Course Description

This course is designed to expose students to the legends, poetry, short stories, and essays of early American writers beginning with Native Americans, through Colonialism to the Civil War. Students will examine the philosophical, cultural, religious, and historic elements related to these texts. Attention will be paid to literary devices and styles evident in individual works and the commentary made by these works on moral and social issues. Writers include Mary Rowlandson, Benjamin Franklin, Phillis Wheatley, William Apess, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edgar Allen Poe, Louisa May Alcott, Washington Irving, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and many others. C-ID: ENGL 130.