Course title: American literature and cultural history 1
Code: AN113K4
Evaluation: examination
Credits: Semester: Type of Class: lecture
2
3
Language of Instruction: English
Description
The multiple aims of the course are, firstly, to introduce students to the most significant
tendencies and authors in 19th century American literature, secondly, to observe the cultural
awareness of 19th century America, and, finally, to correlate the first two aims and to trace
their literary appearance as factors influencing social consciousness. A specific aim of the
course is to have students study tendencies shaping 20th century literature.
The course requires previous training in literary theory, language competence and essaywriting skills.
The content of the course: the literary legacy of the War of Independence, the nascence of
national literature, E. A. Poe’s poetry and prose, transcendentalism: R. W. Emerson;
transcendentalist philosophy and literature: H. D. Thoreau, Walt Whitman, romantic
elements in N. Hawthorne’s works, a comparison of M. Melville’s and W. Whitman’s art
and weltanshauung, Mark Twain’s America, American realistic prose int he 19th century: S.
Crane, realism at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: Willa Cather, Jack London, Henry
James. The course supplements American Literature 2 seminar.
Compulsory readings:
Peter Cohn: Literature in America. Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Emory Elliott: Columbia Literary History of the United States. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1988.
Virágos Zsolt: Portraits and Landmarks: The American Literary Culture in the 19th
Century. Debrecen: Debreceni Egyetem Angol-Amerikai Intézete, 2003.
Recommended readings:
Kretzoi Miklósné: Az amerikai irodalom kezdetei. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1976.
Jefferson Humphries: Southern Literature and Literary Theory. Athen: The University of
Georgia Press, 1996.
Boris Ford ed.: American Literature. London: Penguin, 1991.
M. Thomas Inge: Huck Finn Among the Critics. Washington, D.C.: Forum, 1984.
Richard Ruland and Malcolm Bradbury: From Puritanism to Postmodernism. New York:
Viking, 1991.
Nina Baym et al: The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W. W. Norton
and Co., 1989.
Course director: dr. Szatmári Judit PhD
Instructors: dr. habil Virágos Zsolt PhD, dr. habil Vadon Lehel PhD