SFR - Slavery and Freedom Module Overview

Slavery and Freedom Module Overview

While many American writers and readers explored individual emotion, imagination, and inspiration as devotees to the American Romanticism and Transcendentalism movements, other writers focused their efforts on depicting the real experience of slavery in the United States. We will study the attributes of realistic literature in the next module, but in the years leading up to the American Civil War, writers had already joined the debate about slavery by trying to capture with detail and accuracy the effects of slavery on slaves, their masters, and the American identity.

The Civil War and the atrocities of slavery and racism affected the literature of the period and began the move away from Romanticism toward Realism. Through spirituals, accounts of life in slavery written by former slaves themselves, and anti-slavery literature, Americans were forced to re-consider the American ideal captured by Jefferson at our nation's founding: "all men are created equal."

Essential Questions

  1. What role have spirituals, slave narratives, and anti-slavery literature played in American culture and history?
  2. Is it ever appropriate for individuals to break societal rules and laws?
  3. Is satire an effective way to make an argument?

Key Terms

  1. Spiritual: a religious song based on a combination of European hymns and African tribal music and originally sung by American slaves
  2. Refrain: word, phrase, or line that is repeated at intervals throughout a text
  3. Sentimental Writing: writing that tries to elicit the maximum emotional response from the reader
  4. Slave Narrative: autobiographical account of the experience of slavery by a former slave
  5. Satire: writing that pokes fun at society or human behavior, usually with the aim of improving it
  6. Verbal Irony: when a character states one thing and means another
  7. Dramatic Irony: when the reader knows more about a situation or character than the characters in the story do
  8. Situational Irony: a contrast between what the reader expects to happen and what actually happens
  9. Parody: humorous or satirical piece of writing that imitates a serious piece of writing
  10. Stereotype: a belief about a group of people that is simplistic and overgeneralized but widely believed
  11. Dialect: a particular form of a language that is spoken in one region

Key Terms Review

Practice your understanding of the key terms below.

 

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