American Realism

Catalog description

A close study of American fiction and poetry from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including James, Wharton, Hemingway, Faulkner, Eliot, This course looks closely at the realist period of American literature (1865–1914), paying particular attention to the formal concerns of literary realism, especially the literary techniques realist writers used to depict reality faithfully, both interiorly (i.e., psychologically) and exteriorly. Students will also consider the influence that new theories of labor, economics, democracy, race, gender—even humanity itself—had on the literature of the era. Potential authors: Whitman, Dickinson, Melville, Harding Davis, Twain, James,