English 3341: American Literature and Society
The American Classics: Existential Consolation or Ironic Despair?
MWF 9-9:50
Anderson 542
Instructor: Daniel Nutters
Office Hours: (Anderson 917) MWF 11-12 and by appointment
Email: daniel.nutters@temple.edu
Course Description:
F.O. Matthiessen’s American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman (1941) is
widely credited with establishing the canon of classic American literature. Matthiessen’s five chosen figureheads –
Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman – will comprise the bulk of our reading (allowing Margaret
Fuller to supplant Thoreau and the additions of Emily Dickinson and James Baldwin) as we consider what makes
these authors classic. This course will approach this question in several ways. What is at stake when we call
something a classic? How does such a classification shape our understanding of history and, in turn, our ethical,
political, and social consciousness? How, moreover, can defining a book as a classic impact individuals (you or I),
large groups of people (the nation or a university for example), or mediate the relationship between them?
We will begin by looking at two sets of writers, Emerson/Fuller and Hawthorne/Melville, and consider what
similarities exist despite these pairs’ stark differences. From here, we will turn to two poets, Whitman and
Dickinson, and attempt to understand how they do and do not emerge out of the writing of their predecessors.
Finally, we will conclude with a twentieth-century writer, James Baldwin, and try and think about his relationship to
these nineteenth-century traditions. Along the way we will read Denis Donoghue’s The American Classics, which
overtly meditates on this course’s questions, and sample the scholarship of Pease, Grossman, and Bromwich, as
respondents both to Matthiessen and contemporary social problems, in order to consider the politics of studying
literature in a university. We will also watch two movies – Cool Hand Luke and Network – to think about how the
themes we encounter in literature resurface in other medium and other eras.
While this class hopes to give you the chance for sustained engagement with some of America’s most important
writers, it will also briefly introduce you to the ways in which intellectuals put literature to use. More significantly,
our goal will be to understand how we ourselves can use these readings to help make sense of our day-to-day lives.
How do they enable us to generate responses to the world in which we live and how do they help us fashion our
identities? Simply put: how can the writing of the past help us to meet the needs of the present?
Readings:
Required Texts: available at the Temple Bookstore. Please use the editions below.
1. Emerson, Nature and Other Essays (Penguin)
2. Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Norton)
3. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (Norton)
4. Melville, Billy Budd and other Stories (Penguin)
5. Baldwin, Go Tell It On The Mountain (Vintage Books)
Movies: Cool Hand Luke and Network are available to rent on amazon.com and Netflix.
Poems are available online and should be printed and brought to class. I will email and post to blackboard readings
that were not ordered (Donoghue, Matthiessen, etc.). I will also occasionally email supplementary readings to
provide context, historical background, and additional information that I think might help guide you. You should
check your email frequently and are responsible for this material.
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Grading:
Class Participation (15%): Since your responses to the reading are the crux of this course, class participation is
essential and attendance mandatory. Every absence beyond the third will decrease your grade by one third of a letter
(A- to B+, etc.). If you are the silent type, you may do additional journal entries but should consult with me in
advance. Active participation also involves coming to class prepared having read all of the material; if I get the
feeling students aren’t reading, I will give quizzes. Finally, no electronics of any kind.
Journals (50%): You will be required to write a 1-2 page journal due at the start of class on Friday each of the first
thirteen weeks. On weeks in which there is no class on Friday, journals will be due the following Monday. Late
journals will be marked down a full letter grade (B to C etc.). I will only count 10 of the 13 journals toward your
final grade. A handout will provide additional information.
Annotated Bibliography (10%): You will choose one text or author and compose an annotated bibliographic history.
This will include a brief history of the author or text’s reception as well as a summary and bibliography of relevant
major works of scholarship. Details will be given later in the semester.
Essay (25%): You will write one essay that emerges out of your journals and bibliography. The length and
requirements will be given during the course of the semester.
Temple Policies: Any student who has a need for accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact
me privately to discuss the specific situation as soon as possible. Contact Disability Resources and Services at 215204-1280 in 100 Ritter Annex to coordinate reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities.
Freedom to teach and freedom to learn are inseparable facets of academic freedom. The University has a policy on
Student and Faculty and Academic Rights and Responsibilities (Policy #03.70.02) which can be accessed through
the following link: http://policies.temple.edu/getdoc.asp?policy_no=03.70.02.
Academic Dishonesty: Plagiarism and Violating the Rules of an Assignment (Excerpted from the Temple
University Statement on Academic Honesty for Students in Undergraduate Courses)
Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of another person’s labor: another person’s ideas, words, or assistance. In
general, all sources must be identified as clearly, accurately, and thoroughly as possible. Academic cheating is, in
general terms, the thwarting or breaking of the general rules of academic work and/or the specific rules of individual
courses. It includes falsifying data; submitting, without the instructor’s approval, work in one course that was done
for another; helping others to plagiarize or cheat from one’s own or someone else’s work; or actually doing the work
of another person. Of course we do not want to discourage you from using other people’s ideas or data. Our aim is
exactly the opposite. But you must always make clear your sources.
Penalties for Academic Dishonesty
The penalty for dishonesty can vary from a reprimand and receiving a failing grade for a particular
assignment, to failure for the course, to suspension or expulsion from the University. If you plagiarize on a
paper, you will fail the course. This is not negotiable. If you are uncertain about what constitutes plagiarism,
ask BEFORE you hand in the work. It will be too late afterwards.
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Schedule
M 8/25
Introduction
W 8/27
Edmundson: “The English Major”
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Ideal-English-Major/140553/
Joseph Epstein: “A Literary Education” New Criterion (June 2008)
F 8/29
Matthiessen: “Method and Scope”
Donoghue: “Introduction: After Emerson”
M 9/1
No Class
W 9/3
Emerson: “The American Scholar”
F 9/5
Emerson: “History”
M 9/8
Emerson: “Self-Reliance”
W 9/10
Emerson: “Circles”
F 9/12
Emerson: “Experience”
M 9/15
Donoghue: “Emerson and ‘The American Scholar.’”
W 9/17
Fuller: Journal & Letters (181-209); Woman in the Nineteenth Century (5-49)
F 9/19
Fuller: Woman in the Nineteenth Century (49-105)
M 9/22
Melville: “Hawthorne and his Mosses”
Hawthorne: Preface to House of Seven Gables; “Endicott and the Red Cross”
W 9/24
Hawthorne: “Young Goodman Brown”
F 9/26
Hawthorne: “The Minister’s Black Veil”
M 9/29
Hawthorne: “The Birth-mark”
W 10/1
Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter (7-35)
F 10/3
Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter (36-73)
M 10/6
Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter (73-128)
W 10/8
Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter (128-166)
F 10/10
Donoghue: “The Scarlet Letter”
M 10/13
Melville: “Bartleby”
W 10/15
No Class [Watch Network]
F 10/17
No Class [Watch Network]
M 10/20
Melville: “Benito Cereno”
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W 10/22
Melville: Billy-Bud (291-337)
F 10/24
Melville: Billy-Bud (337-385)
M 10/27
Pease: “Melville and Cultural Persuasion”
W 10/29
Donoghue: “Moby-Dick”
F 10/31
Emerson: “The Poet”
M 11/3
Whitman: “Song of Myself”
W 11/5
No Class [Watch Cool Hand Luke]
F 11/7
No Class [Watch Cool Hand Luke]
M 11/10
Whitman: “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”; “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”
W 11/12
Whitman: “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
Grossman: “The Poetics of Union in Whitman and Lincoln”
F 11/14
Bromwich: “Lincoln and Whitman as Representative Americans.” Yale Review 90.2 (2002)
M 11/17
Donoghue: “Leaves of Grass” and “Afterward”
W 11/19
Dickinson: poems TBD
F 11/21
Dickinson: poems TBD
M 11/24
Baldwin: Go Tell It On The Mountain (1-56)
W 11/26
Thanksgiving
F 11/28
Thanksgiving
M 12/1
Baldwin: Go Tell It On The Mountain (57-150)
W 12/3
Baldwin: Go Tell It On The Mountain (151-192)
F 12/5
Baldwin: Go Tell It On The Mountain (193-226)
M 12/8
Last Day of Classes
Final Paper Due
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