The course
is comprised of 14 units or umbrellas designed to be taught during the
semesters. These units each address a different time period of American
literary history.
Week
1: Exploration
and Settlement.
- Christopher
Columbus:
from Letter to Luis de Santangel
Regarding the First Voyage
from Letter to Ferninand and Isabella Regarding the Fourth
Voyage (July 7, 1503),
- Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca:
The Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de
Vaca
Dedication
The Malhado Way of Life
Our Life among the Avareres
and Arbados
Customs of that Region
The First Confrontation
The Falling out with our
Countrymen
Week
2&3: Making
a New World.
- John Smith:
From A Description of New England
- William Bradford:
Of
Plymouth Plantation p.58
Book І, Chapter IX and X
Book ІІ, Chapter XI, XIX, XX11.
Week
4: The
Puritan World View.
-
Anne Bradstreet:
To My Dear and Loving Husband
Here
Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House
The
Author to Her Book
Enlightenment Ideals, Introduction to
American Literature 1700-1820
- Jonathan Edwards:
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
Week
5&6: American
Renaissance/ Enlightenment
- Benjamin Franklin:
From The Autobiography (Part 1 and 2)
- Thomas Jefferson:
From The Declaration of Independence
Week
7: Early
19th Century
Introduction
- Washington Irving:
Rip Van Winkle
10. Edgar Allan Poe:
Annabel Lee
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Philosophy of Composition
Week
8&9: Transcendentalism: Preachers in the Garden.
11. Ralph Emerson:
The American Scholar
Self-Reliance
12. Henry Thoreau:
From Walden
Economy
Where I lived and What I
lived For
Week
10: Narratives
of Interpretation
13. Nathanial Hawthorne:
Young Goodman Brown
14. Herman Melville:
Bartleby, the Scrivener
.
Week
11: The Founders of Modern American Poetry: Whitman and Dickinson.
15. Walt Whitman:
Preface to Leaves of Grass
Song of Myself
When I Heard the Learned Astronomer
16. Emily Dickinson, poems: 112,
202, 207, 409, 479, 591, 620, 1263, 1773
Week
12: Realism and Naturalism
Introduction:
American Literature 1865-1914
17. Kate Chopin:
Desiree’s Baby
18. Stephen Crane:
The Open Boat.
Week
13: Modernism
Introduction: American Literature (1869-1945)
19. T. S. Eliot:
The Waste Land
Week 14: Postmodernism
Introduction: American
Literature since 1945
20. Alice Walker:
Everyday Use
Review: Things Settled and Unsettled.