This survey of American writing before 1865 will trace literary forms including the sermon, the essay, the romance, and the slave narrative, and inquire into the value and authority associated with these different modes of writing. In addition, we will reflect upon the difficulties in constructing an American literature and the way authors have understood their work as a way of teaching, entertaining, expressing, or even escaping America. Readings will include John Smith, Anne Bradstreet, Mary Rowlandson, Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, James Fennimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Frederick Douglass. Format: lecture/discussion. Requirements: two papers, midterm, and final exam. Prerequisites: a 100-level English course, except 150. Enrollment limit: 40 (expected: 40). (1700-1900)

Hour: T. DAVIS