English 45B

Other Readings and Media

Rowlandson, M.: Sovereignty and Goodness of God; Franklin, B.: Autobiography;;Defoe, D.: Robinson Crusoe;; Austen, J.: Emma; ; Wordsworth, W. and S.T. Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads and Related Writings;; Bronte, E.: Wuthering Heights;; Whitman, W.: Leaves of Grass: His Original Edition;; Douglass, F. and H. Jacobs: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave;, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl;

Description

I will lecture on the cataclysmic rise of bourgeois modernity as it registers in English and American literature during the period 1660-1860. I will emphasize the mixture of euphoria, wonder, deprivation, and anxiety that this transformation provokes, and I will concentrate on the Enlightenment and Romanticism as attempts to exploit historical opportunity while compensating for history's deficiencies. Two five-page essays, a final exam, and regular participation in lecture and discussion section will be required.