Hostetler (Nebraska)
General Information
Abstract
My fundamental assumption is that nobody reads
pre-Civil War American literature for the fun of it, except for a few
oddballs, like me. For everybody else, the question is bound to occur,
why bother with this stuff? The language and style are often archaic or
boring; the hot problems and concerns for the times now seem quaint and
irrelevant. As a class, we will attempt to answer these objections by
moving at once behind these surface appearances in order to examine the
development and expression of some fundamental ideas & myths, assumptions,
and concepts, both popular and intellectual, that still influence the
ways in which Americans think about themselves and their society.
Examples of problem areas include attitudes toward the environment,
toward the nature of self and other, toward the need for communal shared
values, toward the idea of individual identity (especially as embodied
in concepts of race, class, and gender.)
The catalogue intent of this course is to provide intermediate and
advanced undergraduate students with an introductory literary/historical
survey of American literature from its beginnings to the 1860s. We will
spend substantial class time in developing skills for analyzing
individual works of intellectually sophisticated prose, poetry, and
fiction, but our overall goal will be to relate these works to each
other and to their socio-cultural influences, literary circumstances,
and historical conditions. We should be able thereby to identify
variant literary themes and styles within a particular period, and to
see how and why some of the changes in different modes of thought and
expression occur. The course is aimed particularly at two groups of
students: 1) non-majors who are especially interested in the cultural
context of what it means to be an American, and 2) majors in English,
history, and related areas who are developing a base for their further
reading and teaching about American experiences prior to the Civil War
period. By committing yourself fully to the work of this course, you
can anticipate improvement in your ability to read, discuss, and write
about literature and its backgrounds.
Although the course does not assume any background in English (except
freshman composition), you will be particularly well-prepared to
contribute to class discussions if you have had other courses focusing
on American literary, historical, cultural, or social experience. Some
familiarity with American history is especially important for this
course. As a minimum, I have assigned the four introductory chapters in
the class text. If you have little previous acquaintance with this
period, I suggest that you read a good history survey text.
Requirements
1) At a minimum, read the material assigned in the syullabus, including
the four introductory essays about the literary context and the
introductory literary biography for each author assigned in the
syllabus.
2) Participation in discussion groups and other in-class activities is
essential to success in this course.
3) Keep a reading jouranal in which you record your reactions,
questions, and comments on the assigned readings.
4) Write one formal essay of at least 5 typed pages which analyzes the
significance of a piece of prose or small group of poems in the
anthology in terms of the ideas developed and discussed in the course,
or which otherwise develops some pertinent concept in some significant
way.
5) Examinations: there will be an hour exam at mid-term and a final
exam.
Text
Lauter, Paul, and others eds.,
The Heath Anthology of American
Literature, volume 1. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1990.
(Editor's note: Professor Hostetler and his students used the First
Edition of the text for the course described here. Page numbers and
titles of introductions have, however, been changed to correspond to the
Second Edition.
Readings
Week #1
8/24: Introduction
8/26: Literature of European Exploration and Settlement
The Colonial period: to 1700 (3)
Native American Oral Literatures
(24)
Cultures in Contact: Voices from the Imperial Frontier (110)
Cultures in Contact: Voices from the Anglo-Americans' "New" World (179)
Week #2
8/31: Ethnocentrism and Self-Identity I: Encounters with the Alien
Other
9/2:
Columbus: from Journal of the First Voyage to America (116);
de Vaca: from Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (137);
The Coming of the Spanish and the Pueblo Revolt (Hopi) (483);
The Pueblo Indian Revolt and Spanish Reconquest, 1680-1692 (488);
Problems of Narrative I: Defining the New America
Smith:
(184); from the
Generall
Historie, Book III (186); from
A Description of New England
(192);
Morton, T
: selections from
New English
Canaan
[as assigned] (212);
Bradford:
from
Of Plymouth Plantation
(247)
Week #3
Literature of the New Nation
Eighteenth Century (495);
Tradition and Change in Anglo-America (519);
Enlightenment Voices, Revolutionary Visions (705);
Contested Boundaries, National Visions: Writings on "Race," Identity,
and "Nation" (928)
Week #4
The Individual and the Community I: Puritan Experience
Winthrop
: from
A Modell of
Christian Charity
(226);
Rowlandson: from
A Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration
(343);
Sewall
: from
The Diary of Samuel Sewall
(410);
Mather
: (419); from Bonifacius (441);
Bradstreet
: The Prologue; The Author to Her
Book; Before the Birth of
One of Her Children; To My Dear and Loving Husband; A Letter to Her
Husband; In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet; from
Meditations Divine and Moral (289);
The Bay Psalm Book; The New England Primer:
(326); from
The New England
Primer
(337)
Week #5
Literature of the American Self I: The Sources of Moral
Authority
Edwards:
(561); from
Personal
Narrative
(573);
Occom:
(939);
A Sermon Preached by
Samson Occom
(947);
Ashbridge:
from
Some Account of the
Early Part of the Life
(596);
Woolman:
from
The Journal of John
Woolman
(610);
Bleecker:
Written in the Retreat from
Burgoyne (690);
Paine:
(851); from
The Age of Reason
(867);
Murray:
Desultory Thoughts (1006);
Freneau:
(1021); The Wild Honey Suckle
(1031);
Foster:
from
The Coquette
(1150)
Week #6
The Individual and the Community II: A Pragmatic Role
Model
Franklin:
(708);
The Way to
Wealth; The Speech of Polly Baker; An Edict by the King of Prussia; Information to Those
Who Would Remove
to America; Speech in the Convention; from
The Autobiography
(715)
Problems of Narrative II: Defining the New American
de Crèvecoeur:
(819); from Letter III,
What is an American? (823)
The Individual and the Community III: Republican Virtue
John Adams and Abigail Adams:
[all] (873)
Murray:
On the DOMESTIC EDUCATION OF
CHILDREN; On the EQUALITY of the SEXES (1009);
Irving:
(1284); Rip Van Winkle (1294);
Cooper:
from
The Pioneers
(1328)
Week #7
Ethnocentrism and Self-Identity II: Race and the New
Nation
Woolman:
from
Some
Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes
(621);
Franklin:
Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America; On the
Slave Trade (745);
de Crèvecoeur:
from
Letter IX, Description of Charles Town (828);
Freneau:
The Indian Burying Ground (1036);
Vassa
(Equiano):
from
The Interesting Narrative of the
Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African
(971);
Wheatley:
On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield; On Being
Brought from Africa to America; On Imagination; To His Excellency General Washington; from
Letter to Samson Occom (1048);
Occom:
A Short
Narrative of My Life (939)
Week #8
Exam
Literature of American Romanticism
Early Nineteenth Century: 1800-1865 (1227)
Explorations of an "American" Self (1481)
Week #9
Literature of the American Self II: Individualist Idealism
(1529)
Emerson:
(1498); The American Scholar
(1499-1511); [poetry]--
Compensation; Ode, Inscribed to W. H. Channing; Hamatreya; Merlin;
Brahma; Days; Terminue (1599)
The Individual and the Community IV: An Individualist Role Model
Thoreau:
Resistance to Civil Government;
from Walden (2029)
Week #10
Literature of the American Self III: Integration and
Disintegration
Whitman:
(2740); Song of Myself (2758)
Poe:
(1361); Ligeia (1371); The Fall of the House of
Usher (1382); The
Purloined Letter (1410); Sonnet--To Science (1423)
Week #11
Ethnocentrism and Self-Identity III: Testing the Role
Models
Douglass:
Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass
(1666)
Jacobs:
from
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
(1751)
Copway (Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh):
from the
Life of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh
(1482);
Seguin,
from
Personal Memoirs
(1992)
Week #12
Problems of Narrative III: Defining the New Inner World
Myths, Tales, Legends (1261)
The Flowering of Narrative (2110)
Hawthorne:
(2112); My Kinsman, Major
Molineux (2116); Young Goodman
Brown (2129); Rappaccini's Daughter (2158)
Melville:
(2440); Bartleby, The Scrivener
(2445)
Week #13
Literature of the American Self IV: States of
Consciousness
Dickinson:
Poems numbered 258, 280,
285, 315, 338, 341, 465,
520, 569, 670, 712, 721, 883, 986, 1129, 1624 (2869); Finished paper draft due (November 16);
Class workship: discuss papers and critiques (November 18)
Week #14
American Poetic Voices: The Sources of Moral Authority
Revised paper due
The Emergence of American Poetic Voices (2682);
Native American Oral Poetry
(70);
Zuni [traditional]: Sayatasha' s Night Chant (74);
Songs and Ballads:
Lay Dis Body Down; Steal Away to Jesus; Many Thousand Go; Go Down,
Moses; Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel; John Brown's Body; The Battle Hymn
of the Republic; Sweet Betsy from Pilke; Clementine; Acres of Clams;
Paper of Pins; Come Home, Father (2685);
Bryant:
Thanatopsis; The Prairies;
Abraham
Lincoln
(2704);
Longfellow:
A Psalm of Life; The Jewish
Cemetery at Newport; The
Harvest Moon (2733);
Week #15
Ethnocentrism and Self-Identity IV: The Sources of Moral
Authority
Apes:
An Indian's Looking-Glass for the
White Man
(1780);
Morton, S.
The African Chief
(695);
Walker:
from
Appeal
etc. (1810);
Whittier:
(1843);
Massachusetts to Virginia
(1849);
Grimké
sisters:
Appeal to the Christian
Women of the South
(1856);
Higginson:
from
Nat Turner's Insurrection
(1887);
Chesnut:
from
Mary Chesnut's Civil War
(1922);
Lincoln:
[all] (1931);
Stowe:
from
Uncle Tom's Cabin
(2348);
Melville:
Benito Cereno
(2497)
Week #16
The Individual and the Community V: The Sources of Moral
Authority
Grimké, S.:
from
Letters on the
Equality of the Sexes
(1935)
Fern (Parton):
[all] (1948);
Truth:
Reminiscences by Frances D. Gage of
Sojourner Truth, for May 28-
29, 1851 (1956);
Fuller:
(1610); from
Woman in the Nineteenth
Century
(1634);
Melville:
The Paradise of Bachelors and the
Tartarus of Maids (2480);
Stoddard:
The Prescription (2657);
Whitman:
from Children of Adam (2819); from
Calamus (2821); The
Dalliance of the Eagles (2834);
Dickinson,
Poems numbered 14, 249, 303, 322,
401, 613, 631, 640, 732,
754, 1670, 1737; Letters to Susan Gilbert (Dickinson) [all]; Letter to
Austin Dickinson [27 March 1853]; Letter to recipient unknown ("Master")
[about 1861] (2869);