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Secondary Sources
Here you'll find, in PDF format, a series of secondary sources on topics from American Puritanism to Transcendentalism
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Description of Puritanism -- the TULIP mnemonic device
Puritanism today: Thy Kingdom Come
Short essay on Puritan roots of American Exceptionalism The Power and the Glory (in HTML)
Background on Transcendentalism from Background of American Literary Thought
Background on Transcendentalism from Handbook on Literature
Essay on Whitman as democratic poet
1848 essay on "The Philosophy of the Ancient Hindoos"
Bibliography of Secondary Sources for the Study of American Literature
The best starting point is the series The Cambridge History of American Literature edited by Sacvan Bercovitch et al. Divided into several books (organized by chronology and genre), the volumes you should acquaint yourself with for this course are Volume I: 1590-1820 and Prose Writing 1820-1864 Volume II (these are well worth a birthday or Christmas present [though a bit pricey]).
You should also get a good, brief overview of world literature (I strongly recommend The Reader's Companion to World Literature by Lillian Herlands Hornstein), that lists authors and provides book synopses and other information. It'll help familiarize the names and themes of various writers (and make you sound more intelligent at cocktail parties - or beer blasts).
I recently discovered two books I wish I had as an undergraduate -- A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature by Wilfred L. Guerin (and those erstwhile companions) et al. Published by Norton, it takes a core set of readings -- Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," Shakespeare's Hamlet, Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," and Walker's "Everyday Use" -- and illustrates different ways of reading them. This is a perfect introduction to literary criticism -- and well written to boot.
The second text is Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, which explains several contemporary approaches to literature (psychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist, etc.) and, most importantly, lists a series of questions each type of critics asks.
The texts which follow are by some of the major critics in American literature. Reading these works should prepare you for further study in the field.
Baym, Nina. Women's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women in America (1820-1870), 1978. As the title suggests, this is an overview of "Women's Fiction" which sets out the primary themes of the genre, and analyzes many of the important texts (many of which are in the primary list). Lucid and engaging, it is an exemplar of historical and analytical research.
Douglas, Ann. The Feminization of American Culture, 1977. A jeremiad against nineteenth sentimentality, best read in tandem with Tompkins' Sensational Designs. Its strength lies in the details of its argument, which provide a vivid portrait of religious life in ante and post bellum America. And since religion was the guiding social force, it amounts to a cultural reading of the period.
Reynolds, David. Beneath the American Renaissance, 1989. A fascinating look at the popular readings that both fed and rebelled against established (read middle-class) culture. By contrasting and comparing less known but more popular writers with the American canon of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson, Poe, and Hawthorne, this book breaths life into the period, illustrating the culture's fears and desires by what they read. Reynolds ranges widely, quoting from many long forgotten sources which fill in the background of our lives. He reminds us that audiences have long wanted sex, violence, and crime in their entertainments - and they have always gotten what they wanted.
Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration Through Violence The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860. While throughout his text Slotkin promotes a particular argument (that our culture is based upon myths and shaped by violence), this is one of the most invigorating readings on Colonial American literature that I've come across. He deconstructs the many myths of America, and in the process illustrates the way words shape meaning, and in turn, shape culture.
Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860, 1985. Similar to Reynolds, Tompkins is interested in, as she notes, "what kind of work is this novel trying to do?" (38). This cultural perspectives illuminates her readings of seldom taught but immensely popular writers of the period such as James Feinmore Cooper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Susan Warner, and she makes a persuasive argument for the necessity of studying writers long dismissed as merely "popular" or "sentimental."
A few reference works in our library might be helpful as well: American Colonial Writers, 1606-1734 Vol. 24, and The American Renaissance in New England, Vol. 1, both in the Dictionary of Literary Biography series.
For selected works on individual writers, consult the bibliography pages (at the end) in your textbook.
Last Revised August 2005
David Bordelon