Dear RS13 Bloggers,

Welcome to your shared blog on American literature. This blog offers you an opportunity to engage in discussing and/or thinking through relevant topics for our Friday literature class. In addition to this, it can be seen as a methodological demonstration of what can be done with literature in ELT and a probe into what may and what may not work with your own students.

With this being said, each week, I will try to initiate a discussion based on topics related to our next class by posting questions, comments and/or other potentially interesting content, and ask you to respond to it in any way you see fit. There are no limits, restrictions or suggestion regarding the length or nature of your response!

Let us try to make this work and enjoy the opportunity.

Once again, thank you for your willingness to make this happen,

All the best,

Martin

AmLit discussion questions (choose one - or more - and leave a comment!)

1. The Raven and The Fall of the House of Usher are often described as “romantic”, can you think of reasons why?

2. Compare the following extracts from two important documents in American history? What is the main difference between the two? And do teh yhave something in common?

from “The Mayflower Contract”( November 1620)

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.

from The Declaration of Independence (In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776)

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.  

3. Go online a Google up some of the available translations of Poe's "The Raven". Which one do you like/do not like and why? For example you can begin with a relatively new version by Miroslav Macek:

http://www.macekvbotach.cz/edgar-allan-poe-krkavec/