TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE
One semester survey course – BA, 4th year
I.
THE POST-WWI PERIOD (1919-1945)
1. “The Lost Generation”: Ernest Hemingway; F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Gertrude Stein.
2. Modernist Poetry: T. S. Elliot, Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, William
Carlos Williams, H. D. [Hilda Doolittle].
3. Harlem Renaissance: Alain Locke, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale
Hurston.
4. The Beginnings of American Drama: Eugene O’Neill, Susan Glaspell.
5. Southern Renaissance: William Faulkner, Eudora Welty.
6. Literature of the 30s: Michael Gold, John Steinbeck, Clifford Odets,
Lillian Hellman.
II.
THE POST-WW II PERIOD (1945- to the present)
1. The Development of American Drama: Tennessee Williams, Arthur
Miller, Edward Albee.
2. The Beat Generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William
Burroughs.
3. African American Literature: Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Lorraine
Hansberry.
4. Race and Ethnicity in Literature: Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, N. Scott
Momaday.
5. The Post-Modernist Novel: John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt
Vonnegut.
6. Contemporary American Drama: Sam Shepard, August Wilson,
Marsha Norman, David Mamet.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. LITERARY HISTORIES
1. Bercovitch, Sacvan. Gen.ed. The Cambridge History of American
Literature, 1995
2. Elliot, Emory, general ed. Columbia Literary History of the United
States, 1988
3. Brooks, Cleanth and Robert Penn Warren. American Literature: The
Makers and the Making, 1973
4. Spiller, Robert. A Literary History of the United States
5. Berkovitch, Sacvan, ed. Reconstructing American Literary History,
1986
6. Hutner, Gordon, ed. The American Literary History, Reader, 1995
III.
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3.
4.
Horton, Rod. Backgrounds of American Literary Thought
Wilson, Edmond. The Shock of Recognition
Parrington, Vernon L. Main Currents in American Thought (3 vol.)
Goldman, Arnold. American Literature in Context
IV.
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8.
BACKGROUND STUDIES
WRITERS, TRENDS, PERIODS
Chase, Richard. The American Novel and its Tradition
Sundquist, Eric. American Realism: New Essays
Bell, Michael Davitt. The Problem of American Realism, 1996
Walcutt, Cl. Naturalism: A Stream Divided
James, Henry. The Art of Fiction
Bell, Bernard. The Afro-American Novel and its Tradition
Tanner, Tony. City of Words: American Fiction 1950-1970
Olderman, Raymond. Beyond the Wasteland: The American Novel in
the 60s
9. Bigsby, C.W.E. An Introduction to 20th c. American Drama (3 vol.)
10.Essays in American Studies, ed. by K. Slavova, M. Danova, Dept. of
English and American Studies