English 130A

American Literature: Before 1800

Book List

The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Literature to 1820. Volume A. Seventh Edition; Brown, Charles Brockden: Wieland; Rowson, Susanna: Charlotte Temple

Description

This course provides a survey of English-language American literature to 1800. We will explore a wide range of texts from narratives of colonial settlement through the literature of the American Revolution and the early republic. Topics to be discussed include: the role of Puritanism in American society; evangelism and secularism; the language of reason, rights, and representation; the rise of the novel in America; and the rhetoric of independence and slavery.  We will pay special attention to Enlightenment and revolutionary investments in neoclassical models and romantic sensibilities.  Authors will include William Bradford, John Winthop, Anne Bradstreet, Mary Rowlandson, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Phillis Wheatley, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, Hannah Foster, Charles Brockden Brown, and Washington Irving.

This course satisfies the pre-1800 requirement for the English major.

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