English 360—Major Authors: Langston Hughes and James Baldwin
Spring 2004
Professor Hans Ostrom
Welcome to English 360. Here is some basic information:
My Office: Wyatt 336. Office-Hours for Spring 2004: Tuesday-Thursday, 11:00-12:50, and by appointment, of course. My door is often open at other times.
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.
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.
Langston Hughes and James Baldwin,
Major Authors
What makes an author “major”? The criteria are debatable, and the very concept “major author” has become a contested one. To some degree, William Shakespeare constitutes a prototypical “major” author in Western culture simply because his work satisfies so many criteria. He produced literature in great quantity but also, by many standards, of great quality. His works had enormous influence in his own time and shortly thereafter, but their influence has also had staying power. He changed the genres in which he worked: tragic drama, comic drama, historical drama, and lyric poetry. His work addressed large topics of his time and place, such as political power, sexual and gender-identity, and empire, as these topics related to the English nation and what was becoming the British Empire. He is recognizable to literary scholars, school-children, cinema-goers, TV-watchers, and theatre-goers alike. His work remains easily available—in print and in production. He’s very quotable. His image appears on T-shirts and coffee mugs.
Using Shakespeare as one example, if not the example, of a major author, we can easily make a case for studying Langston Hughes (1902-1967) and James Baldwin (1924-1987) as major authors. Both produced literature in great quantity but also of considerable quality. Hughes published in almost every genre imaginable, and although Baldwin was somewhat less versatile, he wrote fiction, nonfiction, and drama. Both writers exerted influence on other writers when they were alive, they affected the genres in which they wrote, and their work remains influential today. Both took on crucial topics and conflicts in their time, including those concerning political power, racism, sexuality and gender-identity, the role of the artist, and the fate of the American nation and the American Empire. The works of both men continue to be republished, anthologized, taught, and discussed. Their names are highly recognizable beyond English departments.
One crucial difference between Hughes and Baldwin (on the one hand) and a writer like Shakespeare (on the other), is that Hughes and Baldwin had to struggle—literally and figuratively—just to get a foothold in their own society, just to get a chance to work with the written word, let alone publish. Shakespeare no doubt had tough days, too, but he and his contemporaries began their writers’ journeys from a certain pre-existing status, a relatively secure position. By contrast, Hughes and Baldwin began, and in many ways continued, as outsiders, members of an endangered, scorned part of the citizenry. Both were African Americans born well before the Civil Rights Movement. Both could easily find slave-owners on their family tree without having to look at many branches. Neither lived sexual lives that were considered conventional—or even appropriate, moral, or “normal”—by certain segments of society. Both were born into more or less impoverished circumstances, although Baldwin probably had it a bit worse than Hughes, and both became fiercely outspoken public figures who outraged people and who were hounded by the U.S. federal government—this in spite of the fact that, in private, both tended to be kind, affable, unpretentious, humorous men who thrived on friendships across social and racial lines and who liked to drink liquor, smoke tobacco, travel, sleep late, and write feverishly. Ironically (or maybe of course), they didn’t particularly like one another or one another’s writing.
Aims of the
Course
The main aim is to study the work of these two writers in depth—to immerse ourselves in their poetry, essays, novels, and short stories. Another objective is to study the works in relation to one another, not just in terms of comparing each writer’s early work to his later work, but also in terms of putting Hughes’s work in conversation, as it were, with Baldwin’s. Because both men used their writing explicitly to represent, analyze, and critique many facets of society, we will also discuss social issues as they’re embodied in the works; as we do this, we’ll try to project ourselves back to the eras in which these men lived, but we’ll also ask to what extent the questions and issues with which Hughes and Baldwin were preoccupied remain pertinent. In addition, we’ll also explore implicit and explicit definitions of literature advanced by Hughes and Baldwin—what they and what we think makes “good literature,” what makes a good novel, poem, short story, essay, to and for whom they saw themselves writing, and so on. These two had strong ideas about what writing should be and do, what “Negro” and “Black” writers should be and do, what traditions they considered themselves to be part of and to be outside of or excluded from. With regard to how we approach the reading and discussion, the main task is to work hard, to grapple with the works, even with ones that may not at first seem to appeal to us. But also we should enjoy the works, partly because life is short but also because both writers enjoyed their lives, their writing, their language, their people. (Whom they considered to be their “people” will be a topic of interest.) As purposeful and serious as these writers could be, they were nonetheless joyful people who celebrated life and literature, so we might as well get in that groove, too. We’ll be alert to the positions we take as readers, analyzing our own responses, observing how our positions as readers change (or not) and why. We will also learn more about American literature and literary genres, as seen through the lens of the works by Hughes and Baldwin.
Books Required
for the Course
By Langston Hughes:
Collected Poems, edited by Arnold Rampersad.
The Ways of White Folks. (Short stories.)
The Big Sea. (Autobiography.)
Not Without Laughter. (Novel.)
By James Baldwin:
Collected Essays, assembled by Toni Morrison.
Go Tell It On the Mountain. (Novel.)
Giovanni’s Room. (Novel.)
Another Country. (Novel).
Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone. (Novel.)
The campus bookstore has detailed information about the editions of these works we’ll use.
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 or difficult. 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, production 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
Schedule
Wednesday, January 21. Overview of the course, looking at the syllabus carefully. Are you sure you want to take this class?!
Friday, January 23. For today, please read part I of Hughes’ The Big Sea. Also please read pages 5-34 of Baldwin’s Collected Essays. Distribute photocopies of Steven Watson’s book about the Harlem Renaissance, and Hughes’s essay, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” Read these essays as soon as you can.
Monday, January 26. For today, please read part II of Hughes’s The Big Sea and the following pages in Collected Poems: 23-43. Also read “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.”
Wednesday, January 28. For today, please finish reading The Big Sea, read photocopied section from Watson’s book, and please read the first 50 pages (or so) of Baldwin’s novel, Go Tell It On the Mountain.
Friday, January 30. More poems by Hughes. Please read Collected Poems, 44-85.
Monday, February 2. Finish reading Go Tell It On the Mountain.
Wednesday, February 4. Please read Baldwin, Collected Essays, 35-136.
Friday, February 6. Introduction, foreword, and first 78 pages of Not Without Laughter.
Monday, February 9. Please read Hughes, Collected Poems, 86-169, and Not Without Laughter, 79-147.
Wednesday, February 11. Please read Hughes, Collected Poems, 170-222. You may also start reading ahead for February 13 and 16.
Friday, February 13. Please read, from Nobody Knows My Name (137-290 in Collected Essays), the following essays: “The Discovery of What . . .,” “Fifth Avenue, Uptown . . .,” “East River, Downtown . . .,” “A Fly In the Buttermilk,” “Nobody Knows My Name,” “Faulkner and Desegregation,” “The Male Prison,” and “Alas, Poor Richard.”
Monday, February 16. First essay assigned, discussed. For today, please read, in Collected Essays, The Fire Next Time.
Wednesday, February 18. For today, please read Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, part one (about 90 pages).
Friday, February 20. For today, please finish Giovanni’s Room.
Monday, February 23. For today, please read the first half of The Ways of White Folks. Distribute copies of “On the Road.”
Wednesday, February 25. For today, please finish reading the stories in The Ways of White Folks, and read “On the Road.”
Friday, February, 27. Please read Collected Poems, 222-288. Field trip, perhaps.
Monday, March 1. Complete rough draft of essay due in class.
Wednesday, March 3. Discuss more poems read for February 27. Review for first test.
Friday, March 5. Test. Questions about essay?
Monday,
March 8. Essay due. Video: Looking
for Langston.
Wednesday,
March 10. Distribute list of oral-presentation topics. Video: The
Price of the Ticket.
Friday, March 12. Blues, Jazz, and Hip Hop.
March 15-March 19. Spring Recess.
Monday, March 22. For today, please read Montage of a Dream Deferred in Collected Poems. Have you selected a topic for your presentation? Please let me know.
Wednesday, March 24. Professor attends conference. No class-meeting. Start reading Another Country.
Friday, March 26. Professor attends conference. No class-meeting.
Monday, March 29. Please read Collected Poems, 431-469. Review and schedule presentations.
Wednesday, March 31. For today, read about half of Another Country.
Friday,
April 2. For today, in Collected Essays,
read the first section (“Take Me To the Water”) of No Name In the Street.
Monday,
April 5. For today, please finish reading Another
Country.
Wednesday, April 7. Presentations.
Friday,
April 9. For today, please finish
reading No Name In the Street.
Monday, April 12. Presentations. Second essay assigned, discussed.
Wednesday, April 14. Presentations.
Friday, April 16. Presentations. Selections from “Other Essays” assigned.
Monday, April 19. Selections from “Other Essays.” Finish discussion of Another Country, if necessary.
Wednesday,
April 21. Please read Book One of Tell
Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone.
Friday,
April 23. Please read Book Two of TMHLTTBG.
Monday, April 26. Please read Book Three of TMHLTTBG. Review for test.
Wednesday, April 28. Complete rough draft of essay due.
Friday, April 30. Second test.
Monday, May 3. Working on the essays.
Wednesday, May 5. Second essay due.