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American Literature Syllabus 2nd/3rd year TTC Poznań
Semesters: summer/winter 2007/2008
Lecturer: Marta Mazurek, Ph.D.
1. Puritan literature and culture(17th century): (Z.Lewicki (ed): American Literature pp. 1-15)
a) William Bradford: Of Plymouth Plantation (from: Norton Anthology pp.84-89; 93-100)
-a providential view of history: examples of God's intervention, biblical allusions, language/- a historical text:
reasons for leaving England, situation in Holland/- testing the ideal (fears) against the real (reaction to what they
saw upon arrival, the picture of Indians).
b) Anne Bradstreet’s poems: “Upon the Burning of our House,” “To my Dear and Loving Husband,” “The
Author to her Book” ( Norton: 130, 131,132-134,)
- as representation of Puritan philosophy of life (reaction to the calamity)/ -as a woman's poetry (imagery,
themes); - form (conceit, metaphors, language and verse).
2. The 18th century: (Lewicki, pp. 15-23)
a) Jonathan Edwards: Personal Narrative (fr.) (from: The College Anthology, 81-87)
- as a type of personal writing (subject matter, psychological insight)/ - as a typical conversion narrative
(structure, juxtaposition past/present, the moment of conversion).
Jonathan Edwards: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (from: as above, 88-102)
-the vision of God/man relation (metaphors, situation of man)/ - as argumentative writing (rhetorical devices).
b) Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography (fr. From: Adventures... 57-67)
- Puritan vs enlightened; self-made man idea/- as a prototypical American “success story”/- as a demonstration of
pragmatism.
3. Literature of the early Republic: Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle (Norton, 401-413)(Lewicki, 24-30) myth-creating story: (role of the frame-tale, fantastic elements, features of a legend vs features of a historical
American text)/ Rip as the prototype of an American hero – features.
4. American Transcendentalism 19th century (Lewicki, 45-51)
a) Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature (from: Norton, 440-443), The American Scholar, (from: Adventures, 187-189),
Self-Reliance (from: Themes, 288-293)
-definition of transcendentalism and Oversoul/- man and nature: (transcendental vision of the universe;
pantheism; what role nature plays as a source of knowledge, as commodity)/ - individual vs society: (how
society kills individuality, what it demands from one)/ the scholar as intellectually independent: (how nature
influences the intellect).
b) Henry David Thoreau: Walden (from: Adventures 203-209) Civil Disobedience (from: Themes, 544-549)
(Lewicki, 51-54)
-transcendentalist ideas put into practice: (reasons for going to Walden, transcendental vision of spring and the
pool in winter: images, why he left and what he learned, what is simplification, the meaning of the ants
metaphor, the meaning of the story of the bug)/ -Thoreau’s idea of government and individual freedom: (why is
government wrong, what and who serves gvt., what is civil disobedience, what did he learn on the night in
prison, what truth did he find out about society).
5. American Romantic Fiction and Poetry:
a) Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher,Ligeia, The Raven, Philosophy of Composition (from:
Norton, 655, 664, 548, 714) (Lewicki, 36-44)
-elements of gothic romanticism (imagery)/ relationship between the house and the twins/ interpretation of the
final scene: symbolism/ - Poe’s idea of creating poetry(stages of the process)/ symbolism/devices employed to
create the romantic mood of the poem (language).
b) Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter (Lewicki, 55-63); “Preface to The House of the Seven Gables”,
Rappaccini's Daughter (from: Norton 626-8, 606-626)
-frame story (1st chpt.)/a picture of Puritan society/ complex of sin and guilt/ symbolism: (letter A, the woods)/
as romance; motif of darkness; woman as femme fatale.
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c) Herman Melville: Moby Dick (chpts: 1-42, 66, 78, 92, 96, 99, 117, 122, 126, 132-till the end) Bartleby the
Scrivener (Norton, 1043);
- as an American epic romance (essay by R. Chase from the reading room)/-the meanings of Moby Dick (MD as
a legend, cetology, descriptions, etc)/-the vision of nature: (the sea, pastoral vs cruel scenes)/-Ahab as a
promethean figure/ -as a tragic hero/ -biblical allusions (names, religious symbolism); cognitive pessimism.
d) Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” (from:Norton sections 1-16, 49-52, pp 936-47, 976-8); (Lewicki, 71-78).
For comparison read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's “A Psalm of Life” (Norton, 629-30)
-an originally American poem (Emerson's idea of the poet)/ -language/- subject matter/unity in variety/- ideas of
democracy and independence/- the form of the poem (catalog, poetry of the open road)/ the self (multiple,
dissolved, death).
e) Emily Dickinson, selected poems (67, 465, 712, 1732 from: Norton 1129-1151 and “I heard a fly buzz, when
I died”, “I felt a funeral in my brain”, “Grass” from, eg.: Adventures); (Lewicki, 78-84)
-novel poetic devices (metaphorical imagination, verbal ambiguity, paradox and irony)/ concise form/ themes
and the unconventional approach to them.
6. Local Color and Realism (1865-1914)c.: (Lewicki, 85-100)
a) Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- Huck as a typical American hero (nature vs civilization, individual vs society)/- local color literature (narration,
language, mentality, issues of life on the frontier)/- racism/-symbolism: (the river, the journey)/-America vs
Europe (Tom vs Huck; the conmen and their audiences).
b) Henry James: Daisy Miller; “The Art of Fiction” (Norton 1508)
-psychological realism/- James’s literary method (symbolism, point of view)/-fiction as art / -the motivation of
the characters/America vs Europe theme.
7. End-of-century women's literature: (additional reading assignment from the instructor)
a) Kate Chopin: The Awakening
-as regionalist writing (a picture of society)/- as protofeminist novel (woman as propriety, gender awakening,
half-way feminism: androgyny)/symbolism (setting, home)
TEST
b) Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Yellow Wallpaper (from: Norton, pp.1571-82)
-symbolism: the meaning of the wallpaper/ the room as imprisonment/- the role of writing/-the meaning of
madness/as a feminist statement.
II SEMESTER
8. Naturalism: (Lewicki, 101-123): Stephen Crane: The Red Badge of Courage, “The Open Boat” (from:
Adventures... 386 till the end of the story)
-defining the mode of writing (vs genteel realism, the writer in naturalist fiction)/- naturalistic perspective
(allegorical interpretation of a human being in the universe)/- naturalistic narrative devices: (motives, language,
imagery/fragmentation)/ typical naturalistic motifs/irony.
9. Modernist and Modern Poetry of 20th century (On Imagism and modernist poetry (Ezra Pound) read from
Salska (ed.) Historia literatury amerykańskiej XX wieku vol. I, pp. 89-104). On individual poets read either from
Salska or from Lewicki (relevant pages). Please, repeat what you know on T.S. Eliot: “Tradition and the
Individual Talent” and “The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock” as analysis of modernist mentality: selfconsciousness/- the use and meaning of images, commentary on modernist world/-dramatic
monologue/modernist form.
Other modernist poets: (poems from: Norton, 1820, 1825, Adventures 633, 641, 671)
- Ezra Pound: “In a Station of the Metro” - as an imagist poem;
-Robert Frost: “Mending Wall” (romantic tradition: man and nature, symbolic imagery, language)
- E.A Robinson: “Richard Cory”(theme,
language of poetry)
-Carl Sandburg: “Fog,” “Chicago,” (modernist themes/ imagism and the tradition of
Whitman)
-e.e. cummings: “anyone lived in a pretty how town” (exploiting the language; theme) -W.C.
Williams: “The Young Housewife,” “The Red Wheelbarrow” (re-evaluation of the notion of a ‘poetic’ subject;
no ideas but in things, imagery).
10. Modernist fiction: F.S. Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (Salska, 187-195, + material from instructor)
- as a social critique (the roaring twenties)/Nick Carraway as narrator/Gatsby as idealist (self-made
man)/disillusionment with the American Dream (symbolism and paradoxes).
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11. The Southern Renaissance : a)William Faulkner: “A Rose for Emily”, (Norton, 2044), (Lewicki, 146-156).
- the interpretation of Emily’s madness/- the meaning of the use of gothic (on Faulkner's modernist method in
The Sound and the Fury read Salska or Lewicki relevant pages)
b) Eudora Welty: “Petrified Man” (from: Norton pp. 2144-54) -as an example of a regionalist writer (language,
themes, atmosphere)
12. Post-war minority fiction: Jewish fiction: Philip Roth: Portnoy's Complaint; “Defender of the Faith”
(from: Norton pp.2302-24)
-the narrative situation the oedipal relation with the mother/ - castrating mother vs weak father/-Jewish body as a
source of complexes/-ambivalence toward Jewish identity (examples)/solidarity and betrayal.
13. African-American fiction: (Salska, vol.II pp 31-51) :
a) Richard Wright: “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” (from: Norton 2120-2130),
b) Ralph Ellison: from Invisible Man Chapter I “Battle Royal” (from Norton, pp. 2217-28),
c) James Baldwin: The Fire Next Time (fr. From Norton, pp.2256-68)
-the idea of manhood/- influence of racism on the black people's self-image/ - the role of religion/- critique of
racism
14. Post-Modern and Contemporary Fiction: (Salska, vol. II, pp 265-8)
Linda Hutcheon: “Historiograficzna metapowieść: parodia i intertekstualność historii.” (Booklet from
Instructor).
a) K.Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse – Five
- chpt 1 as metafiction, narrative technique; Billy as disintegrated protagonist; Tralfamadore – an alternative
reality frame/- as an escape (therapeutic)/-as a structural device /- postmodern treatment of history – as
historiographic metafiction/ -as anti-war book.
b) Robert Coover: “The Brother”, “The Babysitter” (booklet); John Barth “Life-Story” (from Norton, pp. 228393) -as post-modern self-conscious fiction/-as remake of myth/- as mise en abyme (auto-thematic metafiction).
15. Contemporary women's minority fiction: a) Toni Morrison: Beloved
-magic realism/- as a slave narrative: subversive narrative technique; for comparison with slave narrative read
Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Norton 885-916)/Beloved as allegory/ as feminine fiction
TEST
b) Maxine Hong Kingston: “No Name Woman” (from: Norton, pp. 2365-75)
-a an immigrant autobiography: criticism of Chinese traditional communal rituals: family, the role of woman,
woman as scapegoat/-revindication of woman/ - preservation of memory.
16. Contemporary American mainstream fiction: Paul Auster: City of Glass
- intertextuality/-self as text/- play on detective story.
Basic Bibliography:
Lewicki, Zbigniew (ed.): American Literature (OBLIGATORY)
Salska, Agnieszka, (ed.): Historia literatury amerykańskiej XX wieku. Kraków: 2003. (Volume II
OBLIGATORY)
Anthologies:
The Norton Anthology of American Literature (1 vol. edition)
Mazur, Zygmunt (ed.) The College Anthology of American Literature. Kraków: Universitas, 1998.
Hodgins, Silverman (ed): Adventures in American Literature
Mc Farland, Philip (et.al.): Themes in American Literature
Optional reading sources:
Mazur, Zygmunt: The Representation of History in Post-War American Fiction. Kraków: 2001
Sachs, Viola: Idee przewodnie literatury amerykańskiej
Kopcewicz, Andrzej, Siennicka, Marta: Historia literatury Stanów Zjednoczonych w zarysie. W-wa, 1983.