Summary of ENGL405: The American Renaissance | Saylor Academy

ENGL405: The American Renaissance

Explore American literature published between the 1830s and 1860s, focusing on the socio-cultural contexts that led to the dramatic outburst of literary creativity in this era.

COURSE INTRODUCTION

Course Syllabus

Unit 1: The American Renaissance in Context

1.1: The Influence of European Romanticism in America

Romanticism in America

The Romantic Period, 1820–1860: Essayists and Poets

William Wordsworth's The Prelude

Expanding and Revising the American Renaissance

1.2: Individuality, Conflict, and Context

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The American Scholar"

Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?"

1.3: President Jackson and Indian Removal

Biography of Andrew Jackson

William Apess' "An Indian's Looking Glass for the White Man"

1.4: Jacksonian Democracy and the Self-Made Man

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance"

Jacksonian Democracy and the Ideal of the Self-Made Man

1.5: The Second Great Awakening and the Emergence of Transcendentalism

The Second Great Awakening and Transcendentalism

Harold Clark Goddard's "Transcendentalism"

1.6: The "Transcendental Club" and "The Dial"

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Editors to the Reader"

Sophia Ripley's "Woman"

1.7: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Father of the Transcendental Movement

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Gnothi Seauton"

1.8: Competing Visions of Reform

George Ripley's "1840 Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson"

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Reply to George Ripley"

Unit 1 Assessment

Unit 1 Assessment

Unit 2: Continuity and Change in Poetic Form

2.1.1: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Poet"

Overview of Ralph Waldo Emerson and "The Poet"

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Threnody"

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Rhodora"

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Snow-Storm"

2.1.2: Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allan Poe's "Philosophy of Composition"

Overview of Edgar Allen Poe and "Philosophy of Composition"

Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"

2.2: The Question of Poetry's Social Role

John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier's "The Christian Slave"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Witnesses"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Quadroon Girl"

Edgar Allan Poe's "Review of Longfellow's Ballads and Other Poems"

Edgar Allan Poe's "Review of Longfellow's Poems"

2.3: Walt Whitman, Free Verse, and the Poetics of Democracy

Walt Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"

Free Verse

Introduction to Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"

Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"

Image of Walt Whitman from 1855 Edition of "Leaves of Grass"

Walt Whitman

2.4: Emily Dickinson and the Personal Lyric

The Emily Dickinson Project

Emily Dickinson and the Nineteenth-Century Women Poets: The Poetics and Politics of Reticence

Emily Dickinson's "I'm Nobody"

Emily Dickinson's "The Soul Selects Her Own Society"

Emily Dickinson's "I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died"

Emily Dickinson's "I Felt a Funeral in my Brain"

Critical Commentary on Emily Dickinson

Unit 2 Assessment

Unit 2 Assessment

Unit 3: The Invention of the Short Story

3.1: "The Limit of One Sitting" and Concerns with Length

The Short Story

Nathaniel Hawthorne

3.2: The Short Story's Artistry and Conventions

Edgar Allan Poe's "Review of Twice-Told Tales"

Edgar Allen Poe: "The Cask of Amontillado"

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil"

3.3: The Gothic, Suspense, and the Macabre

The Gothic and the Antebellum American Short Story

Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"

Edgar Allan Poe's "Ligeia"

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Imp of the Perverse"

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown"