Lit 2 Test Flashcards
(90 cards)
Literature
“Products” produced by any given culture.
Culture
A group of people who are bound by “commonalities.”
Cultured. List reasons to be cultured.
To improve, define, or refine, and develop your knowledge of a culture.
- Learn about the culture.
- More open-minded.
- Understand yourself. Learn who you are.
Assimilation
The act of blending into “one.”
List 6 things you should look for when reading literature.
- Understand the dramatic event.
- Understand the author’s techniques.
- Understand the subject or the topic that is being addressed and the opinion that is being stated about it.
- Approach the literature from one or more interpretative techniques.
- Look for the history in it.
- Learn about the people.
- Good and evil.
- Life experiences.
- Relationships with…
- Gender roles
- Social organizations.
- Origin.
- Cultural heroes/villans.
- Morality.
List 6 interpreting techniques.
- Reader-Response
- Formal
- Traditional
- Psychological
- Mythological
- Sociological
Ethnocentric
Believe that one culture is better than another culture.
Who is the author of To A Waterfowl?
William Cullen Bryant
List the 5 beliefs. Know them…
- Puritanism
- Calvinism
- Deism
- Enlightenment
- Classicism
Who wrote the Prairies?
William Cullen Bryant
Describe The Enlightenment. How will it effect literature?
You are brought into change. Reason dictates everything. You are not thinking if you are not reasoning things out. This will have a major effect on Lit.
What is the main difference between romanticism, realism, and naturalism in terms or positivity.
Romanticism is vey positive.
Realism is a mixture or positive and negative.
Naturalism is very negative.
List some changes that occurred in the 19th Century.
- Machinery
- Improved transportation
- Sectionalism
- Values
- Exodus to the west
- Immigration and migration
- Working toward a cultural independence
Describe the north, south, east, and west during the 19th century.
- North: Plutocratic (ruled by the wealth) money is the ultimate goal. (greedy)
- South: Aristocratic: money, power, lineage, wealthy, rich.
- East: Industrial (prideful)
- West: Agrarian (farming) (self-sufficient/hard working)
List the characteristics of a romantic.
- Very optimistic.
- Very personal.
- Interest in nature.
- Logic is not apart of thinking.
- Think with hearths not head.
- Reject all rules.
- Free spirit philosophy.
- Self.
- Gut feeling. Very personal. It’s almost faith.
How has literature changed due to diversity?
The subject matter is completely different, because the type of literature is different. It is coming from different groups of people. Before, it was shop logs, sermons, and meditations. Now, there is poetry, short fiction, and entertainment.
List some things about Bryant.
- From Mass.
- father is a doctor.
- formally educated.
- raised in heavily Puritan influence.
- His goal is so everyone can identify.
- Started writing at age 10.
- precocious: above average. studied law at 16.
- Practiced law for 2 years, but went back to literature.
- He wrote his entire life.
- He was comfortable with his money.
Precocious
Above average.
What is the “Evening Post” and the “New York Review?” Who worked for both?
- They were both literary magazines.
1. “Evening Post” was a main outlet for writers.
2. In the “New York Review,” the goal was to get published and then become an editor. - William Cullen Bryan was an editor for both.
List Bryant’s writing styles.
- Shows the…
“nature of life” - what life is.
“nature of man” - who people are.
“nature of nature”- what the world is. - He is apart of the American High Culture.
- He shows evidence of many philosophies such as romanticism, puritanism, calvinism, and transcendentalism.
What is the American High Culture?
A group of few Eastern writers who are trying to establish an American voice through their writing. Uniquely American.
Transcendentalism
To go across/beyond.
Who wrote Thanatopsis?
Bryant
List the 10 Consolations of Death in Thanatopsis.
- You won’t be there alone or by yourself.
- There’s a comfortable couch. A time of rest and relaxation.
- Good company.
- We are all together in mass. We are social by nature.
- In death comes the most beautiful decorations imaginable.
- Light in the darkness.
- The natural world is looking down on the dead and they’re happy about it. It is natural.
- There are MORE dead people than there are people living.
- Sleep- death is nothing more than sleep.
- The dead will reign.