Location: [Reed College] [Department of English] [Laura Arnold][ Nation and Narration]Daily Readings
1. Readings:
Hawthorne, "The Great Stone Face," "My Visit to Niagara"
(reader)
Dona Brown, "The Uses of Scenery" (Inventing New England
41-74)
Wayne Booth's "Distance and Point-of-View: An Essay in
Classification" Essentials in the Theory of Fiction, pp.
116-33
Art
about Niagara Falls and Landscape
2. In "Self-Reliance," Emerson disparages travel, particularly to Europe, by insisting that "it is want of self-culture that the superstition of Traveling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans" (108). Why were Americans obsessed with going on tours during this era? How did America ever replace these "idols" as a respectable place to travel? Please read Dona Brown's "Uses of Scenery" (on reserve) to get a background in American tourism during this era. What might Emerson think of these rather staged responses to Nature?
3.
Nathaniel
Hawthorne has traditionally (and rightfully) recognized as one of
the great writers of the American Renaissance. Born on Independence
Day, 1804 in Salem Massachusetts, Hawthorne was a descendants of the
Puritans, about which he wrote a number of stories and novels (most
famously, The Scarlet Letter.) He attended Bowdoin College and
heard poet Henry Longfellow speak at his graduation of the hope that
"Our Native Writers" would achieve lasting fame. In 1838 Hawthorne
became engaged to Sophia Peabody, the invalid sister of Elizabeth
Peabody, an important figure in New England reform and education
movements. (Elizabeth Peabody was Alcott's assistant in drawing out
knowledge from young New Englanders. Their efforts--and the
children's often hilarious responses--are recorded in the 1836 book
Conversations with Children on the Gospels.) Hawthorne's
investments during the early years of his marriage in Brook Farm (a
utopian community) became the source for his novel The Blithedale
Romance, which we will be reading later in the semester. In spite
of his jealousy over the success of the "damned mob of scribbling
women" who he felt gave him "no chance of success while the public
taste is occupied with their trash" and his own assurance that "I
should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed," Hawthorne became a
major literary figure during his day and had at least one important
"groupie"--Herman Melville. Hawthorne is buried in Sleepy Hollow
Cemetery near Concord (Baym 1014-1018).
4. As you read Hawthorne's travel stories "the Great Stone Face" and
"My Visit to Niagara Falls," I would like you to do a distinctly
literary reading of the sketches. First read Wayne Booth on point of
view. What kind of narrator is at work in each of the stories? What
are the essential qualities of the narrator and the main characters?
What do you make of the narrator and the main characters? How does
Ernest compare to Emerson's idyllic understanding of childhood? How
does the language used by him compare to that of the narrator and
other characters? What is the narrator's response to these natural
wonders? How does Ernest?
5. The American sublime. How do American responses to scenery compare to responses to European landscapes such as "Mont Blanc"? Compare paintings of Niagara Falls to that the descriptions in Hawthorne's story.
5. What difference does a city make? For mid-nineteenth-century photographs of a tour of New York City click here
Laura.Arnold@Reed.edu