American Literature

Syllabus

1. Lecture: Colonial US literature (online video – home assignment) Intro / Lecture 2: Enlightenment and revolutionary period Reading assignment – Benjamin Franklin: 2 pamphlets

2. Lecture: Romantism Reading assignment – Washington Irving: The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow Reading assignment – E.A.Poe: The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart Reading assignment – N. Hawthorne: Birthmark, Rapaccini’s Daughter (optional)

3.  Video Lecture: ideological overtones of Romanticism – slave narratives Reading assignment – The Narrative of Frederick Douglass Reading assignment 2 (optional) – H. D. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience

4.  Lecture: Realism/Naturalism I (local color) Reading assignment –Kate Chopin: A Respectable Woman and 4 other stories Reading assignment –A. Bierce: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge       S. Crane: The Red Badge of Courage (synopsis + excerpt)

5.  Lecture: 18th through 20th century poetry  (+online video) Reading assignment – Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, Hughes, Pound

6. Lecture: Modernism I Reading assignment: William Faulkner, Barn Burning; A Rose for Emily Reading assignment: Ernest Hemingway, A Clean Well-Lighted Place, Hills Like White Elephants

7. Lecture: Modernism II (Jazz Age) Reading assignment: F.S. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

8. Lecture: American drama I Reading assignment: TennesseeWilliams, Streetcar Named Desire

9. Lecture: American drama II (Theatre of the Absurd) Reading assignment: Edward Albee, The Zoo Story

10. Lecture: Jewish-American authors Reading assignment: Phillip Roth, Defender of the Faith Reading assignment: Bernard Malamud, Armistice

11. Lecture: African American literature Reading assignment: Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

12. Overview and synthesis

Annotation

This course aims to give the students a general outline of the most significant events in American literature, focusing largely, but not exclusively, on canonical authors. Seminars are generally preceded by an audiovisual presentation of a particular literary movement, including its social and cultural background.

This is then followed by a close reading session which focuses on the selected seminar texts (short stories, plays, extracts etc.).