AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE: FROM COLONIAL TIMES TO INDUSTRIALIZATION

Specific Foundation / Core

The course is also offered to exchange programme students.

• Adequate knowledge of the major historical events from colonial times to the end of the 19th century • Familiarization with important writings by major authors of the early American literary canon • Good understanding of the influence of Puritanism and Transcendentalism, on the American mindset • Good understanding of the main principles of Romanticism, Realism and Naturalism

Lit7-270 American Literature I: From Colonial Times to Industrialization Instructor: Zoe Detsi-Diamanti Office: 309A Tel. 2310 997448 Email: detsi@enl.auth.gr Office hours: Wed. 09.00-11.00, Fri. 09.00-11.00 Course description This is a survey course which examines American literature and culture from colonial times to the end of the 19th century. The aim of the course is to introduce students to the historical, socio-political, and cultural context which determined the transition of America from colonized to independent nation promoting the ideas of republicanism and the notion of a rapidly developing economy. Students will read and discuss a wide range of genres including journals, essays, autobiographical accounts, pamphlets, literary texts. Text: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 9th edition, vols. A, B, C. Imagining America: Toward the Construction of National Identity Volume A: Colonial Encounters • John Smith The General History of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles The Fourth Book. [Smith’s Farewell to Virginia] From A Description of New England First Settlement- Pilgrims and Puritans: 17th Century • William Bradford From Of Plymouth Plantation: Book I, chapter IX. Of Their Voyage and How They Passed the Sea; and Of Their Safe Arrival at Cape Cod Book II, chapter XI. The Remainder of Anno 1620. (The Mayflower Compact, The Starving Time, Indian Relations) • Mary Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (Beginning to the Seventh Remove) • Benjamin Franklin, Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America The Age of Rationalism and Revolution: 18th century • Thomas Paine From Common Sense Introduction From III: Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs • Thomas Jefferson From The Declaration of Independence From Notes On the State of Virginia From Query XIV. Laws [Slavery] • J. Hector St. Jean De Crevecoeur Letters from an American Farmer Letter iii. What is an American • Judith Sargent Murray On The Equality of the Sexes Part I Volume B: Early American Literature: the 19th century Transcendentalism/ Romanticism • Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature (Introduction and Chapter 1) • Ralph Waldo Emerson The American Scholar • Walt Whitman The Song of Myself (1-5) • Henry David Thoreau Resistance to Civil Government Dark Romanticism/ Realism • Edgar A. Poe The Fall of the House of Usher • Nathaniel Hawthorne My Kinsman, Major Molineaux • Herman Melville Bartleby, the Scrivener America and Racial Prejudice • William Apess An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man • Frederick Douglass What to the Slave is the Fourth of July Volume C: American women writers – first wave of Feminism • Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wallpaper • Kate Chopin, The Storm American Civil War • Ambrose Bierce An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Naturalism • Jack London The Law of Life

American Literature, Culture, Colonization, Puritanism, Revolution, Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Realism, Naturalism

16-11-2020