Question

A. Poe believed that good short stories require a single, unifying effect. Evaluate one of the stories in Unit 2 using Poe’s standard of unity. Do the descriptions, incidents, and images all contribute to the single effect of the story? Is there a single effect? Feel free to evaluate Poe’s own story.
B. Consider what you have learned about American history during the period of 1820 to 1864. How do the stories in Unit 2 reflect what was going on in the country then?

C. Read and analyze "When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer" by Walt Whitman. What Romantic ideas does it express, and how does the structure of the poem reinforce the meaning?

Answer 1

Question no 1:
Poe's concept of a "single effect" applies to short stories, and basically states that every element of a story should contribute to a single emotional effect of the story. This rule was important, because Poe was the founder of the short story, and this consequently became a foundational rule of the genre. 

Question no 2:
Consider what you have learned about American history during the period of 1820 to 1864. How do the stories in Unit 2 reflect what was going on in the country then? 

Industrial revolution occurred in the northern part of America while while there was cotton bloom in the southern part. Civil war also started during this time. It was also the Age of Reformation. Because of economic and industrial progress, second great awakening occurred resulting to anti-slavery and women's rights movements.

Question  no 3:
Read and analyze "When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer" by Walt Whitman. What Romantic ideas does it express, and how does the structure of the poem reinforce the meaning?


When I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.