CONTEÚDO ONLINE - LITERATURA NORTE-AMERICANA

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07DhMaOgDNs 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
This class will give you an opportunity to have an overview of the origins of the Romanticism and its influence for the 
North American Literature. Also, how a strong national feeling made the Americans interpret their own literature. 
 
You will also get to know the importance of well known authors during the 19th century. These authors were highly 
influenced by the Romanticism and became unique “voices” to understand the American Literature as well as the 
American Nation. Among the American authors, Edgar Allan Poe became an icon due to his style, mainly when writing 
tales, and poems of horror and mystery. All his work is considered to be a remarkable cultural and literary legacy. 
 
Besides, the Gothic inspiration turns out to be one of the elements that became a recurrent feature of Poe’s work. In 
fact, his creativity is focused on human fears and “dark” emotions. In other words, his poetry is a mix of torment, 
gloom caused by the focus on the supernatural with passion and beauty 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 
This class will give you an opportunity to have an overview of the American movement entitled “The 
Transcendentalism”, centered in New England during the 19th century. This movement was a reaction against 
scientific rationalism. 
 
Besides, you will get to know more about the core philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s work. Ralph was definitely 
an important writer of this movement who contributed quite a lot to break away from European models. 
 
You will also be introduced to how “The Transcendentalism” philosophy emerged as well as its beliefs with emphasis 
on individual and democratic ideas. Among the American authors, you will have an overview of Walt Whitman e Emily 
Dickinson’s poetry and discover why these writers played such an important role in “The Transcendentalism” 
movement. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PRINCIPAIS SLIDES AULA 03 – TELETRANSMITIDA 
 
TRANSCENDENTALISM IS: 1. A literary movement 2. Philosophic conception 3. Epistemology (a way of knowing) 
Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth 
century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson. Other important transcendentalists were Henry David Thoreau, 
Margaret Fuller, Amos Bronson Alcott, Frederic Henry Hedge, and Theodore Parker. Stimulated by English and German 
Romanticism, the Biblical criticism of Herder and Schleiermacher, and the skepticism of Hume, the transcendentalists 
operated with the sense that a new era was at hand. They were critics of their contemporary society for its unthinking 
conformity, and urged that each person find, in Emerson's words, “an original relation to the universe” 
Transcendentalism is a religious and philosophical movement that was developed during the late 1820s and 
1830s[1] in the Eastern region of the United States as a protest against the general state of spirituality and, in particular, 
the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity 
School. Among the transcendentalists' core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both people and nature. 
Transcendentalists believe that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political 
parties—ultimately corrupt the purity of the individual. They have faith that people are at their best when truly "self-
reliant" and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community could be formed. 
Transcendentalism is a very formal word that describes a very simple idea. People, men and women equally, 
have knowledge about themselves and the world around them that "transcends" or goes beyond what they can see, 
hear, taste, touch or feel. This knowledge comes through intuition and imagination not through logic or the senses. 
People can trust themselves to be their own authority on what is right. A transcendentalist is a person who accepts 
these ideas not as religious beliefs but as a way of understanding life relationships. 
The individuals most closely associated with this new way of thinking were connected loosely through a group 
known as The Transcendental Club, which met in the Boston home of George Ripley. Their chief publication was a 
periodical called "The Dial," edited by Margaret Fuller, a political radical and feminist whose book "Women of the 
Nineteenth Century" was among the most famous of its time. The club had many extraordinary thinkers, but accorded 
the leadership position to Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
Transcendentalists also placed significant emphasis on imagination. Imagination allows the mind to be 
resourceful, to form new ideas that are not present to the senses. As the writer or reader imagines, he transcends 
himself. This allows him to move beyond his personal experience, his mind and body, to consider something anew. 
The ability to imagine can effect change. The Transcendentalists wanted their work to have an altering effect on 
individuals and on society as a whole. For the Transcendentalists, man needed to live in the world, participate in it, 
look at it closely, and take action. 
 
Basic Premises: 
1. An individual is the spiritual center of the universe - and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, 
history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. It is not a rejection of the existence of God, but a preference to explain an 
individual and the world in terms of an individual. 2. The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of 
the individual self - all knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge. This is similar to Aristotle's dictum "know 
thyself." 
3. Transcendentalists accepted the neo-Platonic conception of nature as a living mystery, full of signs - nature 
is symbolic. 
4. The belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization 
 
Characteristics of Transcendentalism 
1. Believed in living closer to nature (Thoreau) 
2. Believed in the dignity of manual labor (Thoreau) 
3. Saw the need for intellectual companions and interests (Brook Farm, Margaret Fuller, The Dial) 
4. Emphasized the need for spiritual living 
5. Considered man's relationship to God a personal matter established directly by the individual himself 
6. Posited the essential divinity of man (versus Calvinism's tenet of innate depravity) 
7. Urged one great brotherhood (the Oversoul, the unity of all things) 
8. Proposed self-trust and self-reliance 
9. Believed in democracy and individualism 
10. Encouraged reform (to awaken and regenerate the spirit) 
11. Insisted on a complete break with tradition and custom 
12. Know through intuition 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PRINCIPAIS SLIDES AULA 04 – TELETRANSMITIDA 
 
O Realismo – Mark Twain 
Characteristics: 
 Emphasis on psychological, optimistic tone, details, pragmatic, practical, slow-moving plot 
 Rounded, dynamic characters who serve purpose in plot 
 Empirically verifiable 
 World as it is created in novel impinges upon characters. Characters dictate plot; ending usually open. 
 Plot=circumstance 
 Time marches inevitably on; small things build up. Climax is not a crisis, but just one more unimportant fact. 
 Causality built into text (why something happens foreshadowed). Foreshadowing in everyday events. 
 Realists--show us rather than tell us 
 Representative people doing representative things 
 Events make story plausible 
 Insistence on experience of the commonplace 
 Emphasis on morality, usually intrinsic, relativistic between people and society 
 Scenic representation important 
 Humans are in controlof their own destiny and are superior to their circumstances 
 Renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail. Selective presentation of reality with an emphasis on 
verisimilitude, even at the expense of a well-made plot 
 Character is more important than action and plot; complex ethical choices are often the subject. 
 Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament and motive; they are in explicable relation to 
nature, to each other, to their social class, to their own past. 
 Class is important; the novel has traditionally served the interests and aspirations of an insurgent middle 
class. (See Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel) 
 Events will usually be plausible. Realistic novels avoid the sensational, dramatic elements of naturalistic 
novels and romances. 
 Diction is natural vernacular, not heightened or poetic; tone may be comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact. 
 Objectivity in presentation becomes increasingly important: overt authorial comments or intrusions diminish 
as the century progresses. 
 Interior or psychological realism a variant form. 
 In Black and White Strangers, Kenneth Warren suggests that a basic difference between realism 
and sentimentalism is that in realism, "the redemption of the individual lay within the social world," but in 
sentimental fiction, "the redemption of the social world lay with the individual" 
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN (Mark Twain) 
Themes: 
 Racism and Slavery 
 Intellectual and Moral Education 
 The Hypocrisy of “Civilized” Society 
 Morality and Ethics 
 Rules and Order 
 Lies and Deceit 
 Race 
 Morality and Ethics 
 Rules and Order 
 Liess and Deceit 
 Religion 
 Friendship 
 Man and the Natural World 
 Family 
 Youth 
 Foolishness and Folly 
 The Supernatural 
 Drugs and Alcohol 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Paul Auster 
In order to know more about Paul Auster, some personal quotes were selected that shed light on his view of 
writing and life in general. Here they are: 
 ''It was a wrong number that started it, telephone ringing three times in the dead of the night, and 
the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not''. 
 ''That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on 
table.'' 
 ''You can't put your feet on the ground until you have touched the sky'' 
 ''Blue in the face is a romp. It's kind of a modern day vaudeville.'' 
 ''There is hope for everyone, that's what makes world go around.'' 
 ''If you aren't ready for everything, you aren't ready for anything.'' 
 
And here are some quotes from Auster’s books: 
 ''.... We live under the eyes of death and no matter what we do there is no escape. ''You can survive 
only if nothing is necessary for you''. 
 ''...If the teacher was an absentminded clod, what would you expect of disciples?'' 
 ''...but the wall between work and idleness had crumbled to such a degree for him that he scarcely 
noticed it was there.'' 
 ''..with all the fervor and idealism of a young man who had thought too much and read too many 
books, I decided that the thing I should do was nothing: my 
 action would consist of a militant refusal to take any action at all.'' 
 We're all victims of something, Mr. Effing. If only of the fact that we're alive." 
 In the end, each life is no more than the sum of contingent facts, a chronicle of chance intersections, 
of flukes, of random events that divulge nothing but their own lack of purpose.'' 
 
HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE UNTIL 1950 
 American literature begins with the orally transmitted myths, legends, tales, and lyrics (always songs) of Indian 
cultures 
 there was no written literature among the more than 500 different Indian languages and tribal cultures that 
existed in North America before the first Europeans arrived 
 Romantic period 
EDGAR ALLAN POE 
 A southerner, shares with Melville a darkly metaphysical vision mixed with elements of realism, parody, and 
burlesque 
 he refined the short story genre and invented detective fiction 
 many of his stories prefigure the genres of science fiction, horror, and fantasy so popular today 
 his best-known poem, in his own lifetime and today, is „The Raven“ – In this eerie poem, the haunted, sleepless 
narrator, who has been reading and mourning the death of his „lost Lenore“ at midnight, is visited by a raven 
(a bird that eats dead flesh, hence a symbol of death) who perches above his door and ominously repeats the 
poem’s famous refrain, „nevermore.“ 
THE RISE OF REALISM: 1860-1914 
MARK TWAIN 
 Ernest Hemingway’s famous statement that all of American literature comes from one great book, Twain’s 
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, indicates this author’s towering place in the tradition 
 Twain’s style, based on vigorous, realistic, colloquial American speech, gave American writers a new 
appreciation of their national voice 
 Twain was the first major author to come from the interior of the country, and he captured its distinctive, 
humorous slang and iconoclasm 
 Huckleberry Finn has inspired countless literary interpretations. Clearly, the novel is a story of death, rebirth, 
and initiation. The escaped slave, Jim, becomes a father figure for Huck; in deciding to save Jim, Huck grows 
morally beyond the bounds of his slave-owning society. It is Jim’s adventures that initiate Huck into the 
complexities of human nature and give him moral courage. 
THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) 
 The 1925 work An American Tragedy explores the dangers of the American dream. The novel relates, in great 
detail, the life of Clyde Griffiths, a boy of weak will and little self-awareness. 
 despite his awkward style, Dreiser, in An American Tragedy, displays crushing authority. Its precise details 
build up an overwhelming sense of tragic inevitability. The novel is a scathing portrait of the American success 
myth gone sour, but it is also a universal story about the stresses of urbanization, modernization, and 
alienation. Within it roam the romantic and dangerous fantasies of the dispossessed. 
PROSE WRITING, 1914-1945: AMERICAN REALISM 
SCOTT FITZGERALD 
 his first novel, This Side of Paradise, became a best-seller, and at 24 they married. Neither of them was able 
to withstand the stresses of success and fame, and they squandered their money. They moved to France to 
economize in 1924 and returned seven years later. Zelda became mentally unstable and had to be 
institutionalized; Fitzgerald himself became an alcoholic and died young as a movie screenwriter. 
ERNEST HEMINGWAY 
 he volunteered for an ambulance unit in France during World War I, but was wounded and hospitalized for six 
months 
 after the war, as a war correspondent based in Paris, he met expatriate American writers Sherwood Anderson, 
Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald 
 after his novel The Sun Also Rises brought him fame, he covered the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the 
fighting in China in the 1940s 
 on a safari in Africa, he was badly injured when his small plane crashed; still, he continued to enjoy hunting 
and sport fishing, activities that inspired some of his best work 
 The Old Man and the Sea, a short poetic novel about a poor, old fisherman who heroically catches a huge fish 
devoured by sharks, won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953; the next year he received the NobelPrize 
MODERNISM AND EXPERIMENTATION: 1914-1945 
JOHN STEINBECK 
 he is held in higher critical esteem outside the United States than in it today, largely because he received the 
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963 and the international fame it confers 
 his best known work is the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, which follows the travails of a 
poor Oklahoma family that loses its farm during the Depression and travels to California to seek work. Family 
members suffer conditions of feudal oppression by rich landowners 
 other works set in California include Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men