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 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, “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, Letters from an American Farmer (selections from Letters III, IX, XII)

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 (chapters 2, 11, 17, 18)

2.2. The captive self

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.

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

Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”.

2.3. The captivated self

Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself".

Emily Dickinson, selected poems: nº 39, 112, 122, 194, 260, 339, 340, 347, 372, 409, 479, 519, 591, 598, 620, 764, 788,

                                                       1263, 1668.

American Literature I: Bibliography

0. Literary Histories

Elliott, Emory, gen. ed. Columbia Literary History of the United States. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.

Gray, Richard. A History of American Literature. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.

Ruland, Richard & Malcolm Bradbury. From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature. London: Routledge, 1991.

More advanced:

Bercovitch, Sacvan, gen. ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. 1: 1590-1820. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

---, gen. ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. 2: Prose Writing 1820-1865. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

0.1. General web sites for Am. Lit.

Voice of the Shuttle: American Literature - http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2739

- One of the premier web sites for American literature and general literary resources

PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/table.html

- Research and study guide for American literature by professor Paul Reuben (California State University)

0.2. Literary texts on the Web

Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org/

The Internet Archive - http://archive.org/details/texts

Open Library - http://openlibrary.org/

The Poetry Foundation - http://www.poetryfoundation.org/

Further references will be provided on individual authors on the course Moodle page.