English 268H - AmericanLit&CultureBefore1865

Beginning in the Age of Revolution and ending in the Age of Emancipation, this course will focus on the relationship between American literature and the broader social transformations of this period. Studying the formal and thematic innovations of a range of American writers, the course will explore the various ways these writers responded to the radical upheavals of their times. What are the differing narratives posed by literary works of these periods, on the issues of territorial expansion, slavery, and national union; citizenship and democracy; social order and revolution? Reading widely and deeply, we'll study the writings of Charles Brockden Brown, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass; Herman Melville; Harriet Beecher Stowe; and Walt Whitman, among others. Throughout our readings we'll examine the ways in which the literature of this period contributed to the imagined community of the nation, as well as raised problems for the dominant narratives of the nation.

Open to English majors only. CW Gen Ed