American Literature 230

2006 FALL SEMESTER

Reading Schedule

Indigenous & Colonial Lit.:
Pre-17th C.-18th C.

Week One
Monday, 8/21

• Introduction; visit Computer Lab, Grubbs 101.

Wednesday, 8/23

• Native American:Origin/Creation Tales (online)
• Oral Poetry (online)

Friday, 8/25

• Native American: Trickster Tales (online);
• Native American: Winnebago Trickster Tales 59-70.
• Two modern trickster poems (hand-out).

Week Two
Monday, 8/28

• Background: Lit. to 1700 (Spain and America 1-4; Native American Oral Lit. 4-6; Pilgrim and Puritan 10-11; Writing in Tongues 11-12).
• William Bradford 75-6 (skim); Of Plymouth Plantation, 76-94.
• Anne Bradstreet,"Prologue" 115-7.

Wednesday, 8/30

• Background: American Lit. 1700-1830 (Expanding World 171-3; Enlightenment Ideals 173-4; Imperial Politics 175-7).
• Benjamin Franklin 219-20 (skim); from The Autobiography, Part I, 231-53 and Part II, 281-92.

Friday, 9/01

• Thomas Paine 320-1 (skim); "The Crisis, No. 1," paragraph one, 328.
• J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, from Letters from an American Farmer (Letter IX: Charles-Town . . . slavery . . .), 310-14.
• Olaudah Equiano 350-1 (skim); from Interesting Narrative of the Life of . . . 351-61.
• Phillis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa" 367 AND "To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmough ..." 375-6.

The Romantic Period:
19th C. Transcendentalism

Week Three
Monday, 9/04

• Labor Day Holiday (no class)

Wednesday, 9/06

• Background: American Lit. 1890-1865 (Orthodox Religion and Transcendentalism 437-8; National Sins 440-2).
• Ralph Waldo Emerson 482-85 (skim); from Nature, Introduction 486-87; Chap. One 487-8; Chap. Three 489-93; Chap. Four 493-97.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Snow-storm (online).

Friday, 9/08

• Henry David Thoreau 834-37 (skim); from Walden 897 (bottom half of page) through 902 (top half of page)
• William Cullen Bryant, "Thanotopsis" 470-2; Scene on the Banks of the Hudson (online); Monument Mountain (online); To Cole the Painter . . . (online).
• MEET IN COMPUTER CLASSROOM, Grubbs 101: Browse Art-Tour: Hudson River Painters (online).
• PAPER #1 ASSIGNED: Nature. Due: 9/18. See Paper directions (online).

Week Four
Monday, 9/11

• Walt Whitman 985-89 (skim); "A Noiseless Patient Spider" 1080-1; "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" 1066-70.

Wednesday, 9/13

• Emily Dickinson 1167-70 (skim); #290 Of Bronze -- and Blaze (online); #291 How the Old Mountains Drip (online); #130 These are the Days--1172; #303 Soul Selects--1175; #508 I'm ceded (online). #249 Wild Nights--1174; #258 There's a certain Slant of Light--1174; #986 A narrow Fellow--1185.

Friday,9/15

• Margaret Fuller, "The Great Radical Dualism" 767-771
• Video: Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter"

The Dark Romantics:
19th C. Gothicism

Week Five
Monday, 9/18

• PAPER #1 DUE: Nature
• Video: Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter"

Wednesday,9/20

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Roger Malvin's Burial" 597-610.

Friday,9/22

• Edgar Allan Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado" 743-8; "The Raven" 697-700.

Week Six
Monday, 9/25

• EXAM

Wednesday,9/27

• Frederick Douglass 939-41 (skim); from Narrative of the Life of . . . an American Slave, Chap. I, 942-5; Chap. VII, 947-50; Chap. X, 954-73.

Regionalism/Realism:
Later 19th C.-Early 20th C.

Friday,9/29

• Background: American Lit. 1865-1914 (Transformation. . . 1223-25; Forms of Realism 1227-31; Regional Writing 1231-33).
• Mark Twain 1237-40 (skim); Huck Finn Ch. I-XII, 1244-1286.

Week Seven
Monday, 10/2

• Mark Twain, Huck Finn Ch. XIII-XV, 1286-1296; [omit part of Ch. XVI, 1297-1305 about some further encounters on the river]; Ch. XVI, 1305 (beginning "There warn't nothing to do") through Ch. XX, 1335.

Wednesday, 10/4

• Mark Twain, Huck Finn, [omit Ch. XXI-XXVIII, 1335-49]; Ch. XXIV-XXXII, 1349-90.

Friday, 10/6

• Mark Twain, Huck Finn, Ch. XXXIII--CHAPTER THE LAST, 1390-1432.

Week Eight
Monday, 10/9

• Kate Chopin 1594-96 (skim); "'Cadian Ball" 1596-1603; "The Storm" 1603-1607

Wednesday, 10/11

• Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" 1221
• Sui Sin Far, "In the Land of the Free" (hand-out).
• Zitkala-sa (Gertrude Bonnin), 1792-94 (skim); School Days of an Indian Girl (online).

Friday, 10/13

• FALL BREAK (no class)

The Modernist Period:
20th C.

Week Nine
Monday, 10/16

• Background: American Lit. 1914-1945 (Two Wars 1807-8; Science and Technology 1811-13; American Versions of Modernism 1814-17; Drama 1819-20)
• Robert Frost, "Birches" 1888-89; "Stopping by Woods" 1891.
• Ezra Pound, "In a Station in the Metro" 1949
• H.D., 1954-5; "Mid-day" 1955-56. Note definition of "imagism" on p.1955.
• William Carlos Williams, "Red Wheelbarrow" 1940
• Wallace Stevens, "Thirteens Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" 1928-29.

Wednesday, 10/18

• T.S. Eliot 1973-75 (skim); "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" 1975-79; The Waste Land, lines 1-7 from "The Burial of the Dead" 1981.

Friday, 10/20

• Ernest Hemingway 2206-8 (skim); "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" 2209-25.

Week Ten
Monday, 10/23

• William Faulkner 2157-59 (skim); "A Rose for Miss Emily" 2160-66 and "Barn Burning" 2178-90.

Wednesday, 10/25

• Background: African Americans 1811.
• Zora Neale Hurston, "Gilded Six-Bits" 2100-08.
• Claude McKay, "America" 2085; "If We Must Die" 2086.

Friday, 10/27

• EXAM

Week Eleven
Monday, 10/30

• Langston Hughes 2225-26 (skim); 2225-6, "Negro Speaks Rivers" 2227; "Mother to Son" 2227; "I, too" 2228; The Weary Blues (online).
• MEET IN COMPUTER CLASSROOM, Grubbs 101: Browse online Jazz Age Culture: Harlem Renaissance (online).
• PAPER ASSIGNED: Harlem Renaissance. Due: 11/8. See Paper directions (online).

Wednesday, 11/1

• Jazz Poetry (online)--Sterling Brown, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Bennett, Zora Neale Hurston, etc. (Note also the artwork.)

Friday, 11/3

• VIDEO: Eugene O'Neill 2003-5 (skim); Long Day's Journey into Night.

Week Twelve
Monday, 11/6

• VIDEO: Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night.

Wednesday, 11/8

• VIDEO: Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night.
• PAPER DUE: Harlem Renaissance.

Friday, 11/10

• VIDEO: Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night.

Multi-Cultural Literature:
Post-WW II to Present

Week Thirteen
Monday, 11/13

• Background: American Prose since 1945 (Lit. Developments 2279-82) and American Poetry since 1945 (The 1950s and 1960s--pp. 2612-14; The 1970s and 1980s--pp. 2615-16; Poetry in the 1990s--p.2619).
• Flannery O'Connor 2427-28 (skim); "Good Country People" 2428-41.

Wednesday, 11/15

• Allen Ginsberg, "A Supermarket in California" 2739-40.
• Sylvia Plath, "Daddy: 2781-83; "Lady Lazarus" 2778-81.
• Adrienne Rich, "Diving" 2766-68.

Friday, 11/17

• Leslie Marmon Silko, "Lullaby" 2588-94.
• Simon Ortiz, from From Sand Creek 2817-18.

Week Fourteen
Monday, 11/20

• Grace Paley, "A Conversation with my Father" 2401-04.
• Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye--read about 1/4

Wednesday, 11/22

• Thanksgiving Holiday (no class)

Friday, 11/24

• Thanksgiving Holiday (no class)

Week Fifteen
Monday, 11/27

• Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye--about 1/2.

Wednesday, 11/29

• Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye--about 3/4.

Friday, 12/01

• Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye--finish.

Week Sixteen
Monday, 12/04

• Gloria Anzaldua 2566-67 (skim); "El sonavabitche" 2575-79
• Rudolfo A. Anaya, "The Christmas Play" 2515-21.

Wednesday, 12/06

• Maxine Hong Kingston, "No Name Woman" 2557-66.

Friday, 12/08

• Li-Young Lee, "Persimmons" 2849-51; "Eating Alone" 2851; "Eating Together" 2852.

FINAL EXAM:
Wed., Dec. 13, 12:00-1:50 in Rm. 303.

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