ENGL 2200
Major American Writers
 
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Reading and Examination Schedule


 
August September October November December

 
 August
     (top)
17  Introduction—What is American Literature?
     
  22  An Approach to Reading Literature:
  • Denise Levertov, “O Taste and See,” 2394.
  • Rita Dove, “Roast Possum,”2678-80.
  • Alberto Rios, “Nani,” 2696-97.
  • Li-Young Lee, “Eating Together,” 2803; “Persimmons,” 2803-05.
  24  The Past Half Century:
  • “The Literature Since Midcentury, 1945-Present,” 2261-70.
  • Allen Ginsberg, “America,” 2452-54.
     
  29  Writing About the Contemporary South:
  • Bobbie Ann Mason, “Shiloh,” 2613-22.
  31  Race and Contemporary Literature:
  • Reginald McKnight, “The Kind of Light that Shines on Texas,” 2682-91.
     
September
     (top)
5  The Age of Exploration and First Encounters:
  • “The Literature of the New World,” 3-13.
  • “Cultural Portfolio: the European Conquest of America,” 21-36.
  7  Spanish and English Encounters with Native Americans:
  • Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, from The Narrative of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, 49-53.
  • John Smith, from The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, 56-61; from A Description of New England, 61-63.
     
  12  The Age of European Settlement:
  • “The Literature of Colonial America, 1620-1776,” 65-79.
  • John Winthrop, from “A Model of Christian Charity,” 93-94.
  14  Puritan Poetry:
  • Anne Bradstreet, “The Prologue,” 97-98; “The Author to Her Book,” 98-99; “Before the Birth of One of Her Children,” 99-100; “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” 100; “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August, 1665, Being a Year and Half Old,' 100-01; “Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666,” 101-02.
     
  19  The Colonial South:
  • “Cultural Portfolio: The Ways of Native Americans,” 155-64.
  • William Byrd, “His Secret Diary for the Years 1709-12,” 170-75.
  21  Eighteenth-Century Poetry:
  • Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” 251; “To S. M. a Young African Painter on Seeing His Works,” 251-52; “To His Excellency General Washington,” 252-53; “A Letter to Obour Tanner from Phillis Wheatley,” 2342-43.
  • Thomas Jefferson, from Notes on the State of Virginia, 254.
  • Robert Hayden, “A Letter from Phillis Wheatley,” 2341.
     
  26  The American Sense of Self:
  • Benjamin Franklin, “Part Two: Continuation of the Account of My Life,” Autobiography, 214-22.
  28  EXAMINATION #1
     
 October
     (top)
3  The Revolutionary War and Early Republic:
  • “The Literature of the New Republic, 1776-1836,” 257-72.
  • Philip Freneau, “On the Emigration to America and Peopling the Western Country,” 351-52; “The Indian Burying Ground,” 354-55.
  • William Apess, A Son of the Forest, 359-61.
  5  What Is an American?:
  • Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur, “Letter III: What Is an American?,” Letters from an American Farmer, 301-15; “Letter IX: Charleston Slave,” Letters from an American Farmer, 339-41.
     
  10  Questioning the New Nation's Ideals:
  • Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” 378-98.
  12  America Before the Civil War:
  • “The Literature of the American Renaissance, 1836-1865,” 461-75.
  • Henry David Thoreau, “Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” Walden, 643-52.
     
  17  The Idea of Nature:
  • “Cultural Portfolio: Nature's Nation,” 589-96.
  • Thomas Bangs Thorpe, “The Big Bear of Arkansas,” 1009-17.
  19  The Idea of the Human Mind:
  • Edgar Allan Poe, “The Purloined Letter,” 751-63; “The Cask of Amontillado,” 763-67.
     
  24  FALL BREAK
  26  Nature and the Mind:
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Rappacini's Daughter,” 834-53.
     
  31  American Romanticism and Slavery:
  • Harriet Ann Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, 985-1007.
November
     (top)
2  Examination #2
     
  7  America After the Civil War:
  • “The Literature of an Expanding Nation, 1865-1912,” 1289-05.
  • Walt Whitman, “A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown,” 1229-30; “Reconciliation,” 1232.
  • Emily Dickinson, Poem 67, “Success Is Counted Sweetest,” 1257; Poem 214, “I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed,” 1258; Poem 258, “There's a Certain Slant of Light,” 1260; Poem 712, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” 1270-71; Poem 1129, “Tell All The Truth But Tell It Slant,” 1274.
  9  Writing Race After the Civil War:
  • Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, 1764-78.
  • W. E. B. Du Bois, “This Double-Consciousness” and “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” The Souls of Black Folks, 1781-90.
     
  14  Realism and Nature:
  • Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat,” 1814-30.
  16  Native Americans at the Turn of the Century:
  • Zitkala Ša, “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” 1851-61.
     
  21  America Between World War I and World War II:
  • “The Literature of a New Century, 1912-1945,” 1863-80.
  • Robert Frost, “Mending Wall,” 1903-04; “Birches,” 1906-08; “The Most of It,” 1910.
  23  THANKSGIVING BREAK
     
  28 Modernist Poetry:
  • William Carlos William, “Spring and All,” 1963-64; “The Red Wheelbarrow,” 1964; “This Is Just to Say,” 1964; “Reply” (handout).
  • e. e. cummings, “in Just-,“ 2120; “my sweet old etcetera,” 2122; “anyone lived in a pretty how town,” 2124.
  30 Southern Writing in the Modernist Period:
  • Zora Neale Hurston, “The Gilded Six-Bits,” 2057-64.
  • William Faulkner, “Barn Burning,” 2170-82.
     
December
     (top)
5  From Modern to Post-Modern:
  • Eudora Welty, “Why I Live at the P.O.,” 2251-59. 
     
  12  Final Exam (11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.)

 
 
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