American Literature I

obligatory courses

English language competence--B2; basic knowledge of research in the humanities; ability to write brief academic texts; basic skills to develop arguments, paragraphs; basic editing skills.

Classroom

This course is a survey of American literature of the period between 1620 and 1885. The starting point is the establishment of the first colonies in North America; the course ends after the Civil War. Class meetings will be an occasion to read and discuss in depth a selection of major literary texts from the 17th and 18th centuries as well as seminal texts in a variety of genres of the Early Republic and American Romanticism. One of the major themes will be ethnic and race relations: The experience of slavery, the situation of Native Americans, cultural stereotypes and prejudice.

In a chronological order, this course examines readings representative of the following topics:

Puritan culture in New England in the 17th and 18th century; culture of the colonies in the South; contacts with Native Americans; Jeremiad as literary and cultural form;

The decline of Calvinism and the Enlightenment in the colonies

American poetry and fiction at the turn of the 19th century: ideas and forms

The Early Republic in literature

Dark Romanticism and Gothic (E. A. Poe)

Antebellum American fiction (Hawthorne)

American Transcendentalism (R. W. Emerson, H.D. Thoreau)

Popular culture and literature before the Civil War (‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ as iconic text of US culture)

Slavery as portrayed in slave narratives

The work of Herman Melville

The poetry of W. Whitman and E. Dickinson

i E. Dickinson

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PURITANISM

• John Winthrop, “A Modell of Christian Charity” (s. 1-3, 7-9)

• “The Coming of the Wasichu” [Brule Sioux]

• Mary Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (selections)

• Edward Taylor, “Upon a Spider Catching a Fly”

• Anne Bradstreet, “The Author to Her Book”, “Upon Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666”

• Jonathan Edwards, “Personal Narrative,” or “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (instructor’s choice)

THE ENLIGHTENMENT

• Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, Part II

PRE-ROMANTICISM

• Philip Freneau, “Lines Occasioned by a Visit to an Old Indian Burying Ground”

• Charles Brockden Brown, “Somnambulism”

• Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle,” or “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (instructor’s choice)

ROMANTYZM

• Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat”

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, or two stories: “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” and one other story chosen (instructor decides whether a given group reads SL or stories)

AFRICAN AMRICANS AND SLAVERY

• Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” "To His Excellency, General Washington"

• Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”

• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (I-IV; X),

• Harriet Jacobs, Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl (I, VI, X)

THE INDIAN QUESTION

• William Apess, “An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man”

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Letter to Martin Van Buren"

TRANSCENDENTALISM

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

• Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience”; selections from Walden

MELVILLE

• Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” or “Billy Budd, Sailor” (instructor’s choice)

POETRY

• Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” (części: 1, 2, 3, 6)

• Emily Dickinson: five poems selected by instructor, including “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”)

MARK TWAIN

"The Story of a Bad Little Boy," "The Story of a Good Little Boy," “The Celebrated Jumping Frog…," "Journalism in Tennessee"

KNOWLEDGE

knows and understands:

- the main trends and works of American literature, literary genres typical of American literature, its major representatives, in relation to literature of the USA from the colonial era to the time of the Civil War

- theoretical and methodological foundations of literary studies, including terminology used in the history of American literature, in relation to literature of the USA from the colonial era to the time of the Civil War

- the connections between US culture and American literature

- interdisciplinary contexts of American literature from the colonial times to the Civil War, its social and political contexts

SKILLS

is able to:

- interpret works of American literature from the colonial times to the Civil War in the context of broadly understood American culture

- find and critically analyze literary sources and prepare oral presentations and written papers in English about them

- participate, under the supervision of an academic advisor, in the preparation of research projects in the field of American literature from the colonial times to the Civil War

SOCIAL COMPETENCES:

is ready to:

- use acquired interdisciplinary knowledge in the field of American literature from the colonial times to the Civil War to formulate own opinions, and recognize its importance in solving cognitive and practical problems

Attendance and participation - 30 p.

midterm test - 30 p.

final test - 40 p.

Grading scale

100-97 5!

96-91 5

90-84 4+

83-78 4

77-68 3+

67-60 3

59-0 2

None