READING LIST FOR AMERICAN LITERATURE I
SEE "ASSIGNMENTS" ON AMERICAN LIT PAGE FOR DAILY UPDATES ON REQUIRED READING.
I. THE NATIVE AMERICANS
How the World
Began.........................................................*
How the World was Made...................................................*
The Beginning of Summer and Winter.................................*
Crashing Thunder [Fasting}.................................................*
Song With Which Two Boys Killed Their Grandmother.....*
Orations................................................................................*
* Read in class
II. THE EUROPEAN INVADERS
Christopher Columbus
The Diary, 11 October
1492..........................................handout
Thomas Harriot
A Brief Report of the New Found Land of Virginia
..49
John Smith
The General History of Virginia, Chapter II...........................57
William Bradford
Of Plymouth Plantation, Chapter XI..............................120-126
Chapter XII [The First Thanksgiving]
126
Chapter XIX {Mr. Morton of Merrymount]
.126-129
Chapter XXXII [A horrible Truth]
136
Thomas Morton
New English Canaan
..139-146
John Winthrop
The Journal, July 5, 1632-September 1638....................159-164
The Bay Psalm Book, Psalm
23.....................................171
The New England Primer, The
Alphabet....................355
Anne Bradstreet
Before the Birth of One of Her
Children.............................205
To My Dear and Loving Husband.......................................206
In Reference to Her Children...............................................208
On My Dear Grandchild Simon Bradstreet
..211
Michael Wigglesworth
The Day of Doom [v..1-135 ]
218-228
[v. 201-224]
..231-234
III. SUPERSTITION RUNS RAMPANT WHILE A VIRGINIAN ENJOYS LIFE
Cotton Mather
The Wonders of the Invisible
World.......................................308-313
Samuel Sewall
The Diary, April 11, 1692-Nov.16, 1692................................291-292
June 19,1700 June 10,
1701
...293-294
The Crucible..............................................................................Film
Mary Rowlandson
A Narrative of the Captivity (through the third remove)........235-242
Jonathan Edwards
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God..........................................425
William Byrd II
The Secret
Diary........................................................................handout
TEST ONE
IV. The Enlightenment and A New Nation
Benjamin Franklin
Remarks Concerning the Savages of North
America........................................................468
An Address to the
Public...........................................................................................handout
A Witch Trial at Mount
Holly......................................................................................handout
Advice to a Friend on Choosing a
Mistress..................................................................handout
Ebenezer Cooke
The Sot-Weed
Factor.................................................................................................handout
Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Crevecoeur
Letters from An American Farmer, Letter IX (Charleston; Thoughts on
Slavery)...........605
Thomas Paine
The Age of
Reason, Chapters 1 & II.......................................................................643-646
Thomas Jefferson
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query V:
Cascades........................................................657
Query VII:
Religion.............................................................660
Phillis Wheatley
On Being Brought from Africa to
America.........................................................................752
Philip Freneau
The Wild Honey
Suckle.....................................................................................................744
To Sir
Toby......................................................................................................................746
On the Religion of
Nature...................................................................................................749
V. THE SEARCH FOR AN AMERICAN IDENTITY
Washington Irving
Rip Van
Winkle..................................................................................................................953
The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow.............................................................................................965
William Cullen Bryant
Thanatopsis.......................................................................................................................1045
To a Waterfowl.................................................................................................................1047
The
Prairies.......................................................................................................................1048
James Fenimore Cooper
Preface to the Leather-Stocking
Tales............................................................................handout
The Pioneers, Chapter
III..................................................................................................995
The Last of the Mohicans.................................................................................................film
Edgar Allen Poe
Sonnet--To
Science..........................................................................................................1532
The Raven........................................................................................................................1536
The Fall of the House of
Usher..........................................................................................1553
The Cask of
Amontillado...................................................................................................1612
TEST TWO
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-Reliance.........................................................................................................1163-1168
Henry David Thoreau
Civil Disobedience.................................................................................................1857-1864
Walden, Chapter
XII..............................................................................................1191-1993
Herman Melville
Billy Budd.......................................................................................................................2468
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The May-Pole of Merry
Mount.......................................................................................1304
Rappaccini's
Daughter.....................................................................................................1332
Works of Sentiment and Nostalgia
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Psalm of Life................................................................................................................1497
The Slave Singing at
Midnight...........................................................................................1498
The Day is
Done..............................................................................................................1499
Evangeline
[Prologue].......................................................................................................1500
The Cross of
Snow..........................................................................................................1506
John Greenleaf Whittier
Ichabod............................................................................................................................1510
Eugene Field
Little Boy
Blue.............................................................................................................handout
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Chapter VII...................................................................................1711
Herman Melville
Shiloh..............................................................................................................................2464
The College Colonel....................................................................................................handout
Walt Whitman
Vigil Strange I kept on the Field One
Night......................................................................2276
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and
Dim...............................................................2278
A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road
Unknown..............................................2277
The Wound-Dresser........................................................................................................2279
TEST THREE