G2 E3: Modern American Literature

  • Course Outcomes (COs)

CO-1.   Students will understand various schools, trends and movements such as Southern Renaissance in modern American fiction.
CO-2.   Students will be able to understand rise and development of modern American drama.
CO-3.   Students will be able to appreciate the significance of race and racism in modern American fiction.
CO-4.  Students will be able to evaluate various experimentations in modern American poetry.

  • Syllabus: 

         Unit 3. Race and Racism in American Fiction

                    Richard Wright (1908-60) – Native Son (1940)
         Unit 4. Experimentation in Modern American Poetry
                    Selected Poems from American Literature 1890-1965: An Anthology edited by Egbert Oliver et al. (New Delhi: Eurasia, 1998)
          a. Robert Frost: i)“The Road not Taken”, ii)“Birches”;
                                   iii) “The Death of the Hired Man”
          b. Archibald MacLeish: i)“Ars Poetica”, ii) “The End of the World”,
                                   iii) What the Serpent said to Adam”
         c. Carl Sandburg: i) “Chicago”, ii) “Cool Tombs”
         d. Ezra Pound: i) “In a Station of the Metro”, ii) “The Rest”,
                                 iii) “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”
         e. e.e. cummings: i) “old age sticks”,
                                 ii) “somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond”,
                                iii) “anyone lived in a pretty how town”
         f. Wallace Stevens: i) “Sunday Morning”, ii) “The Emperor of Ice-cream”,
                                iii) “A High-toned Old Christian Woman”

(Note: The course is equally shared with Dr. P. B. Mane. He dealt with the remaining two units of the Course: Unit 1. Southern Renaissance: William Faulkner (1897-1962) and Unit 2. Rise and Development of American Drama: Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953)

  • Reference Books:

  1. Beach, Christopher. The Cambridge Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Cambridge: CUP, 2003.
  2. Bigsby, Christopher, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture. Cambridge: CUP, 2006.
  3. Bloom, Harold, ed. Bloom’s Modern Critical Views: Richard Wright. New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism, 2009.
  4. Bloom, Harold, ed. Bloom’s Modern Critical Views: American Modernist Poets. New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism, 2011.
  5. Bloom, Harold, ed. Bloom’s Modern Critical Views: Robert Frost. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003.
  6. Cox, James M., ed. Robert Frost: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1962.
  7. Ford, Boris, ed. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature, Vol.9: American Literature. London: Penguin, 1995.
  8. Gray, Richard. A History of American Literature. 2nded.Chichester, West Sussex: Blackwell, 2012.
  9. Kalaidjian, Walter, ed. The Cambridge Companion to American Modernism. Cambridge: CUP, 2006.
  10. Lauter, Paul. ed. A Companion to American Literature and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell, 2010.
  11. Nadel, Ira B., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Ezra Pound. Cambridge: CUP, 2001.
  12. Serio, John N., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Wallace Stevens. Cambridge: CUP, 2007.