Aaron Liberatore

Mr. Dowd
English II Midterm

 Literary Movements
o Romanticism
 Imagination
 Passion
 Emotion/experience
 Individualism
 Nature
 Symbolism and Myth
 Spontinuity
o Dark Romanticism
 Romanticist ideas coupled with dark and gloomy undertones
 Imagination
 Passion over Reason
 Quest for beauty
 Nature as a refuge (escapism)
o Transcendentalism
 Subset of Romanticism
 Individualism
 Self, Authentic, and nonconforming
 Love of Liberty
 Nature
 Helps us to discover ourselves
 Use of Self Examination
 Self-Thought / original ideas
 Self trust and self confidence
 Novels/Books/stories
o The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
 Mark Twain
o The Autobiography of Ben Franklin
 Enlightenment writing
 Ben Franklin began the first library by having everyone bring in books
 Franklin’s wife bought new silverware, and Franklin grew upset (Frugality)
 He didn’t life his minister because he didn’t talk about morality
 He attempted to attain moral perfection through his 13 virtues.
 “The speckled axe” describes how you cant always be perfect
o Of Plymouth Plantation
 William Bradford
 Enlightenment writers pushing LOGIC over emotion
 Summery: The Puritans are sailing over to the Americans and are supposed to
settle in Virginia, but get pushed north toward Plymouth Rock. The sailors
wanted to drop them off and return home, however they needed to give the
puritans a safe place to begin. When they first witness Indians, they think they
are savages. The puritans steal seed from the Indians. They defeat the Indians
and create the Mayflower Compact. After a hard winter and meeting the
Indians, they devise a contract, but make it seem like only the Indians will do
bad things. They begin a plantation where the Indians are sold as slaves.
 TRUST in God’s providence
o Thanatopsis
  William Cullen Bryant
 Dark Romanticism
 Death is viewed with sadness
 Belief that Nature is a place of Retreat
 The physical body shows no importance
 Everyone will die and become one with the ground
 “You are dust and to dust you shall return
 The dead are always with you
 You will be forgotten, but people will join you
 Live your life so that when you die you will be soothed and can enjoy your rest
 Be at peace with yourself
o Rappaccini’s Daughter
 Dark Romanticism
 Nathaniel Hawthorne
 Summery: Giovanni wants to meet Rappaccini’s daughter, because she is so
pretty, but Rappaccini is an evil doctor who turns things to poison. Giovanni
gets into the garden and meets Beatrice after several encounters. Pietro tells
Giovanni he is the subject of another Rappaccini experiment. Giovanni finds
that Beatrice’s touch burns him because she is poisonous. Pietro gives Giovanni
the antidote, but the antidote is death. Giovanni was slowly turning poisonous
as well when Beatrice took the antidote and died.
 Rappaccini cares for science more than mankind
 Everything Beatrice touches dies because she turned into poison
o Fall of the House of Usher
 Dark Romanticism
 Edgar Allen Poe
 The narrator see the Usher House and realizes that the simple features of the
house create an overpowering feeling
 The narrator goes to see Roderick Usher when he is told he is need of him
immediately
 The House and the Family of Usher are ONE
 One member of the family at a time was alive
 Roderick has a mental acuteness of his sense issue, while his sister has a
disease.
 Lady Madeline “died” and was put into the tomb, but she was actually buried
alive.
 She came back killed Roderick and the House of Usher fell apart.
o Self-Reliance
 Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Transcendentalism
 Speak your mind; don’t be willing to reject your own thoughts
 Trust in yourself
 People conform in society and self-reliance is its aversion
 Nature is our judge
 BE yourself
 Real happiness is being at peace with yourself
o Over-Soul
 Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Transcendentalism
 What is God
 God is the Over-soul
 God is part of humans because he is part of the human soul
  The soul comes from God
 What is the individual’s role in relation to god
 To live with God an Embrace him
 We are part of the Over-soul and we die and return the piece of
ourselves to the Over-soul
 We are in union with God through our souls
 What is the individuals responsibility as a human being
 Shelter and nourish the Soul
 Nourish our souls for the sake of everyone else
 Everyone lives moments differently; so no one can have the same experience
o Walden
 Henry David Thoreau
 Transcendentalism
 Vocabulary
o Paralipsis (n)
 The deliberate suggestion of a topic that much of significance is being omitted
o Perspicacity (n)
 Acuteness of mental perception, understanding, and discernment
o Edacious (adj)
 Consuming, voracious, devouring
o Agitprop (n)
 An agency that directs propaganda and coordinates agitation
 Agitation and propaganda
o Fox (v)
 To deceive, trick, or act cunningly
o Insouciant (adj)
 Being free of concern or worry
o Mendicant (n)
 A beggar
o Mellifluous (adj)
 Sweetly or smoothly flowing
o Habiliment (n)
 Clothes or clothing worn in a particular profession
o Efficacious (adj)
 Capable of having the desired result
o Lineament (n)
 Distinguished features of a body, face, or figure
o Salubrious (adj)
 Favorable to or promoting health
o Loquacious (adj)
 Excessive talking, talkative, chattering
o Interlocutor (n)
 A person who takes part in a dialogue or a person who questions
o Maudlin (adj)
 Weakly emotional and foolishly sentimental
o Lachrymose (adj)
 Tending to cause tears, mournful
o Pecuniary (n) / (adj)
 Adj – of or pertaining to money
o Surreptitiously (adv)
 To obtain by stealth
o Misanthrope (n)
  A hater of humankind
o Licentious (adj)
 Sexually immoral and unrestrained
o Maundering (adj)
 An aimless confused manner or rambling and foolish way of talking
o Inchoate (adj)
 Not yet completed, incipient, or unorganized
o Nebulous (adj)
 Cloudy, hazy, or vague
o Nefarious (adj)
 Extremely wicked
o Myopic (adj)
 Shortsighted either in vision or in understanding and tolerance/ narrow-
mindness
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