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Fall, 2010
ENG 251
T,TH: 9:30-10:45
JWLA 211
Professor Linda Sumption
JWLA 209J/ 562-2136
Office Hours: T: 2-4;
W: 11-12:30; TH: 5-6
[email protected]
American Literature Survey I: Beginnings to 1865
This survey offers a broad overview of American writing from its beginnings to the close
of the Civil War. We will read from the Heath Anthology of American Literature,
Volumes A and B, which brings together a great range of well-known and non-canonical
writing, from men and women of the nation’s many cultural legacies. We will investigate
the unique perspectives of these writers, as well as consider the American literary
tradition as a whole. Can we uncover distinctly American identities and styles? One
critic recently suggested that such an undertaking is an impossible task, while others
propose that American themes and types run through much of the nation’s literature.
You be the judge.
Course Requirements
You will be graded by the following formula, which includes quizzes, two five-page
essays analyzing assigned texts, a midterm exam, and a final exam. Since this is a
survey, your grade reflects your efforts to read and engage the broad range of texts listed
in the Schedule of Assignments.
Two essays
Quizzes
Midterm exam
Final exam
Required text:
40%
20%
20%
20%
The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volumes A and B, 6h
Edition, Paul Lauter, Gen.Ed. Houghton Mifflin, 2009
Course Policies

Papers are expected at class time on the date they are due, unless another
arrangement has been made with me in advance. Late papers lose one full
grade per day.

You will receive detailed, written instructions about the papers, including
topic proposals. You may use those proposed topics, but you are not
obligated to choose from my list; they are meant as a guide to help you
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develop your essays. In any case, you must clear your topics with me in
advance of paper preparation.

Under special circumstances, email submissions of papers may be arranged,
but no such submission is deemed received unless the student gets a
confirming email message from me.

The Schedule of Assignments is subject to additions and changes in the course
of the semester. It is your responsibility to make note of those additions and
changes when I announce them. Changes will also be posted on WebCT. If
you miss class, be sure to check WebCT, or contact me or another student in
order to update your Schedule of Assignments.

Plagiarism will not be tolerated. “Plagiarism is the use of the work, words, or
ideas of another person as if they were your own” (Bulletin of Yale
University, 1979). Plagiarism is a serious academic offense, and plagiarized
work will be automatically rejected. If you are unsure about a possible
plagiarism problem in your work, please speak to me about it before you
submit the assignment in question.

Regular attendance and class participation are expected, and you are also
expected to be on time. If you miss more than five (5) class sessions (that is,
three or more weeks of class), you will fail the course. If you arrive late for
class, you risk missing the quizzes that make up a significant portion of your
grade. Quizzes cannot be made up.
Schedule of Assignments
Thursday,
August 19
Course Introduction
Exercise with Kiowa Narrative (handout)
Tuesday,
August 24
Native American Traditions: Heath, Volume A
“The Origin of Stories” Seneca (55-57)
“Origin of the Sun Shower” (50-52) (Huron-Wendat)
“Man’s Dependence on Animals” (Anishinaabe Ojibway), (6267)
“Origins of Disease and Medicine” (Cherokee) (65-67)
Thursday,
August 26
“Talk Concerning the First Beginning” (Zuni) (24-37)
“Changing Woman and the Hero Twins after the Emergence of
the People” (Navajo) (38-49)
Tuesday,
August 31
“Creation of the Whites” (Yuchi) (73); “Arrival of the Whites”
(Delaware) (74-79)
Aztec Poetry: “The Singer’s Art” (102-3); “Two Songs (104);
“Like Flowers Continually Perishing” (104-6)
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Thursday,
Sept. 2
Spanish Explorers, Captives, Conquerors: Heath, Volume A
“New Spain” (131, 134, 137)
Christopher Columbus, from Journal and Narrative (138-149)
Cluster: Cultural Encounters (read Turner, Wiget, Kolodny and
Pratt: 152-155)
Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca: “Relation” (159-170)
Tuesday,
Sept.7
Spanish Colonizers and Native Americans: Heath, Volume A
“History of the Miraculous Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe”
(197-204)
de Otermin: “Letter on the Pueblo Revolt” (214-221)
“The Coming of the Spanish and the Pueblo Revolt” (Hopi) (22226)
Thursday,
Sept. 9
English Colonists in Virginia and the Puritan Mission in New
England: Heath, Volume A
John Smith: The Generall Historie of Virginia (276-281)
“A Description of New England,” (281-284)
Richard Frethorne: “Letter,” (288-291)
John Winthrop: “A Modell of Christian Charity” (334-342)
Tuesday,
Sept. 14
Puritan Colonists and Native Americans: Heath, Volume A
Mary Rowlandson: “A Narrative of the Captivity” (467-492)
Thursday,
Sept. 16
Puritan Poetry: Heath, Volume A
Anne Bradstreet: “The Prologue” (420-1), “The Author to Her
Book” (426), “To My Dear and Loving Husband” (430-1), “A
Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment” (431),
On My Dear Grandchild Simon Bradstreet, Who Died” (432),
“Upon the Burning of Our House” (433-4)
Tueday,
Sept. 21
Colonial Period: Varieties of Religious Experience, Puritan
and Quaker: Heath, Volume A
Jonathan Edwards: “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God” (690701)
Thursday,
Sept. 23
John Woolman: “Account” (727-732)
Documentary Video in Class: The Shakers
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Tuesday,
Sept. 28
Who (What) Are Americans? : Heath, Volume A
Handsome Lake: “How America Was Discovered” (825-7)
Hendrick Aupaumut: “A Short Narration” (831-34)
J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur: Letters from an American
Farmer, “What is an American?” (961-5), “Description of Charles
Town: Thoughts on Slavery; on Physical Evil” (967-74)
Thursday,
Sept. 30
Thomas Jefferson: Notes on the State of Virginia, (1026+),
Queries VI, XIV, XVII, XVIII
James Madison: “The Federalist No. 10” (1066-70)
“An Anti-Federalist Paper” (1071-73)
Tuesday,
October 5
Who (What) Are Americans?—African American and
Women’s Voices
Olaudah Equino: Heath, Vol. A: Interesting Narrative (1214-45)
Phillis Wheatley: “On Being Brought from Africa to America”
(1306); “To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth”
(1302)
Polly Baker: “Speech” (848-9)
Thursday,
October 7
Midterm Exam
Tuesday,
October 12
No Class: Fall Break
Thursday,
October 14
Library Exercise: Working with Early American texts and
materials (see handout)
Tuesday,
October 19
Ben Franklin and the American Dream: Heath, Vol. A
“The Way to Wealth” (840-46)
Autobiography, Parts Two and Three (909-923)
Essay #1 Due
Thursday,
October 21
Who (What) Are Americans?—Narratives of Spanish
America: Heath, Vol. B
Tales from the Hispanic Southwest, and
LaLlorna, Malinche, and Guadalupe (1609-20)
Tuesday,
October 26
Versions of Transcendentalism: Heath, Vol. B
Ralph W. Emerson: “Self-Reliance” (1746-55 [through paragraph
beginning “And now at last”)
Margaret Fuller: “Dispatch 18” (1855-59)
Thursday,
October 28
Henry David Thoreau: “Resistance to Civil Government” (186276); “Walking” (1927-48)
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Tuesday,
November 2
American Narratives of Slavery: Heath, Vol. B
Frederick Douglass: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
An American Slave [2045-77 (to end of Covey episode)]
Thursday,
November 4
Harriet Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (2187-2210)
Tuesday,
November 9
Women in American Life and Letters
Documentary Film in Class: “Not For Ourselves Alone” Part I
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (handout)
Thursday,
November 11
Documentary Film in Class: “Not For Ourselves Alone” Part II
Stanton/Anthony (handout)
Tuesday,
November 16
The Development of Narrative: Heath, Vol. B
Washington Irving: “Rip Van Winkle” (2309-2321);
Edgar Allan Poe: “The Fall of the House of Usher” (2497-2510)
Thursday,
November 18
Nathaniel Hawthorne: “The Minister’s Black Veil” (2431-39),
“Young Goodman Brown” (2422-30)
Nov. 23
Herman Melville: “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (2651-2677)
November 25
No Class: Thanksgiving
Tuesday,
Nov. 30
The Emergence of American Poetic Voices: Heath, Vol. B
American Landscapes, A Pair of Poems:
Anonymous: “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” (2948-9)
William C. Bryant: “The Prairies” (2962-65)
Walt Whitman: Preface, Leaves of Grass (2996-3009),
“The Sleepers” (3055-3062)
Thursday,
December 2
The Emergence of American Poetic Voices: Heath, Vol. B
Emily Dickinson
[3129-47 (through “One Crucifixion is Recorded”)]
Essay #2 Due
Thursday,
December 9
10:15 a.m. –12:15
FINAL EXAM
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