Literatura Norte Americana Aula 1, 2, 3

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Literatura Norte-Americana 
Introdução:
During this lesson, you will get to know more about the so called "American Dream" and its principles. It will be an opportunity to revisit the 17th century through the ideas and values of liberty, justice and equality of important thinkers of that time.
You will also relate the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution issues to the American´s "natural rights" and freedom of speech. Consequently, you will compare how the historical scenario could definitely influence the American Literature. That´s a fascinating discovery!
Now you will realize the conditions under which the "American Dream" is an important feature of the American´s minds until today. That consists of different sets of  ideas, taking advantage of when they deal with current problems and issues of life and social organization. Isn´t it amazing? That´s all you have in this lesson to reflect upon!
In order to understand the American Literature, we do need to understand its historical context, thoughts and beliefs of each time. By starting from the late 16th century, we can say that there was a group of people who were dissatisfied with the Church of England. These people were called Puritans due to their work towards religion and moral standards.
It so happens that the Puritans aimed to purify the Church of England by returning to the values of early Christianity with a view to recognizing only the Bible as a religious reference. As a matter of fact, the Puritans’ interpretation of America was related to the so called “American dream”.
In fact, the Bible stimulated the Puritans by promoting discussions of literature. Consequently, they were encouraged to create their own religious poetry.
Notas:
American dream
Em geral, o sonho americano pode ser definido como a igualdade de oportunidades e de liberdade que permite que todos os residentes dos Estados Unidos atinjam seus objetivos na vida somente com seu esforço e determinação. Fonte: Wikipedia
Puritans
O puritanismo designa uma concepção da fé cristã desenvolvida na Inglaterra por uma comunidade de protestantes radicais depois da Reforma. Segundo o pensador francês Alexis de Tocqueville, em seu livro A Democracia na América, trata-se tanto de uma teoria política como de uma doutrina religiosa. O adjetivo "puritano" pode designar tanto o membro deste grupo de calvinistas rigoristas como aquele que é rígido nos costumes, especialmente quanto ao comportamento sexual (pessoa austera, rígida e moralista). Fonte: Wikipedia 
Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan, and the content of her poems usually empathized her faith in God and eternal life.
Motherhood and marriage for Anne were all based on the Puritan ideal of a loving, respectful partnership and the traditional feminine role.
By analyzing her poems, her strength through the vicissitudes of life lay on predestination, in other words, God’s will.
For the author, Heaven is more important than Earth, but she clearly shows her thought process with the reader, making her work so relatable four centuries after her death.
Nota: Anne Bradstreet
Anne Bradstreet (nascida Anne Dudley, 20 de março de 1612 - 18 de setembro de 1672) foi a primeira escritora e poeta americana a ter seu trabalho publicado. Ela nasceu em Northampton, Inglaterra em 1612 e casou aos 16 anos de idade com Simon Bradstreet, o filho de um pastor Puritano. Em 1630, Anne e sua família emigraram para a América em um dos primeiros navios a trazer os muitos Puritanos para a Nova Inglaterra. Fonte: Wikipedia
An important preacher and theologist: Jonathan Edwards
By reading one of Jonathan Edwards’ sermons entitled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, you can recognize his literary tendency to reform the values of theology with determinism and still showing his Puritan origins.
Sinners in the hands of an angry God (1741): 
If God should let you go, you would immediately
sink, and sinfully descend, and plunge into the bottomless gulf... The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked... he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the bottomless gulf.
In order to have an overview of the style of Edwards’ sermons and how it caused great impact on the society at that time, listen to the following audio reading: God's most stubborn enemy.
Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards (5 de outubro de 1703 - 22 de março de 1758) foi pregador congregacional, teólogo calvinista e missionário aos índios americanos, e é considerado um dos maiores filósofos norte-Americano. O trabalho teológico de Edwards é muito abrangente, com sua defesa da teologia reformada, a metafísica do determinismo teológico, e a herança puritana. Fonte: Wikipedia
The age of Enlightment
On the late 17th century people started questioning the role of church or even the Bible in their lives. 
The Age of Reason gave rise to a completely new way of thinking.
Instead of trying to believe in God as being responsible for everything in their lives, people started to consider how they could be in control of the world around them. Consequently, a new focus on scientific discovery and a boom in higher education started to take place.
Thomas Paine: an English American writer and pamphleteer
Thomas Paine´s Common Sense and other writings had a great influence in the American Revolution, and helped pave the way for the Declaration of Independence. Here are some of Thomas Paine’s quotes to help you identify his revolutionary ideas:
1 - “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church”. (Thomas Paine, The age of reason)
2 – “It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime”. (Thomas Paine, The age of reason)
3 – “Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration, but it is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the pope, armed with fire and fagot, and the other is the pope selling or granting indulgences”. (Thomas Paine, The rights of man)
4 – “The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall”. (Thomas Paine, The age of reason)
5 – “Until an independence is declared the continent will feel itself like a man who continues putting off some unpleasant business from day to day, yet knows it must be done, hates to set about it, wishes it over, and is continually haunted with the thoughts of its necessity”. (Thomas Paine, The common sense)
6 – “Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it”. (Thomas Paine, The rights of man: being an answer to Mr. Burke's attack on the French revolution, Part the First, Conclusion)
7 – “It is always to be taken for granted, that those who oppose an equality of rights never mean the exclusion should take place on themselves”. (Thomas Paine, Inspiration and wisdom from the writings of Thomas Paine)
Nota: Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine (09 de fevereiro de 1737 - 08 de junho de 1809) foi um Inglês-americano ativista político, filósofo, autor, teórico político e revolucionário.Como o autor de dois panfletos altamente influentes no início da Revolução Americana , ele inspirou os Patriots em 1776 para declarar a independência da Grã-Bretanha. Suas idéias refletidas Iluminismo era retórica dos direitos humanos transnacionais. Fonte: Wikipedia
 Literatura Norte-Americana
This lesson will focus on the origins of the Local American Literature, The Romanticism and the Gothic. It will be an opportunity to revisit the 19th century through the ideas of important writers who fought for values of independence.
Also, you will get to know more about Edgard Allan Poe, who was an American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor. He was definitely a great contribution to the Gothic Literature with his fertile mind full of fiction! It will be an amazing experience!
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.
The origins of a National Literature and the Romanticism
During the 19th century the Romanticism in the United States appears after their political and economical independence. That meant the right to be free and search for happiness. Consequently, the romantic prose reflects the feeling of this “young nation” represented by the first generation of American writers. Edgard Allan Poe was among these important authors who had a huge influence not only America but in the entire world.
To illustrate the American Romantic Movement and its nationalism, read the following passage.
Coming to the United States at the moment of an awakening national consciousness, (the Romantic movement) assumed an even more ardent nationalism than it had in the older countries abroad. This attitude was expressed in the denial of tradition and of the European inheritance, a delight in the grand scale and the infinite mysteries of nature on the unexplored western continent and a pride in the “American ideas” which had so successfully created the Republic […] The creation of an American myth out of the new materials was its first and greatest task. (SPILLER, 1967, p.23)
Nota: Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (nascido Edgar Poe; Boston, 19 de Janeiro de 1809 - Baltimore, 7 de Outubro de 1849) foi um autor, poeta, editor e crítico literário americano, fez parte do movimento romântico americano. Conhecido por suas histórias que envolvem o mistério e o macabro, Poe foi um dos primeiros escritores americanos de contos sendo considerado o inventor do gênero ficção policial, também recebendo crédito por contribuição ao emergente gênero de ficção científica. Ele foi o primeiro escritor americano conhecido a tentar ganhar a vida através da escrita por si só, resultando em uma vida e carreira financeiramente difícil. Fonte: Wikipedia
The Gothic Inspiration and Poe’s work
As an attempt to find the “voice” to express a transitional moment in the American Literature, the writers tended to focus on themes that might not be genuinely American, so to speak. It so happens that by giving more value to the “self” and not to the divine nature, as they used to focus previously, the gloomy side of human nature became the target of their literary work.
On the other hand, the literary transition of that time led to ambiguity. There was a paradox between the focus on the “self”, expressed by fear, terror, insanity, mystery representing the “dark side” of the human nature as opposed to the divine nature and beauty.
By reading the beginning of the prose entitled The fall of the House of Usher, you will have an example of Poe’s style by the way he sets the scene. This tale is one of the author’s masterpieces. Pay close attention to the choice of adjectives that reflect the gloomy atmosphere created by the author. Also, all the creativity used with a wide range of vocabulary helps us visualize the whole plot and make us read between the lines.
Quotes:
“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.”
“Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.”
“We loved with a love that was more than love.”
 Literatura Norte-Americana
This class will give you an opportunity to analyse an important American movement entitled “The Transcendentalism” that occurred during the mid 19th century. Interesting views on the “universal soul” and “intuition” revealed the writers’ own values about knowledge and the beauty of the world. As you can see, imagination was a key issue during this time! You will get to know more about this movement through well known writers.
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.
In other words, this class will be give you an opportunity to distinguish the symbolism between the style and genre of “The Transcendentalists”.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s work
Emerson is considered to be the chief spokesman for Transcendentalism, the American philosophic and literary movement. In fact, his philosophy is characterized by its reliance on intuition as the only way to comprehend reality. He is a great believer of the “divine sufficiency of the individual" making the writer a steady optimist.
As a philosopher, preacher, and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson embodied the finest spirit and highest ideals of his age since he was a thinker of bold originality. His essays and lectures are examples of style and clarity, which made him an icon of the 19th century American life.
Emerson definitely based his work on the mystical harmonies of man and nature, the perfection of the human spirit. In other words, the unity of the human soul with the divine Over-Soul within the values of non-conformity, spiritual and intellectual independence, self-assurance, and utopian friendship. Besides, he was a great supporter of educational reform, a tireless fighter for peace and social justice.
The poetry of Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman was an American poet, a journalist, and an essayist. As a humanist, he took part in the transition between transcendentalism and realism. That means that his work was highly influenced by both movements.
Whitman was called “the father of free verse” and was definitely one ofthe most influential poets in America since his work was very controversial, mainly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass.
The writer was very concerned with politics and his poetry reflected an egalitarian view of the races. Whitman's work breaks the boundaries of poetic form also for the use images and symbols in his poetry. He believed there was a symbiotic relationship between the poet and society.
In order to have a sample of Whitman’ poetry, you can read and listen to “O captain!, my captain!” a poem written in 1865. The captain in the poem refers to Abraham Lincoln who is the captain of the ship, representing the United States of America.
 
The poetry of Emily Dickinson
Among the ranks of other such acclaimed poets as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson is considered one of the most original 19th century American poets.
Dickinson’s poetry was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England and extremely prolific. She was noted for being unconventional metaphorical style.
Emily was a deeply sensitive woman who questioned the puritanical background of her time. Also, she often used to enclose poems in letters to friends. Surprisingly, her work was not publicly recognized during her lifetime.
Emily Dickinson is now considered a powerful and persistent figure in American culture who was extremely insightful in relation to the human nature. She has become widely acknowledged as an innovative, pre-modernist poet.