Syllabus
1. Lecture: ColonialUSliterature (online video) Úvod do předmětu / Lecture: American Enlightenment Reading assignment – Benjamin Franklin: 2 pamphlets
2. Lecture: Enlightenment – Revolutionary writers I Readingassignment – Thomas Paine: Common Sense (slightly abridged)
3. Lecture: Romanticism I Reading assignment – Washington Irving: The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow
4. Lecture: Romanticism II Reading assignment – E.A.Poe: The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart
5. Lecture: Romanticism III Reading assignment – N. Hawthorne: Birthmark, Rapaccini’s Daughter (optional)
6. Video-lecture: Ideological overtones of Romanticism I – slave narratives Lecture: Ideological overtones of Romanticism II – slave narratives Reading assignment – The Narrative of Frederick Douglass Reading assignment 2 (optional) –H. D. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience
7. Lecture: 19th centuryUSpoetry (+online video) Reading assignment – Whitman,Dickinson
8. Lecture: A transition stage between US Romanticism and Realism Readingassignment – Herman Melville: Moby Dick (excerpts), Bartleby the Scrivener
9. Lecture: Realism/Naturalism I (local color) Reading assignment –Kate Chopin: A Respectable Woman and 4 other stories
10. Lecture: Realism/Naturalism II (Civil War) Reading assignment –A. Bierce: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge S. Crane: The Red Badge of Courage (synopsis + an excerpt)
11. Lecture: Realism/Naturalism III (female emancipation issues) Reading assignment –C.P. Gilman: The Yellow Wallpaper
12. Lecture: Realism/Naturalism IV (muckrakers) Reading assignment – Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie (an excerpt), Typhoon
Annotation
This course aims to give the students a general outline of the most significant events in American literature, focusing largely, but not exclusively, on canonical authors. These seminars complement lectures which reside in presenting a particular literary movement, including its social and cultural background.
These are then followed by a close reading session which focuses on the selected seminar texts (short stories, plays, novels/extracts etc.).