Fictions of the New World

Catalog description

For nearly a century before the first settlers arrived in the Americas, English writers created fictions of the so-called New World. We'll begin the course by looking at these fantasies about the new world. What were their sources? How did these fictions prepare for and attempt to legitimate the colonization of the Americas? To what extent were English writers critical of colonization? Then we will consider America's own fictions: the poetry, narratives, and oral traditions that were produced by or circulated among settlers, indentured and enslaved laborers, and indigenous Americans for the hundred years or so after the first English settlements. Readings include Toni Morrison's A Mercy, More's Utopia, Shakespeare's Tempest, selections from Hakluyt, Donne, Marvell, Milton, Sagoyewatha, Canassetego, Winthrop, Williams, Bradstreet, Occam, and Wheatley.