Complete Summary Survey American Literature (LET-ETCAMB107)

Explain naturalism

Answer: - emphasis on observation and scientific method - darker form of realism that denies human agency - characters from fringes and depths society - detachment: impersonal tone - pessimism: unhappy endings, tragedy - focus on how people do or don\'t survive

Characteristics of neo-romanticism (modernist prose)

Answer: - writing beautifully, poetically - longing for a life that is lost, being haunted by the past - experimentation: stream of consciousness, multiple voices, long meandering sentences

What characterizes postmodernism?

Answer: - what follows modernism, not necessarily what contradicts it - reality is still fragmented - morality is still problematic - the end of civilization is not near: it is okay to have fun with history

Who was the first American writer of the nineteenth century to achieve an international literary reputation?

Answer: Washington Irving

What does Whitman celebrate in his 52-part poem Song of Myself?

Answer: the human body and its ability to become one with the self and with nature = transcendentalism

What is the difference between a metaphor and a simile?

Answer: metaphor = the identification of one thing with which it is not literally identifiable simile = explicit comparison, usually using the word \'like\' or \'as\'

According to Poe, what are the universal rules to a well written piece of literarure?

Answer: length, unity of effect, a logical method

what does Whitman present himself as in his frontispiece of Leaves of Grass?

Answer: an intellectual - a worker a man - a woman a homo- - heterosexual rational - a seeer

What is James Fenimore Cooper best known for?

Answer: His five historical novels of the Leatherstocking series

How are men portrayed in Tennessee Williams\' work?

Answer: - men are reflecting WWII - the WWII brought violence back as a signifier of masculinity - the inner turmoil of the men returning (PTSD)