ENGL 421 - 19th-Century American Literature

1. Discuss, in general terms, how selected short stories, novels, poems, autobiographical narratives and other prose texts exemplify the historical periods and literary traditions (including transcendentalism, realism, and naturalism) from which they derive.
2. Define the principal themes and problems that emerge from studies of representative 19th-century American works and discuss–in both oral and written formats–manifestations of those themes and problems within selected works.
3.  Demonstrate (a) an ability to analyze selected passages of literary texts and (b) an ability to use such analyses both to illuminate and complicate a reading of the texts in which these passages occur.
4.  Demonstrate an ability to identify, find, and use library resources (books, journals, concordances, lexicons, etc.) that may further the student’s work both in and beyond English 421.
5.  Understand critical theory and its relationship to literary critiques.