Thursday, November 1, 2007

1840 to 1841

Literature
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Edgar Allan Poe. American. 1840. Stories. First book of tales. Based tales on the terror of the soul, not German Gothicism.

The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea. James F. Cooper. American. 1840. Novel. Lake Ontario. French and Indian Wars. Natty Bumppo disappointed in love.

Society
1841. William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia April 4 at age 68, just one month after taking office as U.S. president. Vice president John Tyler moves into the White House.

1841. California's Fort Ross is purchased from the Russian colonists, who established it in 1811, by Swiss-American pioneer John Augustus Sutter.

1841. Brook Farm is founded at West Roxbury, MA, by New England intellectuals who join former Unitarian minister George Ripley and his wife Sophia in forming a commune and school that will pursue truth, justice and order.

1841. A New York State Fair at Syracuse begins the tradition of U.S. state fairs dedicated to the advancement of agriculture and the home arts.

Literature
"The Over-Soul." Ralph Waldo Emerson. American. 1841. Essay. Concept of primal mind, cosmic unity of which all men partake. Keystone of Emerson's philosophic thought.

La Comedie Humaine (The Human Comedy). Honore de Balzac. French. 1841. Novels. The name Balzac gave to the whole body of his work. France seen from a variety of perspectives. 2000 characters. Areas of study: manners (private, provincial, Parisian, country, political, military), philosophy and marriage.

Barnaby Rudge. Charles Dickens. British. 1841. Novel. Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots, 1780. Cause: Government ignores the needs of the poor. Barnaby's father is a murderer.

"Compensation." Ralph Waldo Emerson. American. 1841. Essay. Every evil is balanced by a good. No need for an afterlife.

"The Wreck of the Hesperus." HW Longfellow. American. 1841. Poetry. Inspired by a newspaper account of an actual wreck at sea.

"Murders in the Rue Morgue." Edgar Allan Poe. American. 1841. Story. Mother, daughter brutally murdered in crime that baffles police. Poe's detective is C. Auguste Dupuin.

The Deerslayer. James F Cooper. American. 1841. Novel. Natty Bumppo's youth. Lake Otsego. Delaware Indians. Fight Hurons. Resists romance. Chingachgook enteres.

Pippa Passes. Robert Browning. British. 1841. Verse Drama. Pippa's song alters the destiny of those who hear her.

"Self-Reliance." Ralph W Emerson. American. 1841. Essay. Some of the best-known epigrammatic sentences. Trust your own judgment.

Essays, First and Second Series. Ralph W. Emerson. American. 1841/44. Essays. First: "Self-reliance"; "Compensation"; "The Over-Soul." Second: "Poet"; "Manners"; "Gifts"; "Nature"; "Politics."

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