University of Fribourg          Department of English

LECTURE

Survey of American Literature: Syllabus Spring 2023

(Module Two and others)

 

Last edited May 22, 2023

 

Tuesday, 10:15-12:00    

Prof. Thomas Austenfeld

 

1.      Course description and information about exams / grades: 

 

The lecture will serve as an overview of American literature from the encounter of Europeans and Americans to the present. We will discuss major literary movements and the authors who shaped them. Students will learn to understand the historical and social circumstances that contributed to literary production.

 

Over the course of the spring semester, we will sample texts from the following literary-historical periods: Colonial, early Republic, pre-and post-Civil War, Realism and Naturalism, Modernism, Postmodernism and Contemporary.  At the same time, we will question the notion of periodicity and uncover its historical assumptions.

 

Major genres will include the sermon, the captivity narrative, the political tract, allegorical and symbolical writing, slave narratives and abolitionist texts, regional short stories, modernist and postmodernist experiments in writing, as well as the incremental establishment of an ethnic consciousness in the literary production of the past sixty years.

 

While we will attempt to get to know all major genres, the short story and the lyric poem—and perhaps the memoir—will be of particular importance, not just because of their relative brevity but because of their particular American manifestations.

 

Recurring topics of American literature are—to name just a few—empire and dispossession, the self and its ability to shape itself, race and ethnicity, religion, gender, and wealth/poverty. These topics tend to circumscribe American identity and recur in American literature.

 

By the end of the class, you may have developed some answers to the question, "What is American Literature?," but far more important than this will be your ability to ask significant questions, such as those that address the place of literature in politics and society, its "cultural work" (Jane Tompkins), and its power to shape the hearts and minds of Americans. 

 

This lecture class is principally designed for BA students in the "Foundations Module 2," as complementary offer to "Survey of British Literature" which was taught in the Fall of 2022 by Prof. Julia Straub.  The lecture may, however, also be taken independently by MA students or by BA students in any module other than Module 2 provided they have not taken the same class before.

 

On May 30, a final exam will be given for all those who require a grade: BA students in Module 2, BAS1 students, MA students and anyone whose home department requires a grade for “soft skills” students. For students in Module 2, this exam is the final portion of the "First-Year Exam" that they are required to pass in order to continue their studies in English.

 

BA_LET students in modules other than Module 2 will be given a Pass or Fail grade. The basis for this grade will be attendance.

 

 

2.      House rules and expectations:  

 

You may not miss more than two classses unexcused if you want to receive a passing grade.

 

Be sure to sign the weekly attendance sheet. This way, I can check the attendance especially for those students who receive Pass / Fail grades at the end of term.

 

 

3.      Learning Outcomes:

Lectures are intended to provide an overview of material. Guided by the syllabus, students participating in lecture classes engage in a substantial project of reading texts from a specific literary period in United States history. By participating in weekly lectures, students have the opportunity to hear introductory and interpretive commentary upon the texts and their historical and cultural contexts. Lectures also allow students the opportunity to ask clarifying questions. 

 

By the end of the semester, successful participants will have experienced model interpretations of key texts, will be able to place major and minor authors in their respective historical contexts, can identify selected critical approaches to texts and to the literary era in which they belong, and will have mastered certain technical vocabulary of literary history and textual interpretation appropriate to the time period and its literary production.

 

 

4.      Texts:

The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ninth or Tenth Edition. All five volumes.

 

Available at Librophoros. Yes, these books are expensive.  However, you will use them again and again in the next five years of your studies! Most of my classes in American literature will be organized around these anthologies.

Since the Tenth Edition was published very recently, good used copies of the Ninth are around and other students will be selling them.  Use these opportunities.  I do not expect you to bankrupt yourselves by buying books, but you must find ways to access and read the texts we study together in this class.

Besides the literary texts themselves, found in the anthology, I also recommend the brief essays in literary history that begin each new section of the anthology. 

 

 

5.      Schedule of classes:

Feb 21

 

 

 

Introduction.  

 

Overview of major literary movements and genres in the United States.

 

 

Feb 28

 

 

 

“Discovery” and Encounter

 

 

·         Christopher Columbus, “Letter of Discovery” and “Fourth Voyage” – Ninth EditionVol. A, 58-66.

Tenth Edition Vol. A, 53-61

·         Bartolomé De Las Casas – Ninth Edition Vol. A, 66-71. Tenth Edition Vol. A, 61-66

 

 

Colonial and pre-Revolutionary America: Religion and Politics

 

·         A section of John Winthrop’s sermon preached upon the Arbella, also known as "A Model of Christian Charity,” Part II – Ninth Edition Vol. A, 186-189. Tenth Edition Vol. A, 182-184 

·         The Mayflower Compact: online text  http://mayflowerhistory.com/mayflower-compact

·         A section of Mary Rowlandson, “Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration…”  From the beginning through the end of the "Third Remove" and then the entire "Twentieth Remove." – Ninth Edition Vol. A, 267-275 and 292-301. Tenth Edition Vol. A, 260-268 and 285-293.

·         Two poems by Edward Taylor, “Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children” in Ninth Edition Vol. A, 306-308, Tenth Edition Vol. A, 310-312) and “Huswifery” in Ninth Edition Vol. A, 308, Tenth Edition Vol. A, 312. 

 

 

March 7

 

 

 

 

The Republic is Founded : Political and Personal Writing in the 18th Century

 

  • Excerpts from Thomas Paine, Common Sense Ninth Edition Vol. A, 682-689 and 695 -697 (“Chapter I”). Tenth Edition Vol. A, 600-607.
  • Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, Ninth Edition Vol. A, 702-710. Tenth Edition Vol. A, 620-628.
  • The Federalist # 10 (by James Madison), Ninth Edition Vol. A, 726-731. Tenth Edition Vol. A, 644-649.

 

  • I will make reference to various parts of Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. This is a long text, and you should wait for specific passages to be pointed out by me. 

 

March 14

 

 

 

 

American Literature Finds its Voice(s): “Renaissance,” Romanticism, Abolitionists

 

  • Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown,” Ninth Edition Vol. B, 345-354. Tenth Edition Vol. B, 321-330
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance,” Ninth Edition Vol. B, 236-252. Tenth Edition Vol. B, 216-233
  • Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience" ("Resistance to Civil Government"), Ninth Edition Vol. B, 953-968. Tenth Edition Vol. B, 931-946.
  • Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Ninth Edition Vol. B, 1236-1239. Tenth Edition Vol. B, 1144-1147.

 

March 21

 

 

 

 

 

Poetry And Prose before and after the Civil War: 

Whitman and Dickinson, with a glance at Abraham Lincoln  

 

 

·         Walt Whitman, from "Song of Myself": Sections 1, 2, 5, 6, 11, 15, 20, 21, 44, 51, 52. To be found in Ninth Edition Vol. C, within pages 23-66, Tenth Edition Vol. C, 23-66.

o   From "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry". Sections 1, 2, and 7. Ninth Edition Vol. B, 1364-1368 or Vol. C, pages 66-70; Tenth Edition Vol. B, 1220-1224.

·         Emily Dickinson, Poems 202, 320, 340, 479, 598. To be found in the Ninth Edition Vol. C, within pages 94-109, Tenth Edition Vol. C, 89-98. 
Letters to Higginson, Ninth Edition Vol. C, pp 110-111. Tenth Edition Vol.C, 105-106.

·         Abraham Lincoln, “Lyceum Address” (to be provided) and “Gettysburg Address,” in Ninth Edition Vol. B, 720. Tenth Edition Vol. B, 663-665.

 

March 28

 

 

 

 

Realism, Local Color, and Naturalism

 

·         W. D. Howells, "Editha," Ninth Edition Vol. C, 353-362. Tenth Edition Vol. C, 353-362

·         Jack London, "The Law of Life," Ninth Edition Vol. C, 1090-1095.

·         Kate Chopin, "Désirée's Baby," Vol. C, 538-542. Tenth Edition Vol. C, 564-568.

·         Edith Wharton, "Roman Fever," Ninth Edition Vol. C, 872-881. Tenth Edition Vol. C, 874-883

 

April 4

 

 

 

 

 

Across the Century's Divide in Poetry and Prose

 

·         Edgar Lee Masters, Poems. Ninth Edition Vol. D, 24-27. See added poems on MOODLE

·         Edwin Arlington Robinson, Poems. Ninth Edition Vol. D, 27-29. Tenth Edition Vol. D, 32-34.

·         Robert Frost, Poems in Ninth Edition Vol. D.: "Mending Wall" (220), "Home Burial" (225-228), "Fire and Ice” (233), "Nothing Gold Can Stay" (233). Tenth Edition Vol D, 243, 248, 256, 256.

·         Willa Cather, "The Sculptor's Funeral," Ninth Edition Vol. D, 168-177. Tenth Edition Vol. D, 172-181.

 

April 11

 

EASTER BREAK

 

April 18

 

 

Modernism

 

·         Ezra Pound, "A Pact," "In a Station of the Metro," (Ninth Edition Vol. D, 297. Tenth Edition Vol. D, 317), "Canto I" (Ninth Edition Vol. D, 308-310. Tenth Edition Vol. D, 320-322).

·         T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (Ninth Edition Vol. D, 355-358. Tenth Edition Vol. D, 371-974)

·         John Dos Passos, Excerpts from The Big Money. Ninth Edition Vol. D, 662-665. Tenth Edition Vol. D, 768-771.

·         Ernest Hemingway, "Hills Like White Elephants" (Ninth Edition Vol. D, 803-807.)

 

April 25

 

NO CLASS --- CONFERENCE ABSENCE

May 2

 

 

 

Harlem Renaissance

 

For today, please read two texts. The short novel Passing is in the anthology.  In addition, an essay on the Harlem Renaissance is on MOODLE.

 

·         Nella Larsen, Passing. The entire (short) novel is reprinted in the anthology. Ninth Edition Vol. D, 538-603. Tenth Edition Vol. D, 562-627.

May 9

 

 

The Short Story at Midcentury

 

·         Richard Wright, "The Man Who Was Almost a Man". Ninth Edition Vol. D, 958-966. Tenth Edition Vol. D, 959-967.

·         William Faulkner, "Barn Burning". Ninth Edition Vol. D., 771-783. Tenth Edition Vol. D, 879-891.

·         James Baldwin, "Going to Meet the Man". Ninth Edition Vol. E, 392-402. Tenth Edition Vol. E, 392-403.

·         John Cheever, "The Swimmer". Ninth Edition Vol. E, 140-148. Tenth Edition Vol. E, 140-148.

May 16

 

 

 

Postwar Confessional poets and other forms of poetic protest

 

·         Adrienne Rich, "I am in Danger—Sir—", "Diving into the Wreck". Ninth Edition Vol. E, 575, 577-79. Tenth Edition Vol. E, 575, 577-579.

·         Robert Lowell, "Memories of West Street and Lepke" and "Skunk Hour". Ninth Edition Vol. E, 299-302, Tenth Edition Vol. E, 299-301, 301-302.

·         Allen Ginsberg, "A Supermarket in California". Ninth Edition Vol. E, 496. Tenth Edition Vol. E, 495-496.

·         Gwendolyn Brooks, "We Real Cool," "the white troops had their orders but the Negroes looked like men". Ninth Edition Vol. E, 308-309. Tenth Edition Vol. E, 309, 308.

 

May 23

 

 

 

 

Some Indispensable texts from the past Fifty-odd Years

 

·         Toni Morrison, "Recitatif" (1983). Ninth Edition Vol. E, 607-620. Tenth Edition Vol. E, 607-620.

·         Joan Didion, excerpt from "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" (1967). Ninth Edition Vol. E, 1101-1104.  Tenth Edition Vol. E, 1017-1020.

·         N. Scott Momaday, excerpts from The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969). Ninth Edition Vol. E, 673-684. Tenth Edition Vol. E, 683-694.

·         Ta-Nehisi Coates, excerpt from Between the World and Me (2015) (provided to you)

 

May 30

 

FINAL Exam