Description
This course surveys a significant range of works and introduces the rise of various American literatures from the post-bellum period?when American literature came of age?to the post-modern era. We will begin the class by foregrounding the tension in American literature between the enormous yearning to forge a new literary and cultural identity and the need to come to terms with a European past. We will then explore how the developing idea of our national literature through its multi-cultural heritage provides an interpretive framework for our readings and how it gives rise to modern narrative and poetic forms. We will pay particular attention to the inter-relation of literature and culture, examining how issues of the formation of the modern American self relate to literary trends, the American Dream, politics and war, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and especially race. Students will consult both primary and secondary sources and will formulate their responses both in class discussi