IIIB

NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE

Semester I 2016-2017

Lecturer: Prof. dr. Roxana Oltean

Course Description:
This survey course investigates American literary culture in the nineteenth century in view of the
dominant myths, strategies and representations that shaped, or generated, American self-
perception. The purpose of this survey course is thus to highlight patterns of continuity and
discontinuity in the metamorphoses of American cultural identity by reference to key literary
voices. Lectures follow a roughly chronological approach, promoting students awareness of
cultural/historical contexts.

Requirements: Students are expected to attend lectures and seminars (75% seminar attendance is
mandatory) and to participate in class discussion.
Students are expected to present one essay (for the literature seminar) on a theme chosen from the
list of discussion topics or on a theme approved by the seminar instructor.
An end-of-term exam completes assessment for the final mark.
STUDENTS MUST HAVE A PASSING MARK FOR THE SEMINAR IN ORDER TO SIT THE
FINAL EXAM, AND THEY MUST HAVE A PASSING MARK FOR THE EXAM IN
ORDER TO PASS THE COURSE

Please note that students must comply with Faculty regulations pertaining to academic
integrity (http://www.limbi-straine.ro/wp-content/uploads/REGULAMENTUL-
STUDENTULUI-IAN-20101.pdf)

Assessment:
Seminar mark + participation in class discussion: 50%
Final exam: 50%
Lecture Plan:
Week 1: Course requirements and Faculty regulations. Introduction to literary traditions.
Puritan and Enlightenment heritages.
Week 2: The birth of national literature; W. Irving.
Week 3: The Transcendentalist movement. Introduction.
Week 4: The Transcendentalism movement: 1. R. W. Emerson; 2. H. D. Thoreau.
Week 5: American dreams revisited: Frederic Douglass.
Week 6: The Romance tradition 1. N. Hawthorne; 2. H. Melville.
Week 7: The Romance tradition 3. E. A. Poe.
Week 8: Poetic persona: 1. Walt Whitman.
Week 9: Poetic persona: 2. Emily Dickinson.
Week 10: Realism and reconstruction 1: Henry James.
Week 11: Realism and reconstruction 2. Mark Twain.
Week 12: Turn-of-the-century innovations. 1. Womens Writing: Kate Chopin.
Week 13: Turn-of-the-century innovations. 2. Naturalism. Stephen Crane.
Week 14: Turn-of-the-century innovations. 3. Naturalism. Theodore Dreiser.
 III B

NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE

Semester I 2016-2017
Lecturer: Assoc. Prof. dr. Roxana Oltean

REQUIRED READING
Washington Irving, Rip van Winkle.
Frederic Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederic Douglass.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, Nature, The Over-Soul.
H. D. Thoreau, Walden.*
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.*
Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Raven, The Philosophy of
Composition.
Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass, Song of Myself.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick. *
Emily Dickinson, Norton Anthology selection
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.*
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady. *
Kate Chopin, The Awakening.*
Stephen Crane, Maggie. A Girl of the Streets. *
Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie. *
RECOMMENDED CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barrish, Philip. The Cambridge Introduction to American Literary Realism (Cambridge
Introductions to Literature). 2011. Cambridge UP.
Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. Cambridge History of American Literature. Vol. I 1590-1820.
1994; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Bercovitch, Sacvan. The Rites of Assent: Transformations in the Symbolic Construction
of America. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Conn, Peter. Literature in America: An Illustrated History. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989.
Gray, Richard. A History of American Literature. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.
Gura, Philip F. American Transcendentalism: A History. New York: Hill and Wang, 2008.
Mihail, Rodica. Spaii ale realului in proza american. Bucuresti: Concordia, 2000.
Myerson, Joel, Sandra Harbert Petrulionis and Laura Dassow Walls, eds. The Oxford
Handbook of Transcendentalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Oltean, Roxana. Thou Born America. Manifestations of Leadership and Protest in
Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Bucureti: Editura Universitii din
Bucureti, 2015.
Oltean, Roxana. Local Representation and Global Perspective in Nineteenth-Century
American Literary Culture. Bucureti: Editura Universitii din Bucureti, 2016.
Oltean, Roxana. American Romance Revisited. From Geographies of Exploration to the
Gothicism of Eastern Europe. Bucureti: Editura Universitii din Bucureti,
2016.
Tindall, George and David Shi. America. A Narrative History. 5th Edition. New York:
Norton, 1999.