Studies in American Literary History: the 19^th Century

Fall 2007/Dr. Meehan

Course Journal

Will incorporate class discussion notes in this journal and link it to the course web.

Wednesday 8/29: introductions

1]journal: 5 minute (set up—suggest digital, fold reading log into it)

In your view, what is a text that best represents the american experience (pick more than one if needed), and explain

2]saunter: responses from journals (+ names)

          Discovery: declaration of independence

          Little women, Alcott

3]focus: course objectives

Students evaluate where they are with them at this point—can mark right on syllabus: beginning or weak, somewhat achieved, mostly achieved, already achieved.

          Examples from other courses/experiences with literature where you have worked on these objectives. Where we will do so, and how. Also note that one of the ways we make progress as learners is by tracking our progress—this is where the journal and reading logs, among other tools in the course, come in; and where active learning on your part will be emphasized [note my learning philosophy, influenced by an important American philosopher, John Dewey]

4]application: use of web in the course

Will need laptop in every class

Assignments; also blackboard for logs and discussion and submitting essays; resources/links—for being and becoming a more inventive reader

Final note: Emerson’s ‘inventor’ to me means being more experimental (even taking risks). A fairwarning and an invitation.

Friday 8/31: representative american

1]saunter

--submit log to blackboard (demonstrate)

--pairs (10 minutes): share your logs (what you notice and wonder about the text, why that one, etc); then in further discussion, develop listing of what you consider to be key characteristics (definitions, traits) of american identity, as exemplified in these and other texts

--do a class reading log

Hear: summary of texts, some keywords or ideas

Sense of community vs sense of individuality

Hope, looking, not finding

Notice: something particularly important you focus on in this text, that caught your eye, delve into

Community: gossip, influence, shaping behaviour

censorship

What are the characteristics/definitions of American identity you began to discuss? [note: for this section of the log, welcome to take up a question I might post on the assignment page]

Wonder: questions you want to ask about the text, or ask in class, pursue further

2]Focus: further reading/application

Crevecoeur, What is an American (sections 54-57): linked on Blackboard

          Read these sections where he offers some definitions (toward the beginning of the 19^th century, our period of focus). What characteristics do you notice?

[note this UVA site as an example where you can search for further reading links]

Other examples of representative American texts:

The to-do list and other forms of self-examination (an invention of Ben Franklin) http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Fra2Aut.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=2&division=div1

Cornelius self-portrait

‘Born to Run’: the ‘runaway American dream’

What wouldn’t be ‘representative’ of the american experience and why?

Wednesday 9/5: american scholar

1]Sauntering:

Hear: what do we hear him saying—some basic notes about what the essay/address is getting into, what the ‘agenda’ seems to be.

Books: dangerous and good

Inspiration vs parrotting

Genius

Forward, not backward

          Some context: graduation speech at Harvard in 1837; critiquing and challenging what American schools have already become

Notice: which parts [sections, paragraphs, sentences, words] stood out to you.

          Creative reading as well as creative writing

          The low, the common, the near: view that the subject matter for American literature and culture is near at hand, ‘philosophy of the street’

          Books can be used and abused

A section that I notice and am still working on: ‘creative reading’. Notice the emphasis on the activity of reading/writing/criticism: books coming alive.

          How does Emerson’s vision of being in American schools, being an American scholar, compare to your experience? What might we do in this course (or this college—think ‘lifelong learning’?) to better follow Emerson’s vision?

Wonder: what don’t we grasp (an important idea for Emerson) or get?

2]Application

Note a contemporary link: Edmundson, Why Read, also his essay “The Uses of a Liberal Arts Education (as entertainment for bored college students)”.

Our sense of the purpose of a college education? What’s your view—does it seem to compare or contrast with Emerson?

My final point: this kind of direct challenge/provocation to our experience, how the reader responds and personalizes the reading of Emerson, is directly relevant to what this essay (or any Emerson essay) is about. They are autobiographical in two senses: coming from the author’s experience, but also getting us to think about our own experience [hence the first writing assignment]

Friday 9/7: Self-Reliance

1]Journal [5 minutes]

Which paragraph, sentence, or even single phrase do you feel is most significant in the essay—helps us start to grasp/understand what this essay is about? Explain, preparing to help us notice what Emerson is saying and doing, what kind of language he is using. (This can be an extension of what might already be in your log).

2]Sauntering

          Some key paragraphs/sentences/phrases you notice: what are we seeing? [keep in mind with Emerson, lots of repetition of ideas and circling back—perhaps ironic in an essay about originality]

          Questions from reading/what you wonder:

3]Links

          Link back to Franklin; to Crevecoeur? [5 minute reading, look for any echoes or links you see or hear]

          Contemporary links: where does ‘self-reliance’ appear in our culture today?

Note about Douglass reading

Monday 9/10: Douglass, Narrative (beginning)

1]Reading groups [10-15 minutes]

--share logs, reading responses: add to your journals as needed, answers questions as you are able.

--as group, focus on 1 key section/part of narrative thus far that you all feel is particularly significant or telling—most caught your attention as readers.

2]response from reading groups

Significant/telling moments: why significant? How is it significant [begin to consider not just what narrative is about, but how it is written, presented]?

3]Critical link: Andrews, To Tell a Free Story; his thesis about ‘free storytelling”: freedom is not just the the content, but expressed in the very act of writing.

          Consider: the very presence of autobiography (writing/identity) is itself a challenge and indictment to slavery (which denies writing and identity). See this as early as the opening paragraph.

Wednesday 9/12: Douglass, Narrative (continued)

 1] journal warm-up [5 min.]: his frontispiece—what do you see/read in this opening of the narrative that is significant, related to the writing and the focus of the narrative. Do some inventive, creative reading.

2]Focus: the image of the author

--what do we see and notice? Relevance to the writing, the ‘story’?

          Recall the William Andrews thesis: how the text is presented is a key, not just what it says.

How a slave becomes a man, an author.

--compare/contrast to other images of slaves or African Americans

Link for article with the Zealy images and essay about Douglass and photographs:

http://www.artic.edu/webspaces/museumstudies/ms242/westerbeck.shtml

3]composting for essay

--read 1^st essay assignment: autobiographical link. Key is connecting something from your experience to a specific moment/lesson from one of our texts.

5 minutes in journal; then discuss ideas in group: places you might connect to this narrative. Identify a potential passage you could link to and write from.

Friday 9/14: Douglass, Narrative (conclusion)

1]reading response/quiz: how Douglass concludes.

2]conclusion: where douglass leaves his readers (and why)

--note how he represents the details of the escape

[consider later version]

--note how he represents life in the North

[consider later version]

3]Links:

--Douglass (or slave narratives) today?

--your autobiographical link

Monday 9/17: Thoreau, Walden

1]Further reading [10 minutes]: the opening of Walden (first 9 paragraphs).

Read for further context, add to you journal, any connections or insight you can make to chapter 2 or 3.

Context: book published in 1854; experiment at Walden was 1845 to 1847, condensed into one year in book; he revised the book for 7 years—that is, the book is very deliberately written.

          --what do we see/hear so far in terms of his argument or agenda—what’s the deal?

          --what do we see/hear so far in terms of the writing—how Thoreau works as a writer, how this reads?

2]Sauntering: from reading

          What do you hear?

          What do you notice?

Concern with the newspapers—what his issues are there; link to ‘penny post’

Discussed the context of newspapers in 1840s

          What do you wonder about?

What does living ‘deliberately as nature’ mean for Thoreau?

Critical link: Stanely Cavell, The Senses of Walden: a philosophical reading of Walden as philosophy; argues the author means something in every word he uses (lives deliberately as a writer)

Wednesday 9/19: Walden, further reading

Review from last class: what seems to be an argument/agenda the book has?

consider the discussion we started about reading: how does Thoreau want us to read?  Deliberately {note this is also how we should live: deliberately as nature}

questions?

Also consider the focus on the autobiographical in the opening pages

1]reading groups [about 15 minute discussion]

--Share the chapter your read: what Thoreau focuses on, at least one section (paragraph/line) that seemed particularly important—read it to group; what is in this chapter that links back to chapter 2 and seems to be part of his overall agenda/argument with the book. Ask questions.

Then as a group (after each chapter discussed): work on a group statement as to what you see as his ‘thesis’ or central argument—and locate a specific passage that the group feels best exemplifies this so far.

2]contemporary links:

Do we have a thoreau today?

What about new media and communication: what would Thoreau say?

          Check out the thoreau blog

[my speculation: he would say what I have said in my technology policy: hyperlinking is intersting, not multi-tasking]

Friday 9/21: Walden, conclusion

1]workshop: your autobiographical link

          Developing the link with the reading.

          Lesson: be deliberate, read the passage deliberately and use it in your writing deliberately.

2]the conclusion:

Publication: autobiographical links.

Some threads from the essays:

Conformity and authority

The loneliness of knowledge, learning (examples from Douglass)

The difficulty of freedom; voluntary (mental) slavery vs thinking: echoes of Emerson—Man thinking vs mere thinker; rejection of the book

          Life is our dictionary: home schooling, unschooling, learning through experience

Thoreau, higher laws: animal nature

          Awakening to life

          Impressionability: getting set

Wednesday 9/26: Civil Disobedience

1]warm-up saunter:

--resources for some initial historical context: gonzaga site [browse the 1840s]

--journal: [5 minutes]

What is his view in this essay regarding the individual in relation to society and/or to government? What is his view of the minority in relation to the majority? Summarize his basic argument and identify a key passage that speaks to it.

Summary of the argument:

2]Applying Thoreau to American experience

[recall the American experience objective tied to this course:

At a foundational level, students will: describe the American experience from the viewpoint of at least one minority segment of the American population; and

analyze the relationship of diverse population groups to the broader American society

I propose a mini-debate based on this famous essay: a debate about its meaning, but also applying its meaning to other aspects and times in American experience. [note: we will be getting back to this kind of application specifically in your final project, which includes a component for the American Experience rubric]

Three groups: strong supporters of Thoreau’s perspective; strong opponents; neutral/middle. Instead of the Mexican War context, let’s use the current war to apply this to.

Step 1: in your group, develop a rationale for your position on Thoreau—why you think his perspective in this essay should be viewed positively, negatively, or neutrally.

Step 2: You will be reporting back to the class in a five minute presentation (and also need to be prepared for rebuttal). Will need to suggest a specific place in the essay you focus on as well as a link you can make to some aspect of society beyond the essay)

Related questions you might consider:

How would you characterize Thoreau politically (using our terms): left, right, neither?

Friday 9.28: Further readings, Thoreau

1]Sauntering:

--Digital: browse what is out there on Thoreau

          MLA database; Academic Search; Google

--Further Readings/Logs:

          What did you find in your readings? What was reinforced (continuation of themes, etc)? What was new to you?

          What questions remain from our reading of Thoreau? [saunter through questions from log] Where do we leave him (for now)? What do we take with us—especially as we head into poetry?

[back to conclusion: desire to speak somewhere without bounds;

Connect to Walking/wildness]

Thoreau and technology

[check out Thoreau blog on thoreau reader]

Thoreau and digital communication: what would he think?

Monday 10.1: Emerson, The Poet

1]Emerson’s views of poetry

          --How does he define poetry—what are characterisitcs of poetry and the poet? Locate a specific sentence or passage. What do you notice? What do you wonder?

                   [Read passages; other responses from log]

          --What does he want for American poetry, specifically? What should that be? Any links to other Emerson ideas or essays?

 Some key words

          --poet is representative

          We are all poets—what then does the poet do? [brings dead metaphor of things and language back to life]    

--America is a poem…; back to the ‘common’ from American Scholar]

2]Who is that poet or where is that poetry today?

          --5 min: who is your example of the emersonian poet? What is in the poetry that we can tie to Emerson?

          --share poems.

Introduce the next essay assignment: Poetry link [close reading of poetry]

Wednesday 10.3: Whitman, Song of Myself, part 1

[link from last discussion: the people hate poetry and don’t realize they are poets and mystics: who hates poetry, why?]

1]10 minute reading/review: Whitman’s Preface

Read pages 5-8. Locate an idea (key lines) in this preface that helps elucidate what the poetry seems to be about, what he is interested in as a poet. Use that to make a link to a line/passage from the poetry (be specific in these links—will share them in class).

          What does he want poetry to be, do?

Lines from preface:

Gigantic

Unrhymed poetry

America is a poem in our eyes

Long—poetry unbound (lines reaching off the page)

Democratic style: parataxis instead of hypotaxis—his catalogs

I directly related to you: the prostitute scene; the catalogs

Cadences of everyday life—the street

breathing

[consider the echoes with Emerson’s ‘Poet’]

          What does his poetry do? [notice I am asking what his poem does, not what it is about—key for the next essay]

          What do we notice about his language—how he uses it?

Lines from the poetry:

Felt proud to get at meaning of poems

Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned the earth much?
Have you practiced so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?


Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun . . . . there are millions of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand . . . . nor look through the eyes of the dead . . . . nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

[some things to notice about the poetry: repetition—biblical voice; the importance of ‘you’; the ellipses]

p. 34: his interest in buried and living language [further echoes of Emerson]

What exclamations of women taken suddenly, who hurry home and give birth to babes,
What living and buried speech is always vibrating here . . . . what howls restrained by decorum,

[consider Whitman on ‘Slang in America’: http://www.uiowa.edu/~c008g001/handouts/slang.html

p. 39: the length of the passage—one sentence: notice the range of the vision, reflected in the equality of the lines (parataxis, no subordination)

          notice how the sentence ends on 42 with the subject and verb: these I am

2]Whitman frontispiece

          Think back to Douglass: how does this introduce/preface the poetry?

          Whitman and photography: see the Whitman archive

Note a recent critical insight: Whitman might have enhanced the engraving

Friday 10.5: Whitman, Song of Myself, part 2

Next essay: close reading [be thinking about places where you are interested, feel proud enough to get at the poem, want to embody in a reading]

1]Sauntering: reading and logs

          What do you wonder? [following Whitman’s use of you: will ask other readers to suggest some answers]

          Whitman and sexuality??

What do you notice? Where does Whitman leave us in the poem?

          Key passages:

2]Close reading applications:

          --the photographic archive: browse, select one that you can link to the poetry: begin to make the connection [5 min]

          --the contemporary reviews: read Whitman’s own review: make a connection

10/8: Whitman: The Sleepers (1855, 1881)

Note: next Monday, Midterm: through Whitman; be prepared to identify/discuss key passages from the reading (those that should be recognizable and familiar); a short essay response that will ask you to make connections (comparions and contrasts) between at least two of the writers on the general topic of the American writer and American literature—what kind of literature they are trying to develop and invent.

1]Logs:

--Whitman Reading groups: share logs—what you heard, noticed and wondered. As group, report back one notice (with passage read to class) and one wonder.

          A general question to guide us today: What is in “Sleepers” that continues Whitman’s poetry project—what makes this a Whitman poem? Is there something different or new here?

--Class discussion:

          What do we notice?

Notice the averaging of all that he sees, line by line (the catalogs again):

I swear they are averaged now . . . . one is no better than

        the other,

The night and sleep have likened them and restored them. 

I swear they are all beautiful,

Every one that sleeps is beautiful . . . . every thing in the

        dim night is beautiful,

The wildest and bloodiest is over and all is peace.

[new or different?] I noticed confusion

I turn but do not extricate myself;

Confused . . . . a pastreading . . . . another, but with

        darkness yet.

And Race?

          What do we wonder?

2]Focal point/close reading: Whitman and race (and the issue of minority/majority experience in America).

          Focus on the part taken out of the final edition: significance? How are the poems different?

The part taken out (follows the red squaw passage):

Now Lucifer was not dead . . . . or if he was I am his

        sorrowful terrible heir;

I have been wronged . . . . I am oppressed . . . . I hate

        him that oppresses me,

I will either destroy him, or he shall release me.

Damn him! how he does defile me,

How he informs against my brother and sister and takes pay

        for their blood,

How he laughs when I look down the bend after the

        steamboat that carries away my woman.

Now the vast dusk bulk that is the whale's bulk . . . . it

        seems mine,

Warily, sportsman! though I lie so sleepy and sluggish, my

        tap is death.

10/10: The Sleepers, continued: the lessons of the manuscripts and revision

A reminder: Whitman essentially spends his entire poetic career (35 years: from 1855 until death in 1892) revising and expanding one book called Leaves of Grass.

Our focus: What insights do we get from seeing the history of revisions and manuscript versions of what will eventually become “The Sleepers”? That is, what insights about Whitman the poet, about the poem, about American literature and culutre of the time?  Not easily answered—so let’s take it a step at a time in reading group discussions.

1]Insights from the reading (both the criticism and the manuscript discussion) about Whitman the poet: what he does as a poet, what he is interested in. In group discussion, identify at least one insight from the reading and report back. Are there connections we can make between this insight and “Song of Myself”? [10 minute group discussion]

2]Insights from the reading, particularly the discussion of the manuscript versions, about this particular poem—and why in the end he takes out the Lucifer passage? What does this suggest to you about American literature/culture in the period? Once again—identify a particular point from the reading and help us see the insight and make some connections. [10 minutes]

10/12: Whitman further reading

Preview of midterm: [write in journal]

          --pick a passage from anywhere in Whitman that is representative—that looks/sounds/feels like a Whitman passage: explain what makes it Whitman. {btw: what does ‘representative’ mean?}

          --now pick an author that you feel Whitman (as represented by this passage) most links to: what’s the link to that other author?

          --now pick an author that you feel this aspect of Whitman contrasts with, or reveals some difference: what’s the difference?

1]Logs

          Read and share ideas from further readings. Respond to readings on Blackboard.

Question to guide us: what do we see that continues Whitman’s project? What new insight do we find?

Reminder of Second essay: close reading.

2]Close readings:

--Crossing Brooklyn Ferry: Read and begin to respond. What is the ‘meaning’ of Whitman’s poetry, as expressed in the poem (what does he want poetry to be)—and how does that compare/contrast with another writer we have studied: any links you can draw with Emerson, Thoreau, Douglass?

Wednesday 10/17: Dickinson

Next essay: close reading of one poet, Whitman or Dickinson—the objective, to embody in your essay an important aspect of the poetry, focusing on 1 or 2 poems—and represent this to your reader and to class (poetry reading).

Close reading: what do we see/notice in Dickinson’s poetry. Remember to not neglect the obvious stuff—and consider similarities differences with Whitman

1]Read 2 or 3 logs on BB to add to your list of characteristics of Dickinson’s poetry—initial responses to what this poet does with poetry (not “what is the poem about).

Class list [characteristics of Dickinson’s poetry we observe/notice]:

White space

Symmetrical

First lines: grabbing attention

Nouns capitalized

Dash

Musical/rhythmical

Some rhyme: some hard, some soft, some slant rhyme

Who is the speaker? What is the setting?

Abstract

Alliteration: consonance, assonance

Lopsided; tangent

Irregular punctuation.

2]Close reading: Tell all the truth.

In your jounral, 10 minute close reading and response: What do you see in this poem that is characteristic of Dickinson’s poetry? If this might be viewed as a poem about her understanding of poetry and writing—what is the view of poetry we see?

1129

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant --
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind --

3]Connections we can make/apply to the other poems we read for today?

Monday 10/22: Dickinson, Fascicle 16

1]Warm-up/close reading:

          --Read through fascile 16 again (version with variants): make notes by hand on at least 2 things: 1]a variant that seems particularly interesting/strange/noticeable; 2]your sense of how these poems go together as a fascicle—a characteristic or a theme that ties them in some way [make note of specific lines/words]

          --Poetry partners (think of Dickinson and Higginson): For 10 minutes, combine your thoughts and notes, add to them. Then select one of the poems to focus on and prepare a reading for the class (one of you will read it aloud, the other will present an initial interpretation). This reading will begin to answer the question: How is this poem significant in fascicle 16? What does it “do” that is important in the fascicle?

          --Readings from the Fascicle:

2]Further reading/critical application: the issue of the digital and Dickinson and manuscripts.

Wednesday 10/24: workshop, close reading

Further discussion:

Whitman                                   vs.                          ED

Orienting reader                                          Disorienting

Come with me                                            Where are we?

I  -linked/related to- You                                      I without you

Metonymy                                                  Metaphor

Ellipses: inclusion/joining

[rather than left out]                                   Dashes: something left out

                                                                   [rather than joining]

1]Peer reading #1: Have the poem available—read through it once. Then focus on closeness, language in the writer’s draft—the microscope

          Help the writer identify places where the reading is close and effective; where it needs or could be closer: particular words (etymology, semantics), lines, syntax, etc. Suggest some alternative readings based on things you see and hear in the poetry.

          Class: look at 1 example.

2]Peer reading #2: The telescope: possible connections—to another poem, another poet, a critical insight. In your response, help the writer with the larger reading—think thesis, introduction, conclusion—the overall story about the poem they are trying to tell.

          Class: look at 1 example. Note the critical resource: Classroom Electric (via Whitman Archive).

Friday 10/26: Dickinson—insight from photography/Marta Werner.

1]Close reading of poem [10 minutes]: the poem “Soul’s Distinct Connection”

          For those doing ED or WW for the essay, connect something in this poem to your primary poem. What does this poem do that makes it similar or different.

--Discuss readings of poem

2]hypertext essay/log sauntering:

--Hear? What was the argument, the writer’s interest?

--notice? Which part of the reading was most insightful? What insight can we apply to our reading of ED?

Wonder? What questions do you have about this topic, this type of reading of Dickinson? What questions are remaining about this poet?

Dickinson

Woodlief link for Soul Selects and related poems

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/ED303/

Wednesday 10/31: Irving, “Rip Van Winkle”

Allegory:

·  fable: a short moral story (often with animal characters)

·  emblem: a visible symbol representing an abstract idea

·  an expressive style that uses fictional characters and events to describe some subject by suggestive resemblances; an extended metaphor
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

·  An allegory (from Greek ἄλλος, "other", and ἀγορεύειν, agoreuein, "to speak in public") is a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than the literal.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory

1]Log: 10 minute writing. Let’s assume this story is some sort of allegory for the invention of American society or culture or even American literature (noting that the story if published in 1819). What might the allegory be—what might the story represent about America at this time. Point to some specific images or lines from the story that you notice.

2]Who is Washington Irving: 5 minutes exploration—find a useful resource that might shed some light on this author and/or this story. What do we need to know? Where are you finding information?

3]Review: where we are at this point in the course, where we have been and are going.

          Based on our study, what is a ‘representative’ or characteristic view of what America and/or American literature is about? Go back into one text, find the definition, reflect on it, be prepared to read it back to us. [5 minutes]

Is there anything in Irving’s story that compares/contrasts with this representative view of America and its literature? Any connections to make with Rip?

Friday 11/2: Fall of the House of Usher

1]Web exploration: [10 minutes]

Find useful/effective insight (that might help us with this reading, with initial thoughts) regarding: What ‘Gothic’ means for literature (especially for this period, 1839). Who Poe is and what he represents for American literature. Keep track in your log of what you are finding.

          Insights?

2]Fall of the House of Usher;

Sauntering from reading logs:

          Hear: being trapped; narrator pulled in; sister trapped; the house traps the past; incest; haunted house; doppleganger

          Notice: how the past is represented and dealth with

          Wonder: why incorporate Gothic and mental illness?

Back to the allegory question: is there something allegorical here for America or American literature? Any connections or contrasts you notice with previous authors/readings?

One of my noticings: a coincidence of Gothic/Romance fancy or superstition and the acts of reading/storytelling. Content and context collapse in interesting ways (message and medium)—and we will continue to see this in Seven Gables: where very popular forms of the gothic or ghostly figure into the novel: photographic portraiture and mesmerims and storytelling

Monday 11/5: House of the Seven Gables—opening.

Set up research groups—discuss where we are going. Will use this as a case study for doing literary reading that focuses on cultural/historical context. Will also consider, as we read, how this novel fits in with our foucs on the invention of American literature: consider links back to Emerson, Whitman, etc, as well as possible variants that we get with Hawthorne. The group will be both a reading group (for help with novel) and research group for your project.

1]Groups: Read logs and discuss what you hear and notice. Begin to answer questions. Select a group ‘notice’ that you will report back and elaborate.

2]What is being set up?

          --Consider the Preface: reread with this in mind: what do you notice the author setting up? What can we expect from this novel based on the preface: what kinds of issues or characteristics? [5 min—make note in your journal]

          --Discuss preface

One thing I notice so far (carried over from House of Usher):

a coincidence of Gothic/Romance fancy or superstition and the acts of reading/storytelling. Content and context collapse in interesting ways (message and medium)—and we will continue to see this in Seven Gables: where very popular forms of the gothic or ghostly figure into the novel: photographic portraiture and mesmerims and storytelling

          consider how narrator/author plays with various figures for his own storytelling.

Wednesday 11/7: Research orientation in library

Friday 11/9: House, thru chapter 8

Focus: the shop

1]Reading quiz

2]Sauntering: from your reading and from initial research. What might you look into? What are you wondering about?

3]Focus: the Shop.

          --what do you notice about the shop (and the focus on selling)—what is it doing in the novel? Hypotheses?

Lady (aristocratic) vs. woman (strength, progressive)

Ned Higgins: selling cookies to an urchin; racial implications

The gaze of others

Other notices/questions:

Monday 11/12: House, through chapter 13

Focus: close reading; mesmerism

1]Review/Preview

Review from last discussion: page 29—notice how the conflict with the issue of shopping/commerce is very suggestively described (think suggestive language rather than symbolic)

          And now add to this another hypothesis: that Hawthorne himself is facing a conflict: the artist (the writer) has to sell his ‘goods’ in the literary marketplace. The artist becoming a sell-out? [note the essay in our edition: The Artist in the Marketplace]

Preview: Your proposal due Friday.

2]Close re-reading

--Journal 10 minutes: Pick a passage that you feel thus far is particularly suggestive—thick in some way with meaning or description—suitable for close reading (or re-reading). In journal begin to unpack the passage—what do you notice?

--share passages: what are some key places where this novel is thick and interesting? What are the words you are tracking?

[my interest—possible Emersonian (or transcendental echoes):

Page 32: poetic insight in the common

Page 8: the very premise of the house built upon the bones of the past—Emerson’s beginning of Nature: “Our age is retrospective. We build the sepulchres of the fathers.”

3]Research thread: what mesmerism means, and what it seems to be doing in the novel.

          --back to Gillian Beer essay (has a section on the ‘mesmerized body’)

          --other critical explorations of the cultural interest in mesmerism and its appearances in fiction.

Wednesday 11/14: through chapter 17

Focus: technology/invention

1]Journal reading/writing [10 minutes]

Options: A]back to the mesmerism question: what is Hawthorne’s interest in it—what is it doing in the novel?

B]the railroad (chapter 17): what is the interest, what is it doing in the novel (not just in the plot)? Anything of interest catch your eye.

          Identify a passage and some suggestive language.

2]Discussion: what are these various technologies doing in the novel?

          Some key passages:

          One thing to notice and consider: how these various technologies (mesmerism, photography, railroad) are all linked to reading and communication.

3]Research link:

Novel/hawthorne/american literature and technology—what’s out there?

What have we seen of technology in other readings (recall Thoreau on the railroad; Whitman’s embrace)

Friday 11/16: Research Proposal

1]Research groups.

          Step one: read and respond (blackboard) to each proposal. Suggest a place where you are most interested, and a place where you will need to know more.

2]Focus: Research workshop

Rhetorically Effective use of Secondary resources—this is different than thinking only about correct use of citation format

          Options for integrating research:

          1]a bibliography entry: looked at the resource, but didn’t use it [this is not part of the MLA works cited format]

          2]general citation without quotation or paraphrase. Something like: “The dominant view of this novel by critics like Matthiessen has been…”

          3]Citation where you paraphrase an argument—perhaps quote one or two key phrases, but not an entire passage. Then weave this into your reading.

          4]Citation where you quote an entire sentence or passage.

How do you decide what to weave in? Where do you weave it?

My general rule: put the secondary resource to work for you, just as you do the primary resource: take advantage of its suggestive language. In some cases, if the resource is important enough, this might be its own paragraph (where you are reading/interpreting the secondary text). In other cases, where you are reading the primary text, you weave the secondary quotation into your interpretation—either use it for the set-up or the follow-up.

A basic picture of what a paragraph should look like when your are reading/interpreting a passage (ie, one of your body paragraphs):

1]set-up: your particular focus or topic for this paragraph; transitions from previous paragraph.

Introduction/context for citation. [don’t throw a citation/quotation at your reader]  Think 2-4 sentences

2]citation/quotation: paraphrase, quotation, block quotation (for more than 4 lines).

3]follow-up: your interpretation of the citation; how you read it, what you notice in the passage, how you weave it into your argument, your reading; put the language of the resource to work for you. Don’t be shy or impatient: think 3-5 sentences or more.