Il Survey Course prevede discussione dei seguenti testi:
-John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630);
-Mary Rowlandson A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson" (First, Second, Third, Twelfth, and Twntieth Remove), (1682);
-Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle” (1819);
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature” (1836);
-Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Yong Goodman Brown” (1835), “The Minister’s Black Veil” (1836);
-Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843), “The Raven” (1845), The Philosophy of Composition” (1846);
-Fredrick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave (1845);
-T. B. Thorpe, “The Big Bear of Arkansas” (1841);
-Walt Whitman, “Preface to Leaves of Grass” (1855), “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd";
-Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener (1853);
-Emily Dickinson, “Success is counted sweetest”, “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!”, “This is my letter to the World”, “Because I could not stop for Death”, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant—”;
-Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills (1861);
-Henry James, Daisy Miller: A Study (1878).
Gli studenti dovranno anche leggere 3 autori a scelta tra i seguenti classici (almeno uno deve essere tra quelli con l’asterisco:
*BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Autobiography;
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, The Last of the Mohicans;
*NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, The Scarlet Letter;
HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Walden;
*WALT WHITMAN, “Song of Myself”:
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, “Thanatopsis”, “The Praries”;
*HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, Uncle Tom’s Cabin;
*HERMAN MELVILLE, Benito Cereno e Billy Budd, oppure Moby Dick;
*HENRY JAMES, The American;
*KATE CHOPIN, The Awakening;
*CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN, The Yellow Wallpaper;
*STEPHEN CRANE The Red Badge of Courage.
Bibliografia critica:
FRANCO BRIOSCHI, COSTANZO DI GIROLAMO, MASSIMO FUSILLO, Introduzione alla Letteratura, Roma, Carocci, nuova edizione 2013;
Norton Anthology of American Literature (qualsiasi edizione disponibile in biblioteca):
- LITERATURE TO 1620: Introduction and Timeline
- EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE 1620-1820: Introduction and Timeline
- AMERICAN LITERATURE 1820-1865: Introduction and Timeline
- INTRODUZIONE AI SINGOLI AUTORI DEL PROGRAMMA E DI QUELLI SCELTI PER LA READING LIST.