Southeast

North Carolina Collection Gallery
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wilson Library, 962-1172, permanent
This miniature museum inside majestic Wilson Library features furniture from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, as well as exhibits on early exploration of the Carolina coast, the North Carolina gold rush, and a famous set of Siamese twins who lived in North Carolina.

University of North Carolina Campus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,Visitors' Center, west wing of Morehead Planetarium, 962-1630, permanent
The first state university in the United States to admit and graduate students, UNC celebrated its bicentennial in 1993. For a fascinating walking tour covering the school's Civil War history and other details, borrow a Walkman and cassette for no charge at the Visitors' Center.

Frontier Photographer: Edward S. Curtis
Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C., September 23, 1998-September 27, 1999

After the Revolution
Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C., permanent
This permanent exhibit focuses on the day-to-day lives of white, black, and native Americans after the American Revolution.

• American History Quiz
• American Literature Quiz
• Literary Analysis Quiz

• Major American Authors
• Issues in Contemporary American English

Literature

• The Academy of American Poets Listening Booth: If you have a properly equipped computer, you can visit this site and hear famous poets such as Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, and Gwendolyn Brooks read their poetry.  (http://www.poets.org/lit/litfrmst.htm)
• The Almanac of American Letters: A unique source of information on American literary trivia, this book contains lists of literary clubs, authors' pseudonyms, collectors' items, bestsellers, worst sellers, and banned books, as well as anecdotes, quotations, a calendar of birthdates, a chronology of American literature, accounts of literary hoaxes and forgeries, and background information on works such as Evangeline and Charlotte Temple. (Nelson, Randy F. The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, Calif.: William Kaufmann, 1981. PS 92 .N37)
• American Authors 1600-1900: While it is not as up-to-date as many other literary reference tools, this book nonetheless is a useful guide to the lives and works of early American writers. Like Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, it contains pictures of many important writers. (Kunitz, Stanley J., and Howard Haycraft, eds. American Authors 1600-1900: A Biographical Dictionary of American Literature. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1938. PS21 .K8)
• American Literature Online: This site includes links to dozens of sites on individual authors, literary journals, and general information about literature.
• American Literary Scholarship: Begun in 1965, this annual survey is a leading guide to critical books and articles written about American authors. (American Literary Scholarship. Ed. Gary Scharnhorst. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. PS3 .A47)
• American Studies Web: This site provides links to many sites relevant to the study of American literature, history, and culture. (www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/asw/index.htm)
• Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia: One of the best encyclopedias of world literature, this book contains alphabetized entries on authors, works, characters, and terms. (Siepmann, Katherine Baker. Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia. New York: Harper-Collins, 1987. PN41 .B4 1991)
• Contemporary Literary Critics: This book is a useful guide to the lives and critical works of important literary scholars, such as Leon Edel and Richard Chase. (Borklund, Elmer. Contemporary Literary Critics. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1982.)
• Fifteen American Authors Before 1900: This book contains extensive bibliographical information about Henry Adams, William Cullen Bryant, James Fenimore Cooper, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Dean Howells, Washington Irving, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Frank Norris, Edward Taylor, and John Greenleaf Whittier. (Herbert, Earl P., and Robert A. Rees, eds. Fifteen American Authors Before 1900. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.)
• A Handbook to Literature: A standard dictionary of literary terminology, this reference book contains hundreds of literary terms, such as "symbol" and "naive narrator," along with definitions and illustrative examples. It also features an index of authors and a timeline of literary history. (Holman, C. Hugh, and William Harmon. A Handbook to Literature. Sixth Edition. New York: Macmillan, 1992. PN41 .H6 1992)
• Literature and Technology Institute: This World Wide Web site, sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English, is an excellent place to start if you are doing research on literature or history. Using the links here, you can find texts, pictures, and graphics in a matter of minutes. (www.utb.edu/~drodrigu/literature.htm(
• Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature: Like Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia, this book has alphabetized entries on authors, works, characters, terms, and periods, but it also contains numerous pictures of important writers. (Kuiper, Kathleen. Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1995.)
• The Oxford Companion to American Literature: A standard guide to American literature, this encyclopedia contains alphabetized entries on authors, works, historical events and figures, literary clubs and movements, characters, periodicals, critics, terms, and real and fictional places of significance in American literature, as well as a list of Pulitzer Prize winners. (Hart, James D. The Oxford Companion to American Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. PS21 .H3 1995)
• The Oxford Companion to the English Language: This encyclopedia of linguistic information can help readers study "dialect" and other terms relavant to literature. (McArthur, Tom, ed. The Oxford Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.)
• Reference Guide to American Literature: This book contains extensive information on authors' lives and works, as well as an introduction, bibliographies, and a chronology of American literature. (Kirkpatrick, D.L., ed. Reference Guide to American Literature. 2nd ed. Chicago: St. James Press, 1987. PS21 .R43)
• University of Toronto Electronic Library: This site contains, among other things, the texts of numerous great works of literature. (http://dev.library.utoronto.ca/utel/index.htm)
• University of Virginia Library electronic text center: This enormous collection gives you access to letters written by Civil War soldiers, books by American women, an extensive collection of materials related to Thomas Jefferson, and much more. (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/)
• WWW Virtual Library: This site provides links to an enormous number of sites with information on a variety of subjects, including architecture, history, religion, politics, education, literature, and science. (http://vlib.stanford.edu/Overview.htm)

History

• American Studies Web: This site provides links to many sites relevant to the study of American literature, history, and culture. (www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/asw/index.htm)
• Literature and Technology Institute: This World Wide Web site, sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English, is an excellent place to start if you are doing research on literature or history. Using the links here, you can find texts, pictures, and graphics in a matter of minutes. (www.utb.edu/~drodrigu/literature.htm)
• University of Virginia Library electronic text center: This enormous collection gives you access to letters written by Civil War soldiers, books by American women, an extensive collection of materials related to Thomas Jefferson, and much more. (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/)
• WWW Virtual Library: This site provides links to an enormous number of sites with information on a variety of subjects, including architecture, history, religion, politics, education, literature, and science. (http://vlib.stanford.edu/Overview.htm)

Quotations

• He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals. Benjamin Franklin
• Shipwrecks are appropos of nothing. Stephen Crane, "The Open Boat"
• Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Thomas Edison
• Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. Benjamin Franklin
• And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a task-master. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others. Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
• It is not enough to be busy . . . the question is: what are we busy about? Henry David Thoreau
• Because now is the only time there ever is to do a thing in. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin

Signs

• "My Welcome Wagon visit will cheer you up and help you get settled in faster. It's free to you and there's obligation.": Advertisement in the Laurinburg Exchange
• "Antiques, Collectibles, and Other Elderly Things": sign advertising a store in South Carolina
• "No Profanity": Signs hanging on counter of Laurinburg license plate branch
• "Don't lean on this rail. It is broken. I fell into the yard. Curtis.": Sign hanging on a rail on the rear stoop of a house for sale in Laurinburg
• "Please Do Not Spit on the Wall": Sign hanging on the wall of a restaurant where we had breakfast in Point Pleasant, West Virginia
• "Breakage will result in payment of merchandise": Sign in a gift shop in Charleston, West Virginia

Odds and Ends

• Over the course of his life, Benjamin Franklin corresponded with more than 4,000 people. (Source: Esmund Wright, Franklin of Philadelphia, page viii)

Everything I Need to Know About Literature I Learned from Garth Brooks

Here is a list of literary terms we discuss in my Introduction to Literature course, illustrated by some of America's masters of the language: country musicians.

Allusion: a reference to a person, work of art, or event

"Everybody's yearnin' for somebody else,

But nobody's lonesome for me.

Everybody's fallin' for somebody else,

But nobody's fallin' for me.

Now, I ain't had a kiss since I fell out of my crib.

It looks to me like I've been cheated out of my rib."

(Hank Williams, "Nobody's Lonesome for Me")

Conceit: an extended comparison between two otherwise unlike things

"This time I found a keeper, I made up my mind.

Lord, the perfect combination is her heart and mine.

The sky's the limit, no hill is too steep.

We're playin' for fun, but we're playin' for keeps. . .

We're two of a kind working on a full house."

(Garth Brooks, "Two of a Kind, Workin' on a Full House")

Hyperbole: an exaggeration

"You could set my truck on fire and roll it down a hill,

And I still wouldn't trade it for a Coupe Deville."

(Joe Diffie, "A Pickup Man")

Imagery: the use of words to conjure a sensation, such as a vision or a smell

"I can recall the sound of the wind, as it blew through the trees, and the trees would bend,

And I can recall the smell of the rain on a hot summer night coming through the screen.

I'd crawl in your bed when the lightning flashed, and I'd still be there when the storm had passed,

Dead to the world till the morning cast its light all around your room.

We lived on a street where the tall elm shade was as green as the grass and as cool as a blade

That you held in your teeth as we lay on our backs staring up at the blue, and the blue stared back.

I used to believe we were just like those trees, we'd grow just as tall and as proud as we pleased

With our feet on the ground and our arms in the breeze under a sheltering sky."

(Mary Chapin Carpenter, "Only a Dream")

Oxymoron: the use of words that contradict each other

"I've been bound to leave you, we've known that for a while.

I'm sure it's something I can't do if I can't leave you with a smile.

I don't know how far I'll have to go till I'm sure those eyes won't cry,

And in my mind I'll left enough to know that I can't leave you

With a bad goodbye."

(Clint Black, "A Bad Goodbye")

Paradox: a statement that seems self-contradictory, but is true

"I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going insane."

(Waylon Jennings, "I've Always Been Crazy")

Personification: a treatment of an object or animal as if it were a person

"She was hidin' in the closet when my wife walked out on me.

She was hanging on my shoulder when I moved to Tennessee.

She's been whiskey-stained and stepped-on, but she's always served me well,

If you could coax her into talking, all the stories she could tell.

Other arms have tried to hold her in a hundred different bars.

She's been passed around and picked on, and her body's got some scars.

She's been placed behind the front seat of too many people's cars.

I'll pick her up and take her home and treat her like a star.

So sing a song you know. She loves to play along.

She'll put music in your heart with her song.

Her once-girlish figure is startin' to show some age,

Lots of lines and scratches where my searchin' fingers played.

But when I hold her to my body, Lord, I feel I own the world.

To me she's more than wood and strings; she's my Gibson girl."

(Chet Atkins, "Gibson Girl")

Pun: humorous word play in which a word or phrase carries more than one meaning

"But anyone can see

You won't be crying over me,

And you never were that kind." (Clint Black, "Burn One Down")

Regionalism: the recreation of a particular geographic region's setting, dialect, and customs

"Jambalaya, crawfish pie, filet gumbo,

'Cause tonight I'm see my michell amio

Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gayo.

Son of a gun, we'all have big fun on the bayou."

(Hank Williams, "Jambalaya")

Simile: an indirect comparison between two otherwise unlike things

"Like birds on a high line,

They line up at night at the bar.

They all once were lovebirds.

Now blue birds are all that they are.

They landed in hell

The minute they fell from love's sky,

And now they hope in the wine

That they'll find a new way to fly." (Garth Brooks, "New Way to Fly")

Stock character: a character who shows many stereotypical qualities rather than a complex psychological profile

"When the crowd rolled in, they were a motley mix.

There was truckers, bikers, drifters, and locals from the sticks,

Each one meaner than a cougar in a cage,

And the biggest one swaggered right up to the stage." (John Anderson, "Let the Guitar Do the Talkin'")

Symbol: an object that suggests something else

"And now I'm glad I didn't know

The way it all would end, the way it all would go.

Our lives are better left to chance. I could have missed the pain,

But I'd of had to miss the dance."

(Garth Brooks, "The Dance")

Mark Canada, Ph.D.
Editor
All America
Communicative Arts Department
118 Dial Building
University of North Carolina at Pembroke
Pembroke, NC 28372-1510
(910) 521-6431
canada@sassette.uncp.edu
www.uncp.edu/home/canada