American Literature Essay

When the English preacher and writer Sidney smith imploreed in 1820, In the four qu im metierers of the globe, who demonstrates an Ameri empennage book? picayune did he suspect that less than twain hundred years after the answer in lit eonte qu trickers would be just nearly e very ane. Indeed, just a few years after Smith comprise his inflammatory drumhead, the the Statesn writer Samuel Knapp would begin to assemble wizard of the premier histories of Ameri canister buoy belles-lettres as part of a lecture series that he was giving.The course materials offered by American Passages continue in the tradition begun by Knapp in 1829. One goal of this theater accept is to champion you learn to be a literary historian that is, to introduce you to American lit as it has evolved everywhere cartridge holder and to stimulate you to make water connections amongst and among schoolbooks. Like a literary historian, when you make these connections you ar enumerateing a sto ry the story of how American publications came into being.This everywhereview outlines four paths ( at that throw in ar m both another(prenominal) others) by which you can narrate the story of American lit one based on literary movements and diachronic change, one based on the American Passages Overview Questions, one based on conditions, and one based on multi heathenishism. TELLING THE STORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Literary Movements and Historical transfer American Passages is organized around sixteen literary movements or twist blocks. A literary movement centers around a group of authors that sh be plastered sty dipic and thematic concerns. to each one unit includes ten authors that argon be either in The Norton Anthology of American Literature or in the Online Archive. ii to four of these authors atomic number 18 discussed in the video, which calls attention to important historical and heathenish influences on these authors, defines a genre that they share, and proposes some key thematic parallels. bring in literary movements can sustain you chit-chat how American themes has changed and evolved oer clock. In general, heap think about literary movements as reacting against sooner modes of writing and earlier movements. For T E L L I N G T H E S T O R Y O FA M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E 3 example, just as modernism (Units 1013) is oft befooln as a response to realism and the Gilded Age (Unit 9), so Romanticism is seen as a response to the Enlightenment (Unit 4). Most of the units focalization on one era (see the chart below), precisely they exit practically include relevant authors from other eras to second draw out the connections and discordences. (Note The movements in parentheses are not limited to authors/ plant intent from the era in question, but they do cover some material from it. ) Century Fifteenth 17th Eighteenth Era spiritual rebirth American Passages Literary Movements.(1 autochthonal Voices) 2 Explorin g Borderlands 3 Utopian bid (3 Utopian pact) 4 Spirit of patriotism (7 thrall and Freedom) 4 Spirit of Nationalism 5 masculine Heroes 6 knightly Undercurrents 7 Slavery and Freedom (1 aborigine Voices) 6 mediaeval Undercurrents 8 regional Realism 9 neighborly Realism (1 inherent Voices) 10 Rhythms in metrical composition 11 Modernist Portraits 12 migrator pare 13 Confederate Renaissance 1 Native Voices 2 Exploring Borderlands 12 Migrant Struggle 14 nice in sight 15 meter of firing off 16 hunting for identity operator Enlightenment Nineteenth wild-eyed Nineteenth RealistTwentieth Modernist Twentieth Postmodernist Each unit contains a timeline of historical events a gigantic with the dates of key literary texts by the movements authors. These timelines are designed to help you make connections mingled with and among the movements, eras, and authors covered in each unit. 4 W H AT I S A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E ? Overview Questions The Overview Questions at th e start of each unit are tailored from the five American Passages Overview Questions that follow. They are meant to help you cerebrate your viewing and redeing and participate in discussion afterward. 1. What is an American?How does literary deeds create conceptions of the American experience and American identity? This both-part question should travel discussion about issues such(prenominal) as, Who belongs to America? When and how does one become an American? How has the search for identity among American writers changed over time? It can too encourage discussion about the ways in which immigration, colonization, conquest, youth, race, class, and gender dissemble national identity. 2. What is American literature? What are the distinctive voices and styles in American literature? How do social and political issues influence the American mandate?This multi-part question should instigate discussion about the aesthetics and reception of American literature. What is a masterp iece? When is something considered literature, and how is this category culturally and historically dependent? How has the rule of American literature changed and why? How have American writers used phrase to create art and meaning? What does literature do? This question can excessively raise the issue of American exceptionalism Is American literature contrasting from the literature of other nations? 3. How do place and time incarnation the authors creams and our understanding of them?This question addresses America as a location and the many ways in which place impingements American literatures determine and content. It can provoke discussion about how regionalism, geography, immigration, the frontier, and borders impact American literature, as well as the role of the vernacular in indicating place. 4. What characteristics of a literary work have make it influential over time? This question can be used to spark discussion about the evolving impact of various pieces of Ameri can literature and about how American writers used diction both to create art and respond to and call for change.What is the individuals responsibility to uphold the communitys traditions, and when are individuals compelled to resist them? What is the race amidst the individual and the community? 5. How are American myths created, challenged, and re-imagined through this literature? This question returns to What is an American? But it poses the question at a cultural rather than individual level. What are the myths that make up American shade? What is the American Dream? What are American myths, dreams, and nightmares? How have these changed over time? T E L L I N G T H E S T O R Y O F A M E R I C A NL I T E R AT U R E 5 Contexts Another way that connections can be made across and between authors is through the five Contexts in each unit three long-acting Core Contexts and two shorter Extended Contexts. The goal of the Contexts is both to help you read American literature in i ts cultural background and to teach you close-reading skills. Each Context consists of a brief narrative about an event, trend, or opinion that had particular resonance for the writers in the unit as well as Americans of their era questions that connect the Context to the authors in the unit and a list of related texts and images in the Online Archive.Examples of Contexts include discussions of the concept of the Apocalypse (3 Utopian Visions), the reverend (4 Spirit of Nationalism), and baseball (14 fitting Visible). The Contexts can be used in conjunction with an author or as stand-alone activities. The Slide exhibit Tool on the Web site is saint for doing assignments that draw connections between archive items from a Context and a text you have read. And you can create your declare contexts and activities apply the Slide Show Tool these materials can then be e-mailed, viewed online, projected, or printed out on overhead transparencies.Multiculturalism In the past xx years , the field of American literature has undergone a radical trans gradeation. Just as the mainstream public has begun to understand America as more diverse, so, too, have scholars moved to integrate more texts by women and ethnic minorities into the standard canon of literature taught and studied. These changes can be both exhilarating and disconcerting, as the breadth of American literature appears to be about limitless.Each of the videos and units has been carefully balanced to pair canonical and noncanonical voices. You may experience it helpful, however, to trace the development of American literature according to the rise of un resembling ethnic and minority literatures. The following chart is designed to full(prenominal)light which literatures are represented in the videos and the units. As the chart indicates, we have set variant multicultural literatures in dialogue with one another. Literature African American literature video recording Representation.7 Slavery and Free dom 8 Regional Realism 10 Rhythms in rhyme 13 Southern Renaissance 14 Becoming Visible 15 Poetry of Liberation Study flow Representation 4 Spirit of Nationalism 5 manlike Heroes 7 Slavery and Freedom 8 Regional Realism 9 Social Realism 10 Rhythms in Poetry 11 Modernist Portraits 13 Southern Renaissance 14 Becoming Visible 15 Poetry of Liberation 16 expect for identicalness 6 W H AT I S A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E ? Native American literature 1 Native Voices 5 mannish Heroes 14 Becoming Visible.1 Native Voices 2 Exploring Borderlands 3 Utopian Promise 4 Spirit of Nationalism 5 Masculine Heroes 7 Slavery and Freedom 8 Regional Realism 14 Becoming Visible 15 Poetry of Liberation 16 explore for individuation 2 Exploring Borderlands 5 Masculine Heroes 10 Rhythms in Poetry 12 Migrant Struggle 15 Poetry of Liberation 16 Search for identicalness 9 Social Realism 12 Migrant Struggle 16 Search for Identity 9 Social Realism 11 Modernist Portraits 14 Becoming Visible 15 Poetry o f Liberation 16 Search for Identity 1 Native Voices 2Exploring Borderlands 3 Utopian Promise 4 Spirit of Nationalism 5 Masculine Heroes 6 Gothic Undercurrents 7 Slavery and Freedom 8 Regional Realism 9 Social Realism 10 Rhythms in Poetry 11 Modernist Portraits 12 Migrant Struggle 13 Southern Renaissance 14 Becoming Visible 15 Poetry of Liberation 16 Search for Identity 2 Exploring Borderlands 5 Masculine Heroes 10 Rhythms in Poetry 11 Modernist Portraits 12 Migrant Struggle 13 Southern Renaissance 14 Becoming Visible 15 Poetry of Liberation 16 Search for Identity Latino literature 2Exploring Borderlands 10 Rhythms in Poetry 12 Migrant Struggle 16 Search for Identity Asian American literature 12 Migrant Struggle 16 Search for Identity Jewish American 9 Social Realism literature 11 Modernist Portraits 14 Becoming Visible 15 Poetry of Liberation 16 Search for Identity Womens literature 1 Native Voices 2 Exploring Borderlands 3 Utopian Promise 6Gothic Undercurrents 7 Slavery and Freedom 8 Regional Realism 9 Social Realism 11 Modernist Portraits 12 Migrant Struggle 13 Southern Renaissance 15 Poetry of Liberation 16 Search for Identity Gay and lesbian literature 2 Exploring Borderlands 5 Masculine Heroes 10 Rhythms in Poetry 11 Modernist Portraits 15 Poetry of Liberation 16 Search for Identity T E L L I N G T H E S T O R Y O F A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E 7 Literature contd Working-class literature Video Representation 2 Exploring Borderlands 4 Spirit of Nationalism 5 Masculine Heroes 7 Slavery and Freedom 9 Social Realism 12 Migrant Struggle 16 Search for IdentityStudy buy the farm Representation 2 Exploring Borderlands 4 Spirit of Nationalism 5 Masculine Heroes 7 Slavery and Freedom 9 Social Realism 10 Rhythms in Poetry 12 Migrant Struggle 14 Becoming Visible 15 Poetry of Liberation 16Search for Identity LITERATURE IN ITS CULTURAL CONTEXT When you study American literature in its cultural context, you enter a multidisciplined and multi-voiced conversation w here scholars and dilettantes in contrastive fields examine the homogeneous topic but demand very different questions about it. For example, how energy a literary critics understanding of nineteenthcentury American market-gardening compare to that of a historian of the same era?How can an art historians understanding of favorite ocular metaphors enrich our readings of literature? The materials presented in this section of the Study Guide aim to help you enter that conversation. Below are some redeions on how to begin. Deep in the rawness of the Vatican Museum is an exquisite marble statue from starting signal- or second-century Rome. Over seven feet high, the statue depicts a scene from Virgils Aeneid in which Laocoon and his sons are penalize for warning the Trojans about the Trojan horse.Their bodies are entwined with large, devouring serpents, and Laocoons font is turned upward in a dizzying portrait of anguish, his muscles rippling and turn beneath the snakes stron g coils.The emotion in the statue captured the heart and eye of critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who used the work as the starting promontory for his seminal es narrate on the relation institutionalize between literature and art, Laocoon An taste on the Limits of Painting and Poetry. For Lessing, one of the most common errors that students of ending can make is to assume that all aspects of conclusion develop in bicycle-built-for-two with one another. As Lessing points out, each art has its own strengths.For example, literature works well with notions of time and story, and thus is more flexible than visual art in terms of imaginative freedom, whereas painting is a visual mean(a) that can reach greater beauty, although it is static. For Lessing, the mixing of these two modes (temporal and spatial) carries great risk of infection along with rewards.As you study literature in conjunction with any of the fine arts, you may find it helpful to engage whether you agree with Lessi ng that literature is primarily a temporal art. Consider too the particular 8 W H AT I S A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E ? strengths of the media discussed below. What do they offer that may not be acquirable to writers?What modes do they use that complement our understanding of the literary arts? okay artistic productions Albrecht Durer created some of the most disturbing drawings known to humans they are rife with images of death, the end of the world, and dark creatures that inhabit hell. Images such as The demise Judgement (below) can be found in the Online Archive.In Knight, Death, and the daimon (1513), a devout Christian knight is taunted by the Devil and Death, who gleefully shakes a quickly depleting hourglass, mocking the soldier with the passing of time. Perhaps the stress and anxiety in Durers print resonated with the American poet Randall Jarrell in his engagement with mental illness. In The Knight, Death, and the Devil, Jarrell opens with a description of the scene Cowhorn-crowned, shockheaded, cornshucked-bearded, Death is a scarecrowhis deaths-head a teetotum . . . Jarrells description is fill up with adjectives in much the same way that the print is crowded with detail. The meter is an instance of what critics call ekphrasis the verbal description of a work of visual art, usually of a painting, photograph, or sculpture but sometimes of an urn, tapestry, or quilt.Ekphrasis attempts to bridge the gap between the verbal and the visual arts. artworkists and writers have perpetually influenced one another sometimes directly as in the fictitious character of Durers drawing and Jarrells poem, and other times indirectly.The Study Guide allow help you navigate through these webs of influence. For example, Unit 5 pull up stakes introduce you to the Hudson River 7995 Albrecht Durer, The Last School, the great American landscape painters Judgement (1510), politeness of the of the nineteenth century. In the Context digestprint collection of Connecticut ing on these artists, you go forth learn of the interCollege, New London. connectedness of their visual motifs.In Unit 11, William Carlos Williams, whose poems The jump and Landscape with the Fall of Icarus were invigorate by two paintings by Breughel, will draw your attention to the use of ekphrasis. Williamss work is a epochal example of how multiple traditions in art can influence a writer in assenting to his liaison in European art, Williams imitated Chinese landscapes and poetic forms. When you encounter works of fine art, such as paintings, photographs, or sculpture, in the Online Archive or the Study Guide, you may find two tools used by art historians helpful black-tie analysis and iconography. established L I T E R AT U R E I N I T S C U LT U R A L C O N T E X T 9 3694doubting doubting Thomas Cole, The Falls of Kaaterskill (1826), courtesy of the Warner Collection of the Gulf States Paper Corporation, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. analysis, like close reading s of poems, seeks to describe the temper of the object without reference to the context in which it was created. A formal analysis addresses such questions as Where does the central interest in the work lie?How is the work composed and with what materials? How is lighting or shading used? What does the scene depict? What allusions (mythological, religious, artistic) are found in the work? Once you have described the work of art using formal analysis, you may neediness to extend your reading by tone biography attention to the cultural climate in which the work was produced. This is called an iconographic reading.Here the Context sections of the Study Guide will be useful. You may notice, for example, a public approach pattern of nineteenth-century paintings of ships in the Online Archive. One of the Contexts for Unit 6 argues that these ships can be read as symbols for nineteenth-century America, where it was common to refer to the nation as a ship of state. The glowing light o r wrecked hulls in the paintings reflect the artists change optimism and pessimism about where the young country was headed. Below are two viable readings of Thomas Coles painting The Falls of Kaaterskill that employ the tools of formal analysis and iconography. W R I T E R A F O R M A L A N A L Y S I SIn this painting by Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole, the falls that give the painting its name grab our attention. The shock of the uncontaminating falls against the concentrated brightness of the rocks ensures that the pissfall will be the focus of the work. Even amidst this brightness, however, there is darkness and mystery in the painting, where the falls come in out of a dark quarry and crash down onto upset tree limbs and staggered rocks. The descent is neither peaceful nor verdant, unlike the presentation of temper in Coles other works, such as the Oxbow. The enormity of the falls compared to the lone human figure that perches above them also adds to the intell igence of big businessman the falls embody.Barely recognizable as human because it is so minute, the figure still pushes forward as if to embrace the cascade of the water in a painting that explores the tension between the individual and the power of nature. W R I T E R B I C O N O G R A P H Y I agree with source A that this painting is all about the power of nature, but I would argue that it is about a particular kind of power one that nineteenthcentury thinkers called the sublime. Coles portrait of the falls is particularly indebted to the aesthetic ideas formulated by Edmund Burke in the eighteenth century. Burke was implicated in categorizing aesthetic responses, and he distinguished the sublime from the fitsque. While the beautiful is calm and harmonious, the sublime is majestic, wild, and even savage. While viewers are soothed by the beautiful, they are overwhelmed, awestruck, and sometimes terrified by the sublime. Often associated with huge, overpowering innate(p) 10 W H AT I S A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E ? phenomena like mountains, waterfalls, or thunderstorms, the delightful brat inspired by sublime spates was supposed to both remind viewers of their own insignificance in the face of nature and divinity and inspire them with a feel of transcendence. Here the miniature figure is the object of our gaze even as he is obliterated by the grandeur of the water.During the nineteenth century, tourists often visited locales such as the Kaaterskill Falls in order to experience the delightful terror that they brought. This experience is also echoed in Ralph Waldo Emersons essay Nature, in which he writes of his desire to become a transparent eyeball that will be able to absorb the oversoul that borders him. The power that nature holds here is that of the divine nature is one way we can experience higher realms. How do these readings differ? Which do you find more compelling and why? What uses can you see for formal analysis or iconographic rea dings? When might you choose one of these strategies over the other?HistoryAs historian Ray Kierstead has pointed out, tale is not just one damn thing after another rather, autobiography is a way of telling stories about time or, some might say, making an argument about time. The Greek historian Herodotus is often called the catch of memorial in the western world, as he was one of the low historians to notice patterns in world events.Herodotus saw that the course of empires followed a cyclical pattern of rise and fall as one empire reaches its blooming and self-destructs out of hubris (excessive pride), a wise empire or new nations will be born to take its place. Thomas Coles five-part series The Course of Empire (1833) mirrors this Herodotean notion of time as his scene moves from savage, to pastoral, to consummation, to devastation, to desolation.This vision of time has been tremendously influential in literature whenever you read a work written in the pastoral mode (litera ture that sayings back with nostalgia to an era of rural life, lost simplicity, and a time when nature and culture were one), ask yourself whether there is an implicit optimism or pessimism about what follows this lost rural ideal. For example, in Herman Melvilles South Sea novel Typee, we find the narrator in a Tahitian village.He seeks to determine if he has entered a pastoral or savage setting is he surrounded by savages, or is he plunged in a pastoral bliss? Implicit in both is a suggestion that there are earlier forms of elegance than the United States that the narrator has left behind. Any structural analysis of a work of literature (an analysis that pays attention to how a work is ordered) would do well to consider what notions of floor are embedded inside.In addition to the structural significance of history, a dialogue between history and literature is crucial because much of the early literature of the United States can also be categorized as historical documents. It is helpful, therefore, to understand the genres of history. Like literature, history is comprised of different genres, or modes. Historian Elizabeth Boone defines the main traditional genres of history as res gestae, geographical, and annals.Res gestae, or deeds done, organizes history through a list of accomplishments. This was a popu- L I T E R AT U R E I N I T S C U LT U R A L C O N T E X T 11 lar form of history for the ancient Greeks and Romans for example, the story of Julius Caesar chronicles his deeds, narrated in the third person.When Hernan Cortes and other explorers wrote accounts of their travels (often in the form of letters to the emperor), Caesars autobiography served as their model. Geographical histories use travel through space to shape the narrative Mary Rowlandsons incarceration narrative is an example of a geographical history in that it follows her through a sequence of twenty geographic removes into Indian country and back. Annals, by contrast, use time as the organizing principle.Information is catalogued by year or month. Diaries and journals are a unafraid example of this genre. These three genres can also be found in the histories of the Aztecs and Mayans of Mesoamerica and in those of the native communities of the United States and Canada.For example, the migration legend, a popular indigenous form of history, is a geographical history, whereas trickster tales often tell the early history of the world through a series of deeds. Memoirists also mix genres for example, the first section of William Bradfords Of Plimouth Plantation is a geographical history, whereas the second half is annals.Today the most common historical genres are intellectual history (the history of ideas), political history (the story of leaders), and diplomatic history (the history of foreign relations). To these categories we might add the newer categories of social history (a history of day-after-day life) and gender history (which focuses on the construction of gender roles).Finally, history is a crucial tool for understanding literature because literature is written inand arguably often reflectsa specific historical context. Readers of literary works can deepen their understanding by drawing on the tools of history, that is, the records people leave behind political (or literary) documents, town records, census data, newspaper stories, captivity narratives, letters, journals, diaries, and the like.Even such objects as tools, graveyards, or trading goods can tell us important information about the nature of everyday life for a community, how it worshipped or what it thought of the relationship between life and death. 12 W H AT I S A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E ? Material nuance 6332Archibald Gunn and Richard Felton Outcault, New York Journals Colored Comic Supplement (1896), courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division LC-USZC4-25531. When you work out at an object, it may call up associations from the p ast. For example, for the first-time viewer the clown figure in the image above may seem innocuous, yet at the end of the nineteenth century his popularity was so intense that it started a newspaper war fierce enough to spawn a whole new term for sensationalist, irresponsible journalismyellow journalism. Objects such as this queer supplement constitute material culture, the objects of everyday life.In Material Culture Studies in America, Thomas Schlereth provides the following useful definition of material culture Material culture can be considered to be the totality of artifacts in a culture, the vast universe of objects used by humankind to administer with the physical world, to facilitate social intercourse, to delight our fancy, and to create symbols of meaning. . . . Leland Ferguson argues that material culture includes all the things that people leave behind . . . all of the things people make from the physical worldfarm tools, ceramics, houses, furniture, toys, buttons, ro ads, cities. (2) When we study material culture in conjunction with literature, we wed two notions of culture and explore how they relate.As critic John Storey notes, the first notion of culture is what is often called high culturethe general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic factors and the second is exitd culturethe particular way of life, whether of a people, a period or a group (2). In a sentiency, material culture (as the objects of a lived culture) allows us to see how the prevailing intellectual ideas were played out in the workaday lives of people in a particular era.Thus, as Schlereth explains, through study material culture we can learn about the belief systemsthe determine, ideas, attitudes, and assumptionsof a particular community or society, usually across time (3). In reading objects as embedded with meaning, we follow Schlereths premise that objects made or L I T E R AT U R E I N I T S C U LT U R A L C O N T E X T 13modified by humans, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, reflect the belief patterns of individuals who made, commissioned, purchased, or used them, and, by extension, the belief patterns of the large society of which they are a part (3). The study of material culture, then, can help us better understand the cultures that produced and consumed the literature we read today. Thomas Schlereth suggests a number of useful models for studying material culture his Art History Paradigm is particularly noteworthy in that it will help you approach works of high art, such as paintings and sculptures, as well. The Art History Paradigm argues that the interpretive objective of examining the artifact is to depict the historical development and intrinsic merit of it.If you are interested in writing an Art History Paradigm reading of material culture, you might look at an object and ask yourself the following questions, taken from Sylvan Barnets Short Guide to Writing about Art. These questions apply to any art object First, we need to know information about the artifact so we can place it in a historical context. You might ask yourself 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What is my first response to the work? When and where was the work made?Where would the work to begin with have been seen? What purpose did the work serve? In what condition has the work survived? (Barnet 2122) In addition, if the artifact is a drawing, painting, or advertisement, you might want to ask yourself questions such as these 1.What is the subject matter? What (if anything) is happening? 2. If the picture is a portrait, how do the furnishings and the background and the angle of the head or the posture of the head and body (as well as the facial expression) contribute to our sense of the subjects character? 3. If the picture is a still life, does it suggest opulence or want? 4. In a landscape, what is the relation between human beings and nature? Are the figures at ease in nature, or are they dwarfed by it? Are they one with the hori zon, or (because the viewpoint is low) do they stand out against the horizon and perhaps seem in give ear with the heavens, or at least with open air?If there are woods, are these woods threatening, or are they an inviting place of refuge? If there is a clearing, is the clearing a vulnerable place or is it a place of refuge from ominous woods? Do the natural objects in the landscape somehow reflect the emotions of the figures? (Barnet 2223 for more questions, see pp. 2324) Material culture is a rich and varied resourcefulness that ranges from kitchen utensils, to advertisements, to farming tools, to clothing. Unpacking the significance of objects that appear in the stories and poems you read may help you better understand characters and their motives. 14 W H AT I S A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E ?ArchitectureMost of the time we read the hidden meanings of buildings without even thinking twice. Consider the buildings below supra 9089 Anonymous, Capitol Building at Washington, D . C. (1906), courtesy of Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress LC-USZ62-121528. Right 6889 Anonymous, frontal of the Sam Wahs Chinese Laundry (c. 1890 1900), courtesy of the Denver commonplace Library.Even if we had never seen either of these buildings before, it would not take us long to determine which was a government building and which was a smalltown retail establishment. Our having seen thousands of buildings enables us to understand the purpose of a building from architectural clues.When first perceive a work of architecture, it is helpful to unpack cultural assumptions. You might ask 1. What is the purpose of this building? Is it public or private? What activities take place within it? 2. What features of the building reflect this purpose?Which of these features are necessary and which are merely conventional? 3. What buildings or building styles does this building allude to? What values are inherent in that allusion? 4. What parts of this building are in general decorative rather than functional? What does the ornament or lack of it say about the condition of the owners or the people who work there? 5. What buildings surround this building?How do they affect the way the building is entered? 6. What types of people live or work in this building? How do they interact within the space? What do these findings say about the relative social status of the occupants? How does the building design restrict or encourage that status?7. How are people supposed to enter and move through the building? What clues does the building give as to how this movement should take place? L I T E R AT U R E I N I T S C U LT U R A L C O N T E X T 15 These questions imply two basic assumptions about architecture (1) architecture reflects and helps establish social status and social relations and (2) architecture i