1
Literary History of the United States (III)
AN(L)23002BA/AN28006BA/ AN3302OMA I.
Spring 2018
Time and venue: Thursday 10: 00- 12:40, Mblg. Lecture Room II
Class format: lecture
Status of course: required
Course requirement: End-of-semester examination
Instructors:
Lenke Németh
Office hours: Wed 12:00-12:50,Fri 9:00-9:50 Room
Room: Mbl 118
Tel.: 512 900/22069 /
Péter Csató
Office hours: Tue and Wed 16:00-17:00Room: Mbl 108/2
Tel.: 512-900/23092
Course description
This course is designed to be a full survey of mid- and late 20th and early 21st century American literature. Significant developments as well as representative authors in fiction, poetry, and drama will be introduced. The social, political, and intellectual background, characteristic features of decades, the various literary trends, tendencies, labels, genre debates, as well as the cultural debates and reconceptualizations relating to race, gender, and identity will be highlighted.
SCHEDULE
Week / Date / Topic1 / Feb 15 / Introduction (CsP)
2 / March 22 / Existentialism in Modern American Fiction (CsP)
3 / March 1 / Ethics and Fiction (CsP)
4 / March 8 / Culture and Fiction (CsP)
5 / March 15 / NATIONAL HOLIDAY
6 / March 22 / Non-conformism and American Fiction (NL)
7 / March 29 / African American Literature since 1900 (NL)
8 / Apr 5 / CONSULTATION WEEK
9 / Apr 12 / Postmodernism I (CsP)
10 / Apr 19 / Postmodernism II (CsP)
11 / April 26 / Women Writers (NL)
12 / May 3 / Modern American Drama (NL)
13 / May 10 / Postmodern American Drama (NL)
14 / May 17 / Closing/ Q&A session
List of required readings for the end-of-semester examination
Novels
1. NON-CONFORMIST, BEAT, COUNTERCULTURE FICTION:
J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951),
or Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957),
or Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962)
2. EXISTENTIALIST FICTION
Saul Bellow, Seize the Day (1956) + ANY relevant novel or short story covered in the seminar
3. CHANGING PARADIGMS OF ETHICS AND MORALITY:
Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero (1985) + ANY relevant novel or short story covered in the seminar
4. AFRICAN-AMERICAN FICTION:
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952),
or Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon (1977)
5. MODERNIST FICTION:
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)
6. POSTMODERNIST FICTION:
Donald Barthelme, The Dead Father (1975)
7. FEMINISM, WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE FICTION:
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street (1984),
or Bharati Mukherjee, Jasmine (1989)
8. CULTURE AS INTERPRETIVE SPACE
Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima (1972)
or N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn (1968)
+ ANY relevant novel or short story covered in the seminar
Short Fiction
Zora Neale Hurston, “The Gilded Six Bits”
Ernest Hemingway, “The Killers”; “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”
Ernest J. Gaines, “The Sky is Grey”
Flannery O’Connor, “Good Country People”
Bernard Malamud, “The Magic Barrel, ” “The Jewbird”
John Barth, “Life-Story”; “Lost in the Funhouse”
Raymond Carver, “A Serious Talk”;
Bobbie Ann Mason, “Nancy Culpepper”
Ann Beattie, “In the White Night”
Poetry
Theodore Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz,” Frank O’Hara, “Why I am Not a Painter,” Allen Ginsberg, "Howl," Robert Lowell, “Skunk Hour,” Sylvia Plath, “The Applicant, Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool,” Cathy Song, “Picture Bride,”
Drama
1. Eugene O’Neill, Mourning Becomes Electra (1931)
2. Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
3. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (1949)
4. Edward Albee, The American Dream (1961)
5. Sam Shepard, True West (1980)
6. David Mamet, Oleanna (1992)
Recommended reading for the examination
No single book will do. Your best bet is to attend the classes. Among IEAS library possessions—and in inadequate copies—we have items that cover only part of the period, or, full literary histories that carry chapters on post-1945 American literature. The same may apply to thematic, ethnic, and genre monographs. Here are a few basic suggestions, containing only comprehensive, period, genre, or gender titles—not all of them available in our library. Explore libraries and bibliographies for more.
Abádi-Nagy Zoltán. Válság és komikum: A hatvanas évek amerikai regénye. Budapest:
Magvető, 1982.
---. Az amerikai minimalista próza. Budapest: Argumentum, 1994.
---. Mai amerikai regénykalauz, 1970-1990. Budapest: Intera, 1995.
Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature. Vol. 7: Prose
Writing, 1940-1990 and vol. 8. Poetry and Criticism, 1940-1995. Ed. Cyrus R. K.
Patell. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.
Berkowitz, Gerald M. American Drama of the Twentieth Century. London: Longman,
1992.
Bigsby, C. W. E. Modern American Drama, 1945-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992.
---. Contemporary American Playwrights. Cambridge, Cambridge U, 2000.
---. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture. Cambridge: CUP, 2007.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Contemporary Poets. New York: Chelsea House, 1986.
Bradbury, Malcolm, and Richard Ruland. From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History
of American Literature. New York: Penguin, 1991.
Bollobás, Enikő. Az amerikai irodalom története. Budapest: Osiris, 2005.
Bottoms, Stephen J. The Theatre of Sam Shepard: States of Crisis. Cambridge: CUP, 1998.
Brown, Susan Windisch. Contemporary Novelists. 6th ed. New York: St. James, 1996.
Cheyfitz, Eric, ed. The Columbia Guide to American Indian Literatures of the United
States Since 1945. New York: Columbia UP, 2006.
Elliott, Emory, gen. ed. Columbia Literary History of the United States. New York:
Columbia UP, 1988.
---. Columbia History of the American Novel. New York: Columbia UP, 1991.
Ford, Boris, ed. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature. Vol. 9. American
Literature. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988.
Gray, Richard. American Poetry of the Twentieth Century. London: Longman, 1990.
---. A History of American Literature. London: Blackwell, 2004.
Hassan, Ihab. Radical Innocence: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel. Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1961.
---. Contemporary American Literature, 1945-1972: An Introduction. New York: Ungar,
1973.
Heiney, Donald, and Lenthiel H. Downs. Recent American Literature after 1930. New
York: Barron’s, 1973.
Herman, William. Understanding Contemporary American Drama. Columbia, SC: U
of South Carolina P, 1987..
Hilfer, Tony. American Fiction since 1940. London: Longman, 1992.
Hoffman, Daniel, ed. Harvard Guide to Contemporary American Writing.Cambridge.
MA: Harvard UP, 1979.
Huerta, Jorge. Chicano Drama: Performance, Society and Myth. Cambridge Studies
in American Theatre and Drama 12. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.
Kamp, Jim, ed.. Reference Guide to American Literature. 3rd ed. Detroit: St. James
Press,1994.
Klein, Marcus. After Alienation: American Novels in Mid-Century. Cleveland:
Meridian, 1965.
Logsdon, Loren, and Charles W. Mayer, eds. Since Flannery O’Connor: Essays on
the Contemporary American Short Story. Macomb, ILL: Western Illinois U, 1987.
Országh, László and Virágos Zsolt. Az amerikai irodalom története. Budapest: Eötvös
József, 1997.
Parini, Jay. The Columbia History of American Poetry: From the Puritans to Our Time.
New York: Columbia, 1993.
Rainwater, Catherine, and William J. Sheick, eds. Contemporary American Women
Writers. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1985.
Reynolds, Guy. Twentieth-Century American Women’s Fiction: A Critical Introduction.
Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999.
Riggs, Thomas, ed. Contemporary Poets. 6th ed. New York: St. James, 1996.
Rudman, Jack. American Literature: Civil War to the Present.
Ruland, Richard, and Malcolm Bradbury. From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History
of American Literature. New York: Penguin, 1991.
Sollors, Werner. African American Writing: A Literary Approach. Philadelphia: Temple, 2016.
Tallack , Douglas. Twentieth-Century America: The Intellectual and Cultural
Context. London: Longman 1991.
Tanner, Tony. City of Words: American Fiction 1950-1970. New York: Harper, 1971.
Vadon Lehel. Masterpieces of American Drama: An Anthology and Introduction. I-II.
EKTF, 1994.
Varró, Gabriella. “Acts of Betrayal: Arthur Miller’s The Price and Sam Shepard’s True West.” Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 11.2 (2005): 63–76.
Virágos Zsolt. A négerség és az amerikai irodalom. Budapest: Akadémiai, 1975.
---. Cf. Országh.
Virágos, Zsolt and Varró Gabriella. Jim Crow Örökösei: Mítosz és szterotípia az amerikai társadalmi tudatban és kultúrában. Budapest: Eötvös József, 2002.
Weaver, Gordon, ed. The American Short Story, 1945-1980: A Critical History. Hall:
Twayne, 1983.