CHAPTER IV- LITERARY GENRES, TRADITIONS, AND FORMS FROM DIFFERENT

CULTURES, 21st CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE PHILIPPINES AND THE WORLD
(American Literature - 19th and 20th Century)

CRISHA JEAN H. DALIMOCON

JANELLE B. ATAMOSA
 AMERICAN LITERATURE: The 19th and 20th Century

AMERICAN AUTHORS AUTHOR’S FAMOUS WORKS SUMMARY/ANALYSIS REFLECTION

LITERATURE BACKGROUND

William o Born and raised in  Thanatopsis  Thanatopsis is a popular poem by William Cullen  We really enjoyed reading
Cullen Bryant Massachusetts. Bryant which means view on the death in Greek. The Thanatopsis, though it has deep
o Born on November author is trying to comfort others’ fear of death. This meanings. Thanatopsis talks about death
3, 1074 poem speaks of the love of Nature which comforts us in that made it a very interesting topic. For
o An American poet, life and also in death. We come from dust, we dance on us we should not be scared of death
journalist and long time earth for a minute, like snowflakes falling from the sky to because first and foremost we just live in
editor of the New York be absorbed and become part of earth. We will be dead this wonderful world temporarily, with that
evening post longer than we ever live. we need to enjoy every second of it, Since
o Had a strong God created everyone just to live
interest in poetry from a temporarily and die. Because it is part of
very young age human life to die.
Washington o American short  Rip Van  "Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American  Rip Van Winkle has underlying
Irving story writer, essayist, Winkle author Washington Irving, first published in 1819. It messages and motives that are conveyed
biographer, historian and  The Legend follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America in a less serious and almost informal
diplomat. of Sleepy Hollow named Rip Van Winkle who falls asleep in the Catskill manner. We think the message of the
o Born on April 3, Mountains and wakes up 20 years later, having missed story is that you shouldn’t take what you
1783 in Manhattan New the American Revolution. have for granted and treasure every
York moment you are given because you never
19th Century o He served as  "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" begins with a lavish know how truly great you have it until it’s
ambassador to Spain from description of the Hudson Valley and Sleepy Hollow, a gone.
1842 to 1846 charming little hamlet populated by Dutch farmers. Irving
o Died on November contrasts the residents of Sleepy Hollow with his  The legend of sleepy hollow plays
28, 1859 protagonist, Ichabod Crane, a Connecticut schoolteacher with the traditional elements of horror
unfit for physical labor. Ultimately, the central conflict in stories. It is an endearing and charming
the story is that between the country and the city. tale full of good humor, yet it has serious
social implications. It questions whether
change and progress are better than
stability and order. And in the end we are
really curious if the Headless horseman is

Edgar Allan o American writer,
Poe editor, and literary critic
o Born in Boston on
January 19, 1809
o His parents were
David and Elizabeth Poe.
o Died on October
7,1849
o His work the
Sketch book was the first
American work to become
successful internationally.
 The Fall of  In the tale, the narrator visits a childhood friend
the House of Usher who is sick and in need of company. The house is old
 The Cask of and decrepit, and it seems to cause the madness of the
Amontillado last surviving Usher siblings, Roderick and Madeline.
 The Murders When Madeline succumbs to an illness, she is buried in
in the Rue Morgue a house vault, only to return after a premature burial.
Madeline emerges from the vault the night of an intense
storm and collapses on her brother in death. The
narrator flees the house and looks back to see it sink into
a swamp. Rather than convey a lesson, Poe's story
explores gothic elements of the supernatural and evil to
convey this tale of horror.
 “The Cask of Amontillado,” as in many of Poe’s
tales, resides in the lack of evidence that accompanies
Montresor’s claims to Fortunato’s “thousand injuries” and
“insult.” The story features revenge and secret murder as
a way to avoid using legal channels for retribution. Law is
nowhere on Montresor’s or Poe’s radar screen, and the
enduring horror of the story is the fact of punishment
without proof. Montresor uses his subjective experience
of Fortunato’s insult to name himself judge, jury, and
executioner in this tale, which also makes him an
unreliable narrator. Montresor confesses this story fifty
years after its occurrence; such a significant passage of
time between the events and the narration of the events
makes the narrative all the more unreliable. Montresor’s
unreliability overrides the rational consideration of
evidence, such as particular occurrences of insult, that
would necessarily precede any guilty sentence in a non-
Poe world.
 The story opens with the discovery of the violent
murder of an old woman and her daughter. No grisly
real or if it’s just Brom Bones in disguise
 The fall of the house of usher is
an interesting story since it is a scary story
and a suspense one. We think that the
way the author set up the story was
excellent and the way he use almost all of
the literary elements was a perfection.
This challenge of determining what the
words is very helpful with making my
vocabulary bigger.
 The Cask of Amantillado was a
horror story but not that scary. We really
like it since it is a story of revenge, for us
the author wants to convey by this story
was a person with a healthy mind should
have respect for others and for himself.
Though he is proud of himself, but he
should always accept critics and take
them personal as Montressor did. We
should not let anger eat us because it
doesn’t result good.
 For us the message of this story is
that we should always take good care of
our animals or pet, most importantly if it
isn’t a casual pet because it might harm
everyone. We should be a responsible
owner of a certain pets.
 detail is spared in the description of the crime scene as it
is discovered by neighbours responding to the women’s
screams. The police are baffled by the fact that the
murderer has managed to escape even though the
women’s apartment appears to have been completely
sealed from the inside. The genteel but impoverished C.
Auguste Dupin and his nameless friend who narrates the
story offer their services to the police and, through a
brilliant interpretation of the clues at the scene, identify
the murderer an escaped orangutan. In its presentation
of an amateur detective who uses “ratiocination” to solve
an apparently inexplicable mystery, the story shaped a
new genre of fiction, and Dupin’s stamp can be seen
on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Dame
Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, and the protagonists of
dozens of others.
Nathaniel o American novelist,  The Hollow of  The story of the hollow of the three hills has started  The message of the hollow of the
Hawthorne dark romantic, and short the Three Hills with young woman seeking for the help of a withered three hills is running from your problem
story writer  Young hag to learn what has happened to her parents, husband doesn’t make it disappear. One must have
o Born on July 4, Goodman Brown and child whom she abandoned to commit sin. She finds the courage to face the problem and solve
1804, in Salem  The Scarlet that her parents are-broken hearted, her husband it bravely. And also before you decide you
Massachusetts letter distraught and her child dead. In order to witness these must think what will be the result for you to
o Only son of visions the woman must sacrifice her own life. avoid regrets. Also in life one will always
Nathaniel and Elizabeth have regrets and carry guilt for one’s
Clark Hawthorne  "Young Goodman Brown" is a short story published actions. It is a matter of how a person
o Died on May 19, in 1835 by American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. The lives their life after the event which may be
1864 story takes place in 17th century Puritan New England, a important and the woman has paid the
common setting for Hawthorne's works, and addresses price for her actions.
the Calvinist/Puritan belief that all of humanity exists in a
state of depravity, but that God has destined some  We think that young goodman
to unconditional election through unmerited grace. brown wanted to tell us that life is more
Hawthorne frequently focuses on the tensions within than what we see, life can be much more
Puritan culture, yet steeps his stories in the Puritan complex than what we see in plain view.
sense of sin. In a symbolic fashion, the story follows Also everyone has a dark and evil side to
Young Goodman Brown's journey into self-scrutiny, his or her nature.
which results in his loss of virtue and belief.
  The scarlet letter tells us that if we
 The novel is set in a village in Puritan New commit sins, we should confess it or it will
England. The main character is Hester Prynne, a young grow and fester. Secret sin leads to guilt
woman who has borne a child out of wedlock. Hester and pain. And we must always be honest
believes herself a widow, but her husband, Roger and true to ourselves.
Chillingworth, arrives in New England very much alive
and conceals his identity. He finds his wife forced to
wear the scarlet letter A on her dress as punishment for
her adultery. After Hester refuses to name her lover,
Chillingworth becomes obsessed with finding his identity.
When he learns that the man in question is Arthur
Dimmesdale, a saintly young minister who is the leader
of those exhorting her to name the child’s father,
Chillingworth proceeds to torment him. Stricken by guilt,
Dimmesdale becomes increasingly ill. Hester herself is
revealed to be a self-reliant heroine who is never truly
repentant for committing adultery with the minister; she
feels that their act was consecrated by their deep love for
each other. Although she is initially scorned, over time
her compassion and dignity silence many of her critics.
In the end, Chillingworth is morally degraded by his
monomaniacal pursuit of revenge. Dimmesdale is broken
by his own sense of guilt, and he publicly confesses his
adultery before dying in Hester’s arms. Only Hester can
face the future bravely, as she prepares to begin a new
life with her daughter, Pearl, in Europe. Years later
Hester returns to New England, where she continues to
wear the scarlet letter. After her death she is buried next
to Dimmesdale, and their joint tombstone is inscribed
with “ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES.”
Walt Whitman o Full name is Walter  O Captain!  "O Captain! My Captain!" is an extended  The poem may seem as simple as
Whitman My Captain! (Leaves metaphor poem written in 1865 by Walt Whitman, about a ship with an admirable captain who
o American poet, of Grass) the death of American president Abraham Lincoln. The passes away, but Walt Whitman wrote
journalist, and essayist poem was first published in the pamphlet Sequel to “Oh Captain! My Caption!” with a more
o Became well- Drum-Taps which assembled 18 poems regarding the complex meaning. It was really sad that
known for Leaves of American Civil War, including another Lincoln elegy, the poem emphasizes grief and sorrow.
 Grass a poetry collection "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". It was Also when the speaker says that the
o Born on May 31, included in Whitman's comprehensive collection Leaves anchored ship is safe and sound, maybe
1819, West Hills, Long of Grass beginning with its fourth edition published in the author refers to the country being out
Island, New York, U.S. 1867. of war and in a state of peace.
o Died on March 26,
1892, Camden, New
Jersey
Emily o Her full name is  Success is  The poem's three unemotional quatrains are  The poem is really interesting. It
Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Counted Sweetest written in iambic trimeter with only line 5 in iambic conveys how someone can truly feel
Dickinson (Poems by Emily tetrameter. Lines 1 and 3 (and others) end with extra success. It acknowledge the real value of
o American poet Dickinson) syllables. The rhyme scheme is abcb. The poem's success, in which accepting your defeat.
o Wrote odd poems, "success" theme is treated paradoxically: Only those who With that we should not let failure eat us
with imperfect rhymes know defeat can truly appreciate success. Alliteration instead we should make it as a motivation
and irregular rhythms. enhances the poem's lyricism. The first stanza is a it self to succeed.
o Born on December complete observation and can stand alone. Stanzas two
10, 1830 and three introduce military images (a captured flag, a
o She died in victorious army, a dying warrior) and are dependent
Amherst in May 15, 1886. upon one another for complete understanding.

Robert Frost o Born on March 26,  Mending Wall  Written in 1914, Mending Wall is a poem in blank  Mending wall tells us that we
1874in San Francisco,  The Road Not verse that remains relevant for these uncertain times. It should not create a barriers between
California Taken involves two rural neighbours who one spring day meet others just because of our different
o Became famous for  After Apple- to walk along the wall that separates their properties and approach in life. People should know how
his poetry’s engagement Picking repair it where needed. The speaker in the poem is a to interact with other individual that
with New England progressive individual who starts to question the need for surrounds them. Because human needs
locales, identities and such a wall in the first place. The neighbor beyond the each other to survive.
themes hill is a traditionalist and has, it seems, little time for such
20th Century o Frost was the most nonsense. A wall may seem useful in the countryside as  The Road Not Taken taught us on
widely admired and it could help keep livestock safe and secure and mark a how one decision can change a person’s
highly honoured definite boundary. But a wall that separates village from life. Everyone of us must choose carefully
American poet of the village, city from city, country from country, people from on what path we want to take, and with
20th century people, family from family that's a completely different that we will not have regrets in the end.
scenario.
 The after apple-picking talks
 Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” follows a about the relationship of human and the
traveler in the woods. He arrives at a fork in the road and natural worlds. And also it tells us that if
hesitates while deciding which path to take. While the you wanted to do something then don’t
decision seems significant and irreversibl, he realizes hesitate to do it. People should not waste
that the two paths are essentially the same, resulting in their lives by impressing others instead
an ironic “sigh” at the poem’s end. While walking, the they should focus on achieving their goals
speaker arrives at a place where “Two roads diverged in and dreams.
a yellow wood.”The speaker evaluates the two paths.
One appears less trodden on, but further inspection
reveals that they are “really about the same.”He chooses
the second path, having “kept the first for another day,”
but he quickly acknowledges that he will never come
back.He reflects that one day he will tell this story “with a
sigh” and declare that he “took the road less travelled by.
And that has made all the difference,” despite the two
roads being identical.

 At the end of a long day of apple picking, the

narrator is tired and thinks about his day. He has felt
sleepy and even trance-like since the early morning,
when he looked at the apple trees through a thin sheet of
ice that he lifted from the drinking trough. He feels
himself beginning to dream but cannot escape the
thought of his apples even in sleep: he sees visions of
apples growing from blossoms, falling off trees, and
piling up in the cellar. As he gives himself over to sleep,
he wonders if it is the normal sleep of a tired man or the
deep winter sleep of death.In terms of form, this poem is
bizarre because it weaves in and out of traditional
structure. Approximately twenty-five of the forty-two lines
are written in standard iambic pentameter, and there are
twenty end-rhymes throughout the poem. This wandering
structure allows Frost to emphasize the sense of moving
between a waking and dream-like state, just as the
narrator does. The repetition of the term “sleep,” even
after its paired rhyme (“heap”) has long been forgotten,
also highlights the narrator’s gradual descent into
 dreaming.In some respects, this poem is simply about
apple picking. After a hard day of work, the apple farmer
completely fatigued but is still unable to escape the
mental act of picking apples: he still sees the apples in
front of him, still feels the ache in his foot as if he is
standing on a ladder, still bemoans the fate of the
flawless apples that fall to the ground and must be
consigned to the cider press.
E.E. o Edward Estlin  Since Feeling  The speaker in the poem is a lover and the lady in  The poem tells that life is
Cunnings “E.E.” Cummings, often is First line 10 is his beloved, whom he is trying to convince to complicated and cannot be captured in
styled as e.e. Cummings kiss him, laugh and lean in his arms. As the speaker writing. People should not be worried in
o American poet, focuses on the feelings than the conventional correct finding structure and order in life. It also
painter, essayist, author behavior, he persuades his lady to pay attention on the tells us that love is more important than
and a playwright love not on the norms. With this point, the lover intellect. The poems implied that one must
o Known for his convinces her that those who pays attention to those follow his/her heart than following his
unconventional unnecessary norms will never be able to kiss wholly and mind.
punctuation and deeply with love. He is sure that kisses which symbolizes
phrasing. love here is a better fate than the knowledge of the social
o Born on October norms and values. The lover speaker is of the view that
14, 1894 when the Spring season which is the season of newness
o Died on September and freshness, fertility and production, is here his
3, 1962 beloved should not cry and fully enjoy the season with
love and kisses. He feels secure and confirmed that
when her eyelids flutter they convey the message of their
love being one. He justifies himself by metaphorically
presenting life and death as something unchangeable.
He compares life inversely with a paragraph. It is not like
a paragraph which we can change when the idea
changes, nor is the death parenthesis. The inverse
comparison of death with parenthesis presents death as
something unavoidable. Since his life is unchangeable
and death is sure to come, why hesitate to celebrate love
and fall in love.

Ezra Pound o American poet and  A Virginal  The speaker of this poem is a man shouting at  The poems tells us that women
critic, and a major figure  Exile’s Letter someone, most likely a woman, because he already has should value their virginity so much
in the early modernist (Lustra) a virgin lover who has "bound [him] straitly." He says he because it’s a sign of their purity and
 poetry movement will not spoil this happiness by loving another, then goes cleanliness. Women should preserve it
o Born on October on to describe his love, the magic surrounding her, and until the right man will show up and bring
30, 1885 what she has done to him. He is adamant, and in the him to the altar. Because we believe that
o Leader of the second half of the poem, he tells the first woman to go the best gift you can give to your husband
Imagist, who emphasized away again because she will never be as good as his is your virginity.
the use of direct and virgin girl.
sparse language and  Exile’s letter tells us the sadness
precise images in writing  Exile’s letter is the volume of Chinese poems of being away from your friend. At this
poetry translated by Ezra Pound from the manuscripts of Ernest moment we realized how blessed we are
Fenollosa. The book's widely-applauded publication that we have our friend which are near to
prompted T.S. Eliot to remark that Pound had us, where we can share our problems in
"reinvented Chinese poetry for our time. “Exile’s Letter” life.
has this universal simplicity (“There is no end of things in
the heart”). It is about the sadness of parting from dear
friends. As someone who was himself often living far
from writer-friends, Pound knew all about the exquisite
melancholy of leave-taking.
Sherwood o American novelist  Winesburg  His iconic work Winesburg, Ohio, a kind of novel  Winesburg Ohio illustrate that shift
Anderson and short story writer Ohio made up of 22 related short stories, is a portrait of many in perspective from rural to city life, from
o Known for  Death in characters in small-town America. What is really distinct pre- to post-war mentality and from
subjective and self- Woods about this work is that during this time of nostalgia, idealism to gritty reality.
revealing works Sherwood Anderson paints a very different picture of the
o Born on September heartland existence - one that is individual in its struggle  Death in the woods made us
13, 1876 with loneliness and isolation. In that sense, Anderson realize that we are very blessed to have
o Wrote prose using takes this all-American ideal and exposes it as a writer of an easy life. It taught us to be grateful with
everyday speech the lost generation might, with a spotlight on the gritty our parents and guardians who never
reality that defines it. Why is this so important? Well, leave us and providing what we need.
Anderson is really representative of writers of the time
period, influenced by the changing world and a sense of
helplessness and loss with the changes brought on by
industrialization and WWI. What he chose to do was
focus this writing lens, for the first time, on middle
America.
 Mrs. Grimes lived a tough life. Born an orphan,
she's forced into indentured servitude at a young age.
Eventually, she's rescued by Jake Grimes, but that ends
 up being like going from the frying pan into the fire:
Jake's a drunk, a thief, and an abusive husband. They
have a son. When the story begins, the two Grimes men
(we'll call them "The Grimers" for short) have just gone
off on one of their booze-soaked crime sprees. That
leaves poor Mrs. Grimes home alone to fend for herself.
Oh yeah, and did we mention that it's the dead of winter?
We open on Mrs. Grimes slowly walking towards town
with her bone-thin dogs, eager to trade her few eggs for
some meat and grain. After getting a surprisingly large
load, she cuts through the woods to get home faster. But
it's getting colder now. She sits up against a tree to rest,
but falls asleep. Time passes and she dies. The dogs
surround her, then tear at her pack and eat the food.
Afterwards, they drag her body into a clearing,
accidentally tearing her clothes off in the process. The
body is discovered a few days later. A group of
townsmen investigates and finds the body naked and
frozen stiff, The narrator is so moved by the sight that he
becomes obsessed with learning the old woman's story.
Now, what he's told us might not exactly be accurate, but
it's certainly an accurate reflection of what women like
Mrs. Grimes endure every day.
Ernest o Born on July 21,  The Killers  Two killers invade the small town of Summit and  The story tells us that we should
Hemingway 1899  The short hold Nick and others hostage in a diner while they wait to always be careful with those who we
o He committed Happy Life of kill Ole Andreson, a former boxer from Chicago with a interact with. And we should always be
suicide on July 2, 1961 Francis Macomber murky past. Once the killers leave without their quarry, alert because living in this generation is
o Known for his Nick volunteers, at the risk of his own life, to go to very harmful. Each one of us should be
succinct writing which Andreson’s boarding-house and warn him of the killers’ careful and take good care of ourselves
was widely imitated. presence. Andreson is unsurprised and resigned to his since there are people who doesn’t do
o His writing was fate, and Nick returns to the diner depressed at the good, which can harm us.
very straightforward and contemplation of Andreson’s impending death.“The
objective Killers” is the story of Nick Adams’s coming-of-age  In the story we can clearly see
through a showing of heroism and his ultimate that Macombre didn’t have a loving
disillusionment as his courage fails to make a difference. relationship, despite being married. We
Throughout the story, and according to Hemingway are really sad in the ending of the story
critics, it is clear that Nick is an adolescent. Indeed, the because his life ended because of the
killers make persistent references to Nick as a “bright woman who repeatedly causes him grief.
boy,” and the implication that Nick has not yet crossed
into manhood is unmistakable. When the killers leave,
George urges Nick to warn Andreson and Sam warns
him not to; apparently both men are too afraid to go
themselves, and the fact that Nick knows the risks but
goes anyway is a testament to his courage and an
indication of the fact that he came of age in that moment.

 It is noon. Francis Macomber is on an African

safari; Macomber is thirty-five years old, a trim, fit man
who holds a number of big-game fishing records.
However, at the moment, he has just demonstrated that
he is a coward. However, members of the safari are
acting as though "nothing had happened." The natives at
camp carried Macomber into camp triumphantly, but the
gun-bearers who witnessed Macomber's cowardice do
not participate in the celebration. In a flashback, the
reader realizes that Macomber and his beautiful wife,
Margot, are wealthy Americans, and that this jaunt is
their first safari — and that Macomber, when faced with
his first lion, bolted and fled, earning the contempt of his
wife. Of course, though, she has been contemptuous of
him for some time; Francis' running from the lion like a
scared rabbit has only increased her dislike for her
unmanly husband. She makes no secret of this as she
slips off in the middle of the night for a rendezvous with
the safari guide, Robert Wilson. Next day, as she
observes Francis gaining a measure of courage as he
engages in a standoff with a charging water buffalo, she
realizes that if Francis continues to prove himself strong
and willful and courageous, he might leave her and rid
himself forever of her sharp-tongued ridicule. As the
standoff with the second water buffalo becomes more
intense as the water buffalo's horns inch closer and

Allen o Born on June 3,
Ginsberg 1926 at Newark, New
Jersey, U.S.
o American poet
o One of the Beats
poet, who aimed to bring
poetry back to the streets
o He died on April 5,
1997, at age 70
Anne Sexton o Born on November
9, 1928 Die (Live or Die)
o American poet
o Sexton died by her
own hand
o Died on October 4,
1974
closer to goring Francis, Margot takes aim at the water
buffalo, shooting Francis in the back of the head, and he
dies at the most courageous moment of his "short happy
life."
 Howl  The title Howl indicates protest as cry, cry for all  This poem tells us that everyone
exploitation, repression and subjugation. The poet asks of us should be aware on what is
people to cry against capitalism, exploitation, repression happening in our nation. We people
and subjugation. This poem, 'Howl' stands as the should open our eyes in our own
celebration of counter culture movement. Howl presents government, we should not be fooled by
a picture of a nightmare world and as some reviews the officials. We should our freedom for
predicted, the wasteland of its generation. The our country’s growth.
movement of Howl is from protest, pain, outage, attack
and lamentation to acceptance, affirmation, love and
vision-from alienation to communion. The poet descends
into an underworld of darkness, suffering and isolation
and then ascends into spiritual knowledge, blessedness,
achieved vision, and a sense of union with the human
community and with God. The poem is unified with and
the movement carried forward by resuming images of
falling and rising, destruction and regeneration,
starvation, under-nourishment, sleeping and waking,
darkness and illumination, blindness and sight, death
and resurrection. In Howl Ginsberg describes the
desperation, the suffering and the persecution of a group
of outcast, including himself who are seeking
transcendent reality.
 Wanting to  “Wanting to Die” is a short poem in free verse that  Probably Anne Sxton wrote this
divides its thirty-three lines into eleven tercets (three-line poem for her own. Maybe it was written
stanzas). Because it is written in the first person and is because the person who wrote just
conversational in form, this poem has been described as wanted to die for all the pain to go away.
one of Anne Sexton’s literary suicide notes. Because it We are really sad reading this poem. It is
presents a speaker attempting to explain to a sad because many people kill themselves
sympathetic listener why she wants to kill herself, some just because they want to end the
critics have also suggested that it reads like a discussion problems are facing, but I guess it is not
between Sexton and her psychiatrist. The use of the first the solution, we just need to communicate
person in a poem often causes readers to assume that with our father heaven tell him everything
the poet’s voice and the speaker’s voice are the same an and we are sure that he will gladly help us.
assumption that, while often erroneous, holds true for
this work. Besides being suicidal herself, Sexton often
used letters or personal reminiscences as the
foundations for her writing.