As we noted at the start of the course, the broad units (in terms of time, geography, ethnic groups and social change) will challenge our ability to talk about pieces of literature within the units.  Still, we have outlined some basic problems with which American writers are concerned:

Relationships to the universe

Confronting the Europeans (both for Indians and settlers, since the settlers carried all that European cultural and religious baggage)

Self-awareness that one is playing a historical part

Self-promotion versus modesty

Expressions of idealism and also of economic chances (with these often clashing or creating hypocrisy)

Puritan vs. Quaker ideals

The physical world connecting to the spiritual world

Self-denial vs. Celebration

Orality and literacy

Each of these ideas or conflicts plays into our growing understanding of what it means even to attempt to answer “What is an American?”   We will apply these concepts throughout the course.  Rhetoric, as you know, is persuasion using the available means.  A list of rhetorical terms is linked here.

“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” remains Jonathan Edwards’s most well-known sermon.  What specific rhetorical techniques does he employ that would have had the effect of galvanizing his audience?  (Galvanize = to stimulate somebody to great action.)  As you know, rhetoric is the art of using the available means of persuasion.  Think of audience, purpose, and the techniques he uses to get his job done. In the table below list several of the techniques and the pages on which they appear: