Huck Finn, by Mark Twain.
A useful collection of information about this novel is included in a website from the Gulf Coast Community College designed by Susan Blue who teaches at this Florida institution.
English 2203 introduces you to the literary form of the novel. Our focus this semester will be to study the manner in which writers of the novel have depicted various people and times, and how these descriptions and stories shed light on us and our culture. The novels we will read range in date from the late nineteenth century through to the present day, but each brings its own unique set of themes shaped by where the action takes place, including issues of freedom, power, innocence, justice, and goodness.
This is a general literature course intended to develop your skills as both a reader of and writer about literature. You should think of this as a lecture/discussion class. This means that this course is a two-way street: I consider myself responsible for organizing the course and keeping it moving along; however, you will all be expected to come to class prepared to amaze me and your fellow classmates with your provocative and insightful questions and comments about the reading material.
The course syllabus, which is a changeable document, is linked here. Please note that sometimes changes have to be made to our schedule. Look for updates to our syllabus on this website.
The web is a good place for general information. To that end, here's a site that includes a brief timeline that covers American literature from pre-1620 until 1920. I have built my own small timeline of important dates specifically related to the American novel. I have also linked this website from the University of Illinois-Chicago, which contains a straight-forward overview of the literature of America from its beginnings to the present. What's nice about it is that the author ties the texts together using themes and trends, so that the chronology isn't just factual but is also interpretive.
There is a larger paper assignment due toward the end of the course. Here are some topic suggestions that you may want to consider for that assignment.
I have also included a link here to a website created by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire campus that discusses strategies for taking essay exams. This site can be helpful for planning some good time management practices come final exams.
Our novels include:
Huck Finn, by Mark Twain.
A useful collection of information about this novel is included in a website
from the Gulf Coast Community College designed by Susan Blue who teaches at
this Florida institution.
My Antonia, by Willa Cather.
The Willa Cather home page, as compiled by Harvard University, provides basic information and also includes links to other Cather websites. Information about sacred place--a concept that I think is worth discussing in this novel--can be read at a site built by Sweet Briar College.
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway.
There are so many resources on the web for Hemingway that it's difficult to figure out where to begin. My one link here is to a page of links from the Literary Traveler website. Start here and browse until you find something you decide is useful. It also contains a link to our novel.
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston.
A most unusual novel, and one neglected for decades, Their Eyes Were Watching God should prove an eye-opener, as it were, for us. Two links offer lots of material. One, by Northern Arizona University, includes a book review of this novel. The other, by a reading group website, provides plenty of information and issues for discussion. I suspect even I might use some of this to get us started!
As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner.
There is much that can be found about Faulkner on the web. The guy just seems to create a
commotion wherever people read him. I'd recommend running some of your own searches to
find stuff, or beginning by taking a peek at the Ole Miss site. Ole
(pronounced "OL" and not "OLEE" as in Lena and Ole) Miss is located in
Oxford, MS, where Faulkner lived.
Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton.
On the other hand, there isn't much that's useful, anyway, about Paton's novel. If you can ignore the ads that get loaded when you access this site, you will probably find lots of helpful info for a discussion of the novel. There is also biographical information available at the Alan Paton Centre website, sponsored by the University of Natal, in South Africa.
Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson.
Guterson has just published his first novel since Snow Falling on Cedars called East of the Mountains. Suffice it to say, I think it's clear we are reading the better of the two novels. Material on the web is voluminous, but often superficial. This one cite actually has some meat to it and gives thorough treatment of characters, setting, and themes.
© 2015 Steven Beste
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