Morgan (Edgewood College)

General Information

Absract

This course serves a diverse population of English and Education majors plus many students who need a literature course to graduate. It would do all students a disservice to slight the major figures; but reading the work of Twain and Melville, for example, in the larger context of abolitionist literature and the literature agitating for the rights of women and for American Indians helps the students to grasp something of the literature's context.

I point out the course's organization and its limitations to the students. They can't possibly get more than introduction to the century's literature; however, I try to help them recognize some of the literary trends, the influence of political and social upheavals, how major literary figures were influenced by and in turn influenced these major upheavals, how to analyze and judge literature.

Population

This course surveys 19th-century American literature. Approximately 15 students (sophomores through seniors) enroll for the course. At times I lecture; but for the most part, I involve the students in a variety of discussion formats.

Texts & Bibliography

Required Texts

Madden, David, ed. Eight Classic American Novels. (Harcourt, 1990).

Lauter, Paul, et al., eds. The Heath Anthology of American LIterature, Vol. 1. (Heath, 1990)

Additional Readings. I encourage rather than require students to read the critical essays I occasionally put on reserve and the critical works mentioned on the supplementary reading list. I always encourage students to refer to the up-to-date bibliographies in their Heath Anthology. I also use many handouts, for example, on "how to" write a useful writing journal, specific handouts for particular authors, handouts designed to encourage role-playing (and increase participation) in small-group discussion, plus my own discussion questions pertinent to the novels that groups of (usually) 5 to 10 students have read.

Other Readings

Suggested Further Readings for English 363: 19th-Century American Literature (Beyond those in the Anthologies)

Critical Works:

Buell, Lawrence. Literary Transcendentalism (1973). Chase, Richard. The American Novel and its Tradition (1957). Fiedler, Leslie. Love and Death in the American Novel (1960). Fisher, Philip. Hard Facts: Setting and Form in the American Novel (1987). Hoffman, Daniel. Form and Fable in American Fiction (1961). Lawrence, D. H. Studies in Classic American Literature (1923). Lewis, R.W. B. The American Adam (1955). Matthiessen, F.O. American Renaissance (1941). Morgan, Winifred. An American Icon: Brother Jonathan and American Identity. (1988). Pease, Donald. Visionary Compacts (1987). Porte, Joel. The Romance in America (1969). Rourke, Constance. American Humor (1931). Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land (1950). Williams, William Carlos. In the American Grain (1956). Ziff, Larzer. Literary Democracy (1981).

Creative Works (texts that might have been chosen instead of the required reading):

Chopin, Kate. Bayou Folk (1894), A Night in Acadie (1897). Chesnutt, Charles. The Conjure Woman (1899). Cooper, James Fenimore. The Deerslayer (1841), The Prairie (1827), or The Spy (1821). Crane, Stephen. Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893). Frederic, Harold. The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896). Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of Seven Gables (1851). Howells, William Dean. A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890). James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw (1898) , The American (1877), or The Portrait of a Lady (1881). Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The Song of Hiawatha (1855). Melville, Herman. Typee (1846), Billy Budd (1891). Poe, Edgar Allen. The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym (1837) Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851). Thoreau, Henry David. Walden (1846). Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi (1874), Innocents Abroad (1869).

General Pedagogy

When I last taught this course, I relied on a great many "speaking and writing to learn" exercises. The students kept reading journals (collected at regular intervals) which I read and responded to but didn't grade. Almost every day, I asked a different type of question, each requiring a short (about a minute) answer. (e.g. What question did you have after reading the assignment? What left you puzzled after the last class? What is something new you learned during the last class?) I always read, sometimes commented on, never graded these student answers. In addition to this informal writing, I used a variety of means to encourage student discussion: thus I used my own discussion sheets; broke up every lecture with regular opportunities for student comments, questions and reactions; and sometimes utilized a method whereby on entering class, each student received a prescribed role (e.g. illustrator, passage finder, discussion director, creative connector, process checker) for discussing the assignment.

Some of the testing was in-class. Some was take-home, allowing students more time to think about and organize their answers.

I make sparing use of audio-visual materials, e.g. the Annenburg/CPB videos on Dickinson and Whitman, another on Melville and the sea, very occasional short sound filmstrips on particular people or topics. Sometimes I encourage students to view on their own video versions of novels and then compare the artistic choices that the original writers made with those made by the people who produced the film or video.

Early in the semester students sign up for the novels (other than Moby Dick) that they will read, i.e. two of the following: 1) The Last of the Mohicans, or The Scarlet Letter, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; and 2) Sister Carrie or The Red Badge of Courage and The Awakening

Readings & Pedagogy

Unit #1

DEVELOPING AN AMERICAN IDENTITY

Readings for Unit #1: Myths, tales, and legends; selections from Irving , Poe , humor of the Old Southwest , Emerson (2 1/2 weeks)

QUIZ ON UNIT #1 READINGS

Unit #2

Readings for Unit #2: Douglass, Brent , selections from abolitionist, women's and American Indian's rights advocates (1 1/2 weeks)

QUIZ FOR UNIT 2 READINGS

Unit #3a

MATURATION OF ROMANCE

Readings for Unit #3a: Selections from Thoreau , Hawthorne (2 weeks)

The Scarlet Letter Seminar Discussion Questions

Unit #3b

Readings for Unit #3b: The Last of the Mohicans, or The Scarlet Letter, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1-1 1/2 classes)

The Last of the Mohicans Seminar Discussion Questions

SEMINAR QUESTIONS for ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Unit #4

4 weeks (a break comes in the middle of the these weeks)

Readings for Unit #4: "Bartleby" and Moby Dick, Melville

Unit #5

Readings for Unit #5: Whitman's "Song of Myself" and Dickinson's poetry in the Heath Anthology (3 weeks)

QUIZ FOR UNIT 5

Unit 6a:

Reading for Unit #6a: a short story illustrating late 19th-century American realism or naturalism (one class)

Unit #6b:

Readings for #6b: Sister Carrie or The Red Badge of Courage and The Awakening. (1 week)

SEMINAR QUESTIONS on THE AWAKENING

SEMINAR QUESTIONS on RED BADGE OF COURAGE