Readings in Early Modernist American Literature 4219-SC0018
1. Introduction; overview; the samples of the Genteel Tradition and early signs of new sentiments
2. Modernist impulses in late 19th-century poems by Harte, Melville, Piatt: Bret Harte, "Plain Language from Truthful James" (1870); Herman Melville, "A Utilitarian View of a Monitor's Fight," "Shiloh," "The College Colonel," from The Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866); Sarah Piatt, "The Palace-Burner" and "A Prettier Book" from A Voyage to the Fortunate Isles and Other Poems (Houghton Mifflin, 1886)
3. Selections from Hamlin Garland's Main-Travelled Roads, originally published in 1891, introd. by W. D. Howells (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995)--"The Return of a Private" and "Under the Lion's Paw”
4. Selections from Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1892)--"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "Chickamauga," "Tough Tussle."
5. Stephen Crane, "The Blue Hotel" (1898), "A Mystery of Heroism" (1895), "An Episode of War" (1899) from his Stories and Tales, ed. R. W. Stallman (New York: Vintage, 1955); Frank Norris, "A Deal in Wheat" (1902) from The Best Short Stories of Frank Norris (New York: Ironweed Press, 1998)
6. Kate Chopin, selections from Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897): "Doctor Chevalier's Lie" (1891), "The Going Away of Liza" (1891), "A Respectable Woman" (1891), "The Storm" (1898)
7. Edith Wharton, selection of her short stories; "The Reckoning" (1902)
8. Edwin Arlington Robinson: Selection from The Man Against the Sky (1916): "Bewick Finzer"; From The Children of the Night (1890-1897): "John Evereldown," "Luke Havergal" "Richard Cory," "Aaron Stark," "Cliff Klingenhagen," "The Clerks," "Reuben Bright"; From The Town Down the River (1910): "How Annandale Went Out," "Miniver Cheevy," For a Dead Lady"
9. Robert Frost, selections from North of Boston (1914) and Mountain Interval (1916): "A Servant to Servants," "The Fear," "The Hill Wife"
10. Edgar Lee Masters, selections from The Spoon River Anthology (1915):
11. Selection from WWI poetry: Robert Frost, "Not to Keep," Archibald MacLeish's "Memorial Rain," Ezra Pound's Hugh Selvyn Mauberley IV and V, Alan Seeger, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death," e.e. cummings, "I Sing of Olaf"
12. Carl Sandburg, selections from Chicago Poems (1916)--"Chicago," "The Sketch," "The Harbor," "Halsted Street Car," "Clark Street Bridge," "Passers-by," "Population Drifts," "Mamie."
13. Sherwood Anderson, selections from Winesburg, Ohio (1919): "Adventure" (1919), "The Untold Lie" (1919), "Death" (1919)
14. Willa Cather, selections--"The Sculptor's Funeral" (1905) and "Paul's Case" (1905)
15. Overview
Type of course
Mode
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Knowledge
Student knows and understands:
• the social, cultural, changes that occurred as a result of dynamic urbanization, the acceleration of pace of life, advancements in telecommunications, and the outbreak of World War I in the United States.
• the literary works of the United States that reflect the transformations in American society and American thought at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
• the influence of realism and naturalism on early 20th-century literature.
• the common characteristics of early modernist literature across various genres, as well as the connections and similarities between seemingly distant writers who express the same zeitgeist.
Skills
The student is able to:
• identify and analyze the themes typical of early 20th-century literature.
• identify characteristic changes in the customs and sensitivities of Americans living during that period.
• articulate and communicate about the changes in American culture and thought at the beginning of the 20th century using advanced information and communication techniques.
Social Skills
The student is:
• able use the interdisciplinary knowledge they gained in the field of American Studies in order to formulate their own opinions
• capable of participating in collaborative group discussions.
• capable of engaging in the development of American Studies focused on this critically neglected today early modernist period
Assessment criteria
• Attendance – it is highly recommended that you attend all classes; students are allowed to have two absences (for whatever reason)
• Active participation in class discussions and small assignments/activities – 30% of the final grade
• Midterm – 30%
• Final end-of-term essay – 40%
Grading: 100–88/5; 87–73/4; 72–57/3; 56–0/2
Bibliography
SECONDARY LITERATURE
Benfey, Christopher. “Melville’s Second Act.” New York Review of Books, June 26, 2008.
Blume, Donald T. Ambrose Bierce’s Civilians and Soldiers in Context: A Critical Study. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2004.
Caples, Daniel. “Two Chicagos.” Poetry Foundation, June 2015. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/blog/open-door/70452/two-chicagos.
Davidson, Cathy N. The Experimental Fictions of Ambrose Bierce: Structuring the Ineffable. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
Davison, Richard Allan. “Crane's ‘Blue Hotel’ Revisited: The Illusion of Fate.” Modern Fiction Studies 15, no. 4 (1969): 537–39.
Donaldson, Scott. Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Poet’s Life. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
Grenberg, Bruce L. “Metaphysics of Despair: Stephen Crane's ‘The Blue Hotel.’” Modern Fiction Studies 14, no. 2 (1968): 203–13.
Hallwas, John E. “Introduction.” In Spoon River Anthology: An Annotated Edition, by Edgar Lee Masters, 1–79. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.
James, Pearl. “World War I and Cultural Change in America.” In War and American Literature, edited by Jennnifer Haytock, 180–93. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Kearns, Katherine. “‘The Place Is the Asylum’: Women and Nature in Robert Frost’s Poetry.” American Literature 59, no. 2 (1987): 190–210.
Lee, Hermione. “The Republic of Letters: Edith Wharton at the Start of Her Career.” Yale Review 95, no. 2 (April 1, 2007).
Madigan, M. J. "Cather and the Short Story." In The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather, edited by M. Lindemann, 131–45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Martin, Quentin E. “Hamlin Garland's ‘The Return of a Private’ and ‘Under the Lion's Paw’ and the Monopoly of Money in Post-Civil War America.” American Literary Realism, 1870–1910 29, no. 1 (Fall 1996): 62–77.
Peppe, Holly. “Introduction.” In Selected Poems: Annotated Edition by Edna St Vincent Millay. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2022.
Renker, Elizabeth. “The ‘Genteel Tradition’ and Its Discontents.” In The Cambridge History of American Poetry, edited by Alfred Bendixen and Stephen Burt, 403–24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. doi:10.1017/CHO9780511762284.02
Rich, C. "Kate Chopin." In A Companion to the American Short Story, edited by A. Bendixen and J. Nagel. Blackwell, 2010.
Scharnhorst, Gary. “‘Ways That Are Dark’: Appropriations of Bret Harte’s ‘Plain Language from Truthful James.’” Nineteenth-Century Literature 51, no. 3 (1996): 377–99. https://doi.org/10.2307/2934016.
Sheehy, Donald G. “‘Not Quite All, My Dear’: Gender and Voice in Frost.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 36, no. 4 (1994): 403–30.
Stacy, Jason. Spoon River America: Edgar Lee Masters and the Myth of the American Small Town. University of Illinois Press, 2021.
Updike, John. “Twisted Apples.” Harper’s (March 1984): 95–97.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: