Welcome to the Revolutionary Period

The Revolutionary Period.. l The British Are Coming. l The British Are Going. l The British Are Gone.

British money As the colonies expanded westward and became more prosperous, the British made more and more demands. They demanded more money through taxes.

The colonists didn’t want to send their hard-earned $$$ to King George III (who happened to be nuts!)

l Colonists end up pulling down his statue & putting his head on a stake. Then, they melted the 4,000 pound statue & made bullets.

speaking writing. The only way the colonists could make their complaints known was through speaking and writing.

l No T.V. in 1765! l No Radio! l No Computer Games l No Internet!

The colonists had to rely on the power of language -- the Written Word. Written Word.

written word They used the written word almost as a weapon, to rail against Great Britain and to gain support for the Revolution.

Did you notice that the Puritan fanatics of the 17th century have disappeared from the scene? (Thank God!)

Instead of preachers, America reason. America had men of reason. (We’ll get to their names later.)

Puritan Whereas the Puritan focus was on religion, survival, and simplicity... Revolutionary Period the folks in the Revolutionary Period focused on reason, practicality, and rationality.

Reasonable Practical Rational key words These are the key words to describe the writers and speakers of the Age of Reason Age of Reason -- The Enlightenment.

light reason They believed they could discover the truth by the light of reason alone. REASON

The truth as they saw it was: l All men are created equal.. l... and are entitled life, liberty and property. The pursuit of happiness came later.

Where did all these ideas appear? l... in pamphlets l... in political speeches l... in political documents l... in posters called broadsides

rationalists Like the Puritans, these rationalists believed in God, but in a different way. A Puritan

They compared God to a clockmaker who, having created the perfect mechanism of this universe...

... then left God’s creation to run on its own. According to this view, God would not interfere with the operations of this perfect mechanism, and it made no sense to ask God to do so.

This outlook is called Deism.

goodness Unlike the Puritans, Deists stressed humanity’s inherent goodness, not it’s evil nature.

Age of Reason Here come the men of the Age of Reason (because we knew you couldn’t wait any longer) l Benny F. l Pat H. l Tommy J. l Thomas P. The Americans. Then there’s Johnny C. (or is it D.?)... Anyway he’s the guy who defined this new breed -- The Americans. Jean de Crevecoeur

Benjamin Franklin who thought our national symbol should be the turkey. Ben, c’mon give us a little teeth with that smile!

Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard’s Almanack

Thomas Jefferson Declaration of Independence

Patrick Henry “Speech to the Virginia Convention”

Thomas Paine Common Sense

Olaudah Equiano The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

Patrick Henry who was called the firebrand of the Revolution. That’s quite an intense look you got there, Pat.

Thomas Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Hey, I’ve been to this guy’s house.

plain prosesly wit The literary style of this period swings from the plain prose and sly wit of Benjamin Franklin... Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.

impassioned oratory... to the impassioned oratory of Patrick Henry’s speech to the Virginia Convention. Give me liberty or give me death!

In Review... l A war was fought. l Blood was shed. l Bye Bye British. important literature. Of course, in the middle of all that shooting, a few Americans wrote some important literature.

Ben Franklin bio (140) & Aphorisms (148) Dec. of Ind. & Equiano AssignmentDec. of Ind Thomas Paine (168) & “Crisis” (174)

Persuasive Writing/Speaking (198)Persuasive Writing/Speaking Patrick Henry (200) & speech (202)Patrick Henry Phillis Wheatley Philip Freneau

Homework l Read excerpt from The Crisis, Number 1 by Thomas Paine, p. 144, AND Answer Critical Thinking Questions 1-4

In 1776 Jefferson was chosen (with Franklin, Adams, and others) to write a declaration of the colonies’ independence. The draft presented to the Second Continental Congress was largely Jefferson’s work Thomas Jefferson

In his “Speech in the Virginia Convention” in 1775, Patrick Henry publicly denounced the British king and urged the colonists to fight for independence. Patrick Henry

Persuasive Writing Components l State desire (or opinion) l Recognize opposition (a. give opposing argument b. concede an opposing point) l Support l Style (metaphor, simile, parallel structure, allusion, analogy, alliteration)

Brought from Africa at age of eight Prodigy who learned English in 16 months Poetry Poetry was a complex web of classical allusions Phillis Wheatley

poetryOften called the “father of American poetry ” poetTalented poet Phillip Freneau

The End

Persuasive Appeals Logic: facts, statistics, expert testimony Emotion: figurative language, imagery, loaded words

14.In 1826, both Jefferson (at 83) and John Adams (at 90) became gravely ill. Both hoped to live to see the fiftieth anniversary of the independence they had done so much to ensure. Jefferson died on the morning of July 4, several hours before Adams (whose last words were, “Thomas Jefferson still survives”). 15.

16.“The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offense.” 17. “The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it.”

18. “Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under those censures; for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”

Declaring Independence Declaring Independence, The Enlightenment brought new ideals and a new notion of selfhood to the American colonies. This program begins with an examination of the importance of the idea of the self-made man in Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, and then turns to the development of this concept in the writings of Romanticist Ralph Waldo Emerson.