http://xroacls.virginia.edu/-hyper/LAWRENCE/clhltoc.htm chapter 1-5 History 40A – Fall 2018 Final Paper 120%]: Using the link above, please access D.H. Lawrence s Studies in Classic American Literature (1923) and read chapters 1-5. Using the course material, assess Lawrence’s discussions of American literature and identity. Does Lawrence accurately represent American identity? Mobilize evidence for your conclusions from the lectures, films, and readings from the quarter. The Final Paper will be 5 pages (not 4 and %), double-spaced, 12 font, with 1″ margins. You will engage with Lawrence’s characterization of America via his interpretation of American Literature: how accurate or inaccurate is his assessment of American identity?
other souces group talking (for reference only) :
As a group, choose one person to be scribe. Then agree upon a section from the assigned reading (anything from Ch. 1-5) in DH Lawrence’s Studies in Classic American Literature(1923) found here: http://xroacls.virginia.edui-hyper/LAWRENCE/dhltoc.htm
How does this passage relate to one or two themes in the course? Some themes you can discuss can include discussions of power relations, colonialism, gender relations, freedom, or some other concept that has been discussed in class lecture or in Eric Foner’s Give Me Liberty.
Answer the following questions:
Group 1
What is the DH Lawrence passage? Remember to cite where your passage comes from (author, chapter or page #).
The desire to extirpate the Indian. And the contradictory desire to glorify him. Both are rampant still, today. The bulk of the white people who live in contact with the Indian today would like to see this Red brother exterminated; not only for the sake of grabbing his land, but because of the silent, invisible, but deadly hostility between the spirit of the two races. The minority of whites intellectualize the Red Man and laud him to the skies. But this minority of whites is mostly a high-brow minority with a big grouch against its own whiteness. So there you are. (Lawrence, Chapter 4)
What historical event or concept does this passage speak to? Explain what happened and how it relates to what DH Lawrence is saying. Why does this help us to better understand early American history? In other words why is it important? Are there other passages in DH Lawrence and examples from Foner that provide a similar or different take on early American history? What do these trends show? (Your paper’s ‘big picture’)
Group 2
What is the DH Lawrence passage? Remember to cite where your passage comes from (author, page #). -This is Benjamin’s barbed wire fence. He made himself a list of virtues, which he trotted inside like a grey nag in a paddock” (Lawrence, Ch2)
What historical event or concept does this passage speak to? Explain what happened and how it relates to what DH Lawrence is saying. This is similar to the Puritan values that were being held earlier and how they caused people to dislike things that they saw as dangerous.
Why does this help us to better understand early American history? In other words why is it important?
It helps demonstrate how much these early values would affect later moral issues. We could see how Europeans may have looked at the American revolutions for liberty and how the American elites wanted citizens live like…?
Are there other passages in DH Lawrence and examples from Foner that provide a similar or different take on early American history? What do these trends show? (Your paper’s ‘big picture’) By the time of Benjamin franklin many were far less religious. Franklin may have been far less zelios than Lawrence is suggesting.
n=detailed&id=284688231 Paused • Group 3
What is the DH Lawrence passage? Remember to cite where your passage comes from (author, page #). -What did the Pilgrim Fathers come for, then, when they came so gruesomely over the black sea? Oh, it was in a black spirit. A black revulsion from Europe; from the old authority of Europe, from kings and bishops and popes. And more. When you look into it, more. They were black, masterful men, they wanted something else. No kings, no bishops maybe. Even no God Almighty. But also, no more of this new ‘humanity’ which followed the Renaissance. None of this new liberty which was to be so pretty in Europe. Something grimmer, by no means free-and-easy.” (Lawrence, Chp 1, The Spirit of Place)
What historical event or concept does this passage speak to? Explain what happened and how it relates to what DH Lawrence is saying. It is related to the English exploration.
Why does this help us to better understand early American history? In other words why is it important?
Are there other passages in DH Lawrence and examples from Foner that provide a similar or different take on early American history? What do these trends show? (Your paper’s ‘big picture’)
Group 4
What is the DH Lawrence passage? Remember to cite where your passage comes from (author, page #). “Men are less free than they imagine; ah, far less free. The freest are perhaps least free.” (Lawrence, Chp 1, The Spirit of Place)
What historical event or concept does this passage speak to? Explain what happened and how it relates to what DH Lawrence is saying.
Freedom and Liberty. As colonists proclaim their freedom, they strip themselves off of the ideologies, traditions of the English. No longer are they bound to the regulations and way of life of the traditional Church.
Why does this help us to better understand early American history? In other words why is it important? Foundation of what it means to be American, the struggle to find their identity, and define their liberty. Are there other passages in DH Lawrence and examples from Foner that provide a similar or different take on early American history? What do these trends show? (Your paper’s ‘big picture’) Whiskey rebellion: too much democracy may undermine the state of liberty.
Group 5
What is the DH Lawrence passage? Remember to cite where your passage comes from (author, page #). “Liberty is all very well, but men cannot live without masters. There is always a master. And men either live in glad obedience to the master they believe in, or they live in a frictional opposi- tion to the master they wish to undermine. In America this frictional opposition has been the vital factor. It has given the Yankee his kick. Only the continual influx of more servile Europeans has provided America with an obedient labouring class. The true obedience never outlasting the hrst generation.”
What historical event or concept does this passage speak to? Explain what happened and how it relates to what DH Lawrence is saying.
Slavery -Native American being masterless man without Englishmen by their side Refer to various hierarchies
Why does this help us to better understand early American history? In other words why is it important? In the early American history, the idea about Liberty and freedom were conflict with oppression. That is the reason why slavery can exist in early American.
Are there other passages in DH Lawrence and examples from Foner that provide a similar or different take on early American history? What do these trends show? (Your paper’s ‘big picture’)
Group 6
What is the DH Lawrence passage? Remember to cite where your passage comes from (author, page #). -Escaped slaves, we might say, people the republics of Liberia or Haiti. Liberia enough! Are we to look at America in the same way ? A vast republic of escaped slaves. When you consider the hordes from eastern Europe, you might well say it: a vast republic of escaped slaves. But one dare not say this of the Pilgrim Fathers, and the great old body of idealist Americans, the modern Americans tortured with thought. A vast republic of escaped slaves. Look out, America! And a minority of earnest, self-tortured people.”
What historical event or concept does this passage speak to? Explain what happened and how it relates to what DH Lawrence is saying. -If one wants to be free, one has to give up the illusion of doing what one likes, and seek what IT wishes done.” Democracy in America is just the tool
The movement of immigrants from Europe to the New World. The pilgrims were moving away to find new opportunities and pursue new freedoms. As such, Lawrence draws a comparison between colonists and escaped slaves.
Why does this help us to better understand early American history? In other words why is it important? Early Americans need to be mastered.
Are there other passages in DH Lawrence and examples from Foner that provide a similar or different take on early American history? What do these trends show? (Your paper’s ‘big picture’)
Lawrence just like any other American who felt the impacts of the colonization and imperialism from the North, tried to speak about modernity and how it undermined the lives of Americans who were at peace in their native land.
