Università Roma Tre

This course is an introduction to the national literature of the United States. I will explore the cultural complexities of an emerging and changing nation as revealed by representative authors such as Mary Rowlandson, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and others. I will also emphasize the ways in which classic American literary texts have provided themes, styles, and narrative techniques to a distinctively American film culture. Through this course students will develop close reading and analytical writing skills. Attendance is highly recommended for prospective American Literature majors.

La dichiarazione di indipendenza degli Stati Uniti d’America (1776)
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=2&page=transcript

Costituzione degli Stati Uniti d'America (1787)
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=9&page=transcript

Bill of Rights (1791)
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=13&page=transcript

Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (1682)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/851/851-h/851-h.htm

Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America” e “To The Right Honorable, William, Earl of Dartmouth” (1773)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45465/on-being-brought-from-africa-to-america
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/right-honourable-william-earl-dartmouth

June Jordan, "Il difficile miracolo dellaa poesia nerain America: una sorta di sonetto per Phillis Weathley", ACOMA 3, Inverno 1993, pp. 4-13
http://www.acoma.it/sites/default/files/pdf-articoli/3jordan.pdf

President George Washington's First Inaugural Speech (1789)
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/content.php?flash=false&page=milestone

Washington Irving, The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819), New York, OUP, 2009, ISBN: 978-0199555819
"Rip Van Winkle"
"Traits of Indian Character"
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

Washington Irving, The History of New York (1809), Book I, Chapter V only
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13042/13042-h/13042-h.htm#I_CHAPTER_V

Alessandro Portelli, "The buried king and the memory of the future: From Washington Irving to Bruce Springsteen", Memory Studies, Vol. 13, n. 3, 2020, pp. 267-76.
(l'articolo è disponibile in formato elettronico accedendo online e con le proprie credenziali al Sistema bibliotecario d'ateneo)

Edgar Allan Poe, “The Murders of the Rue Morgue” (1841) e The Masque of the Red Death" (1842)
https://www.poemuseum.org/the-murders-in-the-rue-morgue
http://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2020/10/Masque-of-the-Red-Death.html

Tommaso Giartosio, "Imitative Propensieties. Mimesi e schiavitù negli scritti di Poe", ACOMA 8, Estate-Autunno 1996, pp. 81-94.
http://www.acoma.it/sites/default/files/pdf-articoli/8giartosio.pdf

Frederick Douglass, Narrazione della vita di Frederick Douglass, uno schiavo americano, scritta da lui stesso (1845), a cura di Maria Giulia Fabi, con testo a fronte, Venezia, Marsilio, 2015.
— “Letter to His Master”, Sept. 1848 http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/02/i-am-your-fellow-man-but-not-your-slave.html

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850), edited by Leland S. Person, New York, Norton, 2017.

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass/Foglie d'erba (1855), a cura di Mario Corona, con testo a fronte, Venezia, Marsilio, 2002.
OR: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass/Foglie d'Erba (1855), a cura di Alessandro Ceni, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2015
— Langston Hughes, “I, too” (free online).
— Allen Ginsberg, “A Supermarket in America” (free online).

Herman Melville, The Piazza Tales, Broadview Press, Broadview 2018, 9781554813100 / 1554813107 (Be sure to order this book well in advance, either in paper or ebook)
-- "Bartleby" (1853)
-- "Benito Cereno" (1855)

Abraham Lincoln, "The Emancipation Proclamation" (1863)
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=34

Abraham Lincoln, "The Gettysburg Address" (1863)
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=36

Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address" (1865)
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=38

Hans Bertens & Theo D’haen, American Literature: A History, London, Routledge, 2013.
-- "Beginnings to 1810"
-- "Towards cultural independence: 1810 to the Civil War"

N.B. Students who are not able to attend classes will study the same syllabus/books above.