106-061 American Voices

Usually 25 points of first year English, see Prerequisites.

In this subject, students will study a range of texts that present 19th century American 'voices' in the form of narratives. These voices include those of marginalised narrators, such as women, children, Native Americans and African-Americans, as well as the voices of 'centralist' or established white narrators. Works will include popular and literary novels, stories, captivity and slave narratives, and narrative poems. Themes covered by the works include the representation of otherness, post-colonial identity, slavery, transcendentalism, gothic, the civil war and the meaning of 'American'. On completion of the subject students should have developed a selective knowledge of 19th century American literature and its relation to contemporary formations of American national and cultural identity.

An essay of 2000 words 50% (due mid-semester) and an essay of 2000 words 50% (due at the end of semester).

A subject reader will be available.

• Andrews & McFeely (eds), A Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass. Norton Critical Edition.
• J F Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans.
• N Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.
• H B Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
• H Melville, Typee.
• M Twain, Huckleberry Finn.
• W Whitman, Poems.