American Literature 1 Test 3 Review

Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the good-humored indulgence of some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal institution, and all that; but over and above the scene there broods a portentous shadow – the shadow of law.

• Henry David Thoreau, Walden

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

• Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with the shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day.—"Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood."—Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

• Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”

• Henry David Thoreau, Walden

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3

My chambers were up stairs at No.—Wall-street. At one end they looked upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious sky-light shaft, penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might have been considered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what landscape painters call "life." But if so, the view from the other end of my chambers offered, at least, a contrast, if nothing more. In that direction my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade;

• Edgar Allan Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death”

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Birthmark”

• Henry David Thoreau, Walden

• Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3

"My master! and who made him my master? That's what I think of—what right has he to me? I'm a man as much as he is. I'm a better man than he is. I know more about business than he does; I am a better manager than he is; I can read better than he can; I can write a better hand,—and I've learned it all myself, and no thanks to him"

• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

• Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Henry David Thoreau, Walden

• Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of any thing, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?

• Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

• Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3

There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon.

• Edgar Allan Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death"

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown"

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Birthmark”

• Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3

It was the fatal flaw of humanity, which Nature in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain.

• Edgar Allan Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death"

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown"

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Birthmark”

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature"

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3

Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. If the individual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and the resisting one perfectly harmless in his passivity; then, in the better moods of the former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his imagination what proves impossible to be solved by his judgment.

• Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”

• Edgar Allan Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death"

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown"

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Birthmark”

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3

The master is frequently compelled to sell this class of his slaves, out of deference to the feelings of his white wife; and, cruel as the deed may strike any one to be, for a man to sell his own children to human flesh-mongers, it is often the dictate of humanity for him to do so; for, unless he does this, he must not only whip them himself, but must stand by and see one white son tie up his brother, of but few shades darker complexion than himself, and ply the gory lash to his naked back; and if he lisp one word of disapproval, it is set down to his parental partiality, and only makes a bad matter worse, both for himself and the slave whom he would protect and defend.

• Henry David Thoreau, Walden

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

• Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3

To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.

• Henry David Thoreau, Walden

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature"

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

• Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”

Tags

CCSS.RL.2.6

CCSS.RL.8.3