English: American Literature I

Selected texts from the beginnings to the Civil War. Explores periodization, genre, key terms and concepts through close reading and critical analysis. Fulfills major requirements; open to non-majors.

Open to degree and PACE students

In this course we will be exploring American Literature to the period of the Civil War. We will begin with a sequence looking at the “Ancient Literature of the Americas,” embodied in Native American oral traditons, including creation and origins narratives, trickster stories, etc. From there, we will move on to poetry ranging from the colonial period to the 1850s, by Anglo-, African-, and Native-American writers; followed by a section on the African American slave narrative; and concluding with the gothic and the fantastic in Anglo-American fiction. Authors covered will include Anne Bradstreet, Washington Irving, Phyllis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Poe, Hawthorne, Longfellow, and others.

Class sessions will center on discussion of the materials, with some lecture to provide context relevant to the various readings. The major out of class workload will be reading. There will be one short essay and a longer final essay, two tests, in-class free-writes, and an oral presentation.

Foundation of the grades will rest primarily on the essays, quizzes, and presentation (exact % breakdown to be determined). Attendance, partici- pation, and having work done on time is expected.