ENGL 43603 - Seminar: Voices of the American Renaissance

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

The human voice manifested tremendous cultural, spiritual, and political power for antebellum Americans. "Vox populi, vox dei" ("The voice of the people is the voice of God") proclaimed the political slogan, while Transcendentalist writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson considered the living voice to be superior to the dead letter. Vernacular literatures, Native American and African American oral traditions, and sacred and political oratory all contributed distinctive models of voice to the antebellum Babel. In this course we will focus on the trope of voice as it shaped the literatures of the American Renaissance period (roughly 1835-1865). We will explore the cluster of meanings that antebellum Americans attached to voice and examine the social and literary issues that these conceptions of voice prefigured. Our readings will include works by Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allen Poe. The major requirement for the course is a research paper of approximately twenty pages, produced in stages.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

The Course Profile information is provided and updated by third parties including the respective institutions. While the institutions are able to update their information at any time, the information is not independently validated, and no party associated with this website can accept responsibility for its accuracy.