Tues, Feb 12 How the Other Half Lives

Due Friday, Feb 15....Thanatopsis essay.
In class today: introduction to realism in class handout with copy below.
review of Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Lives
Wed, Feb 13 vocabulary quiz on words from other half. class handout (these are the ones you were to have looked up from last Thursday's assignment.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87SCTEsIufY

How the Other Half Lives                by Jacob Riis                      vocabulary     quiz tomorrow

note you will actually have to define the word; it is not matching

1.       promiscuous- (adj) a person having many transient relationships

 

2.       garret- (noun)attic room

 

3.       slovenliness-(adj) marked by negligence

 

4.       cupidity- (noun) greed

 

5.       maxim-(noun) saying

 

6.       to augur- to portend or foretell

 

7.       rumpus- noisy disturbance or commotion

 

8.       perambulate- to walk

 

9.       hegira   - a flight to escape danger

 

10.   turpitude- moral depravity

A Danish-born police reporter with a knack of publicity and an abiding Christian faith, Jacob Riis won international recognition for his 1890 bestseller, “How the Other Half Lives,” which exposed the desperate and squalid conditions of New York City’s tenement slums and gave momentum to a sanitary reform movement that started in the 1840s and culminated in New York State’s landmark Tenement House Act of 1901.
Born in the rural town of Ribe in northern Denmark, Riis immigrated to New York in 1870 and spent five years as an itinerant worker. He turned to journalism in 1873 and was hired in 1877 as a police reporter at The New York Tribune, where he worked until 1890. He began taking photographs in 1888, after the invention of magnesium flash powder in Germany allowed photographic images to be captured in little light. He first began presenting his photographs as lantern slides as part illustrated lectures that were presented as entertainment. Although he viewed his photography as ancillary to his writing, today he is recognized as a important predecessor to social documentarians like Lewis Hine and Dorothea Lange.

 Dorothea Lange   Great Depression                             Lewis Hine  child labor
 He was an entertainer, a self-promoter, an evangelical, and a political conservative who had little faith in the power of government to correct social ills, arguing instead for Christian charity. He held views on race and ethnicity that would be considered offensive today but were consistent with the social Darwinist theories that were in vogue in the late 19th century.

The Realist Movement

 

     Realistic fiction remains popular today, although it may seem strange that is was once controversial.   Realistic writers saw themselves as being in revolt against Romanticism.  Mark Twain wrote an amusing essay whose target was the Romantic writer James Fenimore Cooper.  In The Deerslayer, Twain claimed Cooper “has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115.”  One of these offenses, according to Twain, is that “the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or if they venture a miracle, the author must plausible set it forth to make it look as possible and reasonable.”

     How did Realism originate? There had been Realistic writers in France for some time, notably Honore de Balzac, Stendhal and Gustave Flaubert.  Although these writers and others had great influence, American Realism had roots in this country, in the experiences of war, on the frontier and in the cities.  Science played a part as well.  The objectivity of science struck many writers as a worthy goal for literature.  Just as important, perhaps, was general feeling that Romanticism was wearing thin.  Students still recited romantic poetry and read Romantic novels but many writers believed these works to be old-fashioned.

     A Romantic was limited only by his or her imagination, but a Realist had to find meaning in the commonplace.  To do this, the Realist had to be acutely observant and to lay bare to readers the hidden meanings behind familiar words and actions.  On the other hand, Realistic writers could deal honestly with characters that a Romantic writer would either avoid or gloss over: factory workers, bosses, politicians, gunfighters. The emphasis did not always please the critics, however.  One journalist wrote of Willa Cather’s stories: “If the writers of fiction who use western Nebraska as material would look up now and then and not keep their eyes and noses in the cattle yards, they might be more agreeable company.”  Despite such complaints, Realism held sway, and it remains dominant the present day.

 

Naturalism

 

     Some writers of the period went one step beyond Realism.  Influenced by the French Novelist Emile Zola, a literary movement known as Naturalism developed. According to Zola, a writer must examine people and society objectively and, like a scientist, draw conclusions from what is observed.  In line with this belief, Naturalistic writers view reality as the inescapable working out of natural forces.  One’s destiny, they said, is decided by heredity and environment, physical drives and economic circumstances.  Because they believe people have no control over events, Naturalistic writers tend to be pessimistic.

Only a few major American writers embraced Naturalism. Only a few major American writers embraced Naturalism. One who did was Stephen Crane.  His first novel, Maggie, Girl of the Streets, published in 1893, is the earliest Naturalistic work by an American writer. Jack London’s To Build a Fire presents on of the occurring themes of Naturalism: many at the mercy of the brutal forces of nature.

 

Regionalism

 

The third significant literary movement that developed during the latter part of the nineteenth century was Regionalism.  Through the use of regional dialect and vivid descriptions of the landscape, the Regionalist sought to capture the essence of life in the various different regions of the growing nation.

At its very best, Regional writing transcends the region and becomes part of the national literature. Various reasons have been given to explain the popularity of the local color movement.  Perhaps it was the desire of people throughout the reunited nation to learn more about one another after the discord of the Civil War.  Whatever its cause, the outpouring of local color was remarkable and included such authors as Mark Twain in his early short story The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, the Louisiana writer Kate Chopin, who produced outstanding tales of Creole and Cajun life and Mary Wilkins Freeman, who wrote memorably of rural New England life.

 

Applicable class material:

Realism: (short story) An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

(non-fiction investigative report) How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis

(poem) War is Kind by Stephen Crane

(poem) Think as I Think by Stephen Crane

Naturalism: (short novel) Maggie, Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane

(short novel) Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

 

Regionalism: (excerpt) Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

(short story) A Wagner Matinee by Willa Cather

(short story) The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

(short story) A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett

(short story) Triumph of Ol’ Mis’ Pease by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

(poem collection) Spoon River Anthology- this will be an individual performance

piece.

(poem) Ships that Pass in the Night by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

(poem) We Wear the Mask by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

(poem) When Malindy Sings by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

(poem) Miniver Cheevy by Edwin Arlington Robinson

(poem) Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson