Analyzing Fiction

I've wondered throughout the semester what role an author's life play in analyzing fiction or nonfiction. We've seen how authors can almost be seen as "ghosts" through time in that they are able to step out and see things nobody else can see. However, for example, John Winthrop, author of the sermon City Upon a Hill, was a lawyer before delivering his sermon. He uses legal language throughout the sermon. Walt Whitman, an assumed homosexual, reveals hints of his homosexuality in his poetry specifically in Leaves of Grass. How much does an author's life or even life experiences shape the literature they write? How much of it is something we subconciously seek? Are author's truly "ghosts" through time or are they humans like the rest of us?

John Winthrop and Apess

I must be in a Winthrop mood this semester because I see him everywhere. Winthrop and Apess pieces were written with the intention of being spoken aloud. Both men wrestle with the notion of love...Apess sees love as a way of creating a more perfect Union however Winthrop sees love as creating that Union. How are Apess and Winthrop's delivery styles different?

To start things off, Apess is far more different direct with the reader "let me ask you" or even better "let me ask you, white man". Apess is more in your face than Winthrop. His questions make you feel uneasy almost shameful feeling: (p. 1054 middle)

"I am not seeking for office, but merely placing before you the black inconsistency that you place before me--which is ten times blacker than any skin you will find in the universe."

- Apess wordplay involving is genius here when i think of inconsistency i think of gray yet he paints it as black...what is he getting at?