Question 3: Art History and American Literature (30 pts)

The Local Art Museum Experience (LAME)--a non-profit education group--has recently acquired 2 pieces from a thrift shop.   It asks you--YOU!--to develop a show around these 2 pieces.

The show needs:

1) A Cool Name (preferably with a colon!)

2) A spiffy write up for the local magazine saying
        *what these pieces are
        * why they are important finds!
        * most importantly, what the show is about!
(this last point is key: say what the show teaches about the history of American literature, art, and culture from 1900-1960.  Please reference at least 3 other artifacts from the period (2 of which should be texts)....
  

Remember, LAME is depending upon you. They may even change their name if the show is a hit!

Question 2: Passage/Artifact Analysis (45 pts)

2) Choose 3 out of the following 4 (passages, images, or text pairings).

Always begin at the descriptive level: what's the passage/artifact doing, how does it work (formally); what's it saying; what big ideas is it grappling with? Move horizontally  by putting it in conversation with the period; how does it fit into this period, how does it connect with at least one other work? (For pairings, make sure to first focus on relating the two texts together.)



a)
 But the great fact in life, the always possible escape from dullness, was the lake. The sun rose out of it, the day began there; it was like an open door that nobody could shut.

 MAN. Quien sabe? You got to learn that, kid, if you're figuring on
coming with me. It's the answer to everything -below the Rio Grande.
WOMAN. What does it mean?
MAN. It means -who knows?
WOMAN. Keen sabe?
MAN. Yep -don't forget it -now.
WOMAN. I'll never forget it!
MAN. Quien sabe?
WOMAN. And I'll never get to use it.  I'll never get -below the Rio Grande -I'll never get out of here.


b)
My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day. I never saw this great-uncle, but I’m supposed to look like him — with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father’s office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe — so I decided to go East and learn the bond business.


c) It is our faith and the faith of many, that we are living in the first days of a renascent period, a time which means for America the coming of that national self-consciousness which is the beginning of greatness. In all such epochs the arts cease to be
private matters; they become not only the expression of the national life but a means to its enhancement. [Seven Arts Editorial]


d)

He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.	150
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said,
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.	155
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)	160
The chemist said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.

d, failed. The screen's dead white

Glared in a sudden flooding of harsh light

Stabbing the eyes; and as I stumbled out

The curtain rose. A fat girl with a pout

And legs like hams, began to sing "His Mother".

Gusts of bad air rose in a choking smother;

Smoke, the wet steam of clothes, the stench of plush,

Powder, cheap perfume, mingled in a rush.

I stepped into the lobby — and stood still

Struck dumb by sudden beauty, body and will.

Cleanness and rapture — excellence made plain —

The storming, thrashing arrows of the rain!

Read more at http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/rain_after_a_vaudeville_show.html#Za4V6JrQGr6zvWdQ.99

he great fact in life, the always possible escape from dullness, was the lake. The sun rose out of it, the day began there; it was like an open door that nobody could shut. The land and all its dreariness could never close in on you. You had only to look at the lake, and you knew you would soon be free.
Read more at http://quotes.dictionary.com/the_great_fact_in_life_the_always_possible#8tdtwtuvEe53TIKR.99

he great fact in life, the always possible escape from dullness, was the lake. The sun rose out of it, the day began there; it was like an open door that nobody could shut. The land and all its dreariness could never close in on you. You had only to look at the lake, and you knew you would soon be free.
Read more at http://quotes.dictionary.com/the_great_fact_in_life_the_always_possible#8tdtwtuvEe53TIKR.99

he great fact in life, the always possible escape from dullness, was the lake. The sun rose out of it, the day began there; it was like an open door that nobody could shut. The land and all its dreariness could never close in on you. You had only to look at the lake, and you knew you would soon be free.
Read more at http://quotes.dictionary.com/the_great_fact_in_life_the_always_possible#8tdtwtuvEe53TIKR.99

Question 1: Carl Sandburg (25 pts)

American 346 Final

1) Read Carl Sandburg's poem below: "People Who Must."  In a well developed response, please develop a reading of the poem that situates it within the modernist period: what are some of the central concerns of the period that this poem reflects and explores?  Pay attention to setting (obviously), but also tone, and even the interesting ambiguities of the poem...

Be clear about the big idea(s) that Sandburg explores: what evidence in the poem points to these ideas? Move horizontally by putting it in conversation with at least 2 other works (at least 1 should be a text) from the class.  How do these other works extend/share/revise Sandburg's interests here?

I PAINTED on the roof of a skyscraper.
I painted a long while and called it a day’s work.
The people on a corner swarmed and the traffic cop’s whistle never let up all afternoon.
They were the same as bugs, many bugs on their way—
Those people on the go or at a standstill;	5
And the traffic cop a spot of blue, a splinter of brass,
Where the black tides ran around him
And he kept the street. I painted a long while
And called it a day’s work.

ESSAY #1 PROMPTS

American Literature

346: Prompts

A)       “…And if we are a crude and childlike people how can our literature hope to escape the influence of that fact? Why indeed should we want it to escape?”

In his defense of “crudity” in art, Sherwood Anderson links crudity—surprisingly—with the adjective “childlike.”  Why does he do this? How does this change our notion of what he actually means by “crude”? Is it vulgar, disgusting, violent, or something else entirely? How is his unique vision evident in his own writing?

To answer this question, it might help—but is not required—to think of Anderson’s crudity in light of Hemingway’s fiction. It might also to help to think of focusing on one or two of his characters to get at his precise vision of “childlike crudity”. What does this kind of crudity have to do with “art”?  Are his “crudes” somehow linked to art/expression?

B)    In the early 20^th century, artists—writers, painters, photographers—used the physical body as a symbolic center to make comments on social attitudes and historical transformations.  Use “Wing” and “Ad Frances” to compare the different ways Anderson and Hemingway make the body serve their specific purposes. 

You might want to consider the characters' bodies in light of their stories and novels in which they appear.  For example, does “Wing” have to do with more allegations of child abuse?  What is Ad’s place in a novel about the war generation?

C) 

Hemingway’s first vignette features a drunk soldier ordered to put out his light lest he be seen by the enemy.  The stories that follow are about revelation but also—in an important sense—hiding.

What do people hide from in In Our Time?

Use this simple question as a way to link two stories: “Indian Camp” and “Soldier’s Home.” 

You might want to consider what the opposite of hiding is.  Of course, it might help to think about Anderson here: isn't Wing hiding out?