Un iv e r z i t a P . J . Ša fá r i ka v Ko š i c i a ch F i l o zo f i c ká f a ku l t a

Code: KAaA-AJ/DAL1/06

Course title: : American Literature 1

Specialisation: BASb Department: English and American Studies

Guaranteed by: Doc. PhDr. Stanislav Kolář, Dr.

Lecturer: Doc. PhDr. Stanislav Kolář, Dr.

Form: lecture, seminar Number of teaching hours: Per week: 2/2 Total per semester: 24/24

Credits: 5

Prerequisites: : KAaA-AJ/ULV/06

Assessment and evaluation: Continuous assessment: : keeping a journal (typed comments on literary texts) Final assessment: test Aims and objectives: keeping a journal (typed comments on literary texts) Course content: The course offers a general survey of early American literature from the colonial period when Puritan imagination was dominant to the turn of the 19th century. It concentrates on the main literary movements and schools and focuses on their representative writers. The course explores how these writers shaped American emerging nation and how the new nation influenced them. Students are expected to read all assigned work and to respond in class discussion and in writing a journal – a written form of their comments on weekly readings. The aim of the course is to develop students’ literary critical thinking.

C OU RS E DE SC RI PT I O N

Recommended texts: Recommended texts: Bercovitch, S., ed. The Cambridge History of American LIterature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. High P. B. An Outline of American Literature. London: Longman, 1986. Ruland, R., and M. Bradbury. From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature. New York: Penguin Books, 1992 (čes. 1997). Jařab, J. American Poetry and Poets of Four Centuries. Praha: SPN, 1985. McQuade, D., ed. The Harper American Literature. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1994. Procházka, M., J. Quinn, and H. Ulmanová. Lectures on American Literature. Praha, 2002. Language of instruction: English

Date of last revision: Signature: Stanislav Kolář, 18 Sept., 2007

LECTURES - DESCRIPTION

1. What is American literature? Distinctive features of American literature. Constituting the

subject of American literature (cultural pluralism, multiculturalism, impact of popular culture, individualism, optimism, Adamic myth

2. The literature of colonial period - Puritan imagination (Puritanism, predestination, unconditional election, original depravity, typical genres of colonial period, plain style)

3. The revolutionary period - political imagination (American Revolution, rationalism, reason, Enlightenment, search for national identity, native themes and typical genres)

4. American Romanticism - I: W. Irving, J. F. Cooper (emotionality, cult of „primitivism“, nature, history, mysticism, individualism, romantic criticism, Knickerbockers,

5. American Romanticism - II: W. C. Bryant, E. A. Poe (gothic stories, stories of ratiocination, stories of horror, aesthetic conception of poetry)

6. The American Renaissance: Transcendentalism: R. W. Emerson, H. D. Thoreau (philosophy of transendentalists, self-trust, self-reliance, experimenting, interest in nature, rebellion against conformity)

7. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville - Two Great personalities of the American Renaissance (concept of Puritan sin, punishment of sin, extraordinary characters in conflict with society, adventure novels, philosophical novels, man and nature, symbolism)

8. Poetry at the crossroads of American culture: Walt Whitman and the other poets of the 19th century (conventionality in poetry, genteel tradition, Boston (New England) Brahmins, free verse, democracy, universality, conception of a poet, human mortality and immortality, eternity)

9. Mark Twain, the triumph of western comic realism (tall-tales, the Frontier, humor, satire,

vernacular, Twain’s unique style, confrontation of the East with the West, analogies and differences between Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn)

10. American regionalism: Local Color School writing (regions in the United States, unique nature of these regions, transition between romaniticism and realism)

11. Realism in American prose (truth, looking for the common, the average, the everyday, objectivity, skepticism, criticism, focus on details, psychological novel, confrontation of America and Europe)

12. American version of naturalism (scientific approach to reality, social and biological determinism, dirty version of realism; industrialization, immigration, poverty, limited choices, art that hurts)

S E M I N A R S - D E S C R I P T I O N 1. Introduction to the course 2. The Literature of Colonial Period - Puritan Imagination Texts: Anne Bradstreet - poems Edward Taylor - Huswifery Mary Rowlandson – A Narrative of the Captivity Jonathan Edwards – Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God 3. The Revolutionary Period - Political Imagination Texts: Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur - What Is an American Benjamin Franklin - The Autobiography Thomas Jefferson – The Declaration of Independence Philip Freneau - The Indian Burying Ground 4. American Romanticism - I: W. Irving, J. F. Cooper Texts: Washington Irving - Rip Van Winkle Edgar Allan Poe - poetry 5. American Romanticism - II: W. C. Bryant, E. A. Poe Texts: Edgar Allan Poe - The Tell-Tale Heart The Fall of the House of Usher 6. The American Renaissance: Transcendentalism: R. W. Emerson, H. D. Thoreau Texts: Ralph Waldo Emerson - On Thoreau, Nature, Self-Reliance Henry David Thoreau - Walden 7. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville - Two Great Personalities of the American

Renaissance Texts: Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter Herman Melville – Billy Budd

8. Poetry at the Crossroads of American Culture: Walt Whitman and the Other Poets of the 19th Century

Texts: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - poetry Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass Emily Dickinson – poetry

Thomas Wentworth Higginson – On Meeting Dickinson for the First Time Mabel Loomis Todd – The Character of Amherst

9. Mark Twain, the Triumph of Western Comic Realism Texts: Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County Life on the Mississippi 10. American Regionalism: Local Color School Writing Texts: Kate Chopin - Désirée's Baby, A Respectable Woman, The Story of an Hour, Regret 11. Realism in American Prose Texts: Frederick Douglass: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Stephen Crane: The Open Boat 12. American Version of Naturalism Texts: Upton Sinclair - The Jungle Theodore Dreiser - An American Tragedy (Sister Carrie)

P R OJ E CT S , P RE S EN T ATI O NS, E SS A Y S Weekly readings of the assigned texts Class Participation - Student‘s participation in class discussions, based on close reading of texts, is encouraged. The frequency and quality of his/her participation in class discussions will be reflected in assessment.. Journals - are expected throughout the course. The last term for their submission is in the 13th week of the semester. Journals may include the personal meditation on assigned texts and, in the second half of the course, critical analysis of them. Each record should not exceed half of a page. In addition, journals have to contain an explication of one book by American writer discussed in the course (length: 1 – 1.5 pages). Because students will have the writing assignment well in advance of the due date, late papers will not be accepted and a grade of "FX" (failed) will be recorded for an absent paper. Plagiarism - A plagiarized paper will receive an "FX." There will be no opportunity to resubmit it or do an alternate assignment.

A S S E S S M E N T A N D E V A L U A T I O N

CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT (tests, projects, presentations)

Deadline (week)

Max. mark %

Pass mark

Journal continuous. mark

mark

FINAL ASSESSMENT Form (exam test, essay, oral exam…):

Max. mark %

Pass mark

100% 65%

FINAL EVALUATION (total of continuous + final assessment mark):

Mark % A 93– 100 B 86 – 92 C 78 - 85 D 72 –77 E 65– 71 FX 64 and less