1852: "Days" to Camille

Chronology of World, British and American Literature

Ralph Waldo Emerson. American. 1852. Poetry. “Days.” “He is only rich who owns the day.”

Ivan Turgenev. Russian. 1852. Stories. A Sportsman’s Sketches. Life on typical great feudal estates in Russia; fictional narrator rambles through the countryside. Sympathetic to peasants, explicit condemnation of landowners. Serfdom abolished ten years after publication.

Harriet Beecher Stowe. American. 1852. Novel. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or, Life Among the Lowly. Trials, suffering and human dignity of Uncle Tom; setting is Kentucky and Louisiana. Admiration for best Southern gentility; villain is a Vermonter.

Charles Dickens. British. 1852. Novel. Bleak House. Attacks the delays and archaic absurdities of the courts. Litigation uses up all the money.

Alexandre Dumas, fils. French. 1852. Play. Camille. Beautiful courtesan scorns wealthy protector and escapes with her penniless lover. Gives him up at the request of his family. Tragic reunion of lover and the dying Camille.

1850 - 1851: "The Blessed Damosel" to Lavengro

Chronology of World, British and American Literature

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. British. 1850. Poetry. “The Blessed Damosel.” Longing of lover in heaven for her lover on earth.

Nathaniel Hawthorne. American. 1850. Novel. The Scarlet Letter. Theme: All men are guilty of secret sin; invasion of another’s soul is the unpardonable sin.

Herman Melville. American. 1851. Novel. Moby-Dick, or The Whale. The whale hunted by Ahab at the cost of his dehumanization and sacrifice of his crew. Does the whale = knowledge of reality? Symbolic study of good and evil? Too complex for one definition.

Nathaniel Hawthorne. American. 1851. Novel. The House of the Seven Gables. Curse affects generations of family. Weight of past guilt. Unpardonable sin: violate another’s soul.

George Borrow. British. 1851. Novel. Lavengro: The Scholar, Gypsy, Priest. Philologist wanders with a family of gypsies.

1850: Representative Men to The Prelude

Chronology of World, British and American Literature

Emerson. American. 1850. Biography. Representative Men. Shakespeare (poet); Plato (philosopher); Swedenborg (mystic); Goethe (writer); Napoleon (man of the world); Montaigne (skeptic). “Uses” of great men. Modeled on Carlyle, but Emerson believed great men are representative of their time, not apart from it.

Melville. American. 1850. Novel. White Jacket, or The World in a Man-o-war. Brutal and inhumane practices of the ship’s officers. The white jacket almost drowns the hero, but he discards it and rises to the surface.

Ivan Turgenev. Russia. 1850. Play. A Month in the Country. Bored wife and her ward fall for tutor who is sent away; wife lapses into ennui.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. British. 1850. Poetry. Sonnets from the Portuguese. Expresses poet’s love for her husband. Title refers to a 16^th-century Portuguese poet.

Wordsworth. British. 1850. Poetry. The Prelude. Growth of a poet’s mind—traces life from childhood.

1849: Shirley to David Copperfield

Chronology of World, British and American Literature

Charlotte Brontë. British. 1849. Novel. Shirley. At end of Napoleonic Wars, depressed wool industry; workers vs. hero, the mill owner.

Herman Melville. American. 1849. Novel. Mardi and a Voyage Thither. Complex. From narrative of adventure to allegory of mind. Symbolic quest for absolute truth. Events are more important on symbolic than realistic level.

Longfellow. American. 1849. Poetry/Ode. “The Building of the Ship.” Ship is the symbol for life and for the Union. Interweaves details of construction with those of approaching marriage of the builder’s daughter.

Edgar Allan Poe. American. 1849. Poetry. “Annabel Lee.” Subject is Poe’s favorite: death of a beautiful woman.

Charles Dickens. British. 1849/50. Novel. David Copperfield. Autobiographical. Devastating exposé of inhuman treatment of children in 19^th-century England.

1848 -1849: The Bigelow Papers to "Civil Disobedience"

Chronology of World, British and American Literature

James Russell Lowell. American. 1848. Poetry and Prose. The Bigelow Papers. Poems in dialect; prose in standard English. Satirizes politicians, editors and the wealthy. Yankee dialect.

James Russell Lowell. American. 1848. Poetry/Satire. Fable for Critics. Witty profiles of leading writers: Emerson, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Poe, Cooper, Whittier, Holmes and himself.

Francois Rene de Chateaubriand. 1848/50. Autobiography. Memoires d’outre-tombe (Memories from Beyond the Tomb). Personal reminiscences by Chateaubriand.

Thackeray. British. 1848/50. Novel. The History of Pendennis. Spoiled boy has affairs, matures, writes novel and marries true love.

Thoreau. American. 1849. Essay. “Civil Disobedience.” “Government is best which governs least.” True to oneself, one may then be true to government.

1848;: Dombey and Son to The Communist Manifesto

Chronology of World, British and American Literature

Charles Dickens. British. 1848. Novel. Dombey and Son. Father bitter on death of son; rejects loving daughter after business failure. They are reconciled.

Elizabeth Gaskell. British. 1848. Novel. Mary Barton. Inhumanities suffered by impoverished weavers of Manchester.

Anne Bronte. British. 1848. Novel. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Marriage destroyed by a dissipated husband.

Edgar Allan Poe. American. 1848. Essay. “Eureka.” Material, spiritual unity of the universe. Surprisingly contemporary.

Marx/Engels. German. 1848. Nonfiction. The Communist Manifesto. Pamphlet. Analyzes history as class conflict; envisions classless society without personal property.

1847 - 1848: Le Cousin Pons to Vanity Fair

Chronology of World, British and American Literature

Balzac. French. 1847. Novel. Le Cousin Pons. Musical composer squanders his income on works of art. Ugly and lonely, he becomes a glutton and a parasite.

Herman Melville. American. 1847. Novel. Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas. Polynesian word for wanderer. Hero and doctor friend explore the island of Tahiti.

Anne Bronte. British. 1847. Novel. Agnes Grey. Quiet account of life of ill-treated, lonely governess who eventually marries a curate.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. British. 1848. Sonnet. “The House of Life.” Autobiographical. Title refers to house of human life in astrology.

Wm. Makepeace Thackery. British. 1848. Novel. Vanity Fair, A Novel without a Hero. Becky Sharp: clever, scheming, determined to get on in the world.