North American Literature
Code
711121050
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Línguas, Culturas e Literaturas Modernas, Secção de Estudos Ingleses e Norte-Americanos
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
Isabel Oliveira Martins
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
a) To enable a global survey of North-American literature from its colonial times until the 1920´s.
b) To examine the literary works and its authors within the cultural and historical context.
c) To assess the specific characteristics of the American literary production in the period under consideration.
d) To be able to critically explore the selescted authors works.
Prerequisites
None.
Subject matter
General introduction to the course: a survey of American literature since colonial times until the 1920´s.
The territory and the Puritan legacy
John Smith, A Description of New England (excerpts)
John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity
Anne Bradstreet (selection of poems)
The search for a national and literary identity
The American Enlightenment
Benjamin Franklin, Information to Those Who Would Remove to America
The Transcendentalist influence
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
Henry David Thoreau, On Civil Disobedience
Individual voices
Herman Melville, Bartebly, the Scrivener
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Ministers Black Veil
Edgar Allan Poe, The Black Cat
Walt Whitman (selection of poems)
Emily Dickinson (selection of poems)
The transition into the 20th century
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Stephen Crane, The Open Boat
The search for answers in the 1920´s.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Bibliography
Ruland, Richard and Bradbury, Malcolm (eds.). 1991. From Puritanism to Post-Modernism. A History of American Literature, N.Y.: Routledge.
Donaldson, Scott (ed.). 1996. The Cambridge Companion to American Literature, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press.
Harding, Brian. 1982. American Literature in Context II. 1830-1865, N.Y.: Methuen.
Hook, Andrew. 1983. American Literature in Context III. 1865-1900, N.Y.: Methuen.
Lee, Brian. 1987. American Fiction. 1865-1940, London and New York: Longman.
Teaching method
40% (Practical) 60% (theoretical)
The critical study of the literary texts will be privileged in the teachers lectures together with the study of the context in which the works were produced. This will be accompanied by the study of other kind of bibliographical material, such as studies and essays about the authors and the context in which their works were produced.
Evaluation method
Evaluation will include active participation in class, a discussion in class of one of the texts (by one or more students), and a final written test.