Università Roma Tre

The course will be focused on nineteenth century literature in North America and, particularly, on the narrative and essayst prose of the century, whose development will be analysed in the texts of some of the most representative writers of the time, such as Poe, Hawthorne and Melville. Themes and issues will be discussed in class. Attention will be given to the literary genres and the differences of style as well. Historical context will be pivotal, but changes in the reception of the work will be taken into account, also in a transmedial perspective.

Ralph Waldo EMERSON,
Selected Writings, edited by: Robert D. Habich, Broadview Press, 2017
ISBN: 9781554812691 / 1554812690
- The American Scholar (1837)
- Self-reliance (1841)

Edgar Allan POE,
Selected Poetry and Tales, edited by: James M. Hutchisson, Broadview Press, 2012
ISBN: 9781554810468 / 1554810469
Tales:
- William Wilson (1839)
- The Man of the Crowd (1840)
- The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)

Nathaniel HAWTHORNE
Short Stories
- The Birthmark (1843)
- Rapaccini’s Daughter (1844)
(the two short stories can be found online (https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uniroma3-ebooks/reader.action?docID=3008591)

Harriett Beecher STOWE
Novel
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), edited by: Christopher G. Diller, Broadview Press, 2009
ISBN: 9781551118062 / 1551118068

Herman MELVILLE
Short Story:
- Bartelby, the Scrivener (1853)
Essay:
“Hawthorne and his Mosses,” Literary World (1850) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Hawthorne_and_His_Mosses


Louisa May ALCOTT
Novel
- Little Women (1868), edited by: Anne Hiebert Alton, 2001
ISBN: 9781551111919 / 1551111918

Henry JAMES
Short Stories (or novellas)
- Daisy Miller (1878) Edited by: Kristin Boudreau; Megan Stoner Morgan, Broadview Press, 2011, ISBN: 9781551110301 / 155111030X
- In the Cage (1898) https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/Uniroma3-ebooks/detail.action?docID=600415&pq-origsite=primo (risorsa del Sistema Bibliotecario d’Ateneo, sba, di Roma Tre)


James Brander MATTHEWS
Short Story:
- The Kinetoscope of Time (1895)

https://thebioscope.net/2009/02/02/the-kinetoscope-of-time/
(the text is to be read online through the link to the Scribner’s Magazine digital edition:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t5n87473q&view=1up&seq=1&skin=2021)