Midterm Spring 2018 Jodi Johnson Engl 205 Early American Lit ✓ Solved

Midterm Spring 2018 Jodi Johnson Engl 205 Early American Literatur

Pick two questions from the list below and answer them. One answer should be at least five pages long, and the other at least two and a half pages. Use at least one secondary article overall, and present your paper in MLA format with proper citations.

Sample Paper For Above instruction

Question 1: What was the importance of technology in colonial attempts to not only reach the Americans, but to subjugate its inhabitants? In what ways and with what tones is this technology presented? Does it ever intimate Native American “ignorance”? You may want to look at Columbus’ letters and John Smith’s narrative.

Question 2: Discuss the fear of the explorers in the travel narratives of our period. What does their fear tell us about their attitude to the New World?

Question 3: Discuss John Smith’s justification of exploration and toil in his “A Description of New England”. What does this tell us, if anything, about English views of exploration?

Question 4: On page 131 of the Norton Anthology of American Literature, the introduction to William Bradford states that “the sense of unified purpose in the opening pages of Bradford’s chronicle splinters as his account proceeds.” How? What happens, and why is it important to the Pilgrims’ idealized Christian society? Are there differing accounts of the First Thanksgiving? What’s important about that?

Question 6: Discuss any single aspect or multiple aspects of Ann Bradstreet’s “To the Memory of My Dear and Ever Honored Father Thomas Dudley Esq. Who Deceased, July 31, 1653, and of His Age 77”. Ideas may include the Convention of the Elegy; Women’s Writing in the Early Americas; Poetic Form; Poetic Technique.

Question 7: Compare and contrast Benjamin Franklin and J. Hector St. John De CrèvecÅ“ur’s discussions of America and the notion of being a resident of North America. Focus on Franklin’s “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America” and De CrèvecÅ“ur’s “From Letter III: ‘What Is an American?’.” How is race presented during this period? You may look at Samuel Sewall, John Marrant, and/or Solomon Northup.

Question 9: Discuss the concept of perfection in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark”.

Question 10: Discuss the relationship between Science and Art in Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark”. You may want to look at the article, “Science and Art in Hawthorne’s ‘The Birth-Mark’”.

Question 11: Discuss alchemy in Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark”. You may want to look at the article, "A Crimson Stain upon the Snow": Teaching Hawthorne's "The Birth-Mark" as an Alchemical Text.

Question 12: In what ways are Poe’s narrators unstable and/or irrational?

Question 13: Discuss the relationship between logic and horror in Poe.

Question 14: Poe often presents figures or landscapes filled with sickness and decay. In what ways are these important to his work?

Question 15: What is Gothic writing, and how does any American writer from this period conform to, or differ from, Gothic convention?

Question 16: What are some differences between the Gothic writing of Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe?

Question 17: Explain the importance of the differences between Poe’s two similar stories, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cat”.

Question 18: Who is the narrator in Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”? For this, consider “Dead or Alive: The Booby-Trapped Narrator of Poe’s ‘Masque of the Red Death’”.

Question 19: Compare and contrast Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” with any other text by Poe or outside the period, such as “The Shining” or “The Haunting of Hill House”.

Question 20: What is it about Poe’s “The Raven” that has made it so frequently referenced in other media? You should not use it as a source, but Wikipedia lists many references to it in media like The Simpsons and Altered Carbon.

References

• Columbus, Christopher. "Letters."
• John Smith. "A Description of New England."
• Bradford, William. "Of Plymouth Plantation."
• Bradstreet, Anne. "To the Memory of My Dear and Ever Honored Father Thomas Dudley."
• Franklin, Benjamin. "Information to Those Who Would Remove to America."
• De CrèvecÅ“ur, J. Hector St. John. "What Is an American?"
• Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Birth-Mark."
• Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Masque of the Red Death."
• Hughes, Sandra. "A Crimson Stain upon the Snow."
• Rucker, Mary. "Science and Art in Hawthorne’s ‘The Birth-Mark’."