106-049 American Liberals and Moderns

Formerly available as 106-273/373. Students who have completed 106-273 or 106-373 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

Usually 25 points of first-year English, see Prerequisites.

This subject is a comparative study of selected American fiction representing the liberal tradition and the beginnings of modernism, ranging from the early 20th century to the early 1940s. The texts chosen will partly reflect the American literary canon in the first half of this century, excluding poetry and drama. The critical approach will be exegetical and humanist, with a strong interest in the range of modernisms and liberal positions that the works represent. On completion of the subject students should have gained a working notion of the characteristics of liberalism and modernism in American writing of the period, and be familiar with secondary reading in American cultural history and politics and with relevant theoretical and critical discourses.

Class participation, and written work totalling 4000 words.

• J Dos, Manhattan Transfer. Penguin.
• W Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury. Penguin.
• S Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night. Penguin.
• E Hemmingway, A Farewell to Arms. Penguin.
• C McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Penguin.
• H Miller, Tropic of Capricorn. Grove.