Honors American Literature Reading List and Timeline(subject to change, rearrangement, additions, subtractions at any time)
Creation Myths – Onondaga, Modoc, Navajo, HuronNative American Lit
Iroquois – The Iroquois Constitution vs. US Constitution* Oral tradition: epics, myths, poems, songs, stories
Power – “Museum Indians”* Cyclical worldview, deep respect for nature/animals
Bradford – from Of Plymouth Plantation* Belief in original sin, predestination,Puritan Age
Bradstreet – “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” “Verses Upon the Burning of Our House” education, personal self-control, hard work, virtue, frugality,
Taylor – “Huswifery” democratic church government, plain style
Edwards – from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”* Diaries, historiesMiller – The Crucible
Henry – Speech in the Virginia ConventionAdams, A. — Letters* All ideas are subject to reasonAge of Reason
Jefferson – The Declaration of IndependenceMadison — The Constitution * Concerned with commerce, liberty, science
Paine -- from The American CrisisWheatley — Selected Poem(s) * Hard work/frugality/virtues can get you what you want
Franklin – aphorisms, from The Autobiography* Speeches, pamphlets
Cooper – The Last of the Mohicans (movie)* American Hero/MythologyRomanticism/Prose
Irving – “The Devil and Tom Walker,” “Rip van Winkle” (video), “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (video)Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter
Poe – “The Black Cat,” “The Raven,” “The Fall of the House of Usher”* Gothic Lit: dark and mysterious, supernatural influence, negative side of man
Melville – Moby Dick (movie)Lee/Lawrence – The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail
Emerson – from Nature, from “Self Reliance”* Transcendentalism: valued feeling over reason, everything is connected
Thoreau – from Walden, from “Civil Disobedience”* Importance of intuition, self-reliance, nature, inner experience
Holmes – “Old Ironsides”Romanticism/Poetry
Longfellow – “The Village Blacksmith,” “Fm My Armchair,” “The Tide Rises,” “A Psalm of Life”* American Renaissance, creativity explosion
Lowell – “The First Snowfall”* Valued feeling, the American past, the American present experience,
Whittier – “In School Days” the nobility of the everyday man
Bryant – “Thanatopsis”* Desire to build a national history, literature, unique voice
Whitman – from “Song of Myself,” “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” “I Hear America,” “Beat, Beat, Drums” “By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame”
Dickinson – “Because I could not stop for Death,” “the Brain—is wider than the Sky,” “Water, is taught,” “The Soul selects”
Equiano – from The NarrativeRealism I
Douglass – “The Battle with Mr. Covey,” “My Bondage, My Freedom”Civil War
Crane – “An Episode of War,” “War is Kind”Crane – The Red Badge of Courage ORMaggie
Bierce – “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”* Realism
Lincoln – Gettysburg Address* Naturalism
Dunbar – “Douglass,” “We Wear the Mask” * Regionalism
Hughes – Various titles Cullen/Bontemps – Various titles Hansberry – A Raisin in the Sun
London – “To Build a Fire,” White Fang (movie)
Huey –TedTalkErdrich – “The Red Convertible”Burks – Runs with Horses
Sinclair (sort of, based only LOOSELY on his Oil! – There will be Blood (movie)
Alcott – Little Women (movie)Realism II
Wilson -- fromOur NigEmerging Voices
Truth – “Ain’t I a Woman?” “What Time…” “Keeping the Thing Going”* Socio-economic issues
Harper -- “Vashti,” “Aunt Chloe’s Politics,” “Learning to Read”* Rights, freedom, individuality
Stanton – Declaration of Sentiments*Society vs. the Individual/Struggle
Chopin – “Story of an Hour,” “A Pair of Silk Stockings,” “Desiree’s Baby,” “Emancipation”
Cather – “A Wagner Matinee”
Wharton – Age of Innocence (movie)
Walls – “Desert”Piercey – “Barbie Doll”“Rosemary Kennedy’s Life….”
Robinson – “Richard Cory,” “Luke Havergal”Masters – “Lucinda Matlock,” “Richard Bone”Modernism
Bordon – “The Song of the Mud” Sandburg – “Grass”WWI
Hemingway – “In Another Country” “Soldier’s Home”
Williams – “The Red Wheelbarrow,” “This is Just to Say”
Cummings – “anyone lived in a pretty how town,” “old age sticks”Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby Frost – “Acquainted with the Night,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “Nothing Gold”
Stevens – “Anecdote of the Jar,” “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock”* Time is cyclical, not linear: man doesn’t progress, but is doomed to repeat
Auden – “The Unknown Citizen,” “Funeral Blues”* Disillusionment in all that led up to a horrible world-at-war
Bishop – “One Art”* Isolation, hopelessness, loss, disconnection
Porter – “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”* PTSD
Faulkner – “A Rose for Emily”* Inability to attain the American Dream
Welty – “A Worn Path”* Bold experimentation in form/line/content
Chaplin – Modern Times(movie)
Hemingway—The Old Man and the SeaHemingway HeroMiller – The CrucibleSalinger – The Catcher in the RyePost-Modernism
Cofer – “Arrival” and “The Witch’s Husband”Stockett – The HelpContemporary
de Burgos – “Farewell in Welfare Island”“Chronology” of ImmigrationE Pluribus Unum
Arana – from American ChicaChin – “How I Got That Name”Armistead—Being Henry David(time-permitting)
Alvarez – “Our Papers”Lim – from Immigrant MotherCao – from Monkey Bridge
Desai – “Various Lives”Agosin – “Marta Alvarado, History Professor”Lee – “The Gift”
Kingston – from The Woman WarriorNye – “Streets”Tan – “Mother Tongue”
Above readings do NOT reflect a book of the student’s choice that will be assigned prior to Christmas break. This reading will be the basis of the ensuing research paper.
The choice may come from a list of standard American literature choices OR may be an historical fiction choice that deals with American life prior to 1960.