English 449—Fall 2004 Professor Hans Ostrom
Welcome to English 449. Here is some basic information:
English Department’s telephone: x3235 (messages); my telephone: x3434 (voice mail). Electronic mail: ostrom@ups.edu. The English Department’s mailboxes are located in the room next to the Philosophy Department’s main office on the third floor of Wyatt Hall.
My office: Wyatt 336. Office Hours: T-Th, 9:30-11:30, and by appointment.
Home page: www.ups.edu/faculty/ostrom/. A printable copy of this syllabus is posted there.
The University’s Equal Opportunity Statement
The University of Puget Sound does not discriminate in education or employment on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, religion, creed, age, disability, marital or familial status, sexual orientation, Vietnam-era veteran status, gender identity, or any other basis prohibited by local, state, or federal laws. This policy complies with the spirit and the letter of applicable federal, state and local laws, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Questions about the policy may be referred to the University's Director of Human Resources and Affirmative Action (253-879-3116) or the Office of Civil Rights, Department of Education, Washington, D.C. 20202.
Twentieth-Century American Literature
Twentieth-century American literature is so abundant and varied that it cannot be contained in any single course. We can, however, read several important, representative works published in different periods of the century, works that emerged from markedly different perspectives. In our discussion and analyses of what we read, we can also point to other works and authors and enlarge our sense of the literary era. And we can establish a foundation from which to approach literature we encounter later.
The provisional subtitle of the course is “American dreams and nightmares”--a familiar tag, to be sure. In the 20th century, the United States became a superpower, became the most influential, privileged nation on Earth, thereby fulfilling a variety of American aspirations. In the process, the U.S. also experienced national and international nightmares—crises of awful proportions.
Among these nightmares were virulent racism, which included lynching, church bombing, Jim Crow laws & other kinds of segregation; a severe backlash against the Civil Rights Movement & the American Indian Movement; political assassinations; McCarthyism; the nuclear-arms “race” with the Soviet Union; the war in Southeast Asia & protests against it; the political trauma springing, so to speak, from Watergate; the prospect of environmental devastation; a doubling of the Earth’s population during a single generation; and a variety of alleged “culture wars” involving “counter-culture” movements, the so-called Sexual Revolution, and the Women’s Movement, for example.
The phrase “American dreams and nightmares” points, then, to an apparent collision between great achievements by and overwhelming problems in the U.S. and the world during the period out of which this literature springs. It also points to a conflict between the status quo (which many people saw as a nightmare) and changes many people regarded as partial fulfillments of aspirations or partial relief from kinds of oppression. “Dream” vs. “Nightmare” is often a matter of perspective, in other words.
Please look at “The University’s Equal Opportunity Statement” above. What American aspirations does it implicitly attempt to safeguard, and what American conflicts lie behind it? Think of the statement as a kind of prose-poem and interpret it.
One can make a case for almost any century’s being one of extremes, but the case is perhaps easiest to make for the 20th century, and so one might argue that its literature is inevitably involved with extremes of experience and perception; being thus involved, the literature arguably “needed” to reinvent genres and other modes of writing that had come before—hence the phenomena of Modernism and Post-modernism, to identify only two of several movements involving art in general and literature in particular.
We will focus most of our attention on works from two genres: lyric poetry and the novel, but each of you will also read one play and give a presentation about it to the class. Secondary sources will support our discussions and the essays you write. We will study this literature to see how it reflects the 20th century, and we will ask ourselves how revolutionary it is, as well as how it fits in with established literary traditions. We will ask ourselves the extent to which this literature changes our perceptions of the 20th century and of our experiences today. We will try to learn from one another.
Books Required for the Course
Please purchase right away the following nine books, read them according to the schedule, and bring them to class on the appropriate days. If you find one of them to be difficult, don’t give up on it or on yourself as you read it.
Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely (New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 1992).
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (New York: Vintage International, 2000; the corrected text).
William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (New York: Penguin, 2003).
Jack Kerouac, On the Road (New York: Penguin Classic, 1999). With an introduction by Ann Charters.
Gloria Naylor, Linden Hills (New York: Penguin, 1985).
Fae Mae Ng, Bone (New York: Perennial, 1994).
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (New York: Perennial Classics, 1999).
Ramazani, Ellmann, and O’Clair, editors, The Norton Anthology of Poetry—Volume II: Contemporary Poetry (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003).
Thomas Sanchez, Rabbit Boss (New York: Vintage, 1989).
Then, later in the term, either purchase from a bookstore or borrow from a library a copy of one of the following plays:
Auburn, David, Proof
Baraka, Amiri [LeRoi Jones] Dutchman
Fuller, Charles, A Soldier’s Pay
Hansberry, Lorraine, A Raisin in the Sun
Henley, Beth, Crimes of the Heart
Kushner, Tony, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches
Mamet, David, Glengarry Glen Ross
Margulies, Don, Dinner With Friends
Miller, Arthur, Death of a Salesman
Miller, Jason, That Championship Season
Shange, Ntozake, FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED
SUICIDE WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF
Hwang, David
Henry, either The Gate of Heaven or M. Butterfly
Shepard, Sam, Buried Child
Williams, Tennessee, The Glass Menagerie
Wilson, August, either Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom or The Piano Lesson
The Etiquette and Atmosphere of the Course
Here are some guidelines to which all of us should try to adhere. None of them will be surprising to you or difficult for us to follow. Indeed, I hope they’ll seem familiar, even obvious, but sometimes it’s good to reaffirm the familiar. All are aimed at creating a productive, workable environment.
Elements on Which Your Grade Will Be Based
Participation (attendance, productive contribution to discussions, keeping up with the reading, working on drafts, etc.): about 20 per cent
Two essays: about 50 per cent—25 per cent each
Two tests: about 20—10 per cent each
One oral presentation: about 10 per cent
Questions, Questions
Here are some topics, presented in the form of questions, that are associated with 20th century American literature. They will shape many of our discussions and the whole course itself. What other questions associated with this literature do you regard as important? Give that question some thought, too.
*What is “America”? Is it destined or doomed? Neither or both? To whom does it belong? What is its relation to its past, the rest of the world, and God? What is your relationship to it? How do such persistent, anxious questions inform American literature?
*What is the nature of American wealth: who has it, who wants it, who pays for it, what does it do to those who have it and those who don’t? (The same questions apply to privilege). What characterizes the American middle class? The American working class? Literature about these social classes?
*How do gender, ethnicity, and/or sexuality affect one’s “Americanness”?
*What do we and these authors make of certain American landscapes: the wilderness, the prairie, the suburb, the city, “the City on a Hill,” the “ghetto,” “the road,” the secret labyrinths of power, the small town, cyberspace, the corporation, and the mall?
*If, once upon a time, the U.S. was not just the land of opportunity but the land of individualism and opportunity, what, if anything, has happened since then? Does “the individual” exist anymore (that’s a post-modernist question)? If so, can “the individual” effect any meaningful societal, political, or economic change? What are the origins of these myths—by which I mean in this case “national narratives”—of individualism and opportunity?
*What happens to “the novel,” “the poem,” and “the play” when they find themselves in the hands of 20th century American writers? Or—how and why do genres change and resist change? In what ways do the authors we read in fact, “make it [literature] new,” in Ezra Pound’s Modernist words?
*Are the works of famous writers like Faulkner, Chandler, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Plath, Brooks, and Pynchon really what we have been told they are? How do they change on subsequent readings (if you’ve read some of these texts before)? What surprises you about these works and writers? Always note when you’re surprised.
*About any work you read, ask, “Where does it come from?”—that is, out of what cultural history, literary history, or genre-history does it spring? Out of what perspectives (regional, political, chronological, gender-oriented, ethnic, or otherwise) does in spring? Look for both obvious and not-so-obvious answers. Think about things you’ve read that pre-date the work you’re reading and look for correlations, if not necessarily for causes and effect, which are harder to prove.
*If the literature we read and issues we discuss combine to create a kind of mural depicting the United States in the 20th century, then how would you describe that mural?
*Almost all of you were born in the 1980s, whereas your professor was born in the 1880s. What is your perspective on the years before your birth, between 1900 and 1983? What narratives have you learned about these years, which ones do you believe, which ones do you doubt, and which ones do you repeat? What do you not know that you would like to know about those years?
Schedule of Class Meetings, Readings, and Topics
There is a detailed plan for the whole course, but changes to the schedule are virtually inevitable, so bring the syllabus to class each session in case we need to discuss some rearrangements. For upcoming sessions, I will--in class each time--elaborate on as well as reaffirm what is scheduled and what is due.
* * *
Monday, August 30: An overview of the course. Read the syllabus carefully, in part to determine whether, indeed, you do want to take the course and whether you can abide the professor. We will start building a literary and historical chronology of the 20th century, and we will begin to discuss Modernism and Post-Modernism.
Wednesday, September 1: In medeas res: read The Crying of Lot 49 through Chapter 4 (page 79 of the Harper Perennial paperback edition). On just this side of mid-century, what is the novel’s perspective on the United States? What is the novel’s relationship to a) the origins and history of the novel and b) the history of the American novel? Chart the plot through page 79.
Friday, September 3: Finish reading The Crying of Lot 49. Who is at the center and who is at the margins of the novel’s society? What kind of novel is this? Characterize Pynchon’s language. Assuming this is a post-modern novel, what in particular is post-modern about it? (Definitions, please.) In what sense is this a quest-narrative? Who’s on the quest (“who’s on first?”), and what is she or he (what are they) after? What is the shape or progress of the quest? How does the quest compare to other well known quests? What is American about this novel? To what extent is the perspective of the novel naïve or innocent, as opposed to hip and jaded (a loaded question, to be sure)?
Wednesday, September 8: For today, read the “Introduction” to our anthology, Contemporary Poetry, and read Kenneth Koch’s “One Train May Hide Another,” which is, in part, about reading poetry (and literature in general).
And for today, also read some poetry at (roughly) mid-century: Karl Shapiro, “The Fly” (1942), “Manhole Covers” (1968); Randall Jarrell, “90 North” (1942), “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” (1945), and “Next Day” (1965); Richard Wilbur, “Playboy” (1969); Gwendolyn Brooks, “The Vacant Lot” (1945), “The Bean Eaters” and “We Real Cool” (1960); Robert Lowell, “For the Union Dead,” “Skunk Hour,” and “Commander Lowell” (1959). Try to put these poets and their poems in conversation. What is especially American about these poems, and what is especially not—and why? What are the varieties of poetic form and poetic language here? Be sure to read as many of these poems out loud as you can and as your living-situation allows.
Friday, September 10: Technological poems: Charles Olson, “The Thing Was Moving,” William Stafford, “At the Bomb Testing Site,” Howard Nemerov, “Gyroscope,” Richard Wilbur, “The Death of a Toad,” Alan Dugan, “On Being a Householder,” Maxine Kumin, “Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief,” David Wagoner, “Elegy for a Forest Clear-Cut by the Weyerhaeuser Company,” W.S. Merwin, “The Drunk in the Furnace,” James Wright, “Small Frogs Killed on the Highway,” Adrienne Rich, “Planetarium,” Sylvia Plath, “Cut,” Alan Ginsberg, “A Supermarket in California,” Gary Snyder, “Axe Handles,” June Jordan, “Notes on the Peanut,” Lyn Hejinian, “Chapter 203,” Charles Simic, “Fork” and “Watch Repair,” Yusef Komunyakaa, “ Starlight Scope Myopia,” James Tate, “The Motorcyclists,” Rita Dove, “Geometry,” Sherman Alexie, “On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City.” Remember to read poems out loud.
Monday, September 13: Technological Poems, continued.
Wednesday, September 15: William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929).
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
William Shakespeare, MacBeth, Act V, Scene 5.
Please read the first section, “April Seventh, 1928.” From whose point of view is this section told, apparently? Who are the other players (characters?) What do you find to be comfortable and/or accessible about the writing and the narrative? What do you find uncomfortable and/or unconventional about the writing and the narrative? What happens? Try to identify the key scenes, images, and events that Benjy returns to in his mind. Also read the Appendix.
Friday, September 17: Please read the second section of The Sound and the Fury, “June Second, 1910.” What are some ways in which time is represented in the novel (the section-titles, after all, explicitly mark time). What is the “real” order of events, and in what order are they presented to us? Do different characters have different conceptions of time? With what and/or with whom is Quentin obsessed? To what extent, if any, do his obsessions overlap with Benjy’s? Might we subtitle the book “A Novel of Obsessions”? What do you make of the scene with the young Italian girl?
Monday, September 20. Please read the third section of The Sound and the Fury, “April Sixth, 1928.” What questions, topics, and/or themes appear to arise in the novel with regard to the South, family and families, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity? Which of these questions, topics, and/or themes seem most important to you and why?
Wednesday, September 22. Please finish The Sound and the Fury. In what sense is this novel “Modernist”? What is particularly “American” about it? What parts of it resonate with your era, your time? What do you make of this last section and of the way Faulkner ends the book? To what extent are Quentin, Caddy, Dilsey, and Benjy symbolic characters, representing much larger conflicts in Southern and American culture? What might they symbolize? In the Bible, who is Benjamin?
Friday, September 24. First essay assigned, discussed. Love poems, more or less. May Swenson, “A Couple” and “In Love Made Visible,” Karl Shapiro, “The First Time,” Robert Hayden, “Homage to the Empress of the Blues,” Robert Lowell, “`To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage,’” Richard Wilbur, “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World,” Alan Dugan, “Love Song: I and Thou,” Robert Creeley, “For Love,” Alan Ginsberg, “Sphincter” and “Personals Ad,” Robert Bly, “My Father’s Wedding,” Richard Howard, “`Man Who Beat Up Homosexuals Reported to Have AIDS Virus’” and “My Last Hustler,” Sylvia Plath, “Daddy,” Audre Lorde, “Love Poem,” Lucille Clifton, “to my last period” and “leda 3,” Sharon Olds, “The Pope’s Penis,” Marilyn Hacker, “Rondeau . . .,” Louis Glück, “Penelope’s Song” and “Earthly Love,” Ai, “Twenty Year Marriage,” Carolyn Forché, “Taking Off My Clothes,” Mark Doty, “Homo Will Not Inherit” and “The Embrace,” Li-Young Lee, “Eating Together.” Remember to read poems out loud.
Monday, September 27: Love poems (more or less), continued.
Wednesday, September 29: Farewell, My Lovely. Characterize the narrator, the crime(s), and Los Angeles. Who decides and how do they decide what is right and wrong? That is, what are the sources of ethics and morality in this novel that is apparently about crime?
Friday, October 1. Farewell, My Lovely. Consider aspects of sexuality in the novel—who’s attracted to whom and why, expressed or implied attitudes toward women, men, heterosexuality, homosexuality. Chandler’s style is famous to the point of being infamous. How does he achieve this stylistic effect?
Monday, October 4. Review for test. Kerouac, On the Road, part one. When does the action of the novel take place? Map, literally, the action of the novel: where in America does Sal go? Characterize Sal’s attitude toward “America.” In his “mind” (that is, in Kerouac’s words), what is “America”? Contrast Sal’s/Kerouac’s view of America with yours, some fifty or sixty years later.
Wednesday, October 6. Test.
Friday, October 8: Please read, in Contemporary Poetry, Ginsberg, all the poems in the anthology, Ferlinghetti, all three poems in the anthology, Snyder, “Milton by Firelight,” “Riprap,” “The Wild Edge,” Duncan, the first four poems in the anthology, Levertov, “The Dog of Art,” “September 1961,” selections from the Olga Poems, and “Aware.”
Monday, October 11, On the Road, parts two and three. Hypothesis: On the Road is more about the past than the future. Hypothesis #2: On the Road presents a naïve worldview. Who is at the margins of the society described in the novel? Who is in the center? Assess the structure and language of the novel. What is your sense of the Beats, your attitude toward “Beatitude”?
Wednesday, October 13. Complete rough draft of the essay due, in class.
Friday, October 15. Please read, in Contemporary Poetry, Robert Hayden, “Middle Passage” and “Those Winter Sundays,” Gwendolyn Brooks, “The Last Quatrain . . .,” “Boy Breaking Glass,” “The Blackstone Rangers,” “The Boy Died in My Alley,” Audre Lorde, “Coal,” Amiri Baraka, all nine poems, Lucille Clifton, “at the cemetery . . .,” “the mississippi river . . .,” Michael S. Harper, “American History,” “Dear John, Dear Coltrane,” Rita Dove, “The House Slave” and “Parsley.” Start reading Linden Hills, please. Distribute photocopied excerpt from The Triggering Town.
Monday, October 18. No class. Fall break day.
Wednesday, October 20. Essay due. Gloria Naylor, Linden Hills, part one, “December 19th.” What do you make of the topography of this community, its physical arrangement? What differences and similarities do you see between what you know of the American white middle class and the black middle-class depicted in this novel? One word: Dante.
Friday, October 22. Linden Hills, parts two and three, “December 20th” and “December 21st.” Why is the novel set in December? What is going on in the middle of the novel? What do you make of “Super Nigger”—the person the term describes, the term itself? Contrast the “America” of Linden Hills with that of the previous novels we’ve read.
Monday, October 25. Poems. “Local talent”: please read Richard Hugo (Washington), all three poems, William Stafford (Oregon, Lewis & Clark College), “Traveling Through the Dark,” David Wagoner (U. of W.), “The Man of the House,” Sherman Alexie (from near Spokane), all five poems. Also read photocopied excerpt from The Triggering Town, by Richard Hugo.
Wednesday, October 27. Finish reading Linden Hills. Finish poems from Monday. Choosing a play for the presentations.
Friday, October 29. Please read Rabbit Boss, by Thomas Sanchez, Book One, “Tikoi.” Compare and contrast the novel to The Sound and the Fury and On the Road with regard to language and structure, visions of “America,” who is marginalized in the societies described and who is at the center, etc. Give some thought to the characters Guyabac, Joe Birdsong, Captain Rex, and Hallelujah Bob. What do you make of Hallelujah Bob’s visions? How does the novel handle the perceptions of time and the changes in time-periods that are represented?
Monday Nov. 1. Rabbit Boss, Book Two,“Tila.” How does the novel represent, raise, and approach questions of gender? Compare and contrast how ritual functions in Washo society (as represented in the novel) and white society in the different eras of the novel. How is the novel now complicating the characters Captain Rex and Joe Birdsong?
Wednesday, November 3. For today, choose three poems from Contemporary Poetry that we have not already read. Read them. Be able to lead a discussion on them. Field trip. (Keep reading Rabbit Boss.)
Friday, November 5. Poems related to war and its effects. Please read Charles Olson, “Pacific Lament,” Randall Jarrell, “Eighth Air Force,” Louis Simpson, “The Battle” [but in my book, the page is mis-numbered], Robert Bly, “Johnson’s Cabinet . . .,” “The Great Society,” Amiri Baraka,” A New Reality . . .,” Robert Hayden, “Night, Death, Mississippi,” Allen Ginsberg, “Mugging,” Sylvia Plath, “The Colossus,” Audre Lorde, “Hanging Fire,” Ai, “The Killing Floor.”
Monday, November 8. Please finish Rabbit Boss for today. Sign up for and discuss presentations.
Wednesday, November 10. Please read the first four chapters of Bone, by Fae Myenne Ng. This reading should go relatively quickly. List some topics you would like to discuss, and tie these to specific pages and passages. List some ways to compare and contrast the novel to novels we have read already.
Friday, November 12. Presentations.
Monday, November 15. Presentations.
Wed. November 17. For today, please finish reading Bone.
Friday, November 19. Presentations.
Monday, November 22. Presentations. Essay assigned.
Wednesday, November 24. Presentations.
Monday, November 29. Please read Pattern Recognition, through page 170. Contrast the “world” and the “America” represented here with those represented in the previous novels. If Cayce is “on the road,” what road is she on? If the novel is a quest-narrative, characterize the quest.
Wednesday, December 1. Review for test. Check progress of essay.
Friday, December 3. Please finish reading Pattern Recognition.
Monday, December 6. Draft of essay due.
Wednesday, December 8. Test.
Essay due during Finals Week.