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John Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity"
Summary:
• Sermon delivered to the Puritans on board the ship taking them to the New World.
• “Pep-talk” stressing unity and working together to succeed in their new environment. Key Lines:
• “We shall be as a city upon a hill…”
• “We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together" Reflection of the Era:
• Puritans are chosen people
• Served as a reminder that in order to achieve these goals they must stick together. -
Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"
Summary:
• Edwards tries to inspire the conversion of non-believers through fear.
• Strong language and heavy use of pathos. Key Lines:
• “…natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell…”
• “The wrath of God is like great waters that are damned for the present...”
• “The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string…” Reflection of the Era:
• People at the time feared floods, fires, Native- Americans.
• Edwards exploited these fears to make his point. -
Patrick Henry's Speech to the Virginia Convention
Summary:
• Henry’s speech to the Virginia Convention encouraging war against the British. Key Lines:
• “Give me liberty or give me death!” Reflection of the Era:
• Time of great tension
• Colonists unsure of whether or not to wage war with the British -
Benjamin Franklin's The Autobiography
Summary:
• Account of Benjamin Franklin’s early experience in Philadelphia.
• Instructions on how to arrive a “moral perfection”. Key Lines:
• “I concluded at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous.”
• “…the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct.” Reflection of the Era:
• People valued conduct and morality over most things. -
William Cullen Bryant's "Thanatopsis"
Summary:
• Romantic poem by Bryant about the comfort of nature and the acceptance of death. Key Lines:
• “…approach thy grave, like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.” Reflection of the Era:
• Intuition over reason
• Nature is powerful and truthful
• Urbanization and industrialization -
Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker"
Summary:
Tom Walker made a deal with the devil to gain both fame and fortune. He loses his soul in the process. He is damned after his death. Reflection of the Era:
Power and money corrupt
Self denial "As Tom waxed old, however, he grew thoughtful. Having secured the good things of this world, he began to feel anxious about those of the next." -
Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature"
Summary:
Go into nature to find truth and listen to what it has to tell you. Nature speaks to those who listen and comforts all. Key Lines:
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" Reflection of the Era:
Urbanization and industrialization
Nature is mystified and idealized -
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil"
Summary: A minister has a secret sin and hides his face under a black veil. The veil makes his sermons more powerful and converts many. Even in death he wears the veil. Key Lines:
“He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face”
“the minister and maiden’s spirit were walking hand in hand”
“There is an hour to come…when all of us shall cast aside our veils” Reflection of the Era:
Obsession with sin
Hawthorne and others wrote of the unhappy romantic ideas
Antitranscendental -
Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience"
Summary
• Essay by Thoreau written in response to the night he spent in jail about the inefficiency of government. Key Lines
• “That government is best which governs not at all.” Reflection of the Era
• Essay was written at the time of the Mexican-American war.
• Civil liberties of some Americans were being trampled.
• Essay reflects abolitionist and anti-war views. -
Henry David Thoreau's Walden
Summary
• Memoir detailing Thoreau’s experiences living in solitude away from society. Key Lines
• “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.”
• “…how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!” Reflection of the Era
• Transcendentalists focused on self-reliance and solitude in nature. Thoreau took these principles and put them into practice then documented his experience. -
William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation
Summary::
• Record written as a narrative detailing the early Pilgrim experience traveling to and living in the New World. Key Lines::
• “The change of air, diet, and drinking water would infect their bodies with sore sickness, and grievous diseases.”
• “…in continual danger of the savage people, who are cruel, barbarous and most treacherous.” Reflection of the Era::
• Time of discovery.
• People wondered what the Pilgrims experienced. -
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "A Cross of Snow"
Summary:
• Romantic poem by Wadsworth about the guilt experienced after the death of his wife. Key Lines:
• “Such is the cross I wear upon my breast. These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes and seasons, changeless since the day she died.” Reflection of the Era:
• Romanticism main literary movement at the time. Stressed cycles of man/life as does the poem. -
Henry Wadsworth LOngfellow's "The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls"
Summary:
• Romantic poem by Wadsworth about the cycles of man and the changing seasons. Key Lines:
• “The day returns, but nevermore returns the traveler to the shore, and the tide rises, the tide falls. Reflection of the Era:
• Romantics stressed the cycles of man and the cycle’s reflection in nature. The poem compares the life of man to a rising and falling tide. (Birth and death). -
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Summary:
The narrator is quickly losing her mind by being confined to her room with yellow wallpaper. She is being held captive by her husband and brother who are both doctor's and have both prescribed it. Reflection of the Era:
Medical practices being questioned
Prescriptions for mental health are not always making things better Key Lines:
"I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!"
