American Lit Home

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Unit Review

• I. Authors and works:
  • Edgar Allen Poe - "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Annabel Lee"
  • William Cullen Bryant - "Thanatopsis" and "To a Waterfowl"
  • Oliver Wendel Holmes - "The Chambered Nautilus" and "The Ballad of the Oysterman"
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - "A Psalm of Life"
  • Frances Wright - "A Fourth of July Oration"
  • Washington Irving - "The Devil and Tom Walker"
  • James Fenimore Cooper - "The Deerslayer"
  • James Russell Lowell - "Stanzas on Freedom"
  • John Greenleaf Whittier - "Snowbound"
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Self Reliance" and "The American Scholar"
  • Henry David Thoreau - "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience"
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne - "Young Goodman Brown" and "Scarlet Letter"
  • Herman Melville - "What Redburn Saw in Launcelot's Hey" and "Moby Dick"

 

• II. Symbolism
  • Allegory
• Symbolism from "The Devil and Tom Walker"
  • Tom, his wife, Old Scratch
  • Path vs. Shortcut
  • Deacon Peabody's Tree
  • The Fingerprint
  • Bag o' Organs
• Symbolism of "The Fall of the House of Usher."
  • Roderick
  • Madeline
  • The house
  • The fissure
• Symbolism in "Young Goodman Brown"
  • Colors: Brown, Red, Black, Pink, Grey, Blue and White
• Contrasts:
  • Daylight and Town vs. Darkness and Woods
  • Path vs. Shortcut
  • Outward Appearance vs. Inward Heart
  • Appearance vs. Reality (staff wriggling like a serpent) --Ambiguity

   

• III. Themes of Romanticism
  • Frontier Character, Heroism, Individualism
  • The Desire for Freedom from Tyranny
  • The Beauty of Nature
  • The Celebration of the "Common Man"
  • Intuition--Truth from Within

 

• IV. Figures of speech - Romantic Poets
  • Simile
• Metaphor
• Personification
• Hyperbole
• Symbols

 

• V. Gothic and Victorian Architecture
  • Features: verandah, spindle, clover-like foil, balustrade, bay window, pinnacle, finial,
    arched Gothic window, parapet, barge board, steep gable, tower, turret, patterned shingles,
    tracery, battlement, Queen Anne
• Materials: iron, concrete, wood, stone
• Methods: mass production, cable suspension