.

Front 94

Thomas Morton

Back 94

Exiled by Puritans to England where he was not punished by his crimes. Mentioned by Bradford.

Front 95

John Locke

Back 95

founder of the idea of tabula rasa; also comes up with sensibility, how emotional responses are training us in the right, sensation and understanding, actual motions inside your body are feelings. Experience > senses > knowledge. Some of Locke’s ideas are present in “natural rights” and Jefferson’s writing in the “Declaration.”

Front 96

Daniel Defoe

Back 96

Wrote Robinson Crusoe.

Front 97

Samuel Richardson

Back 97

Wrote the first novel, can’t go later, Pamela, successful, one of the best 18th century writers.

Front 98

George III

Back 98

British king against whom the colonies rebelled; addressed in the Declaration of Independence

Front 99

Marie Antoinette

Back 99

French queen who was eventually executed in the french revolution.

Front 100

the man from Porlock

Back 100

interrupts Coleridge with business while Coleridge is in the middle of transcribing the dream behind “Kubla Khan” into written lines. After being detained an hour, Coleridge returned to the writing and could not continue, hence why “Kubla Khan” is unfinished.

Front 101

“some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others mean and in subjection”

Back 101

Winthrop, "Modell of Christian Charity"; fatalism; Puritan; Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Front 102

“For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill.”

Back 102

John Winthrop, "Modell of Christian Charity"; typology; American Exceptionalism

Front 103

“Hoping that gaine will make them affect that, which Religion, Charity, and Common good cannot.”

Back 103

John Smith; Meritocracy; economic opportunities in the Americas;

Front 104

“[He] was a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation.”

Back 104

Bradford, “Of Plymouth Plantation”, Providentialism; talking about Squanto; exceptionalism; noble savage

Front 105

“instead of turning His hand against them, the Lord feed and nourishes them up to be a scourge to the whole land.”

Back 105

Rowlandson; A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration; providentialism; removals; encountering the cultural other

Front 106

“Yea, so it was, and so ‘twas just.”

Back 106

Anne Bradstreet, “Burning of Our House,” fatalism/Providence, weaned affection. (God’s elect must reconcile themselves to God’s will; give up the material to draw closer to God)

Front 107

“Their foot shall slide in due time.”

Back 107

Jonathan Edwards “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”; Jeremiad; reaction to enlightenment; great awakening

Front 108

“Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, / May be refined”

Back 108

Wheatley, “On Being Brought to America”;
abolitionism;
triangular trade, displacement/removes;
voice; identity;
compare/contrast with Equiano - one or other may be beginning of Afro-American lit; slavery;
question of whether she’s authentic or acculturated

Front 109

“We are all naturally born free, and, as Englishmen, have an excellent constitution that protects every individual in his freedom.”

Back 109

Kimber, Mr. Anderson, p. 60; associated with Locke; slavery; removes; indentured servitude; tabula rasa

Front 110

• “. . . he sunk down upon the seat of the window, and was at once deprived of sense and motion.”

Back 110

Mr. Anderson; sensibility, man of feeling;

Front 111

“Your coach shall be drawn by Negroes instead of horses. What d’ye say to it?”

Back 111

Kimber, Mr. Anderson, Young Carter; slavery; insensible;

Front 112

“I sometimes brought home the Paper thro’ the Streets on a Wheelbarrow.”

Back 112

Ben Franklin, Autobiography, self-made man, meritocracy, persona building, American myth/dream as profitable land

Front 113

“I should have no Objection to a Repetition . . . only asking the Advantage . . . in a 2nd Edition to correct some Faults of the 1st.”

Back 113

Ben Franklin, Autobiography; desire to correct “errata” of his own life; intended for America, not just his son; making a narrative/persona of his life;

Front 114

“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself.”

Back 114

Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, addressing King George III; slavery of the people; left out of final draft, which is exemplary of the compromise between Jefferson, Franklin, others; liberty; references to John Locke

Front 115

“our dictionary . . . is but short in words of dignity, and names of honor”

Back 115

Hector de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer; meritocracy: no rich, no poor - pleasant mediocrity;

Front 116

“it is rather a general happy mediocrity that prevails”

Back 116

Benjamin Franklin For Those Who would Remove; a sort of equality in mediocrity

Front 117

“Oh, ye nominal Christians ”

Back 117

Olaudah Equiano, slavery is not Christian; invokes Christianity; shows his morality; makes him “human” to his readers.

Front 118

“an entailed inheritance”

Back 118

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France; inheritances have certain stipulations;

Front 119

“They have a right to the acquisitions of their parents; to the nourishment and improvement of their offspring.”

Back 119

Burke Reflections. Conservatism. Sentimentality

Front 120

“The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.”

Back 120

Paine responding to Burke and disagreeing with his idea of government, showing American ideal of the living being able to govern themselves in new ways. Exceptionalism

Front 121

“It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated.”

Back 121

Paine, The Rights of Man. Radicalism. Says how the past can’t dictate and we need to be in the present. The living are the ones who need to be accommodated.

Front 122

“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures”

Back 122

Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women. Shows reason and logic by being rational. Not sensibility

Front 123

“That separate rights are lost in mutual love”

Back 123

Anna Barbauld writing about her husband. The Rights of Women. More emotion invoked.

Front 124

“So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm”

Back 124

Blake, Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Innocence) Meritocracy-doing it based on ability. Satirical

Front 125

“mind-forg’d manacles”

Back 125

Blake London, showing the corruption of society through the intellect. Making a statement about mankind choosing to perpetuate injustice in their own minds. Blake showed how people are enslaved by ideologies (such as Christian ideals) and how he wanted people to rise up and throw them off

Front 126

“Hear the voice of the Bard!

Back 126

Blake, “Introduction” from Songs of Experience. Taking on the persona of the poet-prophet and giving his words greater significance and assuming that they are a prophecy.

Front 127

“spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”

Back 127

Wordsworth & Coleridge - essential concept in Romanticism, lyric (high art)+ballads(low art)=lyrical ballads

Front 128

“emotion recollected in tranquility”

Back 128

Wordsworth/Coleridge Introduction to Lyrical Ballads. Romanticism

Front 129

“language really used by men”

Back 129

Wordsworth/Coleridge Introduction to Lyrical Ballads. Lyrical Ballads using high and low art, bringing in the common

Front 130

“One impulse from a vernal wood / May teach you more of man … / Than all the sages can.”

Back 130

Wordsworth p. 252

Front 131

“other gifts / Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, / Abundant recompense”

Back 131

Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey

Front 132

“The anchor of my purest thoughts / … and soul / Of all my moral being”

Back 132

Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey, pg 260.

Front 133

• “For oft, when on my couch I lie … / They flash upon that inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude”

Back 133

Wordsworth, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

Front 134

“Trailing clouds of glory do we come / From God, who is our home”

Back 134

Wordsworth “Ode to Immortality” p. 309

Front 135

“The world is too much with us; late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers”

Back 135

Wordsworth, sonnet “The world is too much with us” p. 319

Front 136

“I would build that dome in air, … / And all should cry, Beware! Beware! / His flashing eyes, his floating hair!”

Back 136

Coleridge, Kubla Khan.

Front 137

“Water, water, every where / Nor any drop to drink.”

Back 137

Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Front 138

“Instead of the cross, the Albatross, / About my neck was hung.”

Back 138

Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Front 139

“He prayeth best, who loveth best / All things both great and small

Back 139

Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner