EWL 221 US Literature: 1865-1914
This course explores the development and diversity of American literature from 1865 to 1914. Writers investigated post Civil War society with a critical eye, the rapid growth of industrialism creating a complex and often harsh environment in which few could realize the promise of the American dream. Struggle for survival and meaning affected all social classes. Writers from all over the US addressed these issues, introducing the American reading public to regional settings and cultural conditions vastly different from their own. Texts may include works by writers such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Rebecca Harding Davis, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Mary W. Freeman, Henry James, Theodore Dreiser and Edith Wharton.