Unit+04+--+The+Flowering+of+New+England

toc Starting with the publishing of Washington Irving's //Sketchbook// in 1819, America experienced the first literary explosion of its young history. During this unit, we will explore the fruits of that explosion and the literary momentum that it created until the catastrophic event of the Civil War.

Remember that our division of literature during this era of history into discreet "movements" is an exercise in clarity of ideas. But it can obscure the fact that these authors were not writing in isolation from each other -- this was an age of intense interaction of ideas, and much of that interaction occurred across and along the categorical boundaries that we have created in historical hindsight.

Resources for Historical Background

 * 1) "First Harvest," //Adventures in American Literature//, pp. 95-104.
 * 2) [[file:American Literature 1820 to 1865.pdf|"American Literature: 1820-1865," The Norton Anthology of American Literature (Shorter Fourth Edition), pp. 385-399.]]
 * 3) [[file:American Literature 1820-1865.ppt|Class presentation based on Norton Anthology essay]]
 * 4) [|"Early Nineteenth Century and Romanticism -- A Brief Introduction", //PAL: Perspectives in American Literature//]

Course Readings
See homework page under Reading Journal #3

Early National Literature

 * [|Biographical and literary resources] on Washington Irving
 * [|Washington Irving's Family Home] (Now a historic site)

Wiki pages

 * Student reading notes from selected excerpts
 * The American Scholar

External resources

 * [|"Transcendentalism" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)]
 * [|"The Web of Transcendentalism" (Texas A&M University)]
 * [|Walden Woods and the Thoreau Institute]

Romanticism

 * An essay on the [|American Romantic movement]
 * Essay on [|Romanticism in visual art]
 * Perspectives on [|Romantic novels], especially the Gothics
 * [|The Poe Studies Association]

Hawthorne Resources

 * [|Biographical essay] on Hawthorne's life and career
 * Essay on the friendship between [|Hawthorne and Melville]
 * [|An online collection] of etexts, biographical essays, and critical writings on the life and work of Hawthorne
 * Interactive website detailing [|Hawthorne's life in Salem]
 * [|The Scarlet Letter](e-text)