This course will explore American literary culture through the lens of
novels and other types of writing which have come to hold a unique,
even solemnized, place in American society. How did such pieces of
writing scale the heights of literary and cultural approval?  Why did
some disappear from such heights, while others have endured?  These
are just some of the questions this course will ask as we seek to
understand the place and importance of some of the most famous pieces
of nineteenth-century American literature.  The class will involve a
number of long and short papers, frequent pop quizzes, and a group
teaching assignment.  Be prepared to read a lot and work hard if you
take this course.

Texts for the course have yet to be determined, but they will be
chosen chiefly from the following list of titles:
	
	Washington Irving		The Sketchbook
	James Fenimore Cooper		The Last of the Mohicans
	Nathaniel Hawthorne		The Scarlet Letter
	Herman Melville			Moby-Dick
	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	Evangeline
	Frederick Douglass		Narrative of Frederick
Douglass
	Harriet Beecher Stowe		Uncle Tom's Cabin
	Walt Whitman			Leaves of Grass
	Emily Dickinson			Selected Poems
	Louisa May Alcott		Little Women
	Mark Twain			The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
	Kate Chopin			The Awakening
	Edith Wharton			Ethan Frome