LEKTÜRELISTE ANGLISTIK/AMERIKANISTIK für

Englische/Amerikanische Literaturwissenschaft
Lektüreliste
Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
Institute für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
LEKTÜRELISTE ANGLISTIK/AMERIKANISTIK
für FACHPRÜFUNGEN LITERATURWISSENSCHAFT
IM 2. STUDIENABSCHNITT
bzw. MASTERSTUDIUM
- 2008 -
Vorbemerkung
Im ab WS 2002/03 gültigen Studienplan sind im zweiten Studienabschnitt in der Literaturwissenschaft
je eine mündliche Fachprüfung in Anglistik und Amerikanistik vorgeschrieben. Beide basieren auf
einer Lektüreliste (§13/2). Laut ab WS 2008/09 gültigem Curriculum sind bei MAGISTER Studien
entweder die amerikanistische oder die anglistische Lektüreliste Gegenstand einer Fachprüfung.
Die beiden Teile der nachfolgenden Lektüreliste Anglistik/Amerikanistik sind Grundlage der
genannten Fachprüfungen: Sie verzeichnen die Primärtexte, deren Kenntnis für die Fachprüfungen
erwartet wird, und geben darüber hinaus Rahmen an, innerhalb derer Wahlmöglichkeiten bestehen.
Außerdem stellen sie den Rahmen dar, aus dem die jeweiligen kleineren Lektürelisten für die
Fachprüfung 'Literaturwissenschaft' im ersten Studienabschnitt bzw. Bakkalaureatsstudium erstellt
werden (zur jeweils gültigen Fassung dieser kleineren Liste siehe die semesterweise erscheinenden
Semesterinformationen zur Studienrichtung Anglistik/Amerikanistik).
Im Interesse der Studierenden sollen die individuellen Lektürelisten mit den persönlichen Wahltexten
den jeweiligen Prüfern und Prüferinnen rechtzeitig vor den Prüfungsterminen vorgelegt und mit diesen
abgestimmt werden, um bei eventuell in Details nötigen Änderungen noch genügend Lektürezeit zur
Verfügung zu haben.
Auf den Listen sind unerlässliche Texte mit einer Raute markiert, andere Texte können durch
gleichwertige ersetzt werden.
Die Gültigkeit der – seit 2005 leicht modifizierten – Lektüreliste beginnt mit dem Wintersemester
2009/10. Die Liste liegt in den Sekretariaten der Anglistik (Zi. 310, Zi. 314 und Zi. 315), der
Amerikanistik (Attemsgasse 25/II) und in den Fachbibliotheken A/A auf.
Es wird dringend empfohlen, sich die aufgeführten Werke der Lektüreliste zu besorgen (eine Reihe
von ihnen ist in den jeweils zweibändigen Anthologien, The Norton Anthology of English Literature
und The Heath Anthology of American Literature, zu finden), sich rechtzeitig und langfristig mit
ihnen zu befassen und zur Vorbereitung neben der selbständigen Lektüre geeignete
Lehrveranstaltungen zu besuchen (insbesondere die Vorlesungen “Survey of English Literature“,
„Survey of American Literature“ sowie “Genres and Periods of English Literature” and “Genres and
Periods of American Literature”, aber auch z.B. literaturwissenschaftliche Haupt- und Spezialseminare
sowie Lehrveranstaltungen im Rahmen der Wahlfächer und der freien Wahlfächer).
LEKTÜRELISTE ZUR
ENGLISCHEN LITERATUR
2. Fachprüfung
Zeichenerklärung:
; ... und
* ... in: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th ed.
1. Mittelalter
Chaucer: "To Rosemounde"
1 weiteres mittelalterliches Gedicht (z.B. *"Sumer is ycumen in"; *Adam lay ybounden")
Auszüge aus Chaucer: Canterbury Tales (*"General Prologue"; 1 der folgenden Erzählungen *"The Miller's
Tale" oder *"The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" oder *"The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale" oder
*"The Nun's Priest's Tale" oder "The Knight's Tale" oder "The Monk's Tale)
1 Mystery Play (z.B. *The Second Shepherds' Play)
1 Morality Play (z.B. The Castle of Perseverance oder *Everyman)
2. 16. und früheres 17. Jahrhundert
2 frühe Sonette (z.B. von *Wyatt oder Surrey oder *Spenser oder *Sidney)
Spenser: Auszüge aus The Faerie Queene (Book VI, Canto X: "Calidore sees the Graces daunce to Colin's
melody", Strophen 1-28)
Shakespeare: *4 Sonette (z.B. Nr. 18, 116, 129, 130)
Donne: 2 Gedichte (z.B. *"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" oder *"The Sun Rising" oder *"Death, be
not proud")
Herbert: *"Easter Wings" oder *"The Collar" oder *"The Pulley"
Herrick: *"Delight in Disorder"
Milton: Auszüge aus Paradise Lost (*Book I, 1-124; *Book IV, 285-535; *Book XII, 466-Schluss)
Marvell: *"To His Coy Mistress"
1 Prosatext (Auszüge aus More: *Utopia oder Nashe: The Unfortunate Traveller oder Bunyan: Auszüge aus
*The Pilgrim's Progress oder Congreve: Incognita oder A. Behn: *Oroonoko)
1 elisabethanisches Drama außer Shakespeare (z.B. Marlowe: *Dr. Faustus oder Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy
oder Ben Jonson: Volpone)
Shakespeare: Hamlet; 2 der folgenden Dramen: Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Julius
Caesar; 2 Komödien (z.B. A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It)
3. Späteres 17. und früheres 18. Jahrhundert
Addison, Steele: The Spectator (Nr. 1 und *2, *10 [Einführung], 6 und 75 [Adelskritik], *519 [Chain of
Being])
Pope: Auszüge aus *Essay on Man (Epistle 1 und Teil von Epistle 2 wie in The Norton Anthology); Auszüge
aus Pastorals ("A Discourse on Pastoral Poetry"; "Spring"); Auszüge aus The Rape of the Lock
(*Canto 1, V.1-6, 121-148; *Canto 3, V.1-18);
Gray: *"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" oder McPherson: Auszug aus Fragments of Ancient Poetry
(z.B. "Fragment 7") oder 2 Balladen (z.B. *"Sir Patrick Spens" oder *"The Three Ravens")
Swift: *A Modest Proposal; Auszug aus *Gulliver's Travels (1 Buch)
Defoe: Robinson Crusoe oder Moll Flanders oder Roxana
Richardson: Pamela I oder Auszüge aus Clarissa (Everyman: Inhaltsangaben der 4 Bücher; Briefe I, 1-36,
94; II, 125-129; III, 1, 27-30, 67, 83-88; IV, 56, 111-121, 135-138, 149, 173-Concl. oder Penguin:
Inhaltsangaben der 4 Bücher aus der Everyman-Ausg.; Briefe 1-36, 94, 224-229, 255-258, 295, 311315, 417, 472-482, 496-499, 510.4, 543-Concl.)
Fielding: Tom Jones oder Joseph Andrews (inkl. "Preface")
Auszug aus Sterne: Tristram Shandy (Buch I)
1 Restoration Comedy (z.B. Wycherley: The Country Wife oder Congreve: *The Way of the World)
1 Komödie des 18. Jhs. (z.B. Steele: The Conscious Lovers oder Gay: *The Beggar's Opera oder Goldsmith:
She Stoops to Conquer)
oder
1 Tragödie des 18. Jhs. (z.B. Lillo: The London Merchant oder Addison: Cato)
4. Späteres 18. und 19. Jahrhundert
Blake: *"The Sick Rose"; *"The Lamb"; *"The Tyger"
Burns: *"Holy Willie's Prayer"
Wordsworth: 3 Gedichte (z.B. *"I wandered lonely as a cloud"; "Tintern Abbey"; *"Composed upon
Westminster Bridge"; *"She dwelt among the untrodden ways"; *"Immortality Ode")
Coleridge: *"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" oder *"Kubla Khan"
Byron: Beppo oder Auszüge aus *Don Juan (Canto I)
Shelley: *"Ozymandias" oder *"England in 1819" oder *"The Cloud"
1 Sonett von Keats (z.B. *"On First Looking into Chapman's Homer")
1 Ode von Shelley oder Keats (z.B. *"Ode to the West Wind" oder *"Ode to a Nightingale")
Tennyson: *"Ulysses"; *"Crossing the Bar"; Auszüge aus *In Memoriam (Nr. III; LIV-LVI; XCV; XCVI;
CVI; CXIV; CXVII; CXX; CXXX)
Browning: *"My Last Duchess"
Arnold: *"Dover Beach"
Hopkins: *"Pied Beauty"
1 Gothic Novel (z.B. H. Walpole: The Castle of Otranto oder A. Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho oder
M. Shelley: *Frankenstein) oder 1 historischer Roman von Scott (z.B. Waverley)
Jane Austen: 1 Roman (z.B. Sense and Sensibility oder Pride and Prejudice)
Dickens: 1 Roman (z.B. Oliver Twist oder Hard Times oder Great Expectations oder David Copperfield oder
Bleak House)
Ch. Brontë: Jane Eyre oder E. Brontë: Wuthering Heights
Thackeray: Vanity Fair oder Henry Esmond oder G. Eliot: Middlemarch oder Adam Bede
Carroll: Alice in Wonderland oder Through the Looking Glass
Hardy: Tess of the d'Urbervilles oder Jude the Obscure
Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray
1 Melodrama des 19. Jhs. (z.B. Boucicault: The Colleen Bawn oder Taylor: The Ticket-of-Leave Man)
oder
1 Problem Play des späten 19. bzw. frühen 20. Jhs. (z.B. Pinero: The Second Mrs. Tanqueray oder
Galsworthy: Justice)
1 Komödie von Oscar Wilde (z.B. *The Importance of Being Earnest)
5. 20. Jahrhundert (1. Hälfte)
Hardy: *"The Convergence of the Twain" oder *"The Darkling Thrush"
Owen: *"Strange Meeting"
Eliot: Auszüge aus *The Waste Land (I. "The Burial of the Dead"; II. "A Game of Chess"; III. "The Fire
Sermon", 214-248; V. "What the Thunder Said", 395-Schluss); *"The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock" oder "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" und *"The Journey of the Magi"
Yeats: *"Sailing to Byzantium" oder *"The Second Coming" oder *"Leda and the Swan"
Lawrence: *"Snake" oder *"Bavarian Gentians"
Auden: *"Musée des Beaux Arts" oder "The Unknown Citizen"
Thomas: *"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
Conrad: *Heart of Darkness oder Lord Jim
Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man oder Auszüge aus Ulysses (z.B. IV [Calypso]; *VIII
[Lestrygonians]; XI [Sirens]; XIII [Nausicaa]; XVII [Penelope])
Woolf: Mrs Dalloway oder To the Lighthouse
oder
"Kew Gardens"; "Moments of Being"; "The String Quartet"; Mansfield: "The Voyage"
Mansfield: "Bliss"
Beckett: Murphy oder Molloy
oder
1 anderer Roman (Lawrence: Women in Love oder Lady Chatterley's Lover oder Forster: A Passage to
India oder Waugh: Decline and Fall oder Braine: Room at the Top oder Huxley: Brave New World
oder Orwell: 1984 (Anm.: Huxley u. Orwell v.a. in Kombination mit More: Utopia zu empfehlen) oder
Spark: The Comforters oder Greene: The Heart of the Matter oder The Power and the Glory oder The
Third Man oder Murdoch: Under the Net oder Golding: Lord of the Flies)
oder
Joyce: *"The Dead" und drei weitere Kurzgeschichten (z.B. siehe oben zu Woolf u. Mansfield oder
Lawrence: *"Odour of Chrysanthemums" oder Beckett: "Dante and the Lobster" oder Joyce: ein
weiterer Text aus Dubliners oder Maugham oder Lawrence oder Greene oder Wilson aus: The Penguin
Book of English Short Stories, ed. Chr. Dolley)
1 Beispiel des Irish Dramatic Revival (z.B. Synge: The Playboy of the Western World)
1 Drama von Shaw (z.B. *Mrs Warren's Profession oder Pygmalion oder St. Joan)
6. 20. Jahrhundert (2. Hälfte) und Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts
Larkin: *"Church Going"
Plath: "Lady Lazarus"
Hughes: "Hawk Roosting"
1 Gedicht von Heaney
Fowles: The French Lieutenant's Woman
1 weiterer postmodern-experimenteller Roman (z.B. D. Lessing: The Golden Notebook oder B. S. Johnson:
Albert Angelo oder Lodge: The British Museum Is Falling Down oder Small World oder Murdoch: The
Black Prince oder Brooke-Rose: Thru oder Gray: Lanark)
oder
1 'historiographic metafiction' (Bradbury: The History Man oder Fowles: A Maggot oder Rushdie:
Midnight's Children oder Swift: Waterland oder Ever After oder Barnes: Flaubert's Parrot oder The
History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters oder Byatt: Possession oder Lively: Moon Tiger)
oder
1 weiterer zeitgenössischer Roman (z.B. Barnes: England, England oder McEwan: Atonement oder
Ishiguro oder Ackroyd oder M. Amis)
2 Kurzgeschichten aus der Zeit seit 1960 (z.B. von Josipovici oder McEwan oder Carter: "The Bloody
Chamber" oder aus The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories, ed. M. Bradbury)
1 Roman der 'New Literatures in English' (z.B. Gordimer: July's People oder Coetzee: Disgrace oder
Rushdie: Midnight's Children oder Kureishi: The Buddha of Suburbia oder Arundhati Roy: The God of
Small Things oder Seth: An Equal Music oder Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea (in Verbindung mit Ch.
Brontë: Jane Eyre) oder Atwood: Surfacing oder Alias Grace oder Ondaatje: The English Patient oder
Anne Michaels: Fugitive Pieces oder V. S. Naipaul oder Ch. Achebe: Things Fall Apart)
oder
1 Roman oder Langtext mit feministischer Thematik aus dem 20. Jh. (z.B. Woolf: *A Room of One's
Own oder D. Lessing: The Golden Notebook oder Fay Weldon: The Life and Loves of a She Devil oder
1 Roman von M. Drabble oder J. Winterson)
1 Drama von Beckett (z.B. Waiting for Godot oder *Endgame)
1 Drama von Pinter (z.B. The Caretaker oder Betrayal oder *The Dumb Waiter oder The Birthday Party)
1 Drama von Stoppard (z.B. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead oder Jumpers oder Travesties oder
*The Real Inspector Hound)
1 weiteres Drama: Osborne: Look Back in Anger oder Arden (z.B. Serjeant Musgrave's Dance) oder Bond
(z.B. Saved oder Summer oder Bingo) oder Wesker (z.B. Chicken Soup with Barley) oder P. Shaffer
(z.B. Equus oder Amadeus) oder Brenton (z.B. Magnificence) oder Churchill (z.B. Vinegar Tom) oder
Ayckbourn (z.B. A Chorus of Disapproved) oder Storey (z.B. Home) oder Orton (z.B. What the Butler
Saw) oder Nichols (z.B. A Day in the Death of Joe Egg) oder Friel (z.B. Philadelphia, Here I Come)
READING LIST – AMERICAN LITERATURE
ZWEITE FACHPRÜFUNG
For the “Zweite Fachprüfung zur Amerikanischen Literatur,” you have to prepare the whole canon of American
Literature.
A few words of explanation: The texts listed under “A - Required reading” are mandatory. The section “B –
Optional reading” allows you to choose between a certain number of texts and authors. Please make sure that
you read the required amount of texts.
You should pick at least two longer texts (novels, plays) per section from the optional list. Should you wish to
add a text that is not listed, please discuss this in advance with your examiner.
EARLY ENCOUNTERS (15TH AND 16TH CENTURIES)
Genres: Journals, Reports, Native American Tales of Origin.
Optional reading (Please choose at least one text from the list):
Christopher Columbus, “The First Voyage” (1492) (written by Bartolomé de Las Casas); “The Second
Voyage” (1493) (written by Michele de Cuneo); “The Third Voyage: The Terrestrial Paradise” (1498).
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, La Relación (1542).
COLONIAL AND PURITAN LITERATURE (1620S – 1760S)
Genres: Indian Captivity Narratives, Jeremiads, Sermons, Spiritual Autobiographies.
A) Required reading (Read all texts mentioned below):
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation (written between 1630 and 1651).
Jonathan Edwards, excerpts from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741).
John Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity" (speech held in 1630, published: 1830s).
B) Optional reading (Please choose at least two texts from the list):
Anne Bradstreet, The Tenth Muse, lately Sprung up in America, or, Several Poems Compiled with Great
Variety of Wit and Learning (1678). (esp. “The Author to her Book”).
Cotton Mather, excerpts from Wonders of the Invisible World (1693); Magnalia Christi Americana (1702).
Mary Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682).
Captain John Smith, excerpts from The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles
(1624).
Michael Wigglesworth, excerpts from The Day of Doom (1662).
CLASSICAL ROMANTICISM, REVOLUTIONARY/POST-REVOLUTIONARY TEXTS (1770S –
1820S)
Genres: Epistolary Novels, Frontier Novels, Gothic Fiction, Pamphlets, Picaresque Novels, Political Satires,
Seduction Novels, Short Fiction, Slave Narratives.
A) Required reading (Read all texts mentioned below):
Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly, or, Memoirs of a Sleepwalker (1799).
Jean Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (1782).
Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1819); “Rip Van Winkle” (1819).
Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence (1776).
Susanna Rowson, Charlotte Temple, A Tale of Truth (1791/94).
B) Optional reading (Please choose at least four texts by different authors):
Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Modern Chivalry: Containing the Adventures of Captain John Farrago and
Teague O'Regan, His Servant (1792-97).
Charles Brockden Brown, Alcuin (1798); Wieland, or, The Transformation (1798); Arthur Mervyn, or Memoirs
of the Year 1793 (1799/1800).
William Hill Brown, The Power of Sympathy, or, The Triumph of Nature (1789).
James Fenimore Cooper, The Spy, A Tale of the Neutral Ground (1821); The Pioneers (1823); The Last of the
Mohicans (1826).
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789).
Hannah Foster, The Coquette (1797).
Benjamin Franklin, excerpts from The Autobiography (1793, written between 1771 and 1790).
Peter Markoe, The Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania (1787).
Thomas Paine, excerpts from Common Sense (1776).
Susanna Rowson, Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom (1794).
Tabitha Gilman Tenney, Female Quixotism (1801).
Royall Tyler, The Contrast (1787); The Algerine Captive (1797).
Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America” (1773); “To His Excellency, George
Washington” (1776).
ROMANTICISM AND AMERICAN RENAISSANCE (1820S – 1860S)
Genres: Dark Romanticism, Detective Fiction, Epic Novels, Short Fiction, Transcendentalism, Sentimental
Novel, Slave Narratives, Travel Literature.
A) Required reading (Read all texts mentioned below):
Emily Dickinson, “There’s a certain slant of light” (publ. posthumously 1890); “I heard a Fly buzz – when I
died” (publ. posth. 1896); “Much Madness is divinest Sense” (publ. posth. 1955).
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature" (1836).
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” (1835); The Scarlet Letter (1850).
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or, The Whale (1851); “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (1853).
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839); “The Black Cat” (1843); “The Raven” (1845).
Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854).
Walt Whitman, “I Sing the Body Electric”; “Mannahatta”; “Song of Myself” (1855-92).
B) Optional reading (Please choose at least five texts by different authors):
William Apess, A Son of the Forest, The Experience of William Apes, A Native of the Forest (1829); “An
Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man” (1833).
William Wells Brown, Clotel, or, The President’s Daughter (1853).
Maria Susanna Cummins, The Lamplighter (1854).
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845).
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” (1837); “Self-Reliance” (1841).
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “My Kinsman, Major Molineaux” (1832); “The Minister’s Black Veil” (1836); “The
Birthmark” (1843); “Rappaccini’s Daughter” (1844); “Ethan Brand” (1850); The House of the Seven Gables
(1851).
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861).
Herman Melville, Typee (1846); Mardi (1849); “Benito Cereno” (1855); Billy Budd (1891).
Edgar Allan Poe, “Ligeia” (1838); Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838); “The Man of the Crowd” (1840);
“A Descent into the Maelström” (1841); “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841); “The Tell-Tale Heart”
(1843); “The Philosophy of Composition” (1846).
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).
Henry David Thoreau, Resistance to Civil Government (Civil Disobedience) (1849).
Susan Warner, The Wide, Wide World (1850).
REALISM AND NATURALISM (1865 – 1920S)
Genres: Expatriate Literature, Impressionism, Local Color, Melodrama, Muckraking, Novel of Manners,
Psychological Realism, Regionalism, Tales of Adventure, Tall Tales, Utopian Fiction, Western Fiction.
A) Required reading (Read all texts mentioned below):
Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat” (1898).
Samuel Langhorne Clemens [Mark Twain], Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
W.E.B. DuBois, excerpts from The Souls of Black Folk (1903).
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1881).
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892).
Jack London, “To Build a Fire” (1908).
B) Optional reading (Please choose at least six texts by different authors):
Mary Antin, The Promised Land (1912).
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1887).
Ambrose Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890).
Abraham Cahan, Yekl: A Tale of The New York Ghetto (1896); The Rise of David Levinsky (1917).
Charles Chesnutt, “The Passing of Grandison” (1899); The House Behind the Cedars (1900); The Marrow of
Tradition (1901).
Kate Chopin, Bayou Folk (1894); A Night in Acadie (1897); The Awakening (1899).
Samuel Langhorne Clemens [Mark Twain], “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (1865); The
Innocents Abroad (1869); Roughing It (1872); The Gilded Age (1873); A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur’s Court (1889).
Stephen Crane, Maggie, A Girl on the Streets (1893); The Red Badge of Courage (1895).
Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900); The Titan (1914); An American Tragedy (1925).
Zane Grey, The Riders of the Purple Sage (1912).
Bret Harte, “The Luck of Roaring Camp” (1868); “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” (1869).
Pauline E. Hopkins, Contending Forces (1900).
William Dean Howells, A Modern Instance (1882); The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885); A Traveler from Altruria
(1894).
Henry James, Daisy Miller (1878); “The Real Thing” (1892); “The Figure in the Carpet” (1896); The Turn of
the Screw (1898); The Ambassadors (1903); “The Beast in the Jungle” (1903).
Sarah Orne Jewett, “A White Heron” (1886); The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896).
James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912).
Jack London, The Abysmal Brute (1913); The Iron Heel (1908); The Sea-Wolf (1904); The Call of the Wild
(1903); White Fang (1906); Martin Eden (1909).
Frank Norris, Moran of the Lady Letty (1898); Mc Teague, a Story of San Francisco (1899); A Man’s Woman
(1900); The Octopus (1901); Vandover and the Brute (1914 [1895]).
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906).
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905); The Age of Innocence (1920).
Owen Wister, The Virginian (1901).
Anzia Yezierska, “Children of Loneliness” (1923); Bread Givers (1925).
MODERNISM (1900S – 1950S)
Genres: Agitprop Theater, Avant-garde, Collage Texts, Expatriate Literature, Experimental Fiction & Poetry,
Expressionist Drama, Harlem Renaissance, Novels of Passing, Social Problem Writing.
A) Required reading (Read all texts mentioned below):
T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land” (1922).
William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” (1930); “Barn Burning” (1939).
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925).
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926); “The Killers” (1927); “The Short Happy Life of Francis
Macomber” (1936).
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937).
B) Optional reading (Please choose at least four texts by different authors):
Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1918).
Djuna Barnes, Nightwood (1936).
Hart Crane, The Bridge (1930).
E.E. Cummings, “in just –“ (1920); “since feeling is first” (1951).
H.D., HERmione (1927/1981).
John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer (1925); excerpts from U.S.A Trilogy (1930–1936).
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929); Light in August (1932); Absalom, Absalom! (1936).
Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” (1916); “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (1922).
Susan Glaspell, Trifles (1916); Allison’s House (1931).
Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (1928).
Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time (1925); “Hills Like White Elephants” (1927); A Farewell to Arms (1929);
“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (1936); The Old Man and the Sea (1952).
Langston Hughes, “I, Too, Sing America” (1925); The Ways of White Folks (1934); “Dream Deferred
(Harlem)” (1951).
Nella Larsen, Quicksand (1928); Passing (1929).
Sinclair Lewis, Main Street (1921); Babbitt (1922); Elmer Gantry (1927).
Claude McKay, “The White House” (1922).
Arthur Miller, All My Sons (1947); Death of a Salesman (1949); The Crucible (1953); A View from the Bridge
(1955/56).
Clifford Odets, Waiting for Lefty (1935).
Eugene O’Neill, The Emperor Jones (1920); The Hairy Ape (1922); Mourning Becomes Electra (1931); Long
Day’s Journey Into Night (1941).
Ezra Pound, “In a Station of the Metro” (1913); excerpts from Cantos (1917-69).
Theodore Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz” (1942).
Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons (1914); The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family's Progress
(1925); The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933).
John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat (1935); Of Mice and Men (1937); The Grapes of Wrath (1939); East of Eden
(1952).
Wallace Stevens, “The Idea of Order at Key West” (1934).
Jean Toomer, Cane (1923).
Carl Van Vechten, Nigger Heaven (1926).
Thornton Wilder, Our Town (1938).
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944); A Streetcar Named Desire (1948); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(1955); Sweet Bird of Youth (1959).
William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow” (1923); “This Is Just to Say” (1934).
Richard Wright, Uncle Tom’s Children (1938); Native Son (1940); American Hunger (1977).
POSTWAR LITERATURE, ETHNIC AND BEAT WRITING (1940S – 1970S)
Genres: Anti-Detective Fiction, Beat Literature, Black Literature, Confessional Poetry, Experimental Urban
Writing, Feminist Literature, Jazz Poetry, Native American Renaissance, New Journalism, Queer Literature,
Quest Narratives, Neo-Slave Narratives.
A) Required reading (Read all texts mentioned below):
Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March (1953).
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952).
Allen Ginsberg, “Howl” (1956).
Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957).
Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (1955).
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951).
B) Optional reading (Please choose at least three texts by different authors):
Edward Albee, The Zoo Story (1958); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962).
James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953); “Notes of a Native Son” (1955); Giovanni’s Room (1956);
“Going to Meet the Man” (1965).
Amiri Baraka, Dutchman (1964); The System of Dante’s Hell (1965); A Black Mass (1966).
Saul Bellow, “Looking for Mr. Green” (1951); Henderson the Rain King (1959); Herzog (1964).
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953).
William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (1959).
Truman Capote, In Cold Blood (1966).
Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun (1959).
Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961).
Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead (1948); “The White Negro” (1957).
Bernard Malamud, “The Magic Barrel” (1954); The Assistant (1957).
Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940); “The Jockey” (1941).
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955/1958).
Sylvia Plath, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960); The Bell Jar (1963); Ariel (1965).
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (1943); Atlas Shrugged (1957).
Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint (1969); I Married a Communist (1998); The Human Stain (2000).
J.D. Salinger, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” (1948); “Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes” (1951).
John Updike, Rabbit, Run (1960); Rabbit Redux (1971).
Gore Vidal, The City and the Pillar (1946); Myra Breckinridge (1968); Kalki (1978).
Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X [with Alex Haley] (1965).
POSTMODERNISM AND NEO-REALISM (1960S – TODAY)
Genres: Anti-Detective Fiction, Confessional Poetry, Experimental Urban Writing, Feminist Literature, Magical
Realism, Native American Renaissance, New Journalism, Queer Literature, Neo-Slave Narratives.
A) Required reading (Read all texts mentioned below):
Gloria Anzaldúa, “To Live in the Borderlands Means You” (from Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza,
1987/2007).
John Barth, “Lost in the Funhouse” (1968).
Jonathan S. Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005).
Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987).
B) Optional reading (Please choose at least five texts by different authors):
Kathy Acker, Empire of the Senseless (1988).
Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993); Indian Killer (1996); The Absolutely
True Diary of a Part Time Indian (2007).
Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969).
Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy (1987); In the Country of Last Things (1987); Moon Palace (1989).
Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America (1967).
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street (1984); “Woman Hollering Creek” (1991).
Don DeLillo, White Noise (1985); Libra (1988); Mao II (1992); Falling Man (2007).
Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007).
Bret Easton Ellis, Less than Zero (1985); American Psycho (1991).
Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine (1984); Tracks (1988).
Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (2002).
Leslie Feinberg, Stonebutch Blues (1993).
Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (2001); Freedom (2010).
Jonathan S. Foer, Everything Is Illuminated (2002).
Cristina García, Monkey Hunting (2003).
William Gass, “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country” (1968).
Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007).
Joy Harjo, “She Had Some Horses” (1983); “I Give You Back” (1983).
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts (1975).
John Irving, The World According to Garp (1978).
Randa Jarrar, A Map of Home (2008).
Gish Jen, “In the American Society” (1991).
Stephen King, Pet Semetary (1984); Misery (1987).
Tony Kushner, Angels in America (1993).
David Leavitt, The Lost Language of the Cranes (1986).
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969); The Dispossessed (1974).
Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City (1978); Michael Tolliver Lives (2007).
Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men (2005); The Road (2006).
N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969).
Paul Monette, Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story (1992).
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1970); “Recitatif” (1983); Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary
Imagination (1992); Jazz (1992); Paradise (1997); A Mercy (2008).
Bharati Mukherjee, Jasmine (1989).
Marsha Norman, ‘Night Mother (1983).
Joyce C. Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (1966); “How I Contemplated the World”
(1969); them (1969); Black Water (1992); Blonde (2000).
Dale Peck, Martin and John (1993).
Thomas Pynchon, “Entropy” (1960); V (1963); The Crying of Lot 49 (1966); Gravity’s Rainbow (1973);
Vineland (1990); Mason & Dixon (1997).
Matt Ruff, Fool on the Hill (1988).
Sapphire [Ramona Lofton], Push (1996).
Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres (1991).
Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club (1989).
John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces (1980 [1963]).
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969).
Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982).
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (1996); “Death Is Not the End” (1999); “Brief Interviews with Hideous
Men” (1999).
Wendy Wasserstein, The Heidi Chronicles (1990).
Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange (1997).