Readings in Early Modernist American Literature 4219-SC0018
1. Introduction; overview; an in-class analysis of one or two Fireside poems
2. Selections from nineteenth-century American poets: James Whitcomb Riley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier's "Snow-Bound"; sentimentalism
3. Hamlin Garland, selections from Main-Travelled Roads (1891)--"The Return of the Private" and "Under the Lion's Paw”
4. Ambrose Bierce, selections from Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1892)--"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "Chickamauga," "Tough Tussle"
5. Stephen Crane, "The Blue Hotel" (1898), "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"' (1898), "A Mystery of Heroism" (1895), "An Episode of War" (1899); Frank Norris, "A Deal in Wheat" (1902)
6. Kate Chopin, selections from Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897): "Dr. Chevalier's Lie" (1891), "The Going Away of Liza" (1891), "A Respectable Woman" (1891), "A Storm" (1898)
7. Edith Wharton, selection of her short stories; "The Reckoning" (1902)
8. Edgar Arlington Robinson, selections of poems
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: Archibald MacLeish's "Memorial Rain," Ezra Pound's Hugh Selvyn Mauberley IV and V, Alan Seeger, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death," etc.
12. Carl Sandburg, selections from Chicago Poems (1916)--"Chicago," "Population Drifts," "Mamie," etc.
13. Sherwood Anderson, selections from Winesburg, Ohio (1919): "Adventure" (1919), "The Untold Lie" (1919), "Death" (1919)
14. Willa Cather, selections--"The Sculptor's Funeral" and "Paul's Case"
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; you’re 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
Bierce, Ambrose. Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. Kent State University Press, 2004.
Blume, Donald T., Ambrose Bierce’s Civilians and Soldiers in Context: A Critical Study
2004.
Davidson, Cathy N., The Experimental Fictions of Ambrose Bierce: Structuring the Ineffable (1984)
Davison, Richard Allan. “Crane's ‘Blue Hotel’ Revisited: The Illusion of Fate.” Modern Fiction Studies 15, no. 4 (1969): 537–39.
Floyd, Janet, Claims and Speculations Mining and Writing in the Gilded Age (2012)
Foote, Stephanie, Regional Fictions: Culture and Identity in Nineteenth- Century American Literature (2001)
Gill, Jo. "Carl Sandburg: Smoke and Steel." Modern American Poetry and the Architectural Imagination: The Harmony of Forms. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023.
Grenberg, Bruce L. “Metaphysics of Despair: Stephen Crane's "The Blue Hotel.'" Modern Fiction Studies 14, no. 2 (1968): 203–13.
Kearns, Katherine. “‘The Place Is the Asylum’: Women and Nature in Robert Frost’s Poetry.” American Literature 59, no. 2 (1987): 190–210.
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.
Rich, C. "Kate Chopin." In A Companion to the American Short Story, edited by A. Bendixen and J. Nagel. Blackwell, 2010.
Robinson, Edwin A. Selected Poems. New York: Penguin, 1997.
Seidman, Steven. Romantic Longings: Love in America, 1830-1980. New York: Routledge, 1991.
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.
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Stacy, Jason. Spoon River America: Edgar Lee Masters and the Myth of the American Small Town. University of Illinois Press, 2021.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: