TH 6:30-9 PM, SPRING 1999, SQH 3109

RALPH BAUER

office: (301) 405 3794, home: (301) 270 0785, department: (301) 405 3809

E-Mail: rb227@umail.umd.edu,

OFFICE HOURS: T 10-12, TH 3:30-5

A. DESCRIPTION: Survey of the major texts in British American literature from the beginnings to 1865 and their current historiographies. Assignments include 3 papers, one final exam, and presentations. Please sign up for one of your presentations on the list pinned to my office door (4107). Texts should be purchased in the editions indicated (orders are place at UMD Bookstore and MD Book Exchange): Anne Bradstreet, The Works of Anne Bradstreet (Belknap); Edward Taylor, The Poems of Edward Taylor (UNC Press); Phillis Wheatley, The Collected Poems (Oxford), Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntley (Penguin); Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography (Signet), Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from and American Farmer (Penguin), William Byrd, Histories of the Dividing Line (Dover), Thomas Jefferson, The Portable Jefferson (Penguin); William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation (McGraw Hill); Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative, (Penguin), Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life (Penguin) Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlett Letter (Norton), Herman Melville, Moby Dick (MacMillan); Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (Viking), Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays (Library of America), Emily Dickinson, Complete Poems (Little Brown), Walt Whitman, The Portable Whitman (Viking),

The short-term goal of this course is to provide you with a basic background in American literature in preparation to taking the MA exam in this field. The long-term goals are (1) to help you in making informed decisions about the direction of your further career as a graduate student; and (2) to prepare you for some of the basic tasks involved in forming an intellectual and professional identity such as participating in critical conversations, finding your own ways of reading texts in an interesting manner, articulating your ideas, contextualizing them within existing traditions of scholarship, and presenting them to an informed and critical audience.

C. ASSIGNMENTS:

1. PAPERS:
There will be three critical papers (7-8 ps) and one 5-page book review of a critical work. Each critical paper should present an idea supported in an analysis of one of the readings or in a synthesis of several. The book review should, in its first part, follow the conventional format of this genre as you encounter it in journals of literary criticism and, in its second part, demonstrate that you are able to test its critical ideas in an application to a primary text discussed in class. Any of your papers may, but do not have to, overlap with your oral presentation.

2. PRESENTATIONS:
There will be two in-class presentations per student, one on a literary text discussed in class and one on a critical work. (1) For your presentation on the primary text, please sign up on the date on which it is scheduled. The format of this presentation will be loosely based on the model of a talk at a literary conference as you might have already attended or may attend at some point in the future. That is, you should plan to talk for about 15 (no more than 20) mins. at the beginning of the class and be prepared to answer questions that the class might have for you thereafter. In your talk, you should identify one theme, question, or issue that your reading of the text has raised and articulate an idea which you support with various points and illustrate with specific examples. (2) For a presentation on a critical work (which we will not be reading as a class), please consult with me in my office hours and the accompanying "Assigned Reading" apparatus in place at the library. The general idea here is to introduce a critical work to an audience not yet familiar with it and to assess its potential helpfulness in better understanding the primary texts at hand in this class. Specifically, you should attend to its thesis, argument, evidence, historiographic/ideological assumptions/contexts and explain its implications as you see it pertaining to our readings.

3. PARTICIPATION

Each member of the class is encouraged, and expected, to participate in class discussion. Contributions WILL be respectful, collegial, and tolerant of ALL participants.

4. FINAL EXAM:
At the end of the term, there will be a Master’s exam-style final

D. GRADES:

Presentations 20 %; Participation 15%; Critical papers 15%; Final Exam 10%; Book Review 10%.

Frequent visits at my office hours to discuss your work and the class subject matter are strongly encouraged. If you cannot make my regular office hours, please feel free to arrange for other times.

F. SCHEDULE:

1/28 INTRODUCTION

2/4 William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation

2/11 Poetry by Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor.

2/18 William Byrd, History of the Dividing Line

2/25 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

3/4 NO CLASS (please read Franklin)

3/11 Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography and Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative.

3/18 Phillis Wheatley, Selected Poetry.

3/25 SPRING BREAK (please read Crevecoeur AND Brown).

DUE: PAPER # 2. MONDAY, 3/29, 5PM MY BOX OR OFFICE

4/1 J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer.

4/8 Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntley.

Edgar Allan Poe, The

4/15 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature; Essays, 1st and 2nd Series

(selections).

4/22 Poetry by Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman

DUE: BOOK REVIEW. MONDAY, 4/26, 5PM, MY BOX OR OFFICE

4/29 Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

5/6 Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.

5/13 Herman Melville, Moby-Dick.

FINAL EXAM (DATE/TIME T.B.A.)

DUE: PAPER # 3. FRIDAY 5/14, 5PM, MY BOX OR OFFICE.