ENG 690
Nineteenth-Century American Fiction
Dr. Glen Johnson
The Catholic University of America
Principal works:
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Edgar Allan Poe, selections (see below)
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance (1851)
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851), “Bartleby the Scrivener,” and Benito
Cereno
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
Henry James, tales and novellas (1878-1908): “Daisy Miller,” “The Aspern
Papers,” “The Real Thing,” “The Figure in the Carpet,” The Turn of the Screw,
“The Beast in the Jungle,” “The Jolly Corner”
Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson and “Those Extraordinary Twins” (1894)
Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899)
Frank Norris, McTeague (1899)
Willa Cather, My Ántonia (1918)
You may read the works in any good editions. Everyone should acquire the Norton
Critical Moby-Dick (second ed.). I have ordered (and recommend) the Library of America
College Edition for James, the University of Nebraska edition for Cather, and the latest
Norton Critical Editions for the other works (except for Poe).
Course work & evaluation:
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Read assigned works fully and on time, and participate actively in discussions.
Prepare and lead one class session on a major author or work. This includes
reviewing secondary materials and, as appropriate, selecting some to include in
class discussion. See below for more information.
Prepare and present a précis of a critical article on Moby-Dick.
Review recent scholarship (since approximately 1990, then prepare an essay (of
article length) on critical issues and approaches to your work or author. If you
choose, you may include in this project a lesson plan for teaching your author or
book to college undergraduates.
Make one short (10-12 min.) in-class report on a cultural or historical topic from
the American nineteenth century.
Attendance, participation, and various assignments made through the semester.
Leading class discussion:
This activity has both critical and pedagogical focuses. On the day assigned for your
work(s), you will conduct the first hour of discussion. The basis for this will be your
analytical reading of the text and your review of recent criticism in order to identify key
current issues regarding the text. In conducting the class, you will seek a balance of
reporting to the class and eliciting discussion from the class. You will guide discussion
while avoiding both pure lecture (doing all the talking) and unstructured flow.
Handouts can be used. It is also possible to ask class members to do some limited and
focused critical reading as well as the basic text. Materials can be scanned and made
available via Blackboard.
After each class, I will meet with the discussion leader for a debriefing and discussion of
how to continue forward to the final scholarship review.
Class schedule, Tuesdays:
January 15
Introduction to the course.
Resources for the study of American literature.
January 22
Edgar Allan Poe, “Ligeia,” “How to Write a Blackwood Article” and “A Predicament,”
“The Fall of the House of Usher,” “William Wilson,” “The Man of the Crowd,” “The
Black Cat,” “The Purloined Letter,” and “The Cask of Amontillado”
Short report: phrenology
January 29
Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance
Short reports:
George Ripley
Fourierism
Margaret Fuller
Mesmerism
Peabody sisters
Penitentiary – panopticon
February 5
Melville, Moby-Dick
Short report: luminism and Fitz Hugh [Henry] Lane
February 12
Moby-Dick criticism: précis of critical articles
Walter Bezanson: “Moby-Dick: Work of Art”
Harrison Hayford, “Loomings: Yarns and Figures in the Fabric”
Harrison Hayford, “Unnecessary Duplicates: A Key to the Writing of Moby-Dick”
Camille Paglia, “Moby-Dick as Sexual Protest”
Carolyn Porter, “Call Me Ishmael, or How to Make Double-Talk Speak”
T. Walter Herbert, “Calvinist Earthquake: Moby-Dick and Religious Tradition”
Bryan Wolf, “When Is a Painting Most Like a Whale?: Ishmael, Moby-Dick and the
Sublime”
February 19
Moby-Dick
“Bartleby the Scrivener”
“Benito Cereno” and the slave narrative
Short report: John Brown
February 26
“Administrative Monday”: class does not meet this week
March 5
Spring Break
March 12
Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Short report: Seneca Falls Convention
March 19
Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson and “Those Extraordinary Twins”
Short report: recapitulation theory (“ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”)
March 26
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
Short report: Mary Cassatt
April 2
James works: “Daisy Miller,” “The Aspern Papers,” “The Beast in the Jungle,” “The
Figure in the Carpet,” “The Jolly Corner”
Short report: Thorstein Veblen
April 9
Cather, My Ántonia
Short report: Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”
April 16
Norris, McTeague
Short report: Jacob Riis
April 23
Chopin, The Awakening
April 30
Movie night!: film versions of our works.