Getz (Xavier)
General Information
Abstract
The course considers the origin and validity of the term
"American Renaissance" and other issues relating to the formation
and interpretation of the literary canon of this period.
Literature of various genres is studied for its formal qualities
and its interaction with the history and culture of this period
and our own. Throughout the semester we examine the premises
that aesthetic concerns cannot be separated from political and
social issues and that as we read texts we remake them so that
our responses themselves become texts for us to study.
The first few weeks we study authors who focus directly on
the
major historical issues of the time: westward expansion and
treatment of Indians and Hispanics already in those territories,
urbanization and industrialization of the Northeast (enhanced by
German and Irish immigration), the struggle for women's rights,
and, of course, slavery and abolitionism. The remainder of the
semester we study canonical authors in the context of these
voices and issues.
Population
This is one of several upper-level courses that fulfill the
American literature requirement for junior and senior English
majors and secondary certification students in English. Usually
a few M.A. English or M.Ed. students also take it. Total
enrollment is about 35.
This is a 3-hour class that meets twice a week for a
semester. The format is mostly discussion.
Bibliography and Texts
Lauter, et al.,
Heath Anthology of American Literature,
Volume I
Melville,
Moby-Dick
(Bantam edition
includes "Hawthorne and His Mosses")
A selective timeline of history and popular culture I prepare
by decade from the 1830s through 1860s using
The Timetables of American History
(ed. Laurence Urdang) and other
sources
General Writing and Pedagogy
Besides the normal class discussions, we use in-class group
work
and oral readings or summaries of reaction papers (sometimes
written in class but usually at home) to enhance the dialogue.
Reaction papers of one to two pages (if typed) are assigned every
other week, often with specific questions for response. A mid-
term exam (essay questions distributed ahead of time but answered
in class), three critical essays, and a final project are also
required. Graduate students do a longer research paper and lead
discussion for half a class period.
Readings & Pedagogy
UNIT # 1
(1 or 2 class sessions) Readings for Unit 1: Introduction to Early Nineteenth Century,
1180-1213;
Timeline handout;
Songs and ballads, 2671-91;
Bryant
, "To a Waterfowl";
"To Cole, the Painter, Departing for Europe";
Longfellow
, "Psalm of
Life"
UNIT 2
(2 class sessions) Readings for Unit 2:
Cooper
, from
Pioneers
and
Last of
the
Mohicans;
Humor of the Old Southwest
,
1427-43;
Kirkland
, from
A New
Home--Who'll
Follow?;
Native American tales and legends,
1214-24;
Speech of
Chief Seattle;
Aztec and Inuit poetry
,
2663-71;
Tales from Hispanic Southwest
, 1228-38;
Vallejo
, from
Recuerdos
UNIT 3
(4 or 5 class sessions) Readings for Unit 3:
Writers on slavery and abolition, 1825-71 and 1792-95;
(Next time I'll be more selective from these and give more time
to Douglass, Stowe, and Jacobs);
Child,
1795-1812;
Douglass
,
Narrative of
the Life of Frederick
Douglass
and
"What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?";
Stowe
, from
Uncle Tom's
Cabin
and other
selections, 2307-2377;
Jacobs
, from
Incidents in
the Life of a Slave
Girl
4-PAGE CRITICAL ESSAY
UNIT 4
(2 class sessions) Readings for Unit 4:
Whitman,
"To a Locomotive in
Winter";
Grimké,
from
Letters on the
Equality of the Sexes;
Stanton,
from
Eighty
Years and More;"Declaration of Sentiments";
Fern,
1899-1908;
Melville,
"Paradise of
Bachelors, and Tartarus of
Maids"
Truth, 1908-1915;
Stowe,
from
The Minister's
Wooing;
"Sojourner Truth, the Lybian Sybil"
Reaction Paper for Unit 4
UNIT 5
(4 or 5 class sessions) Readings for Unit 5:
Emerson,
Nature;"The American Scholar";
"Self-Reliance";
"The Poet";
"Hamatreya";
"Days";
Fuller,
1580-1637, especially
from
Woman in the
Nineteenth
Century;
Thoreau,
"Resistance to Civil
Government"; "A Plea for Captain John Brown"; and
from
Walden
Second Critical Paper
UNIT 6
(2 class sessions) Readings for Unit 6:
Poe
, Review of Hawthorne's
Twice-Told Tales;
"MS. Found in a Bottle";
"Ligeia";
"Fall of the House of Usher";
"Purloined Letter";
"Cask of Amontillado";
"Sonnet--To Science";
"Israfel";
"Raven";
"Philosophy of Composition";
"Ulalume";
"Annabel Lee"
UNIT 7
(6 class sessions) Readings for Unit 7:
Hawthorne
,
Scarlet
Letter;
Melville
, "Hawthorne and His Mosses";
Moby-Dick
UNIT 8
(4 class sessions) Readings for Unit 8:
Whitman
, 1855 Preface to
Leaves of Grass;
"Song of Myself";
"Sleepers";
"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" from Drum-Taps, 2804-10;
"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd";
Dickinson
, 2838-2921
(Students choose poems we
emphasize.)
Final Project
Writing & Pedagogy for Final Project (takes the place of a
final
exam):
Identify and justify your selections of:
1. One noncanonical author or text on our syllabus that should
be
included in future versions of this course.
2. One canonical author or text on our syllabus that should be
included in future versions of this course.
3. One canonical author or text on our syllabus that could be
omitted to make room for others.
If you can't justify any author or text for one of the
categories, add a second author or text to one of the others and
justify it.
In your justifications be explicit about your criteria for
inclusion and exclusion.
This paper should be about 5 pages long and is due at the
beginning of the final exam period. For that day you should also
prepare a five-minute summary of this paper for presentation to
your small group. During the exam period the groups will collect
and summarize the findings of their members, and we'll pool the
reports of the groups to see where the class stands and what we
can conclude from these results.
Attendance and active participation during the final exam
period
are required.
