Rip Van Winkle

                                                                    








 "Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving published in 1819, as well as the name of the story's fictional protagonist. The story of Rip Van Winkle is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. In a pleasant village, at the foot of New York's "Kaatskill" Mountains, lives the kindly Rip Van Winkle, a colonial British-American villager of Dutch descent. Rip is an amiable though somewhat hermitic man who enjoys solitary activities in the wilderness, but is also loved by all in town—especially the children to whom he tells stories and gives toys. One autumn day, Rip is escaping his wife's nagging, wandering up the mountains with his dog, Wolf. Hearing his name being shouted, Rip discovers that the speaker is a man dressed in antiquated Dutch clothing, carrying a keg up the mountain, who requires Rip's help. Without exchanging words, the two hike up to an amphitheatre like hollow in which Rip discovers the source of previously-heard thunderous noises: there is a group of other ornately-dressed, silent, bearded men who are playing nine-pins. Although there is no conversation and Rip does not ask the men who they are or how they know his name, he discreetly begins to drink some of their liquor, and soon falls asleep. After a failed business venture with his brothers, Irving filed for bankruptcy in 1818. Despondent, he turned to writing for possible financial support, though he had difficulty thinking of stories to write. He stayed in Birmingham, England with his brother-in-law Henry Van Wart. The two were reminiscing in June 1818 when Irving was suddenly inspired by their nostalgic conversation.Irving locked himself in his room and wrote non-stop all night. As he said, he felt like a man waking from a long sleep. He presented the first draft of "Rip Van Winkle" to the Van Wert family over breakfast.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Van_Winkle

Media: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae-LMi7AZ9I&feature=fvsr

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Trancendentalism

    In the early to mid-nineteenth century, a philosophical movement known as Transcendentalism took root in America and evolved into a predominantly literary expression. The adherents to Transcendentalism believed that knowledge could be arrived at not just through the senses, but through intuition and contemplation of the internal spirit. As such, they professed skepticism of all established religions, believing that Divinity resided in the individual, and the mediation of a church was cumbersome to achieving enlightenment. The genesis of the movement can be accurately traced to 1836 and the first gathering of the Transcendental Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The father of the movement, an appellation he probably did not relish, was Ralph Waldo Emerson. Other prominent contributors included Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, William Henry Channing, and George Ripley. In the grand scheme, the Transcendentalist’s moment on the literary stage was decidedly brief. With Fuller’s death in 1850, one of the movement’s great advocates was silenced. Emerson lacked the vitality and desire to follow in her path. Though their hold on the public imagination was short-lived, the long-lasting influence that the Transcendentalists had on American literature cannot be denied. Even the philosophy’s critics were forced to acknowledge the effects that the Transcendental Movement had on the world, particularly the American experience of the world. For Transcendentalism was a distinctly American expression, with concerns and ideals that perhaps did not fully translate in England or Continental Europe. http://www.online-literature.com/periods/transcendentalism.php
   The philosophy was inexorably bound together with American’s expansionist impulse, as well as the troubling question of slavery and women’s place in society. A philosophical-literary movement cannot solve such problems, but it can provide the vocabulary to discuss them reasonably.  Not surprisingly, the conflation of German philosophy and English Romanticism transplanted on American soil produced something quite original. The fact that the United States was still such a young nation, still seeking out her borders, had a powerful impact on the literature being produced. Emerson and his contemporaries saw a nation on the brink of discovering its own voice. Until that time, American literature had merely replicated the fashions of Europe. There was precious little originality or innovation. Furthermore, the cultural hub of the new nation was firmly rooted New England. The remainder of the continent was still rather a wild place, where surviving was a more pressing concern than producing high art or pondering the day’s big questions. The Transcendentalists saw an opportunity to make a break with England and forge a new literature for a new continent. That literature would be bold and expressive, and a bit wild, like the land itself. If the Transcendental Movement had a founding father, then he was most certainly Ralph Waldo Emerson. However, he only reluctantly adopted the role of figurehead. He mostly preferred to remain behind the scenes, observing the action but not participating. Emerson was a man of deep faith, though in his personal life he was struck down more than once by tragedy. His first wife Ellen Tucker died of tuberculosis after just two years of marriage. The loss was deeply felt by Emerson. He later remarried, only to lose the first child of that marriage to illness as well. Such tragedies naturally came to inform Emerson’s way of seeing the world. Despite such ample experience of the dark side of life, Emerson managed to carry forward with a sort of resolute stoicism, if not optimism. At Harvard Divinity School’s 1836 Commencement, he delivered an oration that would become the foundational document of New England Transcendentalism. In “The American Scholar,” Emerson beckoned for a new kind of spirit to take root in humanity, a spirit fueled by individualism, creativity, and a tireless work ethic. That Emerson’s idealized scholar was “American” is not by accident. The belief that the young nation was fertile ground for a new and more enlightened kind of citizen was quite popular at the time. The Puritan forebears planted the seed of American exceptionalism, which grew fast and strong in the intellectual atmosphere of nineteenth century New England. The death of Margaret Fuller took much of the steam from the Transcendental Movement. Coupled with the growing unease over slavery and the economy, the intellectual climate simply no longer supported the high-minded idealism of the Transcendentalists. Everyone sensed that the nation was headed towards a cataclysm that a quasi-philosophical literary movement was in no position to avert. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/.

Why was Thomas Paine"s writing of the Comman Sense so effective?

        Thomas Paine in 1776, Common Sense was one of the most famous political treatises from the literature of the American Revolution.  Thomas Paine wrote Comman Sense because he was trying to help with the Revolutionary War he wanted them to fight. Paine's political pamphlet brought the rising revolutionary sentiment into sharp focus by placing blame for the suffering of the colonies directly on the reigning British monarch, George III. First and foremost, Common Sense advocated an immediate declaration of independence, postulating a special moral obligation of America to the rest of the world. Not long after publication, the spirit of Paine's argument found resonance in the American Declaration of Independence. Written at the outset of the Revolution, Common Sense became the leaven for the ferment of the times. It stirred the colonists to strengthen their resolve, resulting in the first successful anticolonial action in modern history.  Americans could not break their ties with Britain easily. Despite all the recent hardships, the majority of colonists since birth were reared to believe that England was to be loved and its monarch revered. Americans were divided against themselves. Arguments for independence were growing. Thomas Paine would provide the extra push.Paine avoided flowery prose. He wrote in the language of the people, often quoting the Bible in his arguments. Most people in America had a working knowledge of the Bible, so his arguments rang true. Paine was not religious, but he knew his readers were. King George was "the Pharaoh of England" and "the Royal Brute of Great Britain." He touched a nerve in the American countryside.

  

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Website: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/161744.Common_Sense
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100218181500AAJTwcQ
http://www.ushistory.org/us/10f.asp
Media: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3kTkeUOSEk&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL662EE49BE32A5C08
                                                          

What effect did the Great Awakening have on Jonathan Edwards?

Jonathan Edwards

     

    

     In July 1741, Jonathan Edwards accepted an invitation to preach at the neighboring town of Enfield, Connecticut. It was the height of the Great Awakening (1740–42), one of the most intense outpourings of God’s Spirit in American history. The fire of God was falling everywhere. Despite the fact he had delivered "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" to his own congregation with little effect, he felt led to use it again at Enfield. His techniques were unimpressive. He always read his sermons in an even voice, but with great conviction. He shunned shouting and theatrical antics. Impressing the listener with the power of truth and his desperate need for God was Edwards’ goal.

Nothing in his style or presentation could account for what happened that day at Enfield. An eyewitness, Stephen Williams, wrote in his diary, "We went over to Enfield where we met dear Mr. Edwards of Northampton who preached a most awakening sermon from these words, Deuteronomy 32:35, and before the sermon was done there was a great moaning and crying went out through ye whole House…. ‘What shall I do to be saved,’ ‘Oh, I am going to Hell,’ ‘Oh, what shall I do for Christ,’ and so forth. So yet ye minister was obliged to desist, ye shrieks and cry were piercing and amazing."

Williams continued, "After some time of waiting the Congregation were still, so yet a prayer was made by Mr. W. and after that we descended from the pulpit and discoursed with the people, some in one place and some in another, and amazing and astonishing ye power of God was seen, and several souls were hopefully wrought upon that night, and oh ye cheerfulness and pleasantness of their countenances

    Wherever there is fire there is also smoke. Many excesses accompanied the revival as people experienced highly unusual spiritual phenomenon. Sometimes, during sermons, they screamed and dropped unconscious to the floor. Edwards’ own wife sat trance-like in a corner of their living room for long periods, unable to move, utterly overwhelmed by God’s love.Reverend Wheelock’s diary for October 1741 is typical. "The zeal of some too furious: they tell of many visions, revelations, and many strong impressions upon the imagination…. Preached twice with enlargement. Many cried out; many stood trembling; the whole assembly very solemn."⁵ After another meeting he writes, "Thirty cried out. Almost all the Negroes in town wounded (convicted of sin)…. I was forced to break off my sermon before done, the outcry was so great."

As in every revival, some of these manifestations were from God, some from the flesh, and some demonic.

This mixture ensured much criticism. (Every age has its self-appointed Spirit-quenchers.) Edwards believed the essential work was from God. But he recognized that the entire work would be discredited and abandoned unless the church learned to sort the wheat from the chaff. He wrote prolifically to this end. His most important work on this subject was On Religious Affections, a Christian classic still in print today by at least three publishers.

 

Websites:  http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/200201/200201_104_johnathan.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinners_in_the_Hands_of_an_Angry_God
 www.nhinet.org/ccs/docs/awaken.htm

Media:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt57rFcpnr4