Engl. 772-01 Period in Literature:
American Realism

Spring Semester 2009

MWF 10:00-11:50, Grubbs Hall 312

Dr. Nichols, knichols@pittstate.edu

Daily Reading Schedule

Week One

Jan. 16

• Introduction; visit Computer Lab, Grubbs 101.
• CULTURAL CONTEXTS REPORTS ASSIGNED. See Contexts and paper directions (online).

Week Two

Jan. 19

• MARTIN LUTHER KING HOLIDAY (no class)

The Civil War and Aftermath: From Romanticism to Realism

Jan. 21

• Walt Whitman, selections from Song of Myself (online), Cantos 1-17 and 52.
• Whitman, from Drum Taps: "From Paumanok Starting"; "Cavalry Crossing a Ford"; "Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field"; "A Sight in Camp"; "Look Down, Fair Moon"; "Reconciliation" (online).
• Introduction: Historical Context, vii-xx (in Realism Reader).
• Chronology: Realistic Period in American Literature (hand-out)

Jan. 23

• Stephen Crane, A Mystery of War (online)
• Ambrose Bierce, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," 200-207 (in Realism Reader).
• Hamlin Garland, "Return of the Private," 185-199 (in Realism Reader).
• Introduction: Literary Context, xx - xxxii (in Realism Reader).

Week Three

Jan. 26

• William Dean Howells, "Editha," 412-424 (in Realism Reader).
• "Introduction: Realism and 'Absent Things in American Life,'" in Amy Kaplan, The Social Construction of American Realism, pp. 1-14 (on Library Reserve).

Jan. 28

• Constance Woolson, "Rodman the Keeper," 47-71 (in Realism Reader)
• CONTEXT REPORT 1: ___________. CONTEXT REPORT 2: ___________.

Jan. 30

• CONTEXT REPORT 3: ___________. CONTEXT REPORT 4: ___________.
• CONTEXT REPORT 5: ___________. CONTEXT REPORT 6: ___________.

Week Four

Regionalism and Local Color: New England, West, South

Feb. 02

• Sarah Orne Jewett, Country of the Pointed Firs

Feb. 04

• Jewett, Country of the Pointed Firs

Feb. 06

• Jewett, Country of the Pointed Firs

Week Five

Feb. 09

• Mark Twain, Selection from Roughing It, scroll down to Chapters 9 and 10 (online).
• Naturalism in American Literature (online).
• Frank Norris, "A Deal of Wheat," 514-524 (in Realism Reader).
• Stephen Crane, "The Blue Hotel," 322-346 (in Realism Reader)

Feb. 11

• Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Feb. 13

• Chopin, The Awakening
• ARTICLE REPORT 1: ___________ ; ARTICLE REPORT 2: ___________
• TAKE-HOME EXAM ASSIGNED. Due: 2/20.

Week Six

Feb. 16

• Chopin, The Awakening
• ARTICLE REPORT 3: ___________ ; ARTICLE REPORT 4: ___________

Feb. 18

• George Washington Cable, "Belles Demoiselles Plantation," 32-46 (in Realism Reader)
• Alice Dunbar-Nelson, "The Goodness of Saint Rocque," 143-147 (in Realism Reader)

Feb. 20

• TAKE-HOME EXAM due (no class)

Week Seven

How the Other Half Lives: Urban Environments

Feb. 23

• Henry James, Daisy Miller

Feb. 25

• James, Daisy Miller
• Stephen Crane, "Experiment in Misery," 457-465 (in Realism Reader)

Feb. 27

• Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (online)--look at the illustrations and browse through several chapters. I suggest the Introduction; Chap. 17 The Street Arab; Chap. 18 The Reign of Rum; and Chap. 20 The Working Girls in the Tenements.
• Jane Addams, Biographical Sketch. Read Ch. 3:Boarding School Ideals and Ch. 4 The Snare of Preparation and Ch. 5 First Days at Hull-House (online) from Twenty Years at Hull House.
• CONTEXT REPORT 7___________. CONTEXT REPORT 8___________.

Week Eight

Mar. 02

• Stephen Crane, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets

Mar. 04

• Crane, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets
• Begin Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie

Mar. 06

• Dreiser, Sister Carrie
• ARTICLE REPORT 5:________________

Week Nine

Mar. 09

• Dreiser, Sister Carrie

Mar. 11

• Dreiser, Sister Carrie

Mar. 13

• Dreiser, Sister Carrie
• ARTICLE REPORT 6_______________

Week Ten

Mar. 16 -- Mar. 20

• SPRING BREAK (no class)

Week Eleven

Mar. 23

• Dreiser, Sister Carrie
• ARTICLE REPORT 7_______________
• TAKE-HOME EXAM ASSIGNED

Mar. 25

• Dreiser, Sister Carrie

Mar. 27

• Dreiser, Sister Carrie
• ARTICLE REPORT 8:________________.

Week Twelve

Mar. 30

• TAKE-HOME EXAM DUE (no class)

Apr. 01

• Edith Wharton, House of Mirth
• PAPER ASSIGNED (due 4/29). See paper directions (online).

Apr. 03

• Wharton, House of Mirth

Week Thirteen

Apr. 06

• Wharton, House of Mirth
• VIDEO: Wharton's Age of Innocence

Apr. 08

• Wharton, House of Mirth
• VIDEO: Wharton's Age of Innocence

Apr. 10

• Wharton, House of Mirth
• VIDEO: Wharton's Age of Innocence

Week Fourteen

Apr. 13

• Wharton, House of Mirth
• The Naturalism of Edith Wharton's 'House of Mirth'
• ARTICLE REPORT 9: From Tea to Chloral: Raising the Dead Lily Bart (online).

Poetry in the Age of Realism

Apr. 15

• Emily Dickinson, #67 Success is counted Sweetest; #444 It feels a shame to be Alive; #249 Wild Nights! Wild Nights!; #303 The Soul selects; #508 I'm ceded--I've stopped; #732 She rose to His Requirements; #318 I'll tell you how the Sun rose; #328 A Bird came down the Walk; #258 There's a certain Slant of light; #301 I reason, Earth is short #742 Four Trees; #675 Essential Oils (online).

Apr. 17

• Emma Lazarus, The Colossus and Echoes (online).
• Stephen Crane, God fashioned the ship of the world; There was set before me; Do not weep, maiden; A man said to the universe (online).
• Edward Arlington Robinson, Richard Corey; The House on the Hill; Mr. Flood's Party (online).
• Paul Laurence Dunbar, "We Wear the Mask"; "Sympathy"; When Mirandy Sings (online).

Week Fifteen

Race Issues/Alternate Realities

Apr. 20

• Sioux, Kiowa, Paiute Ghost Dance Songs (online).
• Black Elk, Chap. 23: Bad Trouble Coming and Chap. 24: The Butchering at Wounded Knee (online) from Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux.
• Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa), Chap. 7: The Ghost Dance War (online) from From the Deep Woods to Civilization: Chapters in the Autobiography of an Indian.
• CONTEXT REPORT 9_______________; CONTEXT REPORT 10_______________

Apr. 22

• Zitkala-Sa [Gertrude Bonnin], "The Trial Path," 391-395 (in Realism Reader) and School Days of an Indian Girl (online)
• John Oskison, "The Problem of Old Harjo," 531-537 (in Realism Reader)

Apr. 24

• Sui Sin Far, "Mrs. Spring Fragrance," 438-448 (in Realism Reader)
• Paul Laurence Dunbar, "The Lynching of Jube Benson," 524-531 (in Realism Reader)
• Alice Dunbar-Nelson, "Sister Josepha," 374-379 (in Realism Reader)

Week Sixteen

Apr. 27

• Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (short biography); selection from Up from Slavery: Ch. 1 A Slave among Slaves and Ch. 2 Boyhood Days (online).

Apr. 29

• W.E.B. DuBois, selection from The Souls of Black Folk (online), Chapter I: "Of Our Spriritual Strivings" and Chapter 2: "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others".
• PAPER DUE

May 01

• Charles W. Chestnut, "The Sheriff's Children," 170-185 and "The Wife of his Youth," 280-290 (in Realism Reader)
• Begin Pauline Hopkins, Of One Blood; Or, the Hidden Self

Week Seventeen

May 04

• Hopkins, Of One Blood

May 06

• Hopkins, Of One Blood
• ARTICLE REPORT 10_______________
• TAKE-HOME EXAM ASSIGNED. Due: 5/11-5/13.

May 08

• Hopkins, Of One Blood

FINAL TAKE-HOME EXAM DUE: Mon, May 11-Wed, May 13 (no class). You may slide your exam under my office door (Grubbs 450) or email it to me as a .doc file or .rft file: knichols@pittstate.edu.

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