This course examines a selection of key texts published in the US in the nineteenth century, a key period in the nation's development as a modern republic. Students will read and study the works of those writers (Emerson and Whitman) whose embracing of democratic energies and creation of aesthetic forms seemed to capture the spirit of a new republican age. We will analyse these much-celebrated works alongside 1) the works of minority writers and 2) the proliferation of mass-marketed popular fiction during this period.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Identify distinctive features of and evaluate the similarities and differences between various narrative forms (literary, popular and intellectual) in the context of key changes taking place in 19^th Century US society and culture.
2. Think, write and argue about the importance of literary, intellectual and popular approaches in the context of the role of the ‘representative self’ and in relation to advancements in communications and print technologies in 19th C US society and culture.
3. Develop a critical stance on the role that literary, intellectual and popular narrative forms play in representing 19^th Century US culture as well as imagining and shaping that culture.

Essay of 1,500 words (30%) [Learning Outcomes 1, 2]

Essay of 2,500 words (50%) [Learning Outcomes 1, 2, 3]

In-class oral presentation and 150-200 word write-up of tutorial presentation (20%) [Learning Outcomes  1, 2, 3]

One 1.5-hour lecture and one 1-hour tutorial per week. Approximately 7.5 hour's reading/writing time per week.

Any two English (ENGL) courses.

N/A

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Selected Essays (Penguin Classics); Henry David Thoreau, Nature and Civil Disobedience (Penguin Classics); Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass. Original 1855 edition. Republished as Penguin Classics, Seventh Edition.