Gallichio, Christian
TR 9:35 AM
Park Hall 250
“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 revisit some of American literature’s major works, styles, and perspectives, and that is precisely what this class attempts to do. This semester, we will analyze some of the most intriguing and important works of literature written in the early United States. We will focus, in particular, on the life and works of writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, W.E.B. Du Bois, Sidney Lanier, and Kate Chopin.