Syllabus: Early American Literature: A Global Perspective

PMLA, 2013

2021

First published between 1982 and 1983, this series examines the peculiarly American cultural context out of which the nation's literature has developed. Covering the years from 1620 to 1830, this first volume of American Literature in Context examines a range of texts from the writings of the Puritan settlers through the declaration of Inde pendence to the novels of Fenimore Cooper. In doing so, it shows how early Americans thought about their growing nation, their arguments for immigration, for political and cultural indepen dence, and the doubts they experienced in this ambitious project. This book will be of interest to those studying American lit erature and American studies.

Our current political discourse is scattered with claims and accusations regarding which persons or groups qualify as “American,” “not American,” or “un-American.” This question has profound consequences that can range from the mundane—such as attempts at tarnishing a reputation—to the more serious, such as democratic in/exclusion, and legal and extralegal violence. What it means to “be American” was pivotal in the nation’s founding as Paine’s Common Sense and Crèvecœur’s Letters From an American Farmer make clear, but the politics of Americanness were negotiated, oftentimes violently, in the centuries of Colonial Era politics and culture that preceded the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is arguably more critical now than ever to understand what “Americanness” is (or can be) and what made it this way—starting from the beginning (or close thereto). Focusing in pre-1800 American literature and culture, our endeavor will navigate through exploration and captivity narratives, US slavery and the trans- and circum- Atlantic slave trade, indigenous American literature, religion and the Puritan tradition, Enlightenment discourse, the ideological underpinnings of the American Revolution and the Constitution, early-American print culture (including the sentimental novel), gender studies, and perspectives in law and literature. Finding motivation in the problems, issues, and contradictions within the figuration of collective identity, we will better understand the political discourse surrounding “what it means to be American” as it was then, and therefore, as it is now.

This multi volume History marks a new beginning in the study of American literature. It embodies the work of a generation of Americanists who have redrawn the boundaries of the field and redefined the terms of its development. The extraordinary growth of the field has called for, and here receives, a more expansive, more flexible scholarly format. All previous histories of American literature have been either totalizing, offering the magisterial sweep of a single vision, or encyclopedic, composed of a multitude of terse accounts that come to seem just as totalizing because the form itself precludes the development of authorial voice. Here, American literary history unfolds through a polyphony of large-scale narratives. Each is ample enough in scope and detail to allow for the elaboration of distinctive views (premises, arguments, and analyses); each is persuasive by demonstration and authoritative in its own right; and each is related to the others through common themes and concerns.

Prateek Books, 2024

The author takes great pleasure in providing the students of American Literature and English Literature; in general, the present work entitled ‘History of American Literature: Facts and Fiction’. The book carries a number of merits and unique features of its own. The treatment is elaborate and comprehensive and the style is lucid and simple but dignified. The present book is equipped with not only the history of American Literature but also a detailed study of the texts prescribed in the course by MJPR University, Bareilly. It vehemently surveys and covers the entire field of American Literature- from the time when Columbus and the Early Settlers wrote their ‘letters home’ down to the present age when the American literary scene is characterized by extreme diversity and complexity. The history of literature has been divided into ages and periods keeping in view the convenience of the students. Major authors and their works have been given as detailed and comprehensive a treatment as possible within the limited scope of a work of this nature. The matter has been meticulously arranged in a chronological order and all superfluity and complexity has been done away with. To capture the history of a past era is not possible without the help of the previous existing records and texts; the author owes its minutest details to the web sites which proved a source of information and feels highly indebted towards it. It is hoped that the book would fully meet the requirements of the examinees in Indian universities and colleges. In a long work involving many continuous hours; some lapses and lacunas are inevitable. Suggestions are duly invited which will be incorporated in the new edition

Comparative Literature Studies, 2008

Modern Language Quarterly, 2011