Important Updates

1. Don't forget: we will not meet in H 111 tomorrow, but instead in H 202 at 12:10 for a lecture by Thomas Bender!

2. Syllabus change: pesky furlough days and the Bender lecture have forced us to make some syllabus changes. For Monday, March 1, we'll be reading Charles Waddell Chestnut's shorty story, "The Goophered Grapevine" (in the Heath anthology).

Essay the Second

Your second out-of-class essay will focus on American women writers of the latter 19th century. Due date: Friday, March 5. The overarching question is this: how have the stories by our five writers (Freeman, Gilman, Spofford, Alcott, Jewett) equipped us to make sense of Kate Chopin's "Desiree's Baby" as an example of 19th century feminine fiction?

To answer this question, consider the following heuristic:

1) first, think about the common themes and formal devices that we've encountered in our reading of 19th century women writers. Themes might include: figures of the female artist; imprisonment or containment; male vs. female "traits" (e.g. ideologies of gender); "loopholes"; the role of narrators. (There are other possibilities - - but these should provide a good starting point.)

2) second, read Chopin's story carefully.

3) third, think about what common themes or formal devices you can find in Chopin's narrative.

4) fourth, think about how Chopin both re-uses these and re-shapes them - - both taking up familiar themes and devices and bending or tweaking them to her own purposes (e.g. comparison and contrast).

5) fifth, decide which theme or device seems most helpful in making sense of Chopin's story.

6) finally, write a two page, typed essay that explains how Chopin belongs to our group of writers based on her use of a common or familiar theme or formal device!

Questions? Ask me in class, or stop by my office.

Essay #1

Now that we've finished up our discussion of Whitman and Davis, let's pause for a bit and reflect on where we stand. Your goal in this essay is to sum up the state of certain basic American values as we plunge into the vortex of American post-Civil War literature and culture. To do this assignment you will need to:

1) choose from one of our four themes (the self, democracy, nature, poet/poem (or author/reader);

2) explain how each of our writers (Whitman and Davis) describes this theme - - what are their favorite images for the theme? what central qualities or meanings to they attach to this theme? what central problems or conflicts do they find within this theme? compare and contrast these versions of American selfhood, nature, democracy, or author/reader relations.

Use quotation to support and illustrate your discussion. Do cite the page or line number for your quotations; don't worry about a works cited or bibliographic page.

Your essay should be no more than two, double-spaced, typed pages. Be sure to check for typographical, punctuation, spelling, and grammatical errors.

Your first essay is due at the beginning of class on Wed., February 10.

Don't forget: we won't meet in class this Friday. Instead, I'll be in my office (HUM 553) and available to talk about your essay, ideas, etc. Good luck!

Korl Woman vs. Greek Slave

Here's an image of Hiram Powers' "Greek Slave" - - an extremely celebrated mid-19th century American sculpture. Compare Powers' "classical" aesthetic of the beautiful to Hugh Wolfe's grotesque realism of the sublime.