American Literature
Review sheet
Unit 3, Part 1: “The Spirit of Individualism: Celebrations of the Self”
Selections covered:
“The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving
“Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Civil Disobedience” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Walden” by Henry David Thoreau
“I Hear America Singing” and “I Sit and Look Out” by Walt Whitman
“Gary Keillor” by Garrison Keillor
Know definitions of the following terms. Be able to give examples of them from the selections covered in Part 1 of Unit 3.
- imagery – p. 360
- point of view: omniscient narrator – p. 360
- aphorism - p. 363, 367
- situational irony – p. 360
- essay – p. 378
- paradox – p. 378, 392
- nature writing – p. 392
- free verse – p. 396, 404
- catalog – p. 396, 404
- repetition – p. 396, 404
- parallelism – p. 396, 404
3 types of humor – p. 434
Be able to explain how the description of the trees, Tom’s house, horses, and carriage, Tom’s search for his wife, and Tom’s being carried off by the devil support the characterization, plot, and/or theme of “The Devil and Tom Walker”
Be able to give examples of how the romantic literature of this time sometimes ridiculed the Puritan religion
Be able to explain the meanings of Emerson’s aphorisms, such as “Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
Be able to explain the Thoreau’s reason for writing “Civil Disobedience” and the actions he took to demonstrate his belief in the need for civil disobedience
Be able to explain Thoreau’s reason for living at Walden and the main ideas he talked about in “Walden” regarding the following: the way we should live our lives; the lessons to be learned by observing nature
Be able to give examples of the catalogs of workers Walt Whitman wrote of in “I Hear America Singing”
Be able to give examples of the catalogs of the world’s problems in “I Sit and Look Out”
Be able to summarize the incident that was the focus of Garrison Keillor’s autobiographical excerpt “Gary Keillor” and the lesson he learned about himself from this incident