ENGL 272 - Nineteenth Century American Literature

This course examines an array of American literature written in the second half of the nineteenth century, including poetry, autobiography, essays, stories and novels. It might focus on a particular moment in the late nineteenth century, a particular group of authors, or a particular thematic concern, but it will be concerned to trace out the complicated relation between literary representation and a rapidly changing social, economic, and political landscape. Authors might include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, William Dean Howells, Edith Warton, Henry James, Charles W. Chesnutt, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Alternate years. (4 Credits)