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Introduction to the Study of American Literature
And here our tale begins . . . .
And what a tale it is. We'll be reading and discussing and writing about a broad sweep of literature, from the colonial period on through the Civil War. Along the way you'll be reading works by authors that are familiar -- Poe, Dickinson, Hawthorne. You'll also encounter some less familiar but essential writers such as William Bradford, Michael Wigglesworth and Mary Rowlandson.
Broadly, this course will focus on three questions: 1) what did the text “mean” for its contemporary readers, 2) what can it mean for us today; and 3) how does literature create this meaning?
We Are What We've Read: Meaning past and present
When social critics bemoan the state of American culture today, they typically fall upon “the media” as an all-purpose whipping boy. Today “media” usually refers to television, radio, CDs, and increasingly, the internet.
But what about one hundred and fifty years ago? Or what about three hundred (or so) years ago? That was a formative time in America , when the stories we would tell about our actions and our people first developed. How were these ideas communicated? How did we get to be who we are today? What did we do before television? Before radio, CDs, or the Internet?
We read (that's pronounced “red”).
One of the reasons we read (that's pronounced “reed”) today is to discover just what we were like way back when. This is one way to get at our founding myths, the stories we tell about ourselves as a people that give shape and substance to that creature known as an “American.” And by understanding these myths, we better understand our beliefs and how those beliefs lead to specific actions today.
To get at this cultural DNA, we'll trace how the idea of America and Americans was created in literature. We'll read selected early American texts, including Captivity Narratives, autobiographies, short stories, a novel, essays, and poetry all with the aim of better understanding homo sapiens americanus.
American Myths
To help gain an understanding of this mythic beast, I've grounded this course in an exploration of American myths/cultural ideas. These myths include
The phrase is from John Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity," a sermon delivered as a celebration and vision of America's future. It's been used since as a short hand for American Exceptionalism -- the idea that our people, ideas, and government are the best: we're not just Americans, we're an example to the rest of the world, the "city on a hill" that all look to and emulate. |
The belief, that all it takes to make it here are brains, brawn, and ambition, resides deep in the core of the American pysche. This idea, in all its manifestations, is both our strength, and the albatross around our neck; it encourages us to strive for the best, but it blinds us to the influence of history and social forces. |
"All mean are created equally. . . ." Closely connected to the idea of the self-made man is the idea that in this great country, all people are equal, except for slaves and women, of course. |
"I don't need no stinking school!" "Book smarts won't help you in the real world." "Bill Gates never graduated from college!" Stemming, in part, from the self-made man myth (relying on your own wits), Americans have an instinctive distrust for "learning." While most cultures elevate the learned, and often put them on a pedestal, we call them "eggheads," "nerds," and "liberals," and ignore them. |
This is a contested myth; we'll be tracing the change in attitudes toward nature throughout the course. |
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This is the idea, explained in R. W. B. Lewis's book of the same name, that American perpetually renews itself: we are forever young and new, in contrast with the old ways of Europe. Could also be looked at as a kind of optimism. |
Change is good -- or so this American ideal suggests. |
"The City on a Hill"Using these ideas as rough guidelines for understanding the past, we'll gain a sense of how this past effects our lives today, and in so doing, gain a respect for the study of what for many is foreign literature: American literary classics. For some of you, this entails a new way of reading.
Which brings me to my next topic . . . .
"How does literature create meaning -- and how can I understand it?"
Although most people think only of books when they hear “reading,” the activity takes many different forms. You read a movie, making connections between the girl in the red dress and the man with the revolver who appears in the car chase scene; you read the road from behind the wheel of your car, carefully avoiding skunks, pieces of wooden pallets, and orange cones; you read a teacher's demeanor on the first day of class wondering, “Is she a hard grader?” “Can I catch up on my sleep in this class?” All of these kinds of reading involve a studied, concentrated look at a particular event, landscape, or person in an effort to extract some kind of meaning. I bring up these different forms of readings only to show that even if you aren't used to reading books, you're used to reading. For this course, you'll use these same skills and apply them to the written word.
Now of course you're thinking “Like, I already know how to read – thanks.” But the kind of close, analytical reading required to fully appreciate literature (and to fully appreciate any written work) is a skill that's faded in our media saturated age. Consider your computer for instance. Years ago we had to memorize a few text-based DOS commands such as COPY, MOVE, etc. to make our computers work. Now? Move the mouse and point on a . . . picture. And think of the internet. What draws you to a web page – the eye-candy graphics or the rich and in-depth text which stimulates deep thought? I thought so. . . . In fact, reading any text online over a screen length is a cumbersome chore entailing much eye squinting and scrolling down of screens (which is why many students print out this material and read it offline).
This course is designed to reacquaint you with the rigors and rewards of reading. First, the rigors. Reading closely means paying attention to not only the plot – or what happens in a story – but paying even more attention to why it happened. This digging deeper, looking not just at the surface of the story but the implications behind a word or phrase – what is suggested by poem opening at midnight? Why does the scaffold appear at the beginning, middle, and end of the novel? Why so many references to death -- and sex? – is what reading well is all about. And this is where the rewards come in. As you learn to attune your eye/ear to the more subtle gradations of thought and feeling in literature, you're learning to look more closely at the world around you – and I don't only mean the printed word. The kind of reading that this class fosters will be used to interpret a marketing report in your career as Assistant VP to the VP for Marketing at Widget© Inc., and to see through the spin of a political advertisement that presents a candidate whose father and grandfather were both members of the senate (and whose father was a president) yet who proclaims that he's “not from Warshington.”
The skills you'll learn in this class – paying attention to the connotations of words, an awareness of how irony and point of view can affect meaning, understanding how figurative language can express complex and abstract ideas – will give you that edge you need to succeed in life – and to be the life of the party. More importantly, learning to read analytically gives shape to that endeavor we call life. It clarifies the world around us, providing the language (and thus the thinking) we need to move from grunting, mewling automatons ruled by the latest marketing gimmick beamed to us via satellite from WeOwnTheWorld Inc., to thoughtful, skeptical, reasoning – and above all alive and kicking individuals. That “kick” is important because modern life, with its consumerist, let's-satisfy-my-basic-urges-first attitude, results in complacency and apathy.
Reading allows us to, as the poet and critic Jay Pirani suggests, swing “a lantern ahead of us in the fog of our lives.” I'll supply the lantern – great literature – you bring the matches (more prosaically known as your brain and your interest).
How to Understand Literature
Don't forget that literature is meant to entertain: your main goal is to enter the world created by the author. It's easier then to switch to a more analytical basis: a basic understanding of the mechanics – plot, character, point of view, theme, symbolism. But all of this is just to discern the vision of life offered by the text. Just what are the prominent features of this world, and how does it comment on or reflect the human condition? To answer this question, you'll continually turn to examples from everyday life – in other words, from history, psychology, anthropology, art, sociology, etc. – to explain the beauty, relevance, or meaning of a particular text.
Thus the kind of thoughtful, reflective reading this course demands is meant to reshape the way you perceive the world around you, allowing you to glean new insights into human nature and behavior by reading about the life of a woman captured by the Indians in 17th century Colonial America, a man in ante-bellum America who removes himself from the reigning materialism of industrialized America and finds solace on the shores of a Massachusetts pond, a printer/carpenter/nurse/poet/editor who wrote one of the quintessential American poems – and, to borrow a huckster's phrase – “a whole lot more.”
To foster this kind of attentive reading, you should read each work at least twice: if you're like me, the first time you read to see what happens and the second time around, you read to see why it happened. Remember, as well, to read with a pen or pencil in hand and mark up your book copiously. Jot down questions to yourself, note where odd lines of dialogue or description, recurring images, or tell-tale character descriptions/dialogue occur. Use a 3x5 index card as a bookmark to keep track of these interesting/important quotes.
One last note on the course material: be prepared to enjoy the class. We'll be reading some great texts and having some good conversations about them.
© 2009 David Bordelon