California Literature

Compare and contrast elements of two different texts. For example, explore the similarities and differences between two characters in the texst, or examine how one theme is handled in similar and dissimilar ways in two different texts.  You may choose from any of the readings we have done this semester including poetry, short fiction, and drama. You may also choose two texts from two different genres to write about (a poem and a short story, for example).   ·        I like this topic because after doing my first literary analysis, I really am interested in seeing how two text have both, similarities and differences. I would like to see if each have similar belief patterns that are usually founded in indigenous cultures. If their differences stem from different cultural backgrounds or beliefs system.  From a piece of fiction (short story, section of novel, or a play) choose a female character on whom to focus, and create a proj...

“The Creation (Maidu)” is a poem that speaks of the Maidu world in California. A place of nature and calm. In the poem, we are given many metaphors and imagery. Each stanza speaks of either an animal or nature itself. It begins with the introduction of the Earthmaker, a person of high power and knowledge, as they ask him about the world when it was covered with water and floated. Now the world appears dry as it states, “As he floated and looked about, / he did not see anywhere, / indeed,/ even a tiny bit of land” (23). This suggest that the world has gone through climate changes (engulfed land) and the people wish to know the history of the land. A coyote and the Earthmaker are both singing of a world they knew. They are constantly stopping as they see the world in two different views: And then, they say Earthmaker sang / “Where are you, my great mountain ranges? / O, mountains of my world, where are you?”  /  Coyote tried. He kept on singing. / If, indeed, we two shall see...

About the House Girl (40-50) ·       Papatir ·       Village of Rekwoi o     Rekwoi  is a former Yurok settlement in Del Norte County, California ·        Ceremonial wood for sweat houses ·        Working, hunting, praying – played flute, songs of love and lonesomeness ·        Ifapi (female) ·        Village of Merip ·        What does the flute signified? ·        Family  ·        Dancing, canoes, flowers, oceans (sensory) ·        “Papatir wondered why this that was so new and strange seemed somehow familiar. Then he recalled that it was the dancing the old ones in the sweat house at home told him of when they were in a mood to talk to him of...

General Introduction p. 1-13 California ·       Far removed from the centers of trade and government; linked by air and rail and asphalt to the rest of North America.  ·       Produced a distinct of body of writings a part of American lit.  ·       Writers familiar to California – Richard Henry Dana, Mary Austin, Robinson Jeffers, Raymond Chandler, John Steinbeck, Gerald Haslam, David Fine, Michael Kowalewski, Kevin Starr ·       Comtemporary writers – Pablo Tac, the Luiseño neophyte trained in Rome 1830s; Louise Amelia Smith Clappe, chronicled Gold Rush; John Rollin Ridge, first American Indian novelist; María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, first Mexican American novelist; (pg 1-2) ·       Pg 2  The adventures of Esplandian  by Garcí Ordóñez de Montalvo ·       California is an island filled with gold (Montalv...