COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course seeks to explore American Literature and philosophy from 1690 until 1860. Along the way we will survey the setting, plot, characters, and themes that make the early American experience so rich and varied. We will be looking not only at the historical, but also for instances and repeating patterns that continue to resonate in our contemporary time. Texts we will be looking at include: essays by Benjamin Franklin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and poems by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, among other readings.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
1. To examine, through literature, the major themes, literary movements, and conflicts that occur throughout American society.
2. To help students improve their writing skills, particularly analytical writing, but also their expressive abilities, grammar, and working vocabulary.
3. To help students come to a better understanding of basic literary techniques.
4. To encourage an enjoyment of, and respect for, American Literature.
"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
— F. Scott Fitzgerald