1. 12/5-12/7
English 11

2. Bell Work 12/6 What is an allegory?
How is “Young Goodman Brown” an allegory?
Is this a romantic piece? Explain your answer.

3. Calendar 12/5 Review & “Young Goodman Brown” 12/6 Emily Dickinson
12/7 Walt Whitman
12/10-12/11 Reading Benchmark
12/13 Mark Twain
12/14 Counseling lesson: College Comparison
12/15 Mark Twain/Study day
12/17 EVIT presentation
12/18 Final Study Day

4. Agenda 12/5 Review literary movements Review study guide
Analyze “Young Goodman Brown” and answer comprehension questions.
Comprehension questions due at the end of class!

5. The Transcendentalists
Reflections of the Divine in Everyday Life

6. What Was Transcendentalism?
Transcendentalism was a nineteenth-century philosophical movement. Transcendentalists believed that true reality transcends, or exists beyond, the physical world.
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

7. Basic Beliefs of Transcendentalism
Everything in the world, including people, is a reflection of God, or the Divine Soul.
The physical world is a doorway to the spiritual world.
People can use intuition to see God in nature and in their own souls.
A person—not society, the church, or government—is his or her own best authority.
Feeling and intuition are superior to reason and intellect.

8. Timeline A A. Idealism (Greece, 4th century B.C.) D
D. Transcendentalism (North America, 19th century)
E. Realism C
C. Romanticism (Europe and North America, late 18th century through mid-19th century) B
B. Puritanism (North America, 17th century)
1600
1700
1800
1900
400 B.C.
2000

9. Idealism
Idealism was a philosophy explained by the Greek philosopher Plato in the 4th century B.C. Idealists believed that true reality could be found in ideas rather than in the physical world.
© clipart.com

10. Idealism and Transcendentalism
Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson claimed that Transcendentalism was simply Idealism rediscovered and applied to the nineteenth-century world.
Transcendentalists shared Plato’s belief in an all-encompassing spiritual reality.
They applied Idealist ideas to human life, believing in human perfectibility and working to achieve that goal.

11. Puritanism
Puritanism was an early American religious philosophy. The Puritans believed that
religion is a personal, inner experience that should not be filtered through clergy or government
people should be self-reliant
God’s presence reveals itself primarily through the Bible, but also through signs in the physical world
human salvation is reserved for a few “elect” people—the majority of humanity is destined to damnation

12. Puritanism and Transcendentalism
Transcendentalists shared the Puritan beliefs in the personal nature of religion and the desirability of self-reliance.
However, Transcendentalists differed because they
looked to nature, not the Bible, as a primary source of divine revelation
believed that all humans, not just the “elect,” were connected to a divine source

13. Romanticism
Romanticism was a school of thought that began in late eighteenth-century Europe and spread to America in the nineteenth century. The Romantics
valued imagination, feeling, and nature over reason, logic, and civilization
championed individualism
reflected on nature to gain spiritual wisdom
© Francis G. Mayer/Corbis

14. Romanticism and Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism was one of the faces of American Romanticism.
Transcendentalists took the Romantic belief that spiritual wisdom could be found in nature one step further—they believed that everything in the physical world, including human beings, is a reflection of God.
The Transcendentalists believed that because human beings are a part of the Divine Soul, they are capable of perfection.

15. Belief in Action
Because Transcendentalists believed in the possibility of human perfection, they
pursued practical goals for improving people’s lives
developed plans for creating a perfect, or utopian, society
worked for social change

16. Ralph Waldo Emerson Emerson was the best-known Transcendentalist.
He was a highly influential writer, lecturer, and social reformer
He lectured and wrote extensively on Transcendental ideas
He was admired by and influenced other writers and artists, including Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman
© clipart.com

17. Emerson’s Optimism
Optimism, or positive thinking, was an important part of Emerson’s transcendentalist view. He believed that
because God is good, all natural events and experiences, even death and disaster, can be explained on a spiritual level
we can know God directly through the power of our intuition
by trusting our own power to know God directly, we will see that we, too, are a part of the Divine Soul

18. Realism
A style in art, music and literature that depicted contemporary social realities and the lives and everyday activities of ordinary people. The movement began in literature in the mid-19th century, and became an important tendency in visual art in the early 20th century.

19. Elements of American Realism
Character is more important than action and plot; complex ethical choices are often the subject.
Humans control their destinies; characters act on their environment rather than simply reacting to it.
Events will usually be plausible.  Realistic novels avoid the sensational, dramatic elements of naturalistic novels and romances.
Class is important; the novel has traditionally served the interests and aspirations of an insurgent middle class.
Realism is viewed as a realization of democracy. The morality of Realism is intrinsic, integral, relativistic – relations between people and society are explored.

20. Elements of American Realism
Realists were pragmatic, relativistic, democratic and experimental.  The purpose of writing is to instruct and to entertain. Diction is the natural vernacular, not heightened or poetic; tone may be comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact.
The use of symbolism is controlled and limited; the realists depend more on the use of images.
Objectivity in presentation becomes increasingly important: overt authorial comments or intrusions diminish as the century progresses.
Interior or psychological realism is a variant form. Internal conflict is crucial to character development.

21. Bell Work 12/6
In allegories, characters are usually personifications of abstract qualities. For example, a character can
represent a human trait or behavior. With that in mind, discuss the significance of the names "Young
Goodman Brown" and "Faith."

22. Agenda 12/6 Bell Work/Discussion “Young Goodman Brown” Discussion
Intro Emily Dickinson
Read a small collection of Dickinson’s work
Respond/Analyze

23. Emily Dickinson
Born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson left school as a teenager, eventually living a reclusive life on the family homestead. There, she secretly created bundles of poetry and wrote hundreds of letters.

24. Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson is considered among the greatest poets in English literature. She is known for her unusual use of form and syntax; and for being “The poet of paradox”. Dickinson was a prolific writer and created nearly poems but only a handful of them were published during her lifetime.

25. In-Class Assignment
Read the collection of Emily Dickinson’s poems on pages
Answer Questions 1-8 on page 556
Due at the end of the hour!

26. Bell Work 12/7 In “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”...
Do you believe the speaker's relaxed attitude toward death? Sometimes we pretend to be confident when we're nervous and brave when we're scared. Is this an example of that? Which lines of the poem support your opinion?
Why might the speaker not fear death?
If Dickinson were writing this today, do you think she could still illustrate the journey to death with as a carriage ride, or would that be silly? What would be a good present-day equivalent?

27. Agenda 12/7 Bell Work/Discussion Introduce Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman poetry and analysis

28. Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman is the most important poet of the American Romantic movement. He's credited with developing a style of poetry that was distinctly American and democratic in its outlook. He wrote in simple language, so that regular folks could access his poetry easily.

29. Walt Whitman
Whitman's poetry dwells on many of the themes that were important in American Romanticism. Nature is highlighted in his work, as well as reflections on freedom and democracy, and an emphasis on individualism and the imagination. He's the Poet of Romanticism.

30. In-Class Assignment
Read the collection of Walt Whitman poems on pages of your textbook.
Answer questions 1-8 on page 541.
Due at the end of the hour!