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ENGL 204: American Literature to 1900

Course Aims and Objectives:
This course explores how American Literature has evolved from its colonial origins, with particular emphasis on key figures of the nineteenth century. What we call ‘American Literature’ and how we define America and ‘the American experience’ depends on who is writing and to whom. We shall encounter many different voices, many conflicting and contrasting views, a diversity of complex experience and a great range of writing in form and style (don’t expect the poetic and novelistic forms you are used to in British literature). The course will be broadly thematic in its approach, aiming to build up through recurring themes, images, questions and stylistic features, an increasingly complex picture of the literature created mostly by English-speaking Americans.
The seminar programme has been designed to make use of the tremendous range of material offered by the Norton as well as focusing on certain important authors and texts. So sometimes we shall be reading a number of shorter selections on a particular theme, and at other times we’ll spend one or two whole seminars on a single text or writer. The early seminars on the course are meant to introduce a number of important issues which will give you a framework for later texts (their relevance will become increasingly clear), but the texts are also important in their own right though they may seem strange to you. You’re encouraged to use your Norton and read beyond the texts selected for the seminars, especially when writing your essays. Read the headnotes for every author whose work you're asked to read for a seminar.

Assessment:
1 x class test (10%); 1 x 2,000-word essay (30%); 1 x 2.5 hours final examination (60%)

Submission deadlines:
In-class test = Lecture Slot Week 9/Term 1
Essay = by 12 noon, Monday Week 10/Term 2

Contact:
One lecture and one seminar per week.

Learning Outcomes:
You should:

  • have developed a good knowledge of the literature of the period in its various types and genres, an understanding of significant kinds of connection and difference between texts, and a capacity to read these texts closely
  • demonstrate an awareness of certain historical, political, literary and cultural issues of the period as they are reflected in the literary texts
  • develop an understanding of the problems of defining American literature and the contested nature of ‘America’ as a concept
  • have developed independent critical responses and perspectives in general and a capacity to make appropriate use of secondary material such as criticism and theory
  • have developed your existing skills (both oral and written) in the analysis of ideas, presentation of arguments and well-expressed handling of complex issues

Reading List:

We shall be mainly using The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volumes A and B, Eighth Edition. In addition, you’ll need to have copies of Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and James, The Turn of the Screw. For an extensive bibliography with recommended secondary reading, please see the course Moodle site

Lecturers: AWT = Dr Andrew Tate; BB = Dr Brian Baker; KLE = Dr Kamilla Elliott; JC = Dr Jo Carruthers; AES = Dr Tony Sharpe

 

ENGL 204: AMERICAN LITERATURE TO 1900
Lecture Time and Venue: Tuesday 11am – 12pm, Marcus Merriman LT
Course Convenor: Dr Andrew Tate (Term 1); Dr Brian Baker (Terms 2 and 3)

Lecture/Seminar Programme N.B. All page references below, unless stated otherwise, are for The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Eighth Edition, Volumes A & B.

Term 1


Week

Lecture / Seminar

Lecturer

1

Lecture: Cultures in Contact: Early Voices from the ‘New World
Seminar: Beginnings and Encounters. Columbus, from Letter to Luis de Santangel regarding the First Voyage, 35-8; De las Casas, from The Very Brief Relation, 39-42; The Iroquois Creation Story, 23-25; John Smith, from A Description of New England, 93-96; William Bradford, from Of Plymouth Plantation, 131-134 (beginning to end of chapter IX).

AWT

2

Lecture: Puritan Beginnings: The World, the Self and the Poet
Seminar: Winthrop, from A Model of Christian Charity, 175-7 (Section II to the end); Edwards, from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, 434 (beginning of section headed ‘Application’) - 437 (paragraph ending ‘who shall be the subject of this’); Bradstreet, ‘Prologue’, ‘Contemplations’, ‘The Author to her Book’, ‘Before the Birth of One of Her Children’, ‘To My Dear and Loving Husband’, ‘A Letter to her Husband...’, all three elegies for her grandchildren, ‘On the Burning of Our House’, ‘As Weary Pilgrim’ (208ff). Taylor, ‘Prologue’, ‘Meditations’, 8 and 26, ‘Huswifery’ (291ff). Another spiritual autobiography of interest is Edwards, Personal Narrative (398ff) if you want to explore further.

AWT

3

Lecture: Revolution, Democracy, Identity: A world of Change?
Seminar: The Eighteenth Century: the secularisation of the Puritan world, and questions of identity and selfhood.  Jefferson, from The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, ‘Declaration of Independence’, 661-7; Franklin, Autobiography, 493 (‘When he found...’) – 500(‘mistaken’), and 531-542 (beginning section headed ‘Continuation Of [. . .]’ to end of section); Wheatley, ‘On being Brought from Africa to America’, ‘To His Excellency General Washington’, 763 ff.

BB

4

Lecture: Hereness and Otherness: Frontiers and Native Americans
Seminar: Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs Mary Rowlandson, 257ff (the whole narrative); Mather, from The Wonders of the Invisible World, 328-333 (end of excerpt); Cooper, from The Pioneers, Chapter III, 72-79.

BB

5

Lecture: America Revisioned: Emerson
Seminar:  Emerson, ‘Self-Reliance’ 269-286; from Nature, 214 – 217 (end of page).

AWT

6

INDEPENDENT STUDY WEEK – NO LECTURE / SEMINAR (you are asked to read for Weeks 7, 8, 9 and 10)

 

7

Lecture: Thoreau
Seminar: Thoreau, Walden, Chapters 1 (‘Economy’) and 2 (‘Where I Lived and What I Lived For’), 981-1033; Chapter 5 (‘Solitude’), 1048-54;  Chapter 9 (‘The Ponds’), 1071-85;

AWT

8

Lecture: Whitman
Seminar: Whitman, Leaves of Grass [Song of Myself], 1330 ff (NB: the eighth edition only features the 1881 version of this poem).

AES

9

Lecture: IN-CLASS TEST
Seminar: Whitman (continued), ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry’, 1383ff

 

10

Lecture: Dickinson
Seminar: Dickinson, poems 1659ff (NB. Your seminar tutor may ask you to focus on specific poems)

KLE

Christmas Vacation: Read the works by Poe for the Week 1 lecture. You are also strongly advised to read Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Term 2


Week

Lecture / Seminar

Lecturer

1

Lecture: Poe: Fantasia of the Unconscious
Seminar:  Poe, ‘To Helen’; ‘The City in the Sea’; ‘The Raven’; ‘Annabel Lee’;  ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’; ‘William Wilson’, ‘The Man in the Crowd’, 633 ff.

BB

2

Lecture: Romance and Realism: What Makes American Fiction Different?
Seminar: Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 1 to Chapter 12, 476 ff, and ‘The Custom House’ (prefatory chapter to this novel, 450 ff (we recommend reading ‘The Custom House’ after you’ve read at least half of the The Scarlet Letter).

BB

3

Lecture: The Scarlet Letter
Seminar: Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 13 to end of the novel

JC

4

Lecture: Literature of Slavery and Abolition
Seminar: Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, 1174ff (the whole narrative).

KLE

5

Lecture: Forms of Dissent I: Davis
Seminar:  Davis, Life in the Iron Mills, 1706ff.

BB

6

INDEPENDENT STUDY WEEK – NO LECTURE / SEMINAR (you are asked to read some or all of the texts for the rest of the term (or as much as possible).

 

7

Lecture: Forms of Dissent II: Melville
Seminar: Melville, ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’, 1483. Some tutors may ask you to read ‘Benito Cereno’, 1526ff.

BB

8

Lecture: Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
Seminar: Twain, Huckleberry Finn (Not in Norton)

AWT

9

Lecture: Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
Seminar: James, The Turn of the Screw (Not in Norton)

BB

10

Lecture: NO LECTURE – final lecture will take place in Week 1, Term 3.
Seminar: Course discussion

 

Term 3


Week

Lecture / Seminar

Lecturer

1

Lecture: Where have we got to and how have we got there? Review of Course
Seminar:  Revision Seminar

AWT

2

Lecture: NO LECTURE
Seminar: Revision Seminar

 

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