College of the Siskiyous- American Literature

Catalog Description: This course is a survey course of significant literary works in American Literature from its beginnings through the twentieth century. Emphasis is placed on historical background, cultural context, and literary analysis of selected prose, poetry, and drama. Upon completion, students should be able to interpret, analyze, and respond to literary works in their historical and cultural contexts.

Reading List: If you would like to get a jump start on the reading for this class over the summer, you can pick and choose from the list of authors and titles below. Don't feel compelled to read everything over the summer!

Authors (listed alphabetically)	Titles
William Bradford	excerpts from Of Plymouth Plantation
Anne Bradstreet	“Prologue,” “The Author to Her Book,” “Before the Birth of One of Her Children,” “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” “[On Deliverance] from Another Sore Fit,” “Upon the Burning of Our House,” etc.
Christopher Columbus	excerpts from The Diario of Christopher Columbus's First Voyage to America
Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Crèvecoeur	excerpts from Letters from an American Farmer
Emily Dickinson	selected poetry
Frederick Douglass	Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Jonathan Edwards	“Personal Narrative,” “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” from Images or Shadows of Divine Things
Ralph Waldo Emerson	"Nature," "Self-Reliance," selected poetry
Olaudah Equiano	The Life of Olaudah Equiano
Benjamin Franklin	Excerpts from The Autobiography, from Poor Richard's Almanac, “An Address to the Public,” "A Narrative of the Late Massacres . . ."
Nathaniel Hawthorne	"The Maypole of Merry Mount," "Young Goodman Brown," "Rappaccini's Daughter"
Washington Irving	"Rip Van Winkle"
Harriet Jacobs	excerpts from Incidents in teh Life of a Slave Girl
Thomas Jefferson	The Declaration of Indpendence, excerpts from Notes on the State of Virginia
Herman Melville	"Bartleby, The Scrivener," from Moby Dick
Thomas Morton	excerpts from The New English Canaan
Thomas Paine	Excerpts from Common Sense, The American Crisis, The Age of Reason
Edgar Allen Poe	“Sonnet—To Science,” “Annabel Lee,” “The Bells,” “The Raven,” "The Philosophy of Composition," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart"
Mary Rowlandson	A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration
John Smith	excerpts from The General History of Virginia, excerpts from A Description of New England
Harriet Beecher Stowe	excerpts from Uncle Tom's Cabin
Edward Taylor	“Prologue” “Meditation 8” “Meditation 150" “Upon a Spider Catching a Fly,” “Huswifery,” “A Fig for Thee Oh! Death”
Henry David Thoreau	“Civil Disobedience," excerpts from Walden
Phillis Wheatley	“On Virtue,” “To the University of Cambridge,” “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” “To S. M. a Young African Painter,” “To His Excellency George Washington”
Walt Whitman	selected poetry
Roger Williams	“Of Salutation,” “Of Eating and Entertainment,” “Of Sleep and Lodging,” “Of Their Persons and Parts of Body,” “Of Their Government,” from The Bloody Tenet
John Winthrop	excerpts from A Model of Christian Charity