Marrs, Cody
TR 3 :55 PM
MLC 0147
“We are a country,” Frederick Douglass once remarked, “of all extremes, ends, and opposites; the most conspicuous example of composite nationality in the world.” That heterogeneity—or, as Douglass puts it, “compositeness”—stretches back to the origins of New World and ensures that there is no single, definitive history of American literature. However, we can certainly recover and assess some of American literature’s major works, styles, and perspectives, and that is precisely what this class attempts to do. Attending to literature written between colonization and the Civil War, we will consider a variety of stories—novels, poems, chronicles, creation myths, etc.—written by a range of different authors. In our readings and discussions, we will focus on shared themes and ideas; questions of style and aesthetics; and what connects literature to other human endeavors.