Thursday, November 5: Let It Rip! EQ: What tension about intention existed in early American prose?

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1 Thursday, November 5: Let It Rip! EQ: What tension about intention existed in early American prose? Welcome! Gather pen/cil, paper, wits; SUBMIT DOUBLE JOURNAL ENTRIES: Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November [even at Starbucks!] Read, Think, Write: Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle ELACC12RL-RI1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis ELACC12RI6: Determine an author s point of view or purpose in a text ELACC12RI7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources to address a question or solve a problem ELACC12RL10: Read and comprehend complex literature independently and proficiently. ELACC12W1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts ELACC12W2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas ELACC12W4: Produce clear and coherent writing appropriate to task, purpose, and audience ELACC12W6: Use technology to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing ELACC12W8: Gather from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any source and following a standard format for citation. ELACC12L1: Demonstrate standard English grammar and usage in speaking and writing. ELACC12L2: Use standard English capitalization, punctuation, spelling in writing.

2 Remember, Remember, the 5 th of November, The Gunpowder Treason and Plot Guy Fawkes Day Russell Brand Joins Thousands in Anonymous Protests in London

3 Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle (1819) [see link below if need a copy] ASSIGNMENT 2: From notebook, please gather these documents: Capt. John Smith, Description of New England (1616) JHSJd Crèvecoeur, Letters From An American Farmer (1781) Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard s Almanack (mid-1700s) [oh, wait, we never read it hang on ] h.htm

4 Write down these aphorisms from the Almanack: Early to bed, early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. There are no gains without pains. At the working man s house hunger looks in but dares not enter. Diligence is the mother of good luck. God gives all things to industry. Plough deep while sluggards sleep and you shall have corn to sell and to keep. One today is worth two tomorrows. Have you something to do tomorrow? Do it today.

5 Capt. John Smith, Description of New England (1616) WHO can desire more content, that hath small means; or but only his merit to advance his fortune, than to tread, and plant that ground he hath purchased by the hazard of his life? If he have but the taste of virtue, and magnanimity, what to such a mind can be more pleasant, than planting and building a foundation for his posterity, got from the rude earth, by God s blessing and his own industry, without prejudice to any? If he have any grain of faith or zeal in Religion, what can he do less hurtfull to any; or more agreeable to God, than to seek to convert those poor savages to know Christ, and humanity, whose labors with discretion will triple requite thy charge and pains? What so truly suits with honor and honesty, as the discovering things unknown? erecting towns, peopling countries, informing the ignorant, reforming things unjust, teaching virtue; and gain to our native mother-country a kingdom to attend her; find employment for those that are idle, because they know not what to do: so far from wronging any, as to cause posterity to remember thee; and remembring thee, ever honor that remembrance with praise? What were the beginnings and endings of the Monarchies [of history]? What was their ruin and hurt, but this: The excess of idleness, the fondness of parents the admiration of their undeserved honors, the contempt of true merit, their unjust jealosies, their politic incredulities, their hypocritical seeming goodness, and their deeds of secret lewdness? finally, in fine, growing only formal temporists, all that their predecessors got in many years, they lost in few days. Those by their pains and virtues became lords of the world; they by their ease and vices became slaves to their servants. This is the difference betwixt the use of arms in the field, and on the monuments of stones; the golden age and the leaden age, prosperity and misery, justice and corruption, substance and shadows, words and deeds, experience and imagination, making commonwealths and marring commonwealths, the fruits of virtue and the conclusions of vice. Then, who would live at home idly (or think in himself any worth to live) only to eat, drink, and sleep, and so die? Or by consuming that carelessly, his friends got worthily? Or by using that miserably, that maintained virtue honestly? Or, for being descended nobly, pine with the vain vaunt of great kindred, in penury? Or (to maintain a silly show of bravery) toil out thy heart, soul, and time, basely, by shifts, tricks, cards, and dice? Or by relating news of others actions, shark here or there for a dinner, or supper; deceive thy friends, by fair promises, and dissimulation, in borrowing where thou never intendest to pay; offend the laws, surfeit with excess, burden thy country, abuse thyself, despair in want, and then cozen thy kindred, yea even thine own brother, and wish thy parents death (I will not say damnation) to have their estates? though thou seest what honors, and rewards, the world yet hath for them will seek them and worthily deserve them. I would be sorry to offend, or that any should mistake my honest meaning: for I wish good to all, hurt to none. But rich men for the most part are grown to that dotage, through their pride in their wealth, as though there were no accident could end it, or their life as if their bags, or brags, were so powerful a

6 defence, the malicious could not assault them: when they are the only bait, to cause us not to be only assaulted; but betrayed and murdered in our own security, ere we well perceive it. Here nature and liberty affords us that freely, which in England we want, or it costeth us dearly. What pleasure can be more, than (being tired with any occasion a-shore in planting vines, fruits, or herbs, in contriving their own grounds, to the pleasure of their own minds, their fields, gardens, orchards, buildings, ships, and other works, &c.) to recreate themselves before their own doors, in their own boats upon the sea, where man, woman and child, with a small hook and line, by angling, may take diverse sorts of excellent fish, at their pleasures? And is it not pretty sport, to pull up two pence, six pence, and twelve pence, as fast as you can hale and vear a line? He is a very bad fisher, cannot kill in one day with his hook and line, one, two, or three hundred cods: which dressed and dried, if they be sold there for ten shillings the hundred, though in England they will give more than twenty; may not both the servant, the master, and merchant, be well content with this gain? If a man work but three days in seven, he may get more then he can spend, unless he be excessive. And what sport doth yield a more pleasing content, and less hurt or charge than angling with a hook, and crossing the sweet air from isle to isle, over the silent streams of a calm sea? Wherein the most curious may find pleasure, profit, and content. For gentlemen, what exercise should more delight them, than ranging daily those unknown parts, using fowling and fishing, for hunting and hawking? and yet you shall see the wild hawks give you some pleasure, in seeing them stoop (six or seven after one another) an hour or two together at the schools of fish in the fair harbors, as those ashore at a fowl: and never trouble nor torment yourselves, with watching, mewing, feeding, and attending them: nor kill horse and man with running and crying. See you not a hawk? For hunting also: the woods, lakes, and rivers afford not only chase sufficient, for any that delights in that kind of toil, or pleasure: but such beasts to hunt, that besides the delicacy of their bodies for food, their skins are so rich, as may well recompense thy daily labor, with a captain s pay. For laborers, if those that sow hemp, rape, turnips, parsnips, carrots, cabbage, and such like: give 20, 30, 40, 50, shillings yearly for an acre of ground, and meat, drink, and wages to use it, and yet grow rich: when better or at least as good ground, may be had, and cost nothing but labor: it seems strange to me, any such should there grow poor. My purpose is not to persuade children from their parents: men from their wives: nor servants from their masters: only, such as with free consent may be spared: but that each parish, or village, in city or country, that will but apparel their fatherless children of thirteen or fourteen years of age, or young married people, that have small wealth to live on: here by their labor may live exceeding well: provided always that first there be a sufficient power to command them, houses to receive them. The masters by this may quickly grow rich: these may learn their trades themselves, to do the like: to a general and an incredible benefit for king, and country, masters, and servant.

7 J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters From An American Farmer (1782) Every thing has tended to regenerate them; new laws, a new mode of living, a new social system; here they are become men: in Europe they were as so many useless plants, wanting vegitative mould, and refreshing showers; they withered, and were mowed down by want, hunger, and war; but now by the power of transplantation, like all other plants they have taken root and flourished! Formerly they were not numbered in any civil lists of their country, except in those of the poor; here they rank as citizens. By what invisible power has this surprising metamorphosis been performed? By that of the laws and that of their industry. The laws, the indulgent laws, protect them as they arrive, stamping on them the symbol of adoption; they receive ample rewards for their labours; these accumulated rewards procure them lands; those lands confer on them the title of freemen, and to that title every benefit is affixed which men can possibly require. This is the great operation daily performed by our laws.

8 Write a Double Reading Journal Entry illustrating the Franklinian and Anti-Franklinian modes of American prose by reflecting on quoted passages from Franklin and Irving.