Thomas Cole, The Last of the Mohicans

English 772.  Romantic Period  in American Literature ____________________ Reading Schedule I. Gothic Romance and Allegory ____________________                Reading  Schedule  II              Reading  Schedule III              Course Requirements              Research  Resources              Nichols Home Page

NOTE:  Written Reports are due on or before Week Five.

Week One (Jan. 16)  Hudson River Art and Literature

• Introduction; visit Computer Lab, Grubbs 101. 
• View online: English Landscape and Hudson River Painters.
  Make copies and read William Cullen Bryant, "To Cole the Painter Departing for Europe" (or  here) and "Catterskill Falls" (or here).
• Video: Opening scenes from Last of the Mohicans

Online Resourses: Optional, but recommended.
Romantic Terms:  Definitions--our class resource page

Week Two (Jan. 23)  Leatherstocking and the Noble Savage

• Washington Irving, "Rip Van Winkle" (or here)..
• James Fenimore Cooper, Last of the Mohicans  (1/3 of the novel)

Online Resources: Optional, but recommended.
Cooper Biography
Cooper's Adaptations of Romance Conventions. . . by House--conference paper
Rip Van Winkle Site--helpful student site with comments on the nationalistic allegory in the story.

Week Three (Jan. 30)  Frontier Gothic and Historical Romance

• Report:  Historic Sites. People, and Events in Mohicans (includes Native Americans & French-Indian War)
• James Fenimore Cooper,  Last of the Mohicans (3/4s of novel)
• Report:  Nature-Painting and Nature-Writing: Cole and Cooper

Online Resources: Optional, but recommended.
Cooper’s Frontier: From Mohicans to Americans Lecture Outline helpful study guide.

Week Four (Feb. 6)  National and Religious Allegories

• James Fenimore Cooper, Last of the Mohicans (finish novel)
• Report:  Manifest Destiny vs Environmentalism
• George Copway (Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh; Ojibwa), The Life of . . . , Chapters I-III.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Rappaccini's Daughter"

Online Resources: Optional, but recommended.
Copway biography
Heath Guide to Copway--helpful commentary
Heath Guide to Hawthorne--helpful commentary
Survey of Criticism of "Rappaccini's Daughter" --scholarly debates about the meaning of this story.

Week Five (Feb. 13)  Poe's Gothic/Female Gothic

• Edgar Allen Poe, Fall of the House of Usher (or here); Ligeia (or here); "The Raven" (or here); Philosophy of Composition (or here).
• Louisa May Alcott, "Whisper in the Dark"
• Harriet Prescott Spofford, The Amber Gods: Part I and Part II  (or on Library Reserve--listed under instructor's name; a better online copy may be available here by 2/4 or 2/5)
• Take-home Exam handed out

Online Resources: Optional, but recommended.
Alcott Biography
Spofford Biography
Edgar Allen Poe:  The Imp of the Perverse--all those beautiful dead women in Poe.
The Psycho-Sexual Reading of "The Fall of the House of Usher" by John L. Marsh--short scholarly article
Richard P. Benton, "Bedlam Patterns: Love and the Idea of Madness in Poe's Fiction,"--read the first and last sections (on Ligeia and House of Usher) in this scholarly lecture.
The Haunted Bedroom : Female Sexual Identity in Gothic Literature, 1790-1820--Rae's M.A. abstract that succinctly covers some key characteristics of the Female Gothic.
Barbara Welter's The Cult of True Womanhood--classic scholarly essay on woman's place in 19th Century society.

Week 6 (Feb. 20) Experiments in Living and Social Reform

• Take-home Exam due (class will be let out at 8:30)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, selections from Nature (or here)--click on links to each chapter:  Introduction; Chap. 1 Nature; Chap. 3 Beauty; Chap. 4 Language; Chap. 8 Prospects.  Also read selection from "The Poet"--last paragraph only.
• Margaret Fuller, selections from Woman in the Nineteenth Century--Chap. 2 Miranda; Chap. 26 Betrothed to the Sun; Chap. 27. Tune the Lyre; Chap. 32. The Muse and Minerva; Chap. 58.  Variety of Employments .  Also read Magnolia and  Leila.

Online Resources: optional, but recommended.
New England Transcendentalism--good introduction to the movement and key ideas.
Emerson biography
Web Study Text of Nature--unique and helpful study aid
Emerson links--biography, scholarly articles
Life of Fuller--short biography 
Fuller biography--longer version

    Reading Schedule II    /    Reading Schedule III    /    Course Requirements

Research Resources     /     Nichols Homepage

 

Comments/suggestions: knichols@pittstate.edu                      Posted:  1-15-02                      Background by: www.graphicsbyrhiannon.com