ENG 227-01 - American Literary Traditions I (Fall)

4 credits (Fall)

Contact, Colony and Republic. As the title suggests, we will explore American literature from the perspective of three processes spread out over time: early in the semester we will explore the impact of “contact” on Old and New World inhabitants, primarily through creation and travel narratives; during the longer middle part of the semester we will look at the ways in which the pressures of colonization impact the poetry, sermons, and journals of colonists ranging from Puritans such as Anne Bradstreet and Mary Rowlandson to more secular writers such as Benjamin Franklin; and in the longest final third of the semester, we will explore the ways in which writers such as Hannah Foster, Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Lydia Maria Child, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass and Nathaniel Hawthorne react to the ideological pressures of the newly formed Republic in writings that reflect their concerns about selfhood, citizenship, and nationality.

Prerequisite: ENG 120 or ENG 121 for majors; for non-majors, ENG 120 or ENG 121 or any course in the study of literature in another language department.
Instructor: Andrews

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