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Calendar

All reading assignments are from:

Baym, Nina, et al, eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 5th ed. New York: Norton, 1999.

Class # Readings Assignments
1

Introduction

  
Origins
2

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation. (pages: 88-106)

Mary Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. (pages: 147-64)

  
3

Jonathan Edwards, Personal Narrative, A Devine and Supernatural Light and Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. (pages: 174-86, 200-211)

Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth, Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America and The Autobiography. (pages: 211-46, 273-85)

  
4

Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself. (pages: 342-53)

Phyllis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to America; To Mæcenas; To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth; To the University of Cambridge, in New England; On the Death of Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, 1770; Thoughts on the Works of Providence; To S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works; and To His Excellency General Washington. (pages: 358-70)

Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle. (pages: 426-40)

  
5  

Essay One (5 pages)
Declarations of Independence
6

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and The American Scholar. (pages: 493-525)

  
7

Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods, Ch. 1, 2, and 4. (pages: 868-920)

Revision One (5 pages)
8

Nathaniel Hawthorne, My Kinsman, Major Molineux. (pages: 584-7, 630-70)

  
9

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, Ch. I, VI, VII, IX, and X. (pages: 967-1000)

  
10

Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener and Benito Cereno. (pages: 1103-34)

  
11  

Essay Two (5 pages)
12

Margaret Fuller, The Great Lawsuit. MAN versus MEN. WOMAN versus WOMEN. and Unfinished Sketch of Youth ("Autobiographical Romance"). (pages: 764-75)

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly. Ch. VII, IX, and XXXIV. (pages: 791-821)

  
13

Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass and Song of Myself. (pages: 1001-5, 1057-1100)

  
14

Emily Dickinson, (pages: 1190-1211)
("I never lost as much but twice")
("Success is counted sweetest")
("These are the days when Birds come back--,--")
(" 'Faith' is a fine invention")
("I taste a liquor never brewed--")
("Safe in their Alabaster Chambers--")
("I like a look of Agony")
("Wild Nights--Wild Nights!")
("There's a certain Slant of light")
("A Clock stopped--")
("The Soul selects her own Society--")
("A Bird came down the Walk--")
("After great pain, a formal feeling comes--")
("I dreaded that first Robin, so")
("Much Madness is divinest Sense--")
("This is my letter to the World")
("This was a Poet--It is That")
("I died for Beauty--but was scarce")
("I heard a Fly buzz--when I died--")
("This World is not Conclusion")
("I would not paint--a picture--")
("It Was not Death, for I stood up")
("The Brain--is wider than the Sky--")
("I cannot live with You--")
("Pain--has an Element of Blank--")
("Because I could not stop for Death--")
("My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun--")
("A narrow Fellow in the Grass")
("The Bustle in a House")
("Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--")
("A Route of Evanescence")
("Apparently with no surprise")
("My life closed twice before its close")
Letters to Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Revision Two (5 pages)
Realism and Satire
15

Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in th Iron-Mills. (pages: 1211-39)

  
16

Samuel Clemens, The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calavaras County. (pages: 1258-61, 1265-1314)

  
17

Clemens, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (pages: 1314-66)

  
18

Clemens, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (pages: 1366-1415)

  
19

Clemens, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (pages: 1416-1453)

  
20  

Essay Three (5 pages)
21

Sarah Orne Jewett, A White Heron. (pages: 1594-1602)

Kate Chopin, At the 'Cadian Ball, The Storm, and Désirée's Baby. (pages: 1603-20)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-paper. (pages: 1656-69)

Edith Wharton, The Other Two. (pages: 1669-84)

  
Vision and Revision
22

Claude McKay, "Africa," "The Harlem Dancer," "The Lynching," "Harlem Shadows," America," and "If We Must Die." (pages: 2069-73)

Zora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored Me and The Guilded Six-Bits. (pages: 2082-95)

Jean Toomer, Cane. (pages: 2118-24)

Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "Mother to Son," "I, Too," "Mulatto," "Song for a Dark Girl," "Silhouette," "Visitors to the Black Belt," "Note on Commercial Theatre," and "Democracy." (pages: 2224-31)

Countee Cullen, "Yet Do I Marvel," "Incident," and "Heritage." (pages: 2242-46)

Richard Wright, The Man Who Was Almost a Man. (pages: 2247-56)

  
23

Toni Morrison, Jazz. (pages: 4-87)

Revision Three (5 pages)
24

Morrison, Jazz. (pages: 89-162)

  
25

Morrison, Jazz. (pages: 165-229)

  
26

Conclusion

Essay Four (5 pages)