AML 4503

For each of the six passages below (worth 60%), write a coherent response on its significance, especially on how it reflects or is crucial to larger ideas, issues, or tensions in the work from which it has been taken. Do not just paraphrase a passage or convey what would be more or less obvious from just reading it by itself. This is a chance for you to "show off" your complex understanding of the works. Responses should be at least one page, single-spaced (in a "small" bluebook).

(1) Here had been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence. She had returned, therefore, and resumed,--of her own free will, for not the sternest magistrate of that iron period would have imposed it,--resumed the symbol of which we have related so dark a tale.

(2) I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear.

(3) What was it--I paused to think--what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble.... I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down--but with a shudder even more thrilling than before--upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

(4) White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed, and small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; but being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and our successors forever, we disregard them.... They are too pure to have a market value; they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than our characters, are they! We never learned meanness of them. How much fairer than the pool before the farmer's door, in which his ducks swim! Hither the clean wild ducks come.

(5)                                I heard a Fly buzz--when I died--
                                    The Stillness in the Room
                                    Was like the Stillness in the Air--
                                    Between the Heaves of Storm--

                                    The Eyes around--had wrung them dry--
                                    And Breaths were gathering firm
                                    For that last Onset--when the King
                                    Be witnessed--in the Room--

                                    I willed my Keepsakes--Signed away
                                    What portion of me be
                                    Assignable--and then it was
                                    There interposed a Fly--

                                    With Blue--uncertain stumbling Buzz--
                                    Between the light--and me--
                                    And then the Windows failed--and then
                                    I could not see to see--

(6) "How now," he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, "this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring.... What business have I with this pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll smoke no more."

Choose one of the following for the longer essay (worth 40%):

1) Self-reliance, autonomy, or self-absorption in various guises, has been an important theme in many of our writers. Select three or four and discuss how self-reliance and related ideas preoccupy them.

2) Very broadly, Whitman and Thoreau (and their literary progenitor Emerson) express a fairly buoyant form of American Romanticism, whereas Hawthorne, Dickinson, Poe, and Melville present more troubled, "dark" versions of Romanticism. Select three or four writers (one must be either Thoreau or Whitman) and compare key issues and/or techniques relevant to the "light" and "dark" sides of Romanticism.

It will not be an open-book exam. You may, however, bring to class one 3x5 notecard upon which you may write whatever will best jog your memory for the longer essay. I do not recommend that you use quotes (except if you are discussing Dickinson, in which case you may bring xeroxes of selected poems). For comparative essay questions dealing with literature, it is probably best to discuss each work in turn, with comparative points made along the way (i.e., 1st third about Thoreau, 2nd third about Dickinson + comparative points, last third about Melville + comparative points). You may choose either question (given below) for the longer essay part.

My suggestion above about comparative points applies to the take-home exam. The longer essay should be typed, single-spaced, with normal one-inch margins. It should be, approximately, between two and four pages long. Because you get the chance to write it at home, less latitude will be given to stylistic blemishes and rambling. If, in the process, you decide you would rather take the in-class exam, show up at the designated time and take it. The short-passage responses should be roughly 1/4th page long. Keep in mind that although your essay and responses naturally will be informed by class discussion/lecture and my various handouts I do not want you to simply parrot what I have said (especially in the handouts): the phrasing should be your own, and your ideas should indicate thoughtful mastery of the texts.