HW for October 2 - "The Declaration of Independence" and "Huck Finn" (chapters 3-6)

 1. Speculate on the use of subjects, pronouns (and their respective referents) in "The Declaration of Independence"

2. "Miss Watson seems to see no conflict between the religious and racial narratives she embodies" (Terrell L. Tebbetts, "Civilization, Outlawry, and a Declaration of Independence...", Mississippi Quarterly, 2023). How far is this negligence of contradictions true for the text of The Declaration of Independence?

3. How is Huck's perceived oppression and struggle for freedom comparable (or not) to that of the North American colonies in 1776?

HW for Sep 27 - Benjamin Franklin, "Autobiography"

 Choose either or both:

1. Analyse (close read) this passage, decomposing and relating its elements as best you can:

"Now imagining it may be equally agreeable to you to know the Circumstances of my Life, many of which you are yet unacquainted with; and expecting a Week’s uninterrupted Leisure in my present Country Retirement, I sit down to write them for you. To which I have besides some other Inducements. Having emerg'd from the Poverty and Obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a State of Affluence and some Degree of Reputation in the World, and having gone so far thro' Life with a considerable Share of Felicity, the conducing Means I made use of, which, with the Blessing of God, so well succeeded, my Posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their own Situations, and therefore fit to be imitated. That Felicity, when I reflected on it, has induc'd me sometimes to say, that were it offer'd to my Choice, I should have no Objection to a Repetition of the same Life from its Beginning, only asking the Advantage Authors have in a second Edition to correct some Faults of the first. So would I if I might, besides corr[ectin]g the Faults, change some sinister Accidents and Events of it for others more favourable, but tho' this were deny'd, I should still accept the Offer."

2. In what ways is Ben Franklin's "coming of age" relatable to what you have read so far in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?

HW for Sept 25 - Bradstreet and Rowlandson (in relation with the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

 Comment on one or more of the prompts:

1. Two pious Puritan women... or maybe not; in what ways do the writings of Anne Bradstreet and Mary Rowlandson confortm to or transgress their assigned roles as women in their epoch (17th century)?

2. Relate one or more of these women's writing samples with what you have read so far in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The beginnings of US and early literature

 1450 - Guttenberg invents the printer

1492 - Columbus lands on Hispaniola (the Caribbean islands) - "America" (metonymy) described with exotic flourishes, enhanced by the hope of finding gold (Eldorado)
1516 - Thomas More, Utopia 
1552 - Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias Ocidentales
1607 - Jamestown
1620 - Plymouth (William Bradford) 
1624 - John Smith, The General History of Virginia
1626 - Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis
1630 - Massachusetts Bay (John Winthrop) - absorbs Plymouth, becoming the central community for the Pilgrims (Puritans)
1630 - John Winthrop's sermon A Model of Christian Charity (self-explanatory name)
1643 - Roger Williams (banned from Massachusetts, founds the Rhode Island Comunnity), A Key into the Language of America 

1630-1651 (printed only 1856) - William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation (the text as testimonial of the wonders of God in the name of His chosen people, with a plan of the city of New Jerusalem; also tells of the failure of the communal experience and of the pragmatic response to 'man's corruption) - important diary / journal form in "plain style". "Let them [the Puritans] confess before the Lord his loving Kindness and His wonderful works before the sons of men" (32) - institution of public confession

1682 - Mary Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. M. Rowlandson
1689 - John Locke, Treatises of Goovernment 
1702 - Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (sums up conservative vision of Puritan New England, with an account of the Salem Trials; need for scientific knowledge and sanitary measures)
1765 - Stamp Act
1773 - Tea Act
1773, Dec. - Boston Tea Party
1776 - Thomas Paine, Common Sense and the Rights of Man

July 4, 1776 - "A Declaration of the Representatives of the United States of America"  
1782 - St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer.
1793 (published) - Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
1802-1807 (written) - Diary and Autobiography of John Adams
1821 (published) - Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson

Welcome... and first homework

 Welcome to the class of US Literature - 18 and 19 C!

Choose between 1 or 2 (or, if you feel like practicing hard, do both!)

1. Please find a passage of 4-6 lines in Huckleberry Finn's chapters 1-2 that might relate to its initial "notice" (as quoted in the picture), and analyze it using all the skills and tools at your disposal.

2. Use your own insights, as well as anything you learned about "narrators" in literature/Portuguese classes before, to characterize the narrator of the novel, both in terms of its function in the narrative and its psychological characterization (or physical, if you have any hints).