American Literature (Theory)

Paper Code: 
25CENG511
Credits: 
6
Periods/week: 
6
Max. Marks: 
100
Objective: 

The Course will enable the students to identify significant and culturally diverse examples of American literature between the 17th and mid-19th century and compare/ contrast the representative literary works from within the wider framework of socio-political and historical realities.

 
Course Outcomes: 

The students will:

CO49. Evaluate the social, historical, literary and cultural developments in American literature

CO50. Explore the distinct literary characteristics and sensibility of American literature

CO51. Analyse the literary trends in fictional and dramatic genres of American literature

CO52. Critically evaluate the issues of gender, race, class, ethnicity and geography in

the prescribed texts

CO53. Develop analytical skills to articulate the aesthetic principles in various texts written across different regions in different historical periods

CO54.Contribute effectively in course-specific interaction.

20.00
Unit I: 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self-Reliance

Walt Whitman

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed 

Passage to India

O Captain My Captain!

 

 

18.00
Unit II: 

Arthur Miller

Death of A Salesman

Tennessee Williams

The Glass Menagerie

 

 

18.00
Unit III: 

Edgar Allan Poe

The Purloined Letter

The Fall of the House of Usher 

The Black Cat

 William Faulkner

Dry September 

A Rose for Emily 

Barn Burning

 
16.00
Unit IV: 

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby

 
18.00
Unit V: 

Toni Morrison

The Bluest Eye

 
SUGGESTED READINGS: 

Suggested Reference Books:

Douglass, Frederick. A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Penguin, 1982. 

Crèvecoeur, John De. et. al. ‘What is an American’, (Letter III), Letters From An American Farmer, Duffield & Company, www.loc.gov/item/04012106/.

Ford, Boris. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature: American Literature, vol.9. Penguin, 1983.

Jacob, John. History of American Literature. Sublime Publications, 2005.

Mathiessen, F.O. American Renaissance Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. OUP, 1973.

Morrison, Toni. “Romancing the Shadow,’’ Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and Literary Imagination. Picador, 1993.

 

E-Resources including links:

https://interestingliterature.com/2022/10/ralph-waldo-emerson-self-relia... https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1592&context...

 

Reference Journals:

JSTOR

Shanlax International Journal of English

 

Academic Year: 
2025-2026