The American Renaissance

Catalog description

Studies in the works and the interrelationships of writers such as Emerson, Hawthorne, Poe, Thoreau, Whitman, Melville, and Dickinson. The course will cover Transcendentalism and the authors who contributed to this movement, many of whom lived in Concord, MA. Though the class will feature the works of Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, it can also branch out to address other authors such as Margaret Fuller, Jones Very, and Elizabeth Peabody. Departing from Concord, the course will explore Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, both of whom read and were inspired by Emerson. Finally, the course will include works by Herman Melville, who formed a friendship with Hawthorne prior to writing Moby-Dick. Though literature constitutes the center piece of this course, iterations of the course may bring in other parts of the cultural, social, and political landscape: slavery, abolitionism, Jacksonian Democracy, western settlement, art, science, and technology.