Introduction
Course Overview
This course consists of ten lessons. Two of the lessons—lessons 5 and 10—provide information about the course’s midterm and final exams. The rest of the lessons cover course content and have objectives, reading assignments, an overview, optional Web activities, and written assignments.
Lesson 1 provides detailed guidance about how to compose a well-organized, well-supported essay of literary analysis—the type of composition you will be asked to write in every lesson and on the exams. This lesson also looks at the relationship between literature and its historical context and introduces you to the origin myths, oral tradition, and exploration narratives that comprise the earliest literature of America.
Lesson 2 features elements of historical narrative accounts and journals. Another primary focus here is the Puritan influence and the Puritan plain style in early American literature.
Lesson 3 presents speeches, persuasive writings, private letters, and other writings from a very important era in America: the Revolutionary War period.
Lesson 4 considers a number of major literary features: point of view, characterization, mood, meter, single effect, and symbolism. It also examines the so-called “Fireside Poets” of the nineteenth century as well as descriptive techniques in nonfiction accounts.
Lesson 5 provides information and guidance about the midterm examination.
Lesson 6 introduces the philosophical and literary movement known as transcendentalism, featuring the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. It also directs your attention to poetic techniques and themes in the works of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman.
Lesson 7 presents the first half of the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It pays particular attention to the Puritan influence in this novel, as seen in the novel’s setting, characterization, mood, and symbolism.
Lesson 8 examines the second half of The Scarlet Letter, marking its continued development of literary features, especially theme and the complex relationships between characters. It also looks at the author’s purpose as conveyed by this novel.
Lesson 9 focuses on the literature of the Civil War era, particularly the emergence of realism and naturalism. The varied literary forms from this time include spirituals, poems, speeches, addresses, diaries, letters, autobiography, and short story.
Lesson 10 provides information and guidance about the final examination.
