English R1A

Book List

Atwan, Robert: Best American Essays; Doyle, Brian: The Thorny Grace of It; Emerson, Ralph Waldo: Nature; Frost, Robert: Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays; Melville, Herman: Billy Budd and Other Stories; Whitman, Walt: Leaves of Grass

Description

What does it take to write American literature? What in the history of the United States distinguishes the culture, texture, and style of American letters?

In this course we'll explore highly effective strategies in American literary writing. We will look at the composition processes of many leading American writers, including Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and Brian Doyle.

The goals of the course are as follows: 1) to study American literature at the level of the line and 2) to write analytically and compellingly about the strategies and structural choices that authors design. You will write and revise four short papers over the course of the term.