A LOOK AT AMERICAN HERITAGE

EDIGAR ALLAN POEEMILY DICKINSON, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNESYLVIA PLATH, ALICE WALKER

J.D. SALINGER, RALPH ELLISON

EDGAR ALLAN POE

The inventor of two kinds of fiction: detective and fantasticThe first tries to reduce the crime, a break in social order, into the realm of normal lifeThe second represents a crisis in reality with a lot of possibilities in the range of storiesA large display of themes concerning death, the presence of supernatural creatures, occult phenomena

EDIGAR ALLAN POE

In his conception science (detective fiction) was not able to

solve all mysteries of human nature (fantastic fiction).A pessimistic view of life seems to prevail and gives

rise to a quite large stock of stories characterized by the

sense of macabre and perverse.All his characters seem to be afraid and fascinated at

the same time by some mysteries with no solution at all

EDIGAR ALLAN POE

Madness and reason can coexist Descent into a pit or whirlpool, symbolizing self-

investigation and probing into the unconscious

Terror as annihilation and nothingnessUtter anguish generated by a sort of

masochismThe clock having a physical and symbolic

meaningFour colours prevail: black, red, gold and white

EDIGAR ALLAN POE

Destructive passion leading to the death of the loved ones

HallucinationsSelf-destructionThe life-death equationDescriptions with realistic

meticulous details

EDIGAR ALLAN POE

The image of vortex The image of the vortex or of the spiral is one of the most evocative metaphors, handed down from archaic religions and ancient philosophy. It represents the everlasting process of death and rebirth. The spiral, and particularly the double spiral, is in fact a decoration that was often used in prehistoric art to give the idea of the combination of opposites, like evolution and involution, as well as becoming and dying. It is a dynamic system made of two contrary forces, one centrifugal and one centripetal, which produce two opposite movements: winding and unwinding

A Descent into the Maelstrom

A meaningful recurrence of synonyms such as vast, smooth, prodigious, shining/gleaming, jet back/ebony black; terrific, speeding/bewildering rapidity.The image of vortex is that of a deep chasm gaped under the sky, so as to open a communication route between the earth and the underworld; a pathway which changes the inner nature of those who venture through it.

A Descent into the Maelstrom

An allegoric epic deed in which the hero, the fisherman, tries

to reveal the mysteries of the unknown, even if this implies

risking his own life. Time seems to have stopped down the funnel, and terrorwhich we would expect from any man in such a

desperate situation. It is as if the hypnotic circular motion of the vortex has sent the fisherman in a trance and death

looks desirable, because it represents the moment of the

man’s complete fusion with Nature and its divine spirit.

A Descent into the Maelstrom

The contemplation of a superior power. As the narrator comes back to reality he realizes

thatit is impossible to predict the moment when

whatever is spinning round will be dissolved at the bottom of the abyss, so he understands that it is also

impossible to foretell his own fate. The ecstasy of the mysticcontemplation is inevitably lost, while anxiety and fear of the impending death finally prevail.

A Descent into the Maelstrom

By taking us inside this fearful chasm, Poe

leads us to a supernatural dimension of space

and time. In fact, as soon as we get in touch

with the inner nature of the vortex an

overflow of ancestral images sediment in our

mind start flowing and we

momentarily perceive the divine power of

Nature

EMILY DICKINSON

A unique poetic voiceMagnificent personal confessionIndividual use of imageryOff-rhyme and unconventional syntaxA foretaste of ModernismHer subjects are in nature, her relation to God or her perception of death

EMILY DICKINSON

Mirroring her own withdrawal from society, she wrote of the soul that ‘selects her own Society’. Her inner life was intense.

Her poetry displays portraying aspects of a unified experience.

Nature is drawn in its circle of death and life and in the reflection upon immortality.

EMILY DICKINSON

The poet of the American Sublime Sequestered life in her Amherst family home Transfiguration which all material objects

undergo through the passion of the poetDetermined individualism Victorian literary predecessors (Barrett Browning, the Brontes, etc.), to Victorian photographs, and to paintings by English and American artists (especially the Pre-Raphaelites, the Luminists, and the Hudson River School )

EMILY DICKINSON

Multiple levels of meaning. Poetry as a form of communication in which words are never simple equivalents of experience or perception. The words themselves, the words as words, have a life as sounds, as images, as the means for generating a series of associations. She draws on most of the sciences. She must have regarded science as a basis for testing the outer boundaries of human understanding and experience. On the one hand science was transforming the world around her in astonishing ways. On the other hand science was fast becoming civilization's new Holy Grail in the quest for certainty and seemed to be undermining the validity of religious and aesthetic modes of knowing.

EMILY DICKINSON

The epistemological dilemma--the struggle between certainty and uncertainty--is central to her poetic vision. She uses poetry to perform, in effect, experiments in language, her counterpart to scientific experiments, which she accepted as equally valid efforts for apprehending essential TruthDickinson's poetic equations perform the opposite function to that of their scientific counterparts: they are designed to heighten mysteries, not solve them, They work to counteract scientific reductionism, which tempts us into thinking that science can present reality whole and undistorted.

EMILY DICKINSON

By simple elision, most of which is licensed by syntactic recoverability rules, she creates indeterminacy. She uses no recoverable deletion to mask logical links between consecutive statements and stanzas. This has the effect of placing abstract and narrative statements together and of juxtaposing metaphorical contexts.. Her compression could be seen as an attempt to disrupt the microlinguistic consciousness and thereby force readers to re-examine their preliterary reality;

EMILY DICKINSON

Filled with odd images, eccentric rhyming, and an often playful tone, Dickinson's poetry penetrates into the depths of the human soul and mind with infinite insight. Miniaturist, since most of her poems have fewer than 30 lines, yet she deals with the profoundest subjects in poetry: death, love, humanity's relations to God and nature. She makes nouns serve as verbs, adjectives as nouns, and abstractions as concrete objects.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The ghost of New England Writing as a dark necessityHaunted chamber where he spent his years secludedSin means to have ice in one’s blood World subdued to evil

The Scarlet Letter

Narrative with a markedly symmetrical structure to create unity of action Narrative organized around a set of symbolsCharacters represent moral qualitiesThe language is extremely formal and ‘literary’ with occasional use of archaismsAll details are pertinent to the essential theme

The Scarlet Letter

A moral fable or a symbolic romance centred on the contrast between good and evil, guilt and innocenceA literary form that emabraced both the real and the imaginaryThe Puritan conception of sin was a perversion lacking in charityEsther is the most charitable character in the book

The Scarlet Letter

Romantic elements as adventure action, the recovery of past history, secret sinful actions, heroic characters, mysterious and remote events, curses and witchcraft, crimes and punishments,picturesque landscape, a blend of real and unreal, the use of symbolismGothic elements as the presence of a manuscript, a prison, a scaffold, ghosts, physical deformity, bloodSin, remorse, revenge and expiation as the main themes

The Scarlet Letter

The problem of guilt and responsibility both in individuals and in communitiesThe study of evil and morality gives the novel an American touchEach section of the book is dominated by a symbolEsther represents love, Dimmersdale spirit, Chillingworth intellect divorced from moral senseThe novel does not offer a solution to moral conflicts

The Scarlet Letter

The novel weighs the different claims of love and conscience exploring the implications of social and personal values, revealing the inhumanity of Puritan morality but focusing the importance of living as a part of a communityA marked pessimismNo possible redemption

SYLVIA PLATH

Her mature poems display a deeply personal, lyrical-dramatic modeUse of a strongly rhythmical form of free verseAn unpredictable metreEvery theme as a complex contradictory experiencePrevalence of the three-line stanza, consisting of either long or short lines.Use of symbols

SYLVIA PLATH

Choice of words with disquieting connotationsContrast between life and death and death in life veined with anguishCrisis of existence stemming from the loss of identityDissolution of the selfThe experience of the family who may be destructiveMemory as the weight of past experiences

SYLVIA PLATH

Use of confessional poetryBizarre imageryConflict between reality and imaginationHorror and humourvulnerabilityDouble

ALICE WALKER

Her fame is chiefly connected to “The Colour Purple” (1983), an epistolary narrative which traces the history of two Black sisters from Georgia through most of the 20th CUse of the quilting techniqueAn Afro-American quilt is a patchwork cover made up of the many-coloured scraps of fabric from outgrown clothing

ALICE WALKER

It can be material that had been used to make other thingsIt can be received from friends and relativesThe diverse fragments create histories and the quilt thus becomes a map charting the course of different lives which still survive in the quiltConnecting the lives of different generations, the quilt provides an opportunity for storytelling and a place to record domestic particulars, to artistically rework women’s experiences.

J. D. SALINGER

The deep dissatisfaction of the young with the selfishness, corruption and hypocrisy of the modern world around themOversensitive boys or girls as main characters facing the superficiality and vulgarity of a world where success and money are the only goalsthe search for moral values, friendship and love

J. D. SALINGER

Loneliness and incomprehension as their only conquestThe repressed rebellion of the young He writes with humour, using the language of teenagers, slang, swear words giving rise to a sort of teenage dialectA warning against the risks of modern life

RALPH ELLISON

The search for identityEvery human being must realize the capacities and possibilities he is endowed with in spite of any race prejudice He used a great variety of styles and literary devices: the vivid language of Harlem people, puns, humour, symbolism, allegory, folklore, the rhythm of Black music

Invisible Man

A kind of picaresque work with many adventures and a crowd of extraordinary charactersThe protagonist discovers that the way to reach his identityand grow closer to the knowledge of his inner self is to develop his education, help others and acquire mature moral principles.

Invisible Man

He is invisible to the whites as they refuse to see him, but this invisibility also gives him freedom and teaches him that education and morality will be the values that can bring him and his people to visibility and social life.The narrator avoids classifications or categories, because he exists ouside them