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ENGL277

"This Smiling Country"?: Versions of Pastoral in U.S. Literature
ENGL277 SP

Crosslistings: AMST210, CHUM277

Spring 97 Availability (Last Updated on Thu Apr 17 05:00:17 EDT 1997 )

Section  Limit  Enrollment  Available
  01       12      0         12

Settlement and wilderness, city and country, "civilization" and "the Territories," "Nature" and culture, machines and gardens, "ecocriticism." From colonial times to the present, writers of all kinds--farmers, explorers, naturalists, novelists, anthropologists, essayists, poets, scholars, and critics--have sought or invented versions of pastoral arcadia in North America. Why reimagine a Grecian paradise in "Kentucky"? Why people a Georgia valley with dryads and nymphs? Why build a cabin at Walden Pond or spend a season at Tinker Creek? Why move to the suburbs or vacation in the "bosom of Nature"? These are some of the questions we will try to answer in this course on the place of the "pastoral" in U.S. literature, culture, and criticism.

MAJOR READINGS

Literary texts by Crevecoeur, Jefferson,
Filson/Boone, Bartram, Emerson, Thoreau, Twain, Chesnutt,
Jewett, Wharton, Hemingway, Hurston, Frost, Snyder, Silko,
Abbey.
Critical and historical texts by D.H. Lawrence, Leo Marx,
Henry Nash Smith, Annette Kolodny, Lawrence Buell.

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Frequent short papers and a final project.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

This course in an American Studies Junior Colloquium. Permission of Instructor forms will be distributed to Junior AMST majors on a first-come-first-served basis in the AMST office beginning on the first day of Preregistration. Others will be admitted during Drop/Add if space is available. This course counts toward the English Department's historicity requirement. Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.

COURSE FORMAT: Discussion

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UG Credit: 1.00 Gen Ed Area & Dept: HA ENGL

Prerequisites: None

Section 01
Stowe, W
Times: M.W.... 2:40PM;
Grading Mode: A/F
Registration Preference (1 high to 6 low, 0=Excluded) Sr: 0, Jr: 1, So: 0, Fr: 0
Major Preference Given

Last Updated on MAR-10-1997




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