Course Description
Significant work by writers in America from the pre-Columbian era to World War I. Writers may include Anne Bradstreet, Benjamin Franklin, Washington Irving, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James, Charles Chesnutt, Frances Harper, and Edith Wharton.
Athena Title
American Literature to 1914 H
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in ENGL 2330
Prerequisite
(ENGL 1102 or ENGL 1102E) and permission of Honors
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall and spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
At the end of the course, students, having read a substantial body of literature, will be able to discuss the assigned works (orally and in writing) with a considerable degree of critical sophistication, to read them with pleasure, to read and enjoy other works from the period, and to converse with fellow students about texts and issues related to the subject matter of the course.
Topical Outline
The choice and sequence of topics will vary from instructor to instructor and semester to semester. The topics will consist of selected works by various authors to be read outside of class and discussed in class and to be examined individually and comparatively in the context of the times and the circumstances of their composition. Periodically during the semester, students will perform a number of graded tasks, including some combination of tests and out-of-class papers. A possible series of topics and assignments might resemble this: Selections from The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vols. A-C Bradford, Of Plymouth Planation Eleazar, Elegy for Thomas Thacker Bradstreet, selected poems Franklin, Autobiography Crevecoeur, Notes from an American Farmer Equiano, Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano Schoolcraft, selected poems and stories Apes, Son of the Forest and Other Writings Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin Emerson, Nature Thoreau, Walden Whitman, selected poems Hawthorne, stories Melville, Billy Budd Harper, Iola Leroy Twain, Huck Finn James, Daisy Miller Wharton, Ethan Frome
General Education Core
CORE IV: Humanities and the ArtsSyllabus