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COURSE DESCRIPTION
New York City has been the home of some of the most significant writers in the United States, including Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Henry James, Stephen Crane, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsburg. As the city grew and expanded, artists and writers voiced their views on social issues, such as poverty, immigration, economic inequalities, racial and cultural differences, and the changing roles of women and blacks. With these issues as a historical backdrop, we read novels such as Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Wharton's House of Mirth; short fiction by Melville, Cather, and Wright, and poetry by Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Hart Crane, Jean Toomer, and Langston Hughes.
SYLLABUS / SCHEDULE
Tuesday 1/18: Introduction
Walt Whitman's: "Mannahatta," "Human and Heroic New York," "Our Old Feuillage"
NATURE IN THE CITY
Friday 1/21: Whitman & the Self
Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” in Leaves of Grass, sections 1-22.
Flower poems: “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose,” “A Rose,” Sonnet 18, “Youth Sings a Song of Rosebuds”
Writing Assignment 1: “What is the grass?” Discuss the symbolism of grass in section 6 of Leaves
Tuesday 1/25: Sex in the city: Whitman & censorship
Walt Whitman, "Song of myself," in Leaves of Grass, sections 1-28, especially 6, 22
Writing assignment 2: Censorship in WW
Friday 1/28: Decomposing City
Whitman, “This Compost”, reread section 6, LoG
Handout: Public Health in Walt Whitman’s New York (R13)
Writing assignment 3: nature in “This Compost” and sec 6.
Tuesday 2/1: Commemorating the Dead
Poems of death and consolation (R22)
Ben Jonson, “On My First Son” and “On my First Daughter” (R23)
Writing Assignment 4: Compare Jonson’s “Son” and “Daughter.”
Friday 2/4: Whitman and the Civil War
Whitman and the Civil War (R24); Drum Taps, in Leaves of Grass (Oxford), pp. 219-255
Focus especially on the lyrics: “Vigil Strange” (R25); “Song of the Banner”; “Come Up from the Fields Father”
Writing Assignment 5: Discuss strategies of memorialization in “Vigil Strange” or another lyric from Drum Tap
INFRASTRUCTURE: BRIDGES
Tuesday 2/8: Whitman & Political Unity
“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” in Leaves of Grass (Oxford) (also R33-R39)
Hart Crane, The Bridge, Proem (The "proem" is the first poem & is on p. 1)
Writing Assignment 6: Discuss the use of religious/sacred words in the “Proem” to Hart Crane’s The Bridge.
Friday 2/11: Intertextuality: Whitman, "Beat" Literature, and Allen Ginsberg
Ginsberg: "Howl"; Ginsberg reading Howl; Ginsberg, "America" by read by Allen Ginsberg [stop at 'flower pots'
Jack Kerouac, "Bridge"; Miscellaneous Bridge poems
"Having a Coke with You"; O'Hara reading "Having a Coke"
WORK IN THE CITY
This section focuses on what happens when certain forms of work conflict with larger social ideals, such as freedom, democracy, and fair play. How does literature respond to developments in the social organization of work, including: the rise of large factories and corporations; women’s search for employment outside the home; the problem of slavery, and the growth of a large urban working class.
Tuesday 2/15: Work Place Resistance I
Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”
Writing Assignment 7: Bartleby the Scrivener: Character and Conflict
Friday 2/18: Work Place Resistance II
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Writing Assignment 8: Character/Conflict in “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Tuesday 2/22: No Class; follows MON schedule
Friday 2/25: Midterm in Class
Tuesday 2/28 Factory Labor & Labor Conditions
Herman Melville, “Paradise of Bachelors, Tartarus of Maids”
Robert Pinsky, "The Shirt Triangle"
Elizabeth Barrett Browing, "The Cry of the Children"
Writing Assignment 9: Bachelors/Maids
Friday 3/4: Protests against Factory Labor II
Jack London, “The Apostate”
Pietri, "Puerto Rican Obituary"
Tuesday 3/8: Literature and Social Class
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth Book 1, chapters 1-9; PDF of Chapters 1-5; PDF of chapters 6-9
Handout: “Social Strata”
Writing Assignment 10: Lily Bart’s character & social conflict
Friday 3/11: Consumption, Character and Conflict
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth Book 1, chapters 10-15; pdf of Bk1, ch 10-15
Writing Assignment 11: Old vs. New Money as embodied in characters
SPRING BREAK: CONTINUE TO READ HOUSE OF MIRTH
Tuesday 3/22: Poverty & Social Strata in Literature
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth Book 2-end of novel; pdf of Book 2, ch1-4; pdf of book 2 c5-end
In Class Assignment: writing poverty in Lily’s character
MIGRATION/ASSIMILATION FICTIONS
The United States is a nation of diverse cultures and races, and much of its literature concerns itself with questions of ethnicity, race, and assimilation. In this section of the course, we examine representative assimilation fictions, which serve as an introduction to a range of questions surrounding racial and ethnic identity in literature. With F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and the writers of the Harlem Renaissance as our representative texts, we confront a series of critical tensions in U.S. literature and culture.
Friday 3/25: Harlem Renaissance: The New Negro
library tour; film: "Making a Way out of No Way," narrated by Henry Louis Gates
Tuesday 3/29: Harlem: Old vs. New Negro
“Race Superiority Bunk, Says Boas” (R267); James Weldon Johnson, “Anglo Saxon Superiority” ;
J.A. Rogers, “Who is the New Negro and Why?”
Alain Locke, “Enter The New Negro”
Langston Hughes "Negro Speaks of Rivers"
Danny Glover reading "Let America be America"
Friday 4/1: Harlem: Who am I? Racial/Ethnic Origins
Countee Cullen, “Heritage”; Facsimile of Heritage as it originally appeared: part 1; part 2;
Poem discussed by read in Yale lecture course; Read at Phillips Museum:
Langston Hughes, selected poems
Writing Assignment 12: Cullen’s “Heritage”
Tuesday 4/5: Harlem: Writing the Color Line
Research Presentation: the “One Drop” Rule
Toomer, “Bona and Paul,” from Cane
Wallace Thurman, “The Blacker the Berry” (R352)
Hurston, “Color Struck” (See page 301 in Fire!!, a Harlem literary magazine)
Friday 4/8: Harlem: Social and Political Change
Research presentation: racial violence
Walter White, “Sex and Lynching”
Jean Toomer, “Portrait in Georgia” (R265)
Wallace Thurman, “Cordelia the Crude” (see page 299 of from Fire!!, which was a HR literary magazine)
Hughes, “Ruby Brown” (R366)
Tuesday 4/12 Harlem: Social and Political Change
Reading of "Let America Be America Again" by Danny Glover
Research presentation: lynching
Richard Wright, “The Long Black Song”
Sterling Brown, “Negro Character as Seen by Whites"
Writing Assignment 12: social protest fiction
EASTER BREAK
Great Gatsby: PDF of Chapters 1-2; PDF of Chapters 3-4; PDF of Chapters 5-6; PDF of Chapters 7-8; PDF of Chapters 8-9
Tuesday 4/19: Assimilation & Immigration
The Great Gatsby Chapters 1-3
Friday 4/22: Nativism
The Great Gatsby, Chapters 4-6
Writing Assignment 13
Tuesday 4/26: Gatsby as "Money Story"
The Great Gatsby, Chapters 7-9
Writing Assignment 14
Friday 4/29:
Scenes from the most recent film version of "Gatsby"
Tuesday 5/3:
Final class
Gatsby last scene (2:02-206); final page
Whitman, reading America; Bob Dylan reading I Hear America
FINAL PAPER Due at the final exam TBD.
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