Tentative Syllabus for American Literature I
Fall 2006
Monday 3:30 – 6:20 P.M. H304
Instructor: Jyan-lung Lin
Textbook: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 6th ed. Vol. A & B
References: Handouts
Requirements: (1) Attendance and active class participation
(2) Final Examination
wk 1
Class organization, introduction to Literature to 1700,
The Iroquois Creation Story
wk 2
Bradford (Book I, Chapter I)
Winthrop (From the Journal of John Winthrop)
Bradstreet (selected poems)
wk 3
Sewall (The Selling of Josephl)
Mather (Pillars of Salt)
Introduction to American Literature 1700-1820
wks 4-5
Franklin (Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America)
Crevecoeur (Letter III. What is an American)
Pain (Common Sense)
wk6
wk 7
wk 8
wk 9
wk 10
wks 11-13
wk 14
wks 15-17
wk 18
Jefferson (The Declaration of Independence)
Freneau (The Wild Honey Suckle, the Indian Burying Ground)
Wheatley (selected poems)
Irving (Rip Van Winkle)
Cooper (The Pioneers [The Slaughter of the Pigeons])
Bryant (Thanatopsis. The Yellow Violet, To a Waterfowl)
Emerson (Nature, The American Scholar)
Hawthorne (Young Goodman Brown, The Scarlet Letter)
Longfellow (A Psalm of Life, My Lost Youth)
Poe (The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher)
Thoreau (Walden, or Life in the Woods)
Douglass (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass)
Whitman (Preface to Leaves of Grass, Song of Myself)
Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
Emily Dickenson (selected poems)
Final Examination