ENGL 262-01, Survey of American Literature, Spring 2015

Abstract

The concept of the "American Dream" has always been integral to the nation's identity, even before the narrator of the first American novel, Letters from an American Farmer (1782) declared, "we are the most perfect society now existing in the world. Here man is free; as he ought to be.” In English 262, we will examine how this potential for perfection (often gauged by material success) through freedom is the tantalizing yet ultimately unattainable promise that drives most American writers. Thus, while this is a survey of American literature, it will be organized thematically (and chronologically) to consider how successive generations of Americans have grappled with the “Dream.” We will read a widely diverse set of texts and students will be asked to consider how each articulates a vision of American possibility that contributes to the nation's literary tradition as well as to its sense of identity.