Introduction to American Literature (KIK-EN221)

Book Exam Reading ListAutumn 2017 / Spring 2018

Instructor: Howard Sklar, PhD

E-mail: howard.sklar@helsinki.fiOffice: Metsätalo C611Office Hour: Monday, 14:00-15:00, and by appointment

About the Exam

· Autumn: Monday, 23.10.2017· Spring: Monday, 5.3.2018· Length of Exam: 3 hours· Exact location and times to be announced later· The autumn 2017 and spring 2018 book exam for Introduction to American Literature is based on

the reading list for the spring 2017 course.· You must register in advance for the book exam via WebOodi.· HUOM! Please see the sample questions at the end of this PDF for the format of the exam.

Assigned Readings

This list of readings refers to page numbers in the one-volume Norton Anthology of American Literature(shorter 8th edition). (Note: The page numbers for the shorter 7th are listed in parentheses after thepages for the 8th edition. If you have an earlier edition, or the two-volume edition, please contact me ifyou have difficulty locating the correct page numbers.)

Important: In addition to the selections listed below, students should read the section introductions andindividual author introductions in the anthology.

The following reading list follows the progression of the spring 2017 course:

1) Introduction: Why American Literature?

· Anne Bradstreet, “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment,” 121 (108-109)· Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” 403 (420-421)

2) A New Nation and Its People

· J. Hector St. John de Crévecoer, from “Letter III: What Is an American” to “This is an American,”309-312 (310-313)

· Thomas Jefferson, “The Declaration of Independence”: http://www.constitution.org/us_doi.pdf· Thomas Paine, “The Crisis, No. 1,” 331-336 (332-338)

3) American Transcendentalism

· Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar,” 536-542 (520-525) to “goes forward at all hours”

· Henry David Thoreau, from Waldeno 858-862 middle of page (844-847, bottom of page)o 902 bottom – 906 middle (888 bottom – 892 middle)o 928 (914) from “I left the woods…” to “…now put foundations under them.”

· Margaret Fuller, from The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men. Woman versus Women, 752-760 (739-747)

4) American Romanticism

· Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown,” 619-628 (605-614)· Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” 714-718 (702-705)· Herman Melville, “Ahab”: http://americanliterature.com/author/herman-melville/book/moby-

dick-or-the-whale/chapter-28-ahab

5) The Emergence of Major American Poetic Voices

· Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”o Section 1: 1024-1025 (1011)o Sections 15-17: 1033-1036 (1020-1023)o Section 24: 1040-1042 (1028-1030)o Section 52: 1067 (1055)

· Emily Dickinsono Poem 269 [Wild Nights—Wild Nights!], 1197 (1205)o Poem 320 [There’s a certain Slant of light], 1197-1198 (1205)o Poem 446 [This was a Poet—It is That], 1205-1206 (1213)o Poem 479 [Because I could not stop for Death--], 1206-1207 (1214-1215)o Poem 620 [Much Madness is divinest Sense], 1208-1209 (1216)

6) Nineteenth-Century Social Protest

· Frederick Douglass, from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

o Chapter I, 946-949 (931-934)o Chapter IV, 954-956 (940-941) to “stained with his brother’s blood”o Chapter VI, 959-960 (944-946) to “benefit of both”o Chapter VII, 961-964 (946-949) to “I would learn to write”o Chapter IX, 970-971 (955-956) from “I have said…” to endo Chapter X, 973-978 (958-963) from “If at any one time…” to “…but was never whipped.”

· Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”, 1002-1005 (988-991)

· Harriet Beecher Stowe, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Chapter VII: “The Mother’s Struggle,” 781-790(767-776)

· Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address,” 748-49 (735-36)

7) Late Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Part I

· Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour,” 1609-1611o Link (if you don’t have the 8th edition):

http://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/hour/

· Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat,” 1768-1784 (1779-1795)

· Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” 1669-1681 (1684-1695)

8) Late Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Part II

· Mark Twain, from Huckleberry Finno Note: Please see the following brief plot summary before reading the selections below:

§ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn#Plot_summary

§ Chapter VII, 1308-1311 (1295-1299)§ Chapter VIII, 1311-1317 (1299-1304) to “watched um throo de bushes”§ Chapter XIX, 1360-1365 (1356-1362)§ Chapter XXI, 1371-1374 (1367-1371), to “…run himself to death.”§ Chapter XXXI, 1415-1418 (1412-1415), to “…might as well go the whole hog”

· Henry James, “Daisy Miller: A Study,” 1511-1549 (1495-1532)

9) Early Twentieth-Century Aspirations

· Booker T. Washington, from Up from Slavery, Chap. XIV, 1633-1636 (1630-1633), to “… shakehands with me.”

· W.E.B. Du Bois, from The Souls of Black Folko Chapter 1, 1717-1722 (1729-1734)o Chapter 3, 1722-1731 (1734-1744)

· Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin), from Impressions of an Indian Childhood, 1825-1830 (1838-1845)

10) American Modernist Poetry

· Robert Frosto “The Road Not Taken,” 1919-1920 (1960)o “Out, Out—”, 1921-1922 (1962)

· Amy Lowell, “September, 1918,” 1897 (1937)

· T.S. Eliot, from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” 2006-2009 (2039-2042)

· William Carlos Williams, “Spring and All,” 1965-1966 (2012)

· Wallace Stevens, “A High-Toned Old Christian Woman,” 1952-1953 (1992-1993)

· Langston Hughes, “I, Too” 2223-2224 (2266)

11) American Modernist Prose

· Ernest Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants”o Link:

http://faculty.weber.edu/jyoung/English%202500/Readings%20for%20English%202500/Hills%20Like%20White%20Elephants.pdf

· William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily,” 2182-2188 (2218-2224)

· Richard Wright, “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch”o Link: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/white/anthology/wright.html

12) Post-War Poetry and Drama

· Tennessee Williams, from A Streetcar Named Desire, Act I, Scene 1, 2300-2309 (2337-2346)

· Elizabeth Bishop, “The Fish,” 2289-2290 (2399-2401)

· Sylvia Plath, “Daddy,” 2605-2607 (2656-2658)

· Allen Ginsberg, from “Howl,” Section I, 2540-2545 (2592-2597)

13) Post-War Prose (and a Poetic Finish!)

· Maxine Hong Kingston, “No Name Woman,” 2691-2699 (2744-2753)

· Art Spiegelman, from Maus, 2736-2752 (at the end of this PDF, if you have the 7th edition orearlier)

· Sandra Cisneros, “The House on Mango Street”o Link: https://www.deanza.edu/faculty/pesanojulie/pdf/Houseonmango.pdf

· N. Scott Momaday, “The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee”o Link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46558/the-delight-song-of-tsoai-talee

Note: In the pages that follow, you will find the format of the exam and the text for Spiegelman.

Introduction to American Literature (KIK-EN221)EXAM FORMAT: Sample Questions and InstructionsAutumn 2017 / Spring 2018

Maximum time allowed for the exam: 3 hours

(NOTE: This is the basic format of the exam. Each section below contains one sample question.Please note that during the actual exam you will need to answer seven questions in Section Aand seven questions in Section B, as well as write two short essays for Section C. Also, some ofthe point totals listed below may change, according to the content of the exam.)

ANSWER ALL THREE SECTIONS

SECTION A: Prose Identifications (21 points/3 points per question; approx. 45 minutes forsection)

Identify only 7 of the following quotations (if you identify more than seven, only the first seven willbe graded). Keep your answers brief. A phrase or a few words are sometimes all you need.

For each quotation give:

(a) the first and last name of the author (b) the title of the work (c) an answer to the question

1. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

For what purpose was this text written?

SECTION B: Poetry Identifications (21 points/3 points per question; approx. 45 minutes forsection)

Identify only 7 of the following quotations (if you identify more than seven, only the first seven willbe graded. Keep your answers brief. A phrase or a few words are sometimes all you need.

For each quotation give:

(a) the first and last name of the author (b) the title of the work (c) an answer to the question

1. “So many steps, head from the heart to sever,If but a neck, soon should we be together.”What does the “head” represent in this poem? What does the “heart” represent?

SECTION C: Essay Questions (60 points; 30 points per essay; approx. 45 minutes per essay)

Write TWO essays, each approximately 500-600 words, each essay based one of the following topics.Once you have chosen your topic, use 3 (but not more) of the suggested texts in your answer. Use asmuch detail from the texts as you can remember to support your points. Be sure to begin each essaywith a short introductory paragraph, and end it with a short concluding paragraph.

1. Discuss humanity’s or the individual’s relationship to nature in 3 of the following texts: HenryDavid Thoreau’s Walden, Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat,” Emily Dickinson’s “There’s aCertain Slant of Light,” or Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish.”