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The American Renaissance – English 75100

Known as the American Renaissance, the four decades leading up to the Civil War saw landmark meditations on race and slavery by William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs; innovations in rhetoric and philosophy on the part of Emerson and Thoreau; the metaphysical depth and cultural breadth represented by the novels of Melville and Hawthorne; the poetic experimentation of Whitman and Dickinson; and the psychological and artistic achievement of Edgar Allan Poe. Urban life and class conflict were dramatized in fiction by George Lippard, and women’s issues in novels by Sara Parton and others. In addition to reading central works of American literature, this course discusses current approaches to American Studies, criticism, and literary theory. A book review and a term paper are required.