The course will focus on the development of American literature from early contact to the Civil War. Students will read from works by such authors as the Puritans, Jefferson, Lincoln, the Transcendentalists, Dickinson, Whitman, and Melville, as well as literature outside of the New England canon: for example, works by Native Americans, French and Spanish colonizers, and African captives. All works will be considered in the context of cultural and intellectual history. We will consider a broad range of genres and modes of writing, including (but not limited to) colonial theory, ethnography, autobiography, fiction, essays, and poetry. A central concern of the course will be the question of what constitutes American literature.
