Twentieth Century American Literature

Dr. Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru, Associate Professor

3rd year English Major – Spring 2019
sabina.draga.alexandru@lls.unibuc.ro

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This survey of Twentieth-Century American literature will combine a historical and

contextual approach with an analysis of form and technique in representative literary works
by mainstream American authors or authors coming from marginal(ized) backgrounds who
have become part of the mainstream. We will challenge and question the literary canon by
constantly signalling the ways in which it has changed and been redefined in time. While
aiming to serve a historicizing function and treat the twentieth century as a whole on which
we can now look back from a comfortable distance, we will do so through the lens of the
present. We will question the changes in the reading of literary works brought about by
various new trends in criticism, as well as by the changes in perspective triggered by social
events and movements. The starting point will be modernist fiction. This will be followed by
the transition from modernism to postmodernism and various ways of negotiating realist
techniques and marginality in fiction, to conclude with the major trends in twentieth century
American poetry and drama. Even though this course is about the American literature written
in the twentieth century as a complete historical period, glimpses into present-day
developments will be used to invite contemporary readings of the recent literary past.

Grading:
Students will be expected to read all required (unstarred) readings listed below on a weekly
basis. By the end of term, every compulsory text should have been covered, as this will be
checked in the final written exam. Starred texts are optional. Students are expected to attend
at least 50% of the lectures, but better attendance is strongly recommended in the interest of
appropriate exam performance. Seminar attendance is compulsory (min. 75%). Students will
be graded on the basis of seminar activity and a final written exam as follows: seminar mark
50%; final written exam (consisting of one course-related topic and a second text-based
topic) 50%. The mark obtained in the final exam will have to be minimum 5 for the
respective student to pass, even if the exam-seminar average is above 5 and irrespective of
the seminar mark. Students who plagiarize their seminar essays can't take the exam the first
time and will have to resit it at a later time. In this case they will receive one extra seminar-
related question in lieu of an essay.

Plagiarism:
Plagiarism at all levels is against University rules and will be severely punished. Plagiarized
essays cannot be rewritten and will lead to the mark 1 for the seminar. Students who
plagiarize seminar essays and are found plagiarizing in the exam again risk being expelled
from the University.

LECTURES:
1. Modernism in Fiction 1: The Lost Generation. E. Hemingway and F. Scott-Fitzgerald
2. Modernism in Fiction 2: W. Faulkner and the American South. Alternative Faulkners
 3. From Modernism to Postmodernism: Vladimir Nabokov. Cognitive approaches to
Lolita
4-5. Postmodernity and Postmodernism. Postmodernist Self-Reflexive Fiction, the
Literature of Replenishment and the Worlds Next Door: K. Vonnegut, T. Pynchon. (Mass
Culture on a Global Level: D. DeLillo)
6-7. Representations of difference in fiction (S. Bellow, R. Ellison, T. Morrison, Alice
Walker, G. Vizenor, S. Alexie, M. H. Kingston, Paul Beatty). Recent Developments in
American Fiction
8. Main Directions in American Drama (E. O’Neill, T. Williams, A. Miller). Glimpses
into Recent American Theater (Tony Kushner, Angels in America).
9-10. Main Trends in Twentieth Century American Poetry. Modernism. Confessional
Poetry and Formal experiment: Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath; J. Ashbery, G. Brooks, A.
Rich. Poetry and Protest: The Beat Generation (Allen Ginsberg). Recent Developments in
American Poetry: The Poetry Foundation Today

Reading List

The underlined texts below are in the graduation exam bibliography for English major
students, so they are to be given particular attention. However, it is mandatory that students
read all unstarred texts and it is the function of seminars and of the final exam to check this.
Titles marked N5 can be found in vol. 2 of the Norton Anthology of American Literature,
Fifth edition, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams see Room 4 library.
Titles marked N2 can be found in the Second edition of the Norton anthology, see BCU
downstairs library in Pitar Mos. Most titles can also be found in newer editions. Novels are
available in the American Studies Center Library (which holds multiple copies of some of
them) and in the downstairs library in Pitar Mos. Handouts to be used in the course and
theoretical and author specific critical material to be referred to will often be emailed to
students in advance of each lecture, so please check your email regularly.

Fiction:

Ernest Hemingway, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (N2, N5), The Sun Also Rises.*
Francis Scott-Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night*.
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury; Absalom, Absalom*
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49,* “Entropy” (N5), Mason and Dixon,* Against the
Day*
Don DeLillo, White Noise, Falling Man*
Saul Bellow, “Looking for Mr Green”, Seize the Day*, Humboldt’s Gift*
Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man (“Prologue”, “Chapter 1”, N2 and N5)
Toni Morrison, Beloved; “Recitatif” (N5); Love*; God Help the Child*
Alice Walker, The Color Purple*; “Everyday Use” (N5)
Gerald Vizenor, “Almost Browne” (N5)
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior (“No Name Woman”, “A Song for a Barbarian
Red Pipe”)
Paul Beatty, *The Sellout
Poetry (see Norton anthologies or online sources such as http://www.poetryfoundation.org/):
Ezra Pound, “Portrait d’une femme”; “A Pact”; “In a Station of the Metro”; “Hugh Selwyn
Mauberley (Life and Contacts)”
Wallace Stevens, “A High-Toned Old Christian Woman”; “Anecdote of the Jar”; “Thirteen
Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”; “Of Modern Poetry”
William Carlos Williams, “Portrait of a Lady”; “The Red Wheelbarrow”; “Landscape with
the Fall of Icarus”
Robert Lowell, “Skunk Hour”; “For the Union Dead”; “Robert Frost”
Sylvia Plath, “The Applicant”; “Lady Lazarus”; “Ariel”; “Daddy”
John Ashbery, “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror”; “Paradoxes and Oxymorons”;
“Introduction”
Gwendolyn Brooks, “A Song in the Front Yard”; “Kitchenette Building”; “The Leaders”
Adrienne Rich, “Snapshots of a Daughter-in Law”; “The Roofwalker”; “Diving into the
Wreck”
Allen Ginsberg, “Howl (I)”; “A Supermarket in California”
Sherman Alexie, “How to Write the Great American Indian Novel”,
(http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/how-to-write-the-great-american-indian-novel/)

Drama:
Eugene O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night (N2 and N5)*
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (N5)
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (N2, N5)*
Tony Kushner, Angels in America*

Selected Critical Bibliography (the content of the course makes use of these secondary
sources; they are to be used by students for reference, according to need):

Ashton, Jennifer. From Modernism to Postmodernism: American Poetry and Theory in the
Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Connor, Steven, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004.
Connoly, Julian W., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005.
Dalsgaard, Inger H., Luc Herman and Brian McHale, eds. The Cambridge Companion to
Thomas Pynchon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Draga, Maria-Sabina. Conditia postmoderna: spre o estetica a identitatilor culturale.
Bucuresti: Editura Universitatii din Bucuresti, 2003.
Draga Alexandru, Maria-Sabina. Identity Performance in Contemporary Non-WASP
American Fiction, Bucuresti: Editura Universitatii din Bucuresti, 2008.
---. ‘Love as Reclamation in Toni Morrison’s African American Rhetoric’, European
Journal of American Culture 27.3, 2008, pp. 191-205.
---. Cultura românească în perspectivă transatlantică. Co-edited with Teodora Serban-
Oprescu. Bucuresti: Editura Universitatii din Bucuresti, 2009.
Duvall, John N. The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008.
Elliot, Emory, gen. ed. Columbia Literary History of the United States. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1988.
Gill, Jo. The Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006.
Glissant, Edouard. Faulkner, Mississippi (1996). Trans. Barbara Lewis and Thomas C. Spear.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. Ohio State University Press, 1987.
Hassan, Ihab. The Postmodern Turn.
Kalaidjian, Walter, ed. The Cambridge Companion to American Modernism. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Krasner, David, ed. A Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama. Oxford:
Blackwell, 2005.
Levenson, Michael, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999.
MacGowan, Christopher. Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Oxford and NewYork: Wiley-
Blackwell 2004.
Marcus, Greil and Werner Sollors. A New Literary History of America. Cambridge, MS and
London: Harvard University Press, 2009.
McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. London and New York: Routledge, 1987.
Mihaila, Rodica. Spatii ale realului in proza americana. Intre autobiografie si evanghelia
postmoderna. Brasov: Concordia, 2000.
---. Turning the Wheel. The Construction of Power Relations in Contemporary American
Women’s Poetry. Bucuresti: Editura Universitatii din Bucuresti, 1995.
---. The American Challenge. An Introduction to the Study of American Civilization.
Bucuresti: Editura Universitatii din Bucuresti, 1994.
Natoli, Joseph and Linda Hutcheon, eds. A Postmodern Reader. State University of New
York Press, 1993.
Parini, Jay, ed. Columbia History of American Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press,
1993.
Pizer, Donald. The Cambridge Companion to American Realism and Naturalism. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Tally, Justine, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Toni Morrison. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007.
Wagner-Martin, Linda. A History of American Literature: 1950 to the Present. Oxford and
Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2013.
Weinstein, Phillip M. The Cambridge Companion to William Faulkner. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Zunshine, Lisa. Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Ohio State University
Press, 2006.