Advanced topics in American Literature I 4219-AW103-A
1. William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation
CRITICAL READING: Sacvan Bercovitch, “The Puritan Vision of the New World” from Columbia Literary History in the United States, ed. Emory Elliott (New York: Columbia UP, 1988)
2. Anne Bradstreet, selection of poems
CRITICAL READING: Adrianne Rich, “The Tensions of Anne Bradstreet” (1966) in On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978. New York: Norton, 1979. (21-32); Wendy Martin, An American Triptych: Bradstreet, Dickinson, and Rich. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1984.
3. Hawthorne stories I: “Minister’s Black Veil,” “The Gentle Boy”
CRITICAL READING: Michael Colacurcio, The Province of Piety: Moral History in Hawthorne’s Early Tales (relevant excerpts)
4. Hawthorne stories II: “Roger Marvin’s Burial”
CRITICAL READING: Michael Colacurcio, The Province of Piety: Moral History in Hawthorne’s Early Tales (relevant excerpts)
5. Mark Twain “Celebrated Jumping Frog”; Bret Harte, “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” (1869)
CRITICAL READING: Tara Penry, “The Literate West of Nineteenth-Century Periodicals” from A Companion to the Literature and Culture of the American West, ed. by Nicolas S. Witschi
6. Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
CRITICAL READING: Betsy Erkkila, an excerpt from Walt Whitman: The Political Poet
7. Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
CRITICAL READING: Lawrance Buell “American Literary Emergence as a Postcolonial Phenomenon”; Erkkila, “Whitman and American Empire”; Ed Folsom, “Whitman and American Indians,” Walt Whitman’s Native Representations; Donald Pease, “Colonial Violence and Poetic Transcendence in Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’”
8. Walt Whitman, “Calamus” sequence
CRITICAL READING: Vivian R. Pollak, The Erotic Whitman. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1991 (excerpt)
9. Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom
CRITICAL READING: Ed Folsom, “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Slave: Douglass’s Frontispiece Engravings”
10. Emily Dickinson and nature, selected poems: 1) “This is my letter to the World,” 2) “What mystery pervades a well!” 3) “These are the days when Birds come back,” 4) “Of Bronze—and Blaze,” 5) “Further in Summer than the Birds,” 6) “I’ll tell you how the sun rose—”
CRITICAL READING: Cristanne Milller, ed. Emily Dickinson’s Poems, As She Preserved Them (Harvard University Press, 2016); Helen Vendler, Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010)
11. Emily Dickinson and death, selected poems: 1) “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—“; 2) “A Clock stopped—”; 3) “I died for Beauty—but was scarce”; 4) “I felt a funeral in my brain” 4) “It was not Death, for I stood up”
CRITICAL READING: Cristanne Millers’s edition; Helen Vendler’s commentary
12. H. W. Longfellow, “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”, “The Fire of Drift-Wood,” “Snow-Flakes.”
CRITICAL READING: Dana Gioia, “Longfellow in the Aftermath of Modernism” from Columbia History of American Poetry
13. Herman Melville, Benito Cereno
CRITICAL READING: Laurie Robertson-Lorant, excerpt from Melville: A Biography; C. L. R. James [The Yankee Captain]
Type of course
Mode
Prerequisites (description)
Learning outcomes
Upon completing this course, students will acquire the following:
KNOWLEDGE:
− Understand the significance of the selected classical American authors
− Know contemporary approaches to the early and nineteenth-century American literature
SKILLS
− Has the knowledge to conduct in-depth analysis of a text, applying new original approaches recently developed in the humanities
− Has the skill to prepare a comprehensive oral presentation discussing the issues broached during the course.
− Has the skills to seek, analyze and use information, using different sources, and formulate critical judgments on their basis
COMPETENCES
− Because of frequent group work, students will learn how to lead team work, assuming responsibility for the results
− understands the importance of continuous learning and development in the area of Am. literature
− follows the changing approaches to the early and nineteenth century American lit.
Assessment criteria
The final grade will be calculated on the basis of the following criteria:
1. Attendance – each student is allowed to have two unexcused absences
2. Active participation in the classes – 30% of the final grade
3. 2 tests, a midterm and an end-of-term - in total the grades will constitute 40% of the final grade
4. Final essay 30%
5. Grading
61-77 – 3
78-89 – 4
90-100 – 5
Bibliography
1. Sacvan Bercovitch, “The Puritan Vision of the New World” from Columbia Literary History in the United States, ed. Emory Elliott (New York: Columbia UP, 1988)
2. Adrianne Rich, “The Tensions of Anne Bradstreet” (1966) in On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978. New York: Norton, 1979. (21-32); Wendy Martin, An American Triptych: Bradstreet, Dickinson, and Rich. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1984.
3. Michael Colacurcio, The Province of Piety: Moral History in Hawthorne’s Early Tales (relevant excerpts)
4. Tara Penry, “The Literate West of Nineteenth-Century Periodicals” from A Companion to the Literature and Culture of the American West, ed. by Nicolas S. Witschi
5. Betsy Erkkila, Walt Whitman: The Political Poet
6. Lawrance Buell “American Literary Emergence as a Postcolonial Phenomenon”
7. Erkkila, “Whitman and American Empire”
8. Ed Folsom, “Whitman and American Indians,” Walt Whitman’s Native Representations;
9. Donald Pease, “Colonial Violence and Poetic Transcendence in Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’”
10. Vivian R. Pollak, The Erotic Whitman. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1991
11. Ed Folsom, “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Slave: Douglass’s Frontispiece Engravings”
12. Cristanne Milller, ed. Emily Dickinson’s Poems, As She Preserved Them (Harvard University Press, 2016);
13. Helen Vendler, Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010)
14. Dana Gioia, “Longfellow in the Aftermath of Modernism” from Columbia History of American Poetry
15. Laurie Robertson-Lorant, excerpt from Melville: A Biography;
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: