MA Orals Reading List -- American Literature

(revised fall 2007)

After you have decided on a period (American Literature to 1865, American Literature 1800-1912, or American Literature since 1855), choose ten of the numbered selections from that period's list. Your choices should reflect both the chronological and generic range within the period. At the same time, your selections should be guided by some principle of organization; this can simply be to discuss the traditionally canonical works, but you can also choose to emphasize some particular area of interest (such as a genre or a literary movement within your period; African-American issues; women authors; popular literature; and so on). After you have made your preliminary choices, you should consult with one of the members of the American Area Committee. He or she will approve your list and help you decide on two critical works suggested by the list below and reflecting your period as well as particular interests.

American Literature to 1865

1. Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation
2. Bradstreet
• "The Prologue"
• "Contemplations"
• "The Flesh and the Spirit"
• "Before the Birth of One of Her Children"
• "To My Dear and Loving Husband"
• "In Reference to Her Children"
• "Upon the Burning of Our House"
• "To My Dear Children"
3. Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (Book I; Lives of Bradford, Winthrop, Phips)
4. Taylor
• "Sacramental Meditations" Series 1, numbers 1-12; Series 2, numbers 6 and 12
• "God's Determinations Touching His Elect"
• "Huswifery"
5. Byrd, History of the Dividing Line
6. Edwards
• "Personal Narrative"
• "Narrative of the Surprising Conversions"
• "The Nature of True Virtue"
• "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"
• "A Divine and Supernatural Light"
7. Woolman, Journal of John Woolman
8. Franklin
• The Autobiography
• "The Way to Wealth"
9. Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
10. Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer
11. Ashbridge, An Account of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge
12. The Federalist (numbers 1-10)
13. Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, The Autobiography
14. Brown, Wieland
15. Irving
• "Rip Van Winkle"
• "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
• A History of New York, By Diedrich Knickerbocker
16. Cooper, The Pioneers or The Pilot or Satanstoe
17. Poe
• "The Philosophy of Composition"
• "The Poetic Principle"
• "The Pit and the Pendulum"
• "The Fall of the House of Usher"
• "Ligeia"
• "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
• "The Purloined Letter"
• "The Masque of the Red Death"
18. Emerson
• Nature
• "The American Scholar"
• "The Divinity School Address"
• "Self-Reliance"
• "The Poet"
• "Napoleon, or The Man of the World"
• "Montaigne, or The Skeptic"
• "Each and All"
• "Concord Hymn"
• Hamatreya"
• "Days"
• "The Problem"
19. Thoreau
• Walden
• "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"
20. Hawthorne
• The Scarlet Letter or "Tales of the Province House"
• "Young Goodman Brown"
• "My Kinsman, Major Molineux"
• "The Birthmark"
• "The Artist of the Beautiful"
• "The Minister's Black Veil"
• "Roger Malvin's Burial"
21. Melville
• Moby-Dick or "Bartleby the Scrivener"
• "Benito Cereno"
• "The Encantadas"
• "Billy Budd"
22. Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
23. Linda Brent, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
24. Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African
25. Lee, The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee
26. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
27. Brown, Clotel
28. Prescott, The Conquest of Mexico
29. Whitman
• Leaves of Grass, 1855 edition, or Leaves of Grass, 1860 edition
• Drum Taps
• Memories of President Lincoln

return to the top

American Literature 1800-1912

1. C. B. Brown, Wieland or Edgar Huntly
2. Irving, The Sketch-Book
3. Cooper, The Pioneers or The Last of the Mohicans
4. Bryant
• "Thanatopsis"
• "Inscription for an Entrance to a Wood"
• "To a Waterfowl"
5. Longfellow
• "A Psalm to Life"
• "The Village Blacksmith"
• "My Lost Youth"
• "The Cross of Snow"
6. Whittier
• "Massachusetts to Virginia"
• "Maud Muller"
• Snow-Bound
7. Holmes
• "Old Ironsides,"
• "The Chambered Nautilus"
8. Lowell, A Fable for Critics
9. Emerson
• Nature
• "The American Scholar"
• "The Divinity School Address"
• "Self-Reliance"
• "Experience"
• "The Poet"
• two to four additional essays or poems
10. Poe
• "The Philosophy of Composition"
• "The Poetic Principle"
• "The Fall of the House of Usher"
• "Ligeia"
• "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
• "The Pit and the Pendulum"
• "William Wilson"
• "The Tell-Tale Heart"
• four additional tales or poems
11. Hawthorne
• The Scarlet Letter (with "The Custom-House") or "My Kinsman, Major Molineux"
• "Young Goodman Brown"
• "The Minister's Black Veil"
• "The Birthmark"
• "The Artist of the Beautiful"
• "Rappaccini's Daughter"
• "Ethan Brand"
• two to four additional tales
12. Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century
13. Thoreau, Walden
14. Melville, Moby-Dick
15. Prescott, The Conquest of Mexico
16. Parkman, LaSalle and the Discovery of the Great West or Montcalm and Wolfe
17. Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
18. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
19. W. W. Brown, Clotel
20. Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855 edition, or Leaves of Grass, 1892 edition
21. Dickinson, a selection of thirty-five to forty representative poems
22. Cable, The Grandissimes
23. James
• The Portrait of a Lady or "Daisy Miller"
• "The Aspern Papers"
• "The Real Thing"
• "The Turn of the Screw"
• "The Beast in the Jungle"
• two additional tales
24. Howells, A Modern Instance or The Rise of Silas Lapham
25. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
26. Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs
27. Chopin, The Awakening
28. Chesnutt, The Conjure Woman
29. Dunbar
• Sport of the Gods
• six to ten selected poems
30. Wharton, The House of Mirth or The Age of Innocence
31. Crane
• The Red Badge of Courage
• "The Open Boat"
• "The Blue Hotel"
32. Dreiser, Sister Carrie
33. Adams, The Education of Henry Adams
34. Robinson, Captain Craig and Other Poems or a selection of twenty-five representative poems
35. Frost, North of Boston
36. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk
37. Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

return to the top

American Literature since 1855

1. Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855 edition, or Leaves of Grass, 1892 edition
2. Dickinson, a selection of thirty-five to forty representative poems
3. Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Life on the Mississippi
4. James, The Portrait of a Lady or The Ambassadors
5. Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham
6. Chesnutt, The Conjure Woman
7. Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs
8. Crane , The Red Badge of Courage
9. Dreiser, Sister Carrie
10. Robinson, Captain Craig and Other Poems, or a selection of twenty-five representative poems
11. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk
12. Adams, The Education of Henry Adams
13. Chopin, The Awakening
14. Frost, North of Boston
15. Stein, Three Lives
16. Pound, Personae, or a sequence of ten to fourteen selected cantos
17. Stevens, Harmonium
18. Eliot, Selected Poems 1910-1935
19. Williams, Al Que Quiere! or Paterson
20. Hughes, a selection of twenty-five representative poems
21. Cather, My Antonia
22. Toomer, Cane
23. O'Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night
24. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
25. Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises or In Our Time
26. Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury or Light in August or Absalom, Absalom!
27. Moore, Selected Poems (1935)
28. Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
29. Dos Passos, one novel from the U.S.A. trilogy
30. Miller, Tropic of Capricorn
31. Wright, Uncle Tom's Children or Native Son
32. Brooks, a selection of twenty to twenty-five representative poems
33. Tolson, Harlem Gallery
34. Hayden, a selection of twenty to twenty-five representative poems
35. Larsen, Passing and Quicksand
36. Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men or A Death in the Family
37. Ellison, Invisible Man
38. Roethke, a selection of twenty-five representative poems
39. Bishop, a selection of twenty-five representative poems
40. Berryman, a selection of twenty-five representative poems
41. Lowell, Lord Weary's Castle or Life Studies
42. Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
43. Miller, Death of a Salesman
44. O’Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find
45. Nabokov, Lolita or Pale Fire
46. Ginsberg, Howl
47. Bellow, Henderson the Rain King
48. Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun
49. Updike, Rabbit, Run
50. Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
51. Plath, Ariel
52. Baraka, Dutchman or twenty-five representative poems
53. Pynchon, Crying of Lot 49 or Gravity’s Rainbow or Vineland
54. Shepard, Buried Child
55. Silko, Ceremony
56. Delillo, White Noise or Underworld
57. Morrison, Sula or Beloved
58. Wilson, Fences
59. McCarthy, Blood Meridian
60. Kingston, The Woman Warrior
61. Roth, American Pastoral or The Human Stain
62. Ammons, Sphere: The Form of a Motion or a selection of twenty-five representative poems
63. Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror or a selection of twenty-five representative poems
64. Merwin, The Lice or a selection of twenty-five representative poems
65. Rich, Diving into the Wreck or a selection of twenty-five representative poems
66. Howe, a selection of twenty-five representative poems
67. Bernstein, a selection of twenty-five representative poems

Recommended Critical Works

Sacvan Bercovitch, The American Jeremiad

Phillip Gura, A Glimpse of Sion's Glory: Puritan Racicalism in New England 1620-1660

Jill Lepore: In The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity

Michael Warner, Letters of the Republic

Laurel Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale

Jay Fliegelman, Prodigals and Pilgrims:The American Revolution Against Patriarchal Authority

Cathy Davidson, Revolution and the Word

Julia Stern, The Plight of Feeling: Sympathy and Dissent in the Early American Novel

Richard Brodhead, Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in 19th-Century America

Anna Brickhouse, Transamerican Literary Relations and the Nineteenth-Century Public Sphere.

Philip Fisher, Hard Facts: Setting and Form in the American Novel

Jane Tompkins, Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860

Stephen Railton, Authorship and Audience: Literary Performance in the American Renaissance

Deborah McDowell and Arnold Rampersad, Slavery and the Literary Imagination

Eric Lott, Love and Theft

Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Touching Liberty: Abolition, Feminism, and the Politics of the Body

Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance

Cheryl Walker, Indian Nation: Native American Literature

Paul Gilroy, Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness

Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America

Jackson Lears, No Place of Grace

Donald Pizer, Realism and Naturalism in Nineteenth-Century American Literature 



Eric Sundquist, To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature 


Amy Kaplan and Donald Pease, Cultures of U.S. Imperialism 


Henry Louis Gates, The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism

Walter Benn Michaels, Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Pluralism

Marjorie Perloff, The Dance of the Intellect: Studies in the Poetry of the Pound Tradition.

Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts: On Asian-American Cultural Politics

Wai-Chee Dimock, Through Other Continents: American Literature Across Deep Time