American Literature / Unit 12 AML 1138 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Placing a Turn-of-the-Century Author by Subject
The idea
The years around nineteen hundred hold several groups at once, and subject sorts them faster than style. A passage about the far north, the sea, a slum, a stockyard or a battlefield, with a person overwhelmed, belongs to the naturalists: Crane, London, Norris, Dreiser, Sinclair. A passage arguing about education, trades, the vote and the colour line belongs to Washington or Du Bois, and the tone separates them, since Washington narrates a rise and Du Bois analyzes a condition. A passage in rhyme and meter about a small town's failures is Robinson. A passage in dialect about Black life, or a formal poem about wearing a mask, is Dunbar. A passage about farms and reform on the midwestern prairie is Garland.
In practice
North, slum, colour line, small town, prairie.
Where people slip
Dunbar and Du Bois are contemporaries writing about the same country in different forms, and the exam pairs them as distractors. One writes verse; the other writes the sociology.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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