American Literature II Reading List
Late Nineteenth Century/Turn of the Century Readings (1865-1909)
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888): "My Contraband" (or "The Brothers")--(audio)
Mark Twain (1835-1910): "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" (w/ audio)
Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909): "A White Heron "(with audio)
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915): Up from Slavery (Chs. 1, 3, 6, 8, 14) (audio)
O. Henry (1862-1910): "Gift of the Magi" (audio)
W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963): The Souls of Black Folk (Chapters 1-3; 11-14) (audio)
Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin) (1876-1938): "The School Days of an Indian Girl" (audio)
Ghost Dance Songs (1894)-- with recordings
"El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez" (1910, audio); About Gregorio Cortez (1875-1916)
Kate Chopin (1850-1904): The Awakening (audio); (audio w/o text)
Modern Period Readings (1910-1945)
Robert Frost (1874-1963): "Mending Wall" (audio); "Out, Out"(audio); "The Ax-Helve"(audio); "Design"(audio); "Provide, Provide"(audio); "Road Not Taken"(audio); "Stopping By Woods"(audio)
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963): "The Young Housewife"(audio); "Spring and All"(audio); "The Poor" (audio); "Danse Russe"(audio); "The Great Figure"(audio); "Portrait of a Lady" (audio--starts at 5:35)
Marianne Moore (1887-1972): "The Pangolin"; "Poetry"(YouTube audio); "What Are Years"(audio)
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965): "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (audio); "The Waste Land" (audio)
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1932): "Hills Like White Elephants" (audio)
Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980): "Flowering Judas"
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950): "The Spring and the Fall" (audio); "Love is not all"(audio); "The Return"(audio); "Justice Denied in Massachusetts"(audio); "Recuerdo"(audio);
Harlem Renaissance Readings: 1910-1945
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960): "The Gilded Six-Bits"; "Sweat" (audio Part I; Part II; Part III; Part IV)
Langston Hughes (1902-1967): "The Weary Blues" (w/ audio); "I, Too" (w/ audio); "Harlem"; "Freedom Train"
Post-Modern Readings: 1945-Present
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979): "The Man Moth"; "In the Waiting Room"; "One Art"; "The Fish" (audio)
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963): "Daddy" (audio); "Lady Lazarus" (audio); "Mirror" (audio)
Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997): "Howl" (parts I and II); (audio)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968): "I Have a Dream" (w/ audio)
Adrienne Rich (1929-2012): "Living in Sin"; "Diving into the Wreck"; "From a Survivor"; "Power" (audio)
Audre Lorde (1934-1992): "Movement Song"
Gregory Corso (1930-2001): "America Politica Historia, in Spontaneity"
Tato Laviera (1951-2013): "lady liberty" (audio); "AmeRican"
Present-Day American Authors
Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943): "Rosa Parks"
Tobias Woolf (b. 1945): "Hunters in the Snow"
Sandra Cisneros (b. 1954): "Eleven" (audio)
Cathy Song (b. 1955): "Lost Sister"; "Girl Powdering Her Neck"
Harryette Mullen (b. 1963): "We are not Responsible"
Jhumpa Lahira (b. 1967): "Hell Heaven"(audio)
Emanuel Xavier (b. 1970): "Urban Affection"; "Step Father"
Matthew Olzmann: "Letter Beginning with Two Lines"; "Build, Now, a Monument"
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