ENGL 289 The American Experience in Literature

This survey grapples with the centrality of war to American literature--indeed, to American life. The course moves chronologically through Early American and the American Revolutionary Wars and ends with the War on Terror. We will examine the strengths and limits of depicting war through lyric poetry, short epic poetry, political pamphleteering, oratory, autobiography, and the novel. In addition to considering literary forms, this course considers what understudied voices have to say about what leads to war, the experience of war, and its aftermath. Our readings will include Phillis Wheatley, Timothy Dwight, Philip Freneau, Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, Philip Metres, and Solmaz Sharif, among others.