English 338: Survey of American Literature through 1860

Electronic Resources for Study and Research:

• The Confessions of Nat Turner are attached to your syllabus; alternatively, you may read them here.
• Click here (and scroll down) to view all five of Thomas Cole's paintings in the series, The Course of Empire.
• Norton Anthology of American Literature, Seventh Edition
• Heath Anthology of American Literature--another significant anthology
• Dr. M. O'Connor's "Project Crow," particularly Early American and Romanticism.  
• Paul P. Reuben's PAL: Perspectives in American Literature site--provides summaries and bibliographies of secondary sources
• Prof. Campbell's American Literature site: use "Authors," "Timelines," "Literary Movements," and "Sites" (links).
• Library of Congress--American Memory--for additional primary sources
• Use this guide for a visual lesson in "Seeing Race, Slavery, and Anti-Slavery in Antebellum America."

"When Worlds Collide: The European Discovery of the Americas" 

John Donne (1572-1631), "Elegy 19: To His Mistress Going to Bed"

Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy;
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing, though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear,
That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopp'd there.
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you that now it is bed-time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,
As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.
Off with your wiry coronet, and show
The hairy diadems which on you do grow.
Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread
In this love's hallow'd temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes heaven's angels used to be
Revealed to men; thou, angel, bring'st with thee
A heaven-like Mahomet's paradise; and though
Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know
By this these angels from an evil sprite;
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
License my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my new-found-land,
My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,
My mine of precious stones, my empery;
How blest am I in thus discovering thee !
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then, where my hand is set, my seal shall be.
Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee;
As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be
To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
Are like Atlanta's ball cast in men's views;
That, when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,
His earthly soul might court that, not them.
Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made
For laymen, are all women thus array'd.
Themselves are mystic books, which only we
- Whom their imputed grace will dignify -
Must see reveal'd. Then, since that I may know,
As liberally as to thy midwife show
Thyself; cast all, yea, this white linen hence;
There is no penance due to innocence:
To teach thee, I am naked first; why then,
What needst thou have more covering than a man?

NOTES
heaven's zone: the zodiac
busk: corset
Mahomet's paradise: According to the Koran the righteous will be attended in Paradise by beautiful maidens.
empery: empire
handàseal: on old legal documents a wax seal was placed alongside the signature ("hand")
Atlanta's balls: Atalanta (the usual spelling) agreed to marry anyone who could outrace her. Melanion succeeded in doing so by distracting her with three golden apples which he dropped during the race.
46no penance due to innocence: Penance and innocence are both symbolized by white.


The Basel 1494 Edition of Columbus's First Letter
Site devoted to the printing history of Columbus's First Letter
Hieronymous Bosch [Jerome or Jeronen van Aken, Flemish], The Garden of Earthly Delights, c. c. 1504; Triptych, plus shutters; Oil on panel; Central panel, 220 x 195 cm; Wings, 220 x 97 cm; Museo del Prado, Madrid.   Another link.
 

	For more on Bartolome de las Casas, use this link from Oregon State U., or this excellent link.  This site from PBS offers information about Cabeza de Vaca, as does the link on his name from Texas State U.
	Click on this link to the Library of Congress American Memory site/ maps: 1. click on "discovery and exploration"; 2.click on "search"; 3. enter "Virginia & 1624" in the search box; click on the map of 1624.  Kristan King found an excellent site from the University of Pennsylvania libraries.  Click on John Smith for an early edition of the General History of Virginia and more. For personal letters, maps, images, court records, and more, visit the virtual Jamestown site. From Virtual Jamestown, consider a letter from an indentured laborer, Richard Frethorne (1623) and The Tragical Relation of the Virginia Assembly (1624).
Read a page on William Bradford from PAL: Perspectives in American Literature; see also a page on John Winthrop. Here is another terrific page--check out the original spelling in Winthrop's most famous section from "A Model of Christian Charity." Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's "John Winthrop's City of Women" offers further investigation of Winthrop, Anne Hutchinson, and gender in Early American New England. For more on Edward Taylor, check out this article from the Poetry Foundation. The Library of Congress offer an image of the title page of the second edition of Bradstreet's poems, published six years after death. The poems we read in class were first published in this edition. Check out this scholalry article on the links between Anne Hutchinson and Anne Brasdtreet: Bethany Reid, "'Unfit for Light': Anne Bradstreet's Monstrous Birth," New England Quarterly 71:4 (Dec. 1998): 517-542. (Read this article on line through JStor). Check out this NPR interview with Charlotte Gordon, author of a novelistic retelling of the life of Anne Bradstreet. David E. Stannard, "Death and the Puritan Child," American Quarterly 26:5 (Dec. 1974): 456-476. (Read this article on line through JStor). Book (available at the Kramer Family Library): Breitwieser, Mitchell Robert, American Puritanism and the Defense of Mourning: Religion, Grief, and Ethnology in Mary White Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative (Madison: U. Wisconsin, 1991). Click here for a facsimile of the London 1682 edition of Rowlandson's Narrative.  Compare the title of the London edition to the full title of the American "Second Addition" (sic), spelled out in the first footnote to the Narrative in your Norton. Puritan Vanitas & Memento Mori
	Why why should I the World be minding therein a World of Evils Finding.      Then Farwell World: Farwell thy Jarres      thy Joies thy Toies thy Wiles thy Warrs Truth Sounds Retreat: I am not sorye.      The Eternall Drawes to him my heart      By Faith (which can thy Force Subvert) To Crowne me (after Grace) with Glory. TS. [initials in a monogram]
	Interested in the Salem Witch Trials?  Visit this comprehensive site from the University of Virginia.  Also included is a page  ranking other websites on the subject, and providing links as well as annotations describing each site.
John Locke published his "Essay on Human Understanding" in 1690.  For a quick explanation of the conventions of the Puritan sermon (compare to Jonathan Edwards), use Prof Campbell's American Literature site.
	Eighteenth century Anglo-America saw the world turned upside down due to scientific and cultural changes.
	Click here for authoritative, detailed chronologies of Franklin's life and work.  Check out the PBS version as well.  Here's an on-line exhibit on Franklin from the Library of Congress.  Ultimately a romantic, D.H. Lawrence was deeply uncomfortable with Ben Franklin.  Read his alternative version of Franklin's list of virtues. Explore Franklin's use of literary personas here.
	Review the opening pages of the first edition of Wheatley's poems, courtesy of the Library of Congress,  Here's a full view of the first edition, courtesy of Texas A & M University.
	A provocative medallion from the Anglo-American antislavery movement of 1787. Although this is a commercial site with many annoyances, you may view a few digitized pages of a 1791 edition of "Common Sense" (originally published in 1776). Read the rebuttal of the Declaration of Independence written by former Massachusetts governor and lifelong Tory Thomas Hutchinson, courtesy of Evan Faber. Lauren McIntyre contributes a link that lets us listen to the Patriot tune, "The Liberty Song."
	Explore all things transcendental on the Web of American Transcendentalism. Frederick Douglass educated himself by reading Caleb Bingham's schoolbook, The Columbian Orator. Read the Declaration of Sentiments--an American women's rights manifesto from 1848.

	Click here for a facsimile of the 1855 edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass.  Take a look at the spine of the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass.
Here is a visual image of the many editions of Leaves of Grass ("Song of Myself") that Whitman composed over his lifetime.
	Click here for more information on Rebecca Harding Davis, including many of her writings via e-texts.

  

 

© University of Colorado at Colorado Springs | Copyright | Privacy Statement | Vision and Values