About Exam:

Could last 90 minutes, but if well-prepared, it is possible to do it in 50-60 minutes.

The first (quiz part) will be the entry (6 points out of 10 are needed to get to second part).
Important that the whole narrative shall be referred to and if examples are asked to add them

Part I characteristics 5 terms and 5 authors. Make 5 pairs and explain connection between the two
elements (10 points)

1. Edgar Allan Poe – gothic: Many of Poe’s works have gothic elements
2. Gothic - Legend of Sleepy Hollow - gothic elements of supernatural
3. John Winthrop – Puritanism: J.W. was one of the first most important figures of
Puritanism in New England.
4. The Declaration of Independence – Thomas Jefferson = Thomas Jefferson is author of
the Declaration of Independence
5. noble savage - James Fennimore Cooper = Cooper depicts native Americans as noble
savages, but as interior to white people
6. Civil Disobedience – David Thoreau – one of his primary works in his refusal to pay tax
7. Free verse – Walt Whitman – father of free verse in American poetry
8. Arbella – John Winthrop – he was one of passenger of Arbella, one of four ships which
bring settlers to New England
9. Ralph Waldo Emerson - The dial - The literary organ of the American Transcendental
movement coedited by Fuller and Emerson.
10. Anne Hutchinson - Antinomian controversy - A theological dispute in Boston by Anne
Hutchinson in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
11. Slave narrative - Linda Brent – pseudonym of Harriet Ann Jacobs, slave narrator, in
autobiographical narrative ‘Life of a Slave Girl’
12. Slave narrative - Frederick Douglass - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an
American Slave
13. Frontier - James Fennimore Cooper – Cooper’s The pioneers (1823) first true frontier
novel; first major writer of the Frontier
14. Mark Twain - picaresque - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a picaresque novel
15. The noble savage – frontier - James Fennimore Cooper; basic motif in the frontier
narratives is the noble savage; Cooper often depicts the Native Americans through the
stereotype of the noble savage
16. Elegy - Whitman: Lilacs - A mournful, melancholy poem, especially a funeral song or
lament for the dead or a personal, reflective poem. Elegy on the death of Abraham Lincoln
‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’
17. The birth-mark (1843) – implicit feminism - Nathaniel Hawthorne - woman’s identity is a
product of man’s responses to her.
18. Captivity narrative - Mary Rowlandson's memoir A Narrative of the Captivity and
Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is a classic example of the genre
19. Ralph Waldo Emerson – jeremiad – Emerson’s essays are written in secularized
jeremiad style: emotional, passionate, sermon; glorious past, women and men were close
to God
20. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" - jeremiad style – sermon by Jonathan
Edwards ; glorious past, women and men were close to God
21. Roger Williams – separatist, he believed that Puritans must break with the Church of
England; A key the Language of America – 1st book on colonies
22. Bay Psalm Book- Roger Williams - The Whole Book of Psalmes Faithfully Translated
into English Metre (1640), was the first book printed on Anglo-American, and the whole
effort of the divines who wrote furiously to set forth their views—among them Roger
Williams and Thomas Hooker—was to defend and promote visions of the religious state.
23. Covenant of works- Puritanism - Covenants were important in the religious communities
of the Puritans in early New England (rules which can’t be broken). Puritans argued that
Adam broke the "Covenant of Works" . Pro community.
24. Personal Narrative (1743) – conversion narratives - personal conversion experience by
Jonathan Edwards
25. Manifest destiny - Bret Harte – Bret’s career coincided with the opening of the West by
the Transcontinental Railroad, the West always embodied a kind of dream, 'America's
manifest destiny;
26. Manifest destiny - James Fenimore Cooper - idealization of nature and wilderness
(repeats “manifest destiny”)
27. Predestination and preparationism – puritanism – their lives were decided from the
beginning and they were destined to be saved
28. City upon a hill – Winthrop – term invoked by Puritan leader John Winthrop – biblical
Jerusalem
29. The Age of Reason- Thomas Paine - A pamphlet written by him;
30. Age of reason – Enlightenment – it is the same thing
31. Jonathan Edwards - Pietism / the Great Awakening – Edwards central figure of pietism,
advocate of pietism.
32. Pietism / the Great Awakening - ‘A faithful narrative of the surprising work of God ‘
histories of the pietist movement by Jonathan Edwards
33. Enlightenment – Deism – deism one of main concepts of enlightenment; “God exists but
he doesn’t influence our lives”
34. Poor Richard’s Almanack – Benjamin Franklin – yearly calendar with useful information
written by Benjamin Franklin
35. Common sense - Thomas Paine – he is an author of this pamphlet; independence;
separation from Britain
36. Hudson River school - pastoral – artists of this school depicted pastoral landscapes of
America; Hudson River school - frontier – depicted views of the American frontier
37. James Fenimore Cooper – romance – Cooper has romantic, adventure narratives;
Nathaniel Hawthorne – romance - The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven
Gables (1851),The Blithedale Romance (1852) are all romances
38. Daniel Boone - Nathaniel “Natty” Bumppo – Natty modelled on Daniel Boone, Natty
protagonist of the Leatherstocking-novels 2 by James Fenimore Cooper
39. Arabesque-Poe: Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque: Arabesque-Poe – Poe used
arabesque pattern
40. Doppelganger – Poe - In The Fall of the House of Usher - twins doppelgangers
paranormal double
41. Arabesque- Doppelganger – Narrative ellipsis - symbol, device and pattern used by
Poe
42. Narrative ellipsis – Poe, In The Fall of the House of Usher used this literary device for
creating gaps or omissions.
43. Brook farm – transcendentalism - Utopian outlook –based on transcendentalism values;
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Brook farm - Hawthorne joined Brook farm but left shortly
44. Transcendental Club - transcendentalism - a group of American intellectuals who met
informally for philosophical discussion at Emerson's house; Transcendental Club - The
dial – club’s literary organ was the Dial
45. Ralph Waldo Emerson – Transparent eyeball – the way of perception of nature
explained by Emerson in his essay Nature
46. Ralph Waldo Emerson- Self-Reliance - his essay: The individual is more important than
the society.
47. Woman in the nineteenth century – treatise - America's first treatise: Woman in the
nineteenth century - Margaret Fuller - Book by women's rights advocate Margaret Fuller;
Woman in the nineteenth century – The Dial - Originally published in July 1843 in The
Dial magazine as The Great Lawsuit; Margaret Fuller was co-editor of The Dial
48. Civil Disobedience – David Thoreau - Self- reliant individual, Abolitionism
49. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne – allegory - genre of romance allegory;
ambiguity of allegory - not necessarily a one-to-one relationship with the symbol
50. rite of passage - Walden - Henry David Thoreau - Journey into the wilderness as rite of
passage
51. Moby Dick - Herman Melville – allegory – ship as America
52. Rite of passage - Moby Dick – hero’s life transition
 53. Transcendentalism - self-reliant - self-reliance and independency are principles of this
philosophic movement
54. Quest narrative – Moby dick – Herman Melville – hero gets through obstacles to
continue his journey
55. Abolitionism – John Adam – he was strong abolitionist
56. Abolitionism – American Renaissance – abolitionism is a prolific output in this period
57. Abolitionism - Transcendentalism –– abolitionism one of general traits of
transcendentalism
58. Abolitionism - David Thoreau - Civil Disobedience
59. Abolitionism - Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom's cabin or the man that was a
thing - issue, more specifically the cause of Abolitionism
60. Abolitionism – slave narratives - abolitionism is one of aims of slave narratives
61. Abolitionism – Frederick Douglass - became involved in abolitionism (lectures, one of its
leading figures)
62. Abolitionism – Walt Whitman – in his works he called for the abolition of slavery
63. Underground Railroad-Fugitive Slave Acts - A system existing in the Northern states
before the Civil War by which escaped slaves from the South were secretly helped by
sympathetic Northerners, in against of the Fugitive Slave Acts, to reach places of safety in
the North or in Canada
64. Sentimental novel - Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom's Cabin is a sentimental novel
65. Leaves of grass - deathbed edition – edition in 1892, 400 poems of Walt Whitman
66. Free verse - Leaves of grass - Walt Whitman – collection of free verse poetry
67. Master letters – Emily Dickinson - a series of three letters drafted by Emily Dickinson to
someone she called “Master”.
68. Slant rhyme - Emily Dickinson - was famous for using slant rhymes, words end with
similar sounds but don't rhyme
69. Regionalism - Sarah Orne Jewett : The White Heron – is regional type of literature work
70. Regionalism - Kate Chopin: Cajun culture – is regional type of literature work
71. Psychological realism - Henry James: The ultimate in psychological realism is the use of
the stream of consciousness. This genre is associated mainly with American novelist
Henry James, who used his fiction to explore family relationships, romantic desires,
and small-scale power struggles in painstaking detail (Daisy Miller, The Turn of the Screw).
72. Realism – Mark Twain - For Twain and other American writers of the late 19th century,
realism was not merely a literary technique: It was a way of speaking truth and exploding
worn-out conventions.
73. Realism – Triffles – Susan Glaspel uses techniques of Realism in Trifles
74. Unreliable narrator - Benito Cereno – generally unreliable narrator , the only reliable
narrator is Babo (silence)
75. Unreliable narrator - The Fall of the House of Usher – unnamed unreliable narrator
“utter depression of soul”; Roderick addresses him as a madman.
76. Unreliable narrator – Yellow wallpaper –Charlotte Perkins Gilman - narrator
(protagonist) has a tendency to change her mind quite regularly, also, her 'illness' makes
her an unreliable narrator: it is making her a different person.
77. Unreliable narrator – Huckleberry Finn – Huck is inexperience, this is makes him an
unreliable narrator, he presents different stories about himself
78. Unreliable narrator – Turn of the screw – Henry James - Douglas , initial narrator,
describes the governess as 'young, untried, nervous'
79. Cult of Domesticity - feminism - Nineteenth-century, middle-class American women saw
their behavior regulated by a social system known today as the cult of domesticity. This
value system emphasized new ideas of femininity, the woman's role within the home and
the dynamics of work and family. "True women" were supposed to possess four cardinal
virtues: piety, purity, domesticity, and submissivenes

PART II

Below you will find six excerpts from the texts in the required readings list. Read them and
answer questions in connection with them (45 point).
Example:
We had now fair sunshine weather, and so pleasant a sweet air as did much refresh us, and there
came a smell off the shore like the smell of a garden. There came a wild pigeon into our ship, and
another small land bird. []
“At Watertown there was (in the view of divers witnesses) a great combat between a mouse and a
snake; and, after a long fight, the mouse prevailed and killed the snake. The pastor of Boston, Mr.
Wilson, a very sincere, holy man, hearing of it, gave this interpretation: That the snake was the
devil; the mouse was a poor contemptible people, which God had brought hither, which should
overcome Satan here, and dispossess him of his kingdom. Upon the same occasion, he told the
governor [Winthrop], that before he was resolved to come into this country, he dreamed he was
here, and that he saw a church arise out of the earth, which grew up and became a marvelous
goodly church.” [ ]
i. Give the name and the title of the text: Winthrop’s Journal: History of New England
ii. Which religious movement is the author associated with: Puritanism
iii. How was America seen by the followers of this movement, and what didthey regard as
their mission? Support your arguments with images from the text.
America as promised land, New Jerusalem, Paradise. Images: Pigeon (the Flood, Old
Testament: garden- Paradise)

II.1. ‘On the tenth of February 1675, Came the Indians with great numbers upon Lancaster:
Their first coming was about Sun-rising; hearing the noise of some Guns, we looked out; several
Houses were burning, and the Smoke ascending to Heaven. There were five persons taken in one
house, the Father, and the Mother and a sucking Child, they knockt on the head; the other two
they took and carried away alive. Their were two others, who being out of their Garison upon
some occasion were set upon; one was knockt on the head, the other escaped: Another their was
who running along was shot and wounded, and fell down; he begged of them his life, promising
them Money (as they told me) but they would not hearken to him but knockt him in head, and stript
him naked, and split open his Bowels. Another seeing many of the Indians about his Barn,
ventured and went out, but was quickly shot down. There were three others belonging to the same
Garison who were killed; the Indians getting up upon the roof of the Barn, had advantage to shoot
down upon them over their Fortification. Thus these murtherous wretches went on, burning, and
destroying before them.’

i. Give the author and title of the text:

Captivity Narrative of a Colonial Woman by Mary Rowlandson

ii. What are the ‘chapters’ of the text called

‘First Remove, Second Remove…’ places where Mrs Rowlandson has to go with
Native American

iii. What genre does the narrative belongs to?

Captivity narrative

iv. Explain the term ‘rite of passage’ in connection with this passage?
Rite of passage is the transfer from one social or religious status to another and return
back. Same process happens to protagonist.

II.2 “Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at the happy age when a man can do
nothing with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench, at the inn door, and was
reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and  a chronicle of the old times “before the
war.” It was some time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or could be made to
comprehend the strange events that had taken place during his torpor. How that there had been a
Revolutionary war, that the country had thrown off the yoke of old England, and that, instead of
being subject of his Majesty George the Third, he was now a free citizen of the United States.”
 i. Give the author and title of the text:

Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving

ii. Give two examples for the gothic genre from the text (you can use the whole
story)
Rip hears his name echoing in the woods, but can “see nothing but a crow
winging its solitary flight across the mountain,”; depiction of the nature,
landscapes; Rip Van Winkle sleep for twenty years
iii. Explain the term ‘twice-told tale’ in connection with the story:
Critics argue that Washington Irving plagiarized J. C.C.N. Otmar’s German
folk tale; “Peter Klaus”, Ir Irving believed that this meant that such tales were
open to public interpretation and free to change according to one’s own
artistic license. Irving believed that such tales were open to public
interpretation and free to change according to one’s own artistic license.

On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen the old man of the glen.
He rubbed his eyes—it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among
the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. “Surely,”
thought Rip, “I have not slept here all night.” He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep.
The strange man with a keg of liquor—the mountain ravine—the wild retreat among the rocks—
the woe-begone party at ninepins—the flagon—“Oh! that flagon! that wicked flagon!” thought Rip
—“what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle!”

iv. Explain the term pastoral in connection of the text? “The birds were hopping
and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and
breasting the pure mountain breeze” – pastoral depiction of Nature.

II.3. ‘In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, —
no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare
ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism
vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal
Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.’

i. Give the author and title of the text:

Nature by Ralph Emerson
ii. What philosophical movement was it part of?
Transcendentalism
iii. Give two basic principles of this philosophical movement:

Self-relience, Individualism

II.5.

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, With those same Boots of Lead, again,

And Mourners to and fro Then Space - began to toll,
Kept treading - treading - till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through - As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And when they all were seated, And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
A Service, like a Drum - Wrecked, solitary, here -
Kept beating - beating - till I thought
My mind was going numb - And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down -
And then I heard them lift a Box And hit a World, at every plunge,
And creak across my Soul And Finished knowing - then -
 i. Give the author’s name and the title of the text

Emily Dickinson, I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

ii. List four characteristics of the poetry style:

- no title; no date; uses very short lines; unusual metaphors; punctuation – dashes instead of
commas, slant rhyme

iii. What is the main theme of the poem:

Physical death
iv. How does the poet express this theme? Give two examples.

‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain..’, ‘Kept beating - beating - till I thought /My mind was going numb –‘ – I
am death but I still can hear, my mind can recognize, my soul can feel.

II.6. ‘What is the matter?" he cried. "For God's sake, what are you doing?"
I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder.
"I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane! And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you
can't put me back!"
Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I
had to creep over him every time!’

i. Give the author’s name and title of the text:

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper”
ii. In what sense could you call the protagonist an ‘unreliable narrator’
Protagonist is the mad woman
iii. The central image of the a person trapped somewhere: where is the person trapped
and how is the image symbolize the situation of American woman in the 19th century?
Image of woman is trapped in Yellow wallpaper. It symbolizes woman of the 19th
century ‘trapped’ in marriage.

Old test questions answers:

1. Rip Van Winkle – fall asleep and sleeps through the War of Independence
2. R.W.Emerson – was also famous lecturer on Transcendentalism
3. “"The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an
occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and
unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the
storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its
effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I
deemed I was thinking justly or doing right." - Emerson , Nature
4. "A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with
us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life
itself." Henry David Thoreau, Walden
5. ‘His steadiness, his freedom from all dissipation, his incessant industry (except
when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind his screen), his great
stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under all circumstances, made him a
valuable acquisition. One prime thing was this,—he was always there;—first in the
morning, continually through the day, and the last at night. I had a singular
confidence in his honesty. I felt my most precious papers perfectly safe in his
hands.’ – Merville, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street

II.7

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

i. Give the author’s name and title of the text:

To My Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet
ii. Religion movement author associated with:
Puritanism
iii. How this religious movement see the poetry as a genre?
controversial; generally they dislike poetry because of emotions; too monumental
iv. How is the religious background reflected in the poetry of the author?
Depict herself as a devoted wife and mother, The Puritans believed that since marriage
is ordained by God, then it is a gift from God. She loves her gift so much that through
the use of her poetry, she is able to express her love for God's gift to her husband; In
the poem “Upon the Burning of Our House” she wants to show that earthly possessions
don't really matter

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile
from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord,
Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and
two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.[]

But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for
compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old
book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It
is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before[]

The very simplicity and nakedness of man's life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at least,
that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep, he
contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and was either
threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain-tops. But lo! men have
become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was
hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no
longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven.

i. Give the author’s name and title of the text:

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

ii. Explain how he contrasts live in a developing industrial society with older forms of living,
closer to nature? - HAVE NO IDEA 

iii. Name two authors and one work by each show an influence of the movement?

 Emerson Representative man (1850)

 Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter (1850), The house of the seven Gables (1851), Blithedale
Romance (1852)
 Melville White Jacket (1850), Moby-Dick (1851),and Pierre (1852)
  Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
 Walt Whitman first version of Leaves of Grass (1855

Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the
A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters.
Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs.
Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe,
to teach a slave to read.[] From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.

i. Give the author’s name and title of the text:

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave,
Written by Himself
ii. What are the group of text call that this one belongs to?
Slave narratives
iii. Explain the term “quest narrative” in connection with the text?
‘…unsafe, to teach a slave to read ‘,‘I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom’
hero gets through obstacles in order to achieve manhood and freedom

iv. The text describes one of the turning points in the narrator’s life. What is the other
“event” he frequently refers to as instrumental to his coming of age?
“I look upon my departure from Colonel Lloyd's plantation as one of the most
interesting events of my life”

After great pain, a formal feeling comes --

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs
The stiff Heart questions, was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round --

Of Ground, or Air, or Ought --
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone --

This is the Hour of Lead --

Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow --
First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go – 

i. Give the author’s name and title of the text:

‘After great pain, a formal feeling comes’ by Emily Dickinson
ii. What do you think is the main theme of the poem?
Pain and sorrow after probably shock or stress, and then realization of this pain and
probably loss of someone - If this is truly happening to them and also how long they've
been experiencing the numbness; and then acceptance of what happened
iii. What express this theme? Give two examples:
‘The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs’ - feeling after serious mental trauma
and then acceptance of what happened ‘As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow --/
First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go –‘
MRS HALE: (_not as if answering that_) I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster
when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the
choir and sang. (_a look around the room_) Oh, I _wish_ I'd come over
here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to
punish that?
MRS PETERS: (_looking upstairs_) We mustn't--take on.
MRS HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things can
be--for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs Peters. We live close
together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things--it's
all just a different kind of the same thing, (_brushes her eyes,
noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it_) If I was you, I
wouldn't tell her fruit was gone. Tell her it _ain't_. Tell her it's
all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She--she may never know
whether it was broke or not.

i. Give the author’s name and title of the text:

TRIFLES by Susan Glaspell

ii. Why could this narrative be called a feminist text?
It shows Domestic stir, how women lead it. Women’s roles in that era were mainly reproductive
and briefly social. Woman role determined by their husbands; The main theme of this play is
women’s oppression which is expressed by men’s point of views of women.