English 5451, American Novel through the 19th Century

The main goal is to introduce you to a sample of American novels from the the nineteenth century. The novels have been selected because they all deal with children and young adults, so we should be able to get a (limited) picture of how the culture, through its novelists, deal with this important part of society. We will also look at ways that novel-writing technique changes over the fifty year period, and link those changes to different views of characters, narrators, setting, and plot.

Readings:

• Mark Twain, Huckelberry Finn [1885]
  Herman Melville, Redburn [1849]
  Nathaniel Hawthorne, House of the Seven Gables [1852]
  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin [1852]
  Frances F.W. Harper, Iola Leroy [1892]
  William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham [1885]
  Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets [1893] Norton Critical Edition
  Henry James, What Maisie Knew [1897]
  Kate Chopin, The Awakening [1899] Bedford of St. Martin's (Critical Perspectives)

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Department of English, University of Minnesota
URL: http://English.cla.umn.edu/FacultyProfiles/Ross/Courses/
Please send comments to: Donald Ross
Last revised 15 November 1999

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