The ĺÎĺ_ĺĚĄ_American Renaissance,ĺÎĺ_ĺĚĺÎĺ a period of tremendous literary activity that took place in America between the 1830s and 1860s represents the cultivation of a distinctively American literature. The student will begin this course by looking at what it was in American culture and society that led to the dramatic outburst of literary creativity in this era. The student will then explore some of the periodĺÎĺ_ĺĚĺ_s most famous works, attempting to define the emerging American identity represented in this literature. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: discriminate among the key economic, technological, social, and cultural transformations underpinning the American Renaissance; define the transformations in American Protestantism exemplified by the second Great Awakening and transcendentalism; list the key tenets of transcendentalism and relate them to romanticism more broadly and to social and cultural developments in the antebellum United States; analyze EmersonĺÎĺ_ĺĚĺ_s place in defining transcendentalism and his key differences from other transcendentalists; analyze competing conceptualizations of poetry and its construction and purpose, with particular attention to Poe, Emerson, and Whitman; define the formal innovations of Dickinson and their relationship to her central themes; describe the emergence of the short story as a form, with reference to specific stories by Hawthorne and Poe; distinguish among forms of the novel, with reference to specific works by Hawthorne, Thompson, and Fern; analyze the ways that writers such as Melville, Brownson, Davis, and Thoreau saw industrialization and capitalism as a threat to U. S. society; develop the relationship between ThoreauĺÎĺ_ĺĚĺ_s interest in nature and his political commitments and compare and contrast his thinking with Emerson and other transcendentalists; analyze the different ways that sentimentalism constrained and empowered women writers to critique gender conventions, with reference to specific works by writers such as Fern, Alcott, and Stowe; define the ways that the slavery question influenced major texts and major controversies over literature during this period. This free course may be completed online at any time. (English Literature 405)

Explore where the prohibitions and permissions that occur in every day life come from, why they exist, and what gives them force. For example: food- you are only willing and able to eat a subset of the world's edible substances. Marriage- some marriages are prohibited by law or by custom. Addresses questions of prohibition and permission using psychological sources and literary works from ancient to modern. Includes texts by Shakespeare, Melville, Mary Rowlandson, and Anita Desai. Students give group and individual oral presentations.

Aspects of the tragic as a mode of literature and a quality of lived experience pursued in readings that extend from the warfare of the ancient world to the experiences of modern life. Authors include Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Balzac, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Conrad, Dinesen, Faulkner, and Camus. Includes viewing of at least two films. "Tragedy" is a name originally applied to a particular kind of dramatic art and subsequently to other literary forms; it has also been applied to particular events, often implying thereby a particular view of life. Throughout the history of Western literature it has sustained this double reference. Uniquely and insistently, the realm of the tragic encompasses both literature and life. Through careful, critical reading of literary texts, this subject will examine three aspects of the tragic experience: The scapegoat; The tragic hero; The ethical crisis. These aspects of the tragic will be pursued in readings that range in the reference of their materials from the warfare of the ancient world to the experience of the modern extermination camps.