American Literature (Course)

Essential Questions for Course

1. What does it mean to be an American?
2. How has the United States lived up to its original promise?
3. How do history, culture, and literature inform and influence one another?

Units

Encounters and Adventures (1607-1765)

The Colonial Period to the Stamp Act

The colonial period begins in 1607 with the founding of the Jamestown colony in Virginia and ends with the passage of the Stamp Act by the British Parliament.

Potential Texts

Bradstreet, Anne (1617-1672) Selections from The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650)

• "Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House"
• "A Love Letter to Her Husband"
• "Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House"
• "To my Dear and Loving Husband"

A list of her poems, along with links to their texts, can be found here.

Rowlandson, Mary (c. 1636 - c. 1711)

• Selections from A Narrative of the Captivity, Sufferings, and Removes of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682)

Edwards, Jonathan (1703-1758)

• Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Bradford, William (1590-1657)

• Selections from Of Plymouth Plantation (1620)

Taylor, Edward (1642?-1729)

• "Huswifery"

Byrd, William (1674-1744)

• Selections from The History of the Dividing Line (c. 1728)

Dekanawida

• Selections from The Iroquois Constitution

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Nation Building (1765-1830)

The Revolutionary and Early National Periods

Essential Questions

1. What could cause a people to fight for their independence?
2. How do you create a new national identity?

Potential Texts

Wheatley, Phyllis (1753-1784)

Equiano, Olaudah (c. 1745-1797)

• Selections from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)

Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790)

• Selections from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
• Selections from Poor Richard's Almanack

Henry, Patrick (1736-1799)

• "Speech to the Virginia Convention" (1765)
• "Liberty or Death" speech (1775)

Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

• Selections from The Rights of Man (1791)
• Selections from Common Sense (1776)
• Selections from Notes on the State of Virginia
• Selections from The Age of Reason (1794, 1796)
• Selections from The Crisis

Jefferson, Thomas (1743-18260

• Selections from A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)
• Selections from Notes on the State of Virginia
• Selections from The Autobiography
• Selections from "The Declaration of Independence"

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Dreams and Nightmares (1828-1865)

The Romantic Period through the Civil War The Romantic Period in American literature begins in 1828 with the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency, and ends in 1865 with the conclusion of the Civil War.

Potential Texts

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady (1815-1902)

• Selections from Declaration of Sentiments of the Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention

Irving, Washington (1783-1859) Novels

• A History of New York
• The Sketch Book (1819-20)
• Tales of a Traveller (1824)

Short Stories

• "The Devil and Tom Walker"

Bryant, William Cullen (1794-1878)

• "Thanatopsis"

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1807-1882)

• Evangeline (1847)
• The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
• "The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls"
• "The Cross of Snow"

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

• "Nature"
• "Self-Reliance"

Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862)

• Walden (1854)
• "Resistance to Civil Government" (1849)

Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864) Novels

• Selections from Twice-Told Tales (1837)
• The Scarlet Letter (1850)
• The House of the Seven Gables (1851)

Short Stories

• "Young Goodman Brown"
• "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment"
• "The Minister's Black Veil"

Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849)

• Tamerlane (1827)
• Al Aaraaf (1829)
• The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
• "The Gold Bug"
• "The Purloined Letter"
• "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
• "The Tell-Tale Heart"
• "The Cask of Amontillado"
• "The Pit and the Pendulum"
• "The Raven" (1845)

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New Frontiers (1865-1914)

Realism, Regionalism, and Naturalism

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Stepping Onto the Stage (1914-1945)

Modernism

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The Center Cannot Hold (1945-?)

Postmodernism