Contemporary photo of Walden Pond

English 771. The Romantic Period  in American Literature ____________________ Reading Schedule II. Experiments in Living & Social Reform ____________________             Reading  Schedule  I             Reading  Schedule III             Course Requirements             Research  Resources             Nichols Home Page

NOTE:  Written Reports are due the week the oral presentation is given.

Week Six (Feb. 20) Transcendentalism:  Nature/Spirit

• 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

Week Seven (Feb. 27) Individualism, Materialism, Nature

• Report:  Poetic Naturalists and Botanical Art
• Henry David Thoreau, Walden
  • Economy 107-151 (selection)
  • Where I Lived & What I Lived For 165-178; Bean-field 219-228; The Ponds 233-253
  • Brute Neighbors 270-280; Pond in Winter 313-325; Spring 325-340; Conclusion 350-351

Inline Resources: optional, but recommended.
Walden Pond photos; another Walden Pond exhibit;  Walden Pond--Past and Present--photos
Life and Times of Thoreau--includes summary of key Transcendentalist ideas/themes.
Study Questions on Walden, Ch. 1-3--helpful links also.
Some Study Notes for Walden--helpful

Week Eight (Mar. 6)  The Soul Selects Its Own Society

• Report:  Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Women's Movement
• Lydia Maria Child, Hilda Silfverling. A Fantasy
• Emily Dickinson, poems--the poems at this site are listed by numbers.
  • The (Woman) Poet:
    #593 I think I was enchanted;   #613 They shut me up in prose;  #303 The Soul Selects;  #508 I'm ceded;  #657 I dwell in possibility;  #569 I reckon; #675 Essential Oils are wrung.
  • Responses to Emersonian Nature:
    #214 I taste a liquor never brewed;   #324 Some keep the Sabbath;   #130 These are the Days;   #219 She sweeps with many-colored Brooms;  #291 How the old Mountains drip;  #328 A Bird Came Down the Walk;   #822 This Consciousness that is aware.
  • Dickinson Gothic: 
    #670 One need not be a chamber; #258 There's a certain slant of light;  #280  I felt a Funeral in my Brain;  #341 After Great Pain;  #465 I heard a fly buzz; #577 If I may have it when its dead; #712 Because I could not wait for Death.
  • Desire and Renunciation:
    #211 Come slowly Eden;  #249 Wild Nights; #640  I cannot live with you;  #732 She rose to His Requirement;  #742 Renunciation;  #631 Ourselves were wed;  #754 My Life had stood.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, Blithedale Romance (1/3 of novel)

Online Resources: optional, but recommended.
Dickinson biography--longer 
Dickinson criticism--short excerpts from scholarly studies
Emily Dickinson's Horizons--book review of Farr's The Passion of Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson and her Sacraments by Klein--good article on the spiritual language in her poetry.
Many Dickinson links here (scholarly articles) and here (biography and other information).

Week Nine (Mar. 13) The Individual vs Society

• Report:  Brook Farm and Other Utopian Communities
• Report:  Spiritualism, Mediums, and Spirit-rappers
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, Blithedale Romance (finish the novel)

Online Resources: optional, but recommended.
Study Questions on Blithedale; more study questions.
"Dreams and Sexual Repression in The Blithedale Romance" --abstract; trace these ideas in the novel.
Did Hawthorne Throw The Wrong Woman In The River? --this seems to be a rough draft, but the ideas are interesting and provocative.
Links on Hawthorne--lots of them

Week Ten (Mar. 17-25)  Spring Break

Week Eleven (Mar. 27) Poet of Democracy and Nature

• Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
• Video:  Whitman
• Documented Comparison Paper assigned.  Due by end of semester.
• Take-home exam handed out.

Online Research: optional, but recommended.
Common Questions on Whitman--covers some basic issues
Walt Whitman--helpful study notes by Heath
Walt Whitman Hyper Archive
Development of Leaves of Grass

Week Twelve (Apr. 3) The Oppressed and Exploited

• Take-home exam due (class dismissed at 8:30)
• Rebecca Harding Davis, "Life in the Iron Mills"
• Video:  Amistad

Online Resources: Optional, but recommended.
Davis Biography
Heath Guide to Life in Iron Mills
Amistad incident

Reading Schedule I    /    Reading Schedule III    /    Course Requirements

Research Resources     /      Nichols Home Page

 

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