Keyser (Hollins College)

General Information

Abstract

The catalogue description for "Studies in American Literature Before 1900" reads as follows: "An Introduction to selected major writers, such as Emerson, Hawthorne, Twain, Whitman, and Dickinson, of the American Renaissance and Gilded Age, placed in the context of their lesser-known contemporaries." I think this course, which I inherited three years ago, was meant to be a sophomore survey, but after trying to teach it that way my first year, I resolved to concentrate on a fifty- or sixty-year period in the nineteenth century.

In 1990 the focus was a familiar one--the determination of selfhood (and of course definitions of selfhood) with emphasis on gender, race, and class. As Elaine Hedges recommended in an American Studies session on teaching the Heath Anthology two years ago, I tried to juxtapose works that paralleled, complemented, or in a striking way contrasted with each other, often a standard with a non-standard text. For example, Emerson in his famous essays seems to assume an all-male audience and to be virtually unconscious of his assumption, whereas the Grimké sisters speak self-consciously as women to women, something my Southern women students appreciated. Hawthorne's early piece "Mrs. Hutchinson," which addresses the subject of "public women" with considerable ambivalence, not only looks back to the Puritan period and forward to The Scarlet Letter but enables students to see just how radical the Grimkés words and behavior were. I also introduced students to some "major" writers--Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne--early in the course, then returned to them after a practice essay exam. I thought that on their return they would find these authors less intimidating than on first acquaintance, and this experiment seemed to work. Finally, I concluded with two acknowledged masterpieces in which the issues of race in Huckleberry Finn and gender/class in Portrait of a Lady as well as the quest for selfhood (both works) seemed to culminate.

Population

English 281 is required of American Studies majors (as is the companion history course) and recommended for English majors, and it usually attracts twenty to thirty students, mostly juniors and seniors. And all women, most of traditional college age.

Texts

Heath Anthology Of American Literature, Vol. I, Paul Lauter ed., et. al. Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn Henry James, Portrait of a Lady

In-Class Writing

I asked that in-class writing assignments be turned in with the journal pages, unless they wanted immediate feedback on what they had written. Often I would have them write for the first ten or fifteen minutes just to warm them up and give them something to say. Or I would have them write for awhile when conversation flagged. One early in-class writing assignment that got especially good results asked them simply to compare Douglass and Thoreau on where they lived and what they lived for (this was before we discussed the selections). One student wrote a beautiful piece comparing Thoreau's ecstatic response to the dawn and early morning hours with Douglass's response as a slave. Many found commonalities such as their love of freedom, but some thought Douglass's endurance of imposed hardship much more heroic than Thoreau's elected austerity and that Douglass's rhetoric made Thoreau's sound hollow.

Reading Journals

In this course I experimented for the first time with giving students the choice between keeping a journal or writing a ten page paper. I asked that all students keep journals for the first three weeks and recommended that they write or type their entries on separate sheets of paper, approximately two pages for each class meeting or reading assignment. I did not specify exactly what I wanted from them but said that our class discussion and in-class writing assignments would give them ideas. At the end of the first three weeks they turned in their journal pages--about a dozen--and all but one student indicated that they wished to continue.

For various reasons, journals worked better in this course than in any I have taught. I think the fact that they didn't absolutely have to do it was one reason. Another, I believe, was that instead of writing comments on the journal pages, I typed a letter to each student responding to the passages I found most interesting (this was time consuming, but I found it intellectually stimulating). I never graded the journal pages or put correction marks on them (although outstanding or deficient ones could alter the overall grade) but I tried to engage the students in an intelligent dialogue about ideas. By the end of the term about half the students were actually writing mini-essays, most of them better written, I am convinced, than if I had asked them to write a two-page paper for each class. Finally, this was an early morning class of bright but rather quiet students. Participation was never as lively as I would have liked. Thus I urged them to write in their journals what they were unable--for whatever reason--to say in class. I think journal writing made them feel a part of the group even if they seldom spoke voluntarily. And if I did call on them, as I sometimes did, they could always resort to reading from their journals.

Readings

Week #1

Ralph Waldo Emerson , "The American Scholar" (1837) 1499-1511 "Self-Reliance" (1841) 1511-28; Angelina Grimké Weld , "Appeal to the Christian Women of the South" (1836) 1826-34; from "Letters to Catharine Beecher" Letter XII (1837) 1835-8; Sarah M. Grimké , from "Letters on the Equality Or the Sexes" (1837), 1886-93; Nathaniel Hawthorne , "Mrs. Hutchinson" (1830) 2273-7; "The Minister's Black Veil" (1836) 2092-2100; "The Birthmark" (1835) 2101-12.

Week #2

Margaret Fuller , from Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1843) 1604-33; Elizabeth Cady Stanton , from Eighty Years and More (1848, 1898) 1895-9; Frederick Douglass , Narrative of the Life of an American Slave (1845) 137-9; Henry David Thoreau , from Walden, "Where I Lived and What I Lived For" (1854) 1981-91.

Week #3

Douglass , Narrative 1670-1704; Thoreau , "Resistance to Civil Government" (1849) 1967-81; In-class writing; journal pages due.

Week #4

Hawthorne , The Scarlet Letter (1850), Ch. 1-8, 2157-95; Ch. 9-15, 2195-2230

Week #5

Hawthorne , The Scarlet Letter, Ch. 16-24, 2230-72; Harriet Beecher Stowe , from Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) 2311-58

Week #6

Herman Melville , Benito Cereno (1855) 2464-2522; "The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids" (1855) 2447-64; Stowe , "Sojourner Truth" (1863) 2384-93; Sojourner Truth , 1911-15

Week #7

Thoreau , "A Plea for Captain John Brown" (1860) 2016-31; Harriet Jacobs , from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)

Week #8

Emerson , "The Poet" (1844) 1546-51; Walt Whitman , "Song of Myself" (1855) 2727-78

Week #9

Emily Dickinson , Poems 14-664 (1858-62) 2845-81; Letters: To recipient unknown (1861-2); To T. W. Higginson (1862) 2909-14; Higginson on Dickinson 1871-3; Dickinson , Poems 668-1769 (1863- 86) 2881-2902