American Literature II Reading List

Late Nineteenth Century/Turn of the Century Readings (1865-1909)

Louisa May A​​lcott (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

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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