All required readings are from the Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volumes A & B (8th edition). All other secondary readings will be provided either in photocopied format or on the Moodle platform. 

  Early American Literature 1620-1820.

1.1. Encountering (in) the New World

John Smith, from The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles.

William Bradford, from Of Plymouth Plantation.    

1.2. Colonials and Native-Americans: Inhabiting America

Anne Bradstreet, “The Prologue”, “The Author to Her Book”, “Before the Birth of One of Her Children”, “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet”, “Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House”.

Edward Taylor, “Prologue (from Preparatory Meditations)”, “Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children”, “A Fig for Thee, Oh! Death”.

Mary Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.

 

Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography (Parts One & Two).

J. Hector St. Jean de Crèvecoeur, selections from Letters from an American Farmer

Thomas Jefferson, “The Declaration of Independence”.

Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle”.

 

2. American Literature 1820-1865: American (Re)naissance.

2.1. Self-making and nation-making

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar”.

Henry David Thoreau, selections from Walden. 

2.2. The captive self

Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Purloined Letter”.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an AmericanSlave, Written by Himself.

Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, “Benito Cereno”.

2.3. The captivated self

Walt Whitman, selected poems: "Song of Myself"

Emily Dickinson, selected poems:  n^os 39, 112, 122, 194, 207, 260, 269, 339, 340, 347, 359, 372, 409, 479, 519, 591, 598, 620, 764, 788, 1263, 1668.