The document summarizes key points from an English literature class. It discusses the difference between continual and continuous, provides an agenda for the class including a quiz and discussion of Willa Cather's novel My Antonia. It then defines and traces the history of the American Dream concept. In discussing My Antonia, it notes how some characters succeed pursuing the American Dream while others fail. It introduces the modernist poet Mina Loy and discusses her unconventional style and marginalization despite praise from male modernist figures. Homework assignments involve responding to a reading on feminist literary criticism or the American Dream in class texts.

1. ELIT 48C Class #9

2. Continuous vs. Continual
 Continual means "repeated regularly and
often."
 Julia hated the continual negative political ads.
 Continuous means "extended or prolonged
without interruption."
 The alarm bell was jammed and rang
continuously; it never stopped and was making
Gayle loony!

3. AGENDA
 Quiz
 TheAmerican Dream
 My Antonia
 Books IV andV
 Author Introduction

4. The Answers to the Quiz:Take 10 minutes
A. Gaston Cleric
B. Lewis Hale
C. Frances Harling
D. Mina Loy
E. Mrs. Shimerda
F. Otto Fuchs
G. Samson d'Arnault
H. Wick Cutter
I. Molly Gardener
J. Tiny Soderball
K. Lena Lingard
L. Minnie Foster
M. Anton Cuzak
N. Mr. Marinetti

5. Lecture
The American Dream

6. What is The American
Dream???

7. JamesTruslow Adams, who coined the phrase “The American
Dream” in 1931, wrote this about it:
 [The American Dream is] that dream of a land in which life
should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with
opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is
a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret
adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary
and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high
wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man
and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature
of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by
others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous
circumstances of birth or position. [The Epic of America,
1931]

8. The Beginnings of the Dream
Yet, the concept of the American Dream existed
beforeAdams articulated it. Perhaps the first
verbalization of the American Dream isThomas
Jefferson’s statement from the Declaration of
Independence:
 “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

9.  Benjamin Franklin gave the definitive formulation of
the American Dream in his Autobiography (begun in
1771, published in 1818). At least five characteristics of
the American Dream have been noted in Franklin’s
work:
1. the rise from rags to riches through industry and thrift;
2. the rise from insignificance to importance, from
helplessness to power;
3. a philosophy of individualism;
4. the efficacy of free will and action;
5. and a spirit of hope, even of optimism.

10. In 1867 when writer, Horatio Alger came out
with his book Ragged Dick, the concept of the
American Dream became an American Idea.The
story is a rags-to-riches tale of a poor orphan
boy in NewYork City who saves his pennies,
works hard and eventually becomes rich.This
model of honesty, hard work, and strong
determination as the keys to success in America
became the goal of Americans and the
immigrants who would soon come to America.

11.  In time, many Americans became disenchanted with
the theme. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville,
Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, and MarkTwain
probed the dark side of the dream.
 Twain, writing during the rise of nineteenth century
finance capitalism and industrialism, became
increasingly disillusioned with social corruption in
the Gilded Age. In his classic novel Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (1884), before Huck “lights out for
the territory” to escape being civilized, he struggles
with a corrupt world of frauds, desperadoes, and
money-grubbing confidence men.

12. The 20th Century Dream
 Twain set the tone for twentieth century versions of the
American Dream, many of which have depicted the
American Dream turned nightmare.Twain’s legacy is
certainly discernible in such a writer as F. Scott
Fitzgerald. Wealth and material possessions are shown
as the constituents of the American Dream, a theme
Fitzgerald develops in The Great Gatsby (1925).Yet in
much of 20th C literature, the American Dream is
ambiguous; while some deny it, others cling to it. While
some ignore it, others insist they will achieve it.

13. The American
Dream in My
Antonia
1. Compare and contrastTiny Soderball and Lena
Lingard’s success with money.
2. Discuss the reasons whyWilla Cather chose to have
Antonia return to the Shimerda farm as an unwed
mother.
4. Discuss the differences between the Cuzak household
and the Shimerda household from many years before.

14. The American Dream: My Antonia
 Mrs. Shimerda uprooted her family against her husband's wishes. She
said, "America big country, much money, much land for my boys,
much husband for my girls."
 Pavel and Peter were fugitives.The burgeoning country and economy
provided many opportunities.
 Tiny Soderball follows the frontier to Seattle and then, during the gold
rush, to Alaska.
 And, as always, swindlers and loan sharks, like Wick Cutter, preyed on
the weak.
 Lena is a successful dressmaker in San Francisco.
 Ántonia and her husband flourish

15. Whose Dream Failed?

16. For all the successes, the novel is riddled with
disappointments and failures
 Otto and Jake go west, and except for one postcard, they are
never heard of again.
 "Rooshian" Peter, who proudly told Ántonia that "in his
country only rich people had cows, but here any man could
have one who would take care of her," loses his partner, and
bankruptcy forces him to sell his possessions.
 When Jim tells Ántonia that Coronado, who searched the
American west for the Seven Golden Cities, died in the
wilderness of a broken heart, she sighs, "More than him has
done that."The American Dream had also broken her father.

17. Author Introduction: Mina Loy 1882–1966
VisualArtist and Poet

18. Although Mina Loy was born in England, she
did much of her work in Paris, Florence, and
NewYork City, where her beauty and
outlandish behavior shone at the center of
multiple avant-garde circles.The
unconventional vocabulary and syntax of
Loy’s poems and their scornful treatment of
love and other subjects can puzzle and
offend, but no reader can question the work’s
originality nor the poet’s fierce intelligence.

19.  Neglect of Loy's poetry has lent qualified support to revisionist claims that leading
male modernists likeT. S. Eliot, Pound, and Joyce defined modernism so as to
marginalize writers whose poetics and politics threatened their own largely
conservative stance.
 However, Eliot and Pound praised Loy's work. High modernist champions of technical
innovation and intellectual rigor could not accuse Loy of formal conservatism or
sentimentality.
 Literary historians may have marginalized Loy by making her a modernist icon,
woman-as-Dada, while relegating her writing to avant-garde obscurity; but equally
relevant is Loy's lessened attention to her poetry in later life.
 Renewed interest in her poetry belongs to the recovery of the neglected, multiple
aspects of early modernism. In The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas (1933) Stein,
whom Loy praised as "Curie / of the laboratory / of vocabulary," offers a definitive
tribute to Loy's artistic vision. Recalling Loy's first husband's plea that she punctuate
the long sentences without commas inThe Making of Americans (1925), Stein notes
that "Mina Loy . . . was able to understand without the commas. She has always been
able to understand."

20. HOMEWORK
 Read: Feminist Literary Criticism
 Read: Mina Loy: “Parturition” 296-99
 Post #9: Respond to one of the
following prompts:
1. QHQ on the Parturition; consider
Loy’s Manifesto if you would like.
2. QHQ on Feminist Literary Criticism
3. Discuss the American Dream in term
of one (or more) of the texts we
have discussed this far.