Myra Jehlen and Michael WarnerSample Syllabi for the anthology The English Literatures of America
The English Literatures of America (Routledge, 1997) contains a greater range of colonial American material than has ever been assembled in one volume before--far more than any single course could cover. The anthology has been designed to support many different courses, both traditional and nontraditional. The following syllabi illustrate a few of these possible courses. They range from introductory to advanced. Some are chronological surveys, others thematic seminars. The syllabi indicate suggested readings as well as sample discussion questions, which might also serve as paper topics. We hope you will find your own teaching opportunities enlarged by The English Literatures of America. If you have your own syllabus, we would be interested to see it; mail can be sent to either of the editors at the Department of English, Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ 08903.
1. A Sophomore-Level English Department Course
2. A Junior- and Senior-Level English Department Course, Historically Organized
3. A Junior- and Senior-Level English Department Course, Organized by Theme
4. A Cultural Studies Course: Colonialism in the New World
5. Historical Survey: American History to 1800
6. A Course in British Literature and Empire
This course is an introduction to colonial literature. Most readings are short. They are treated roughly in chronological order, but the course is organized by literary form and major authors as well. Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin receive special attention as contrasting figures. One week is devoted to the rise of satire, in both verse and prose forms, while two other weeks are devoted to other poetic forms. Attention is given to most of the familiar themes of the period: discovery, Puritanism, revolution, and slavery.
Week 1: Europe and the New World
Reading: from chapter 1, Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville, Christopher Columbus, Michel de Montaigne. How new was the new World? How did Europeans think about unfamiliar people, or about themselves?
Week 2: English Writers in America
Reading: from chapter 2, Thomas Hariot; from chapter 3, John Smith (selections 2, 3, and 6); from chapter 7, Roger Williams. How do these English writers differ from their counterparts on the Continent? How do they represent natives? What do they look for in America? What kind of audience do they write for?
Week 3: The Puritan Migration in New England
Reading: from chapter 3, William Bradford (selection 15); John Winthrop (selection 9); and Indian prophecies (17 and 18). How did the Puritan migrants imagine the significance of their colonies in world history? Do they represent natives in a way that differs from Hariot and Smith?
Week 4: Puritan Culture
Reading: from chapter 5, John Winthrop's journal and Ned Ward; from chapter 6, the Antinomian controversy, Nathaniel Ward, and Deodat Lawson. Optional: Chamberlain, Lithobolia, from chapter 5. How did Puritans understand the self, freedom, and divine sovereignty? How did they understand the supernatural?
Week 5: Captivity Narratives
Reading: from chapter 5, Pierre Radisson and Mary Rowlandson. Compare these writers' depictions of Indians, and of themselves. Do they have different styles of storytelling? How do they shape their narratives?
Week 6: Seventeenth-Century Poetry
Reading: from chapter 8, Edmund Spenser, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Michael Wigglesworth, Anne Bradstreet, John Milton, and Edward Taylor. Do the New England Puritans--especially Bradstreet and Taylor--differ significantly from the English writers? How do they represent gender? Does the context of English settlement matter to their intimate verse?
Week 7: Virginia and the Indies
Reading: from chapter 4, Great News from Barbadoes, John Esquemeling, and Ned Ward; from chapter 10, William Byrd and Daniel Horsmanden; from chapter 13, Richard Steele (Inkle and Yarico). How does William Byrd manage to present himself as a civilized gentleman? Do those ideals clash with the descriptions of slavery and slave revolts in the other selections?
Week 8: Jonathan Edwards
Reading: from chapter 9, selections 1-5.
Week 9: Benjamin Franklin
Reading: from chapter 10, Autobiography; from chapter 9, letter to Ezra Stiles; from chapter 12, "Of Lightning"; from chapter 13, "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America" and "The Ephemera."
Week 10: Satires
Reading: from chapter 9, Benjamin Franklin, "The Levee"; from chapter 14, Ebenezer Cooke, Benjamin Franklin (Silence Dogood), Joseph Green, "The Lady's Complaint," Hannah Griffitts; from chapter 10, Jonathan Swift; from chapter 11, Benjamin Franklin ("Edict by the King of Prussia" and "Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim"); from chapter 13, Benjamin Franklin ("Speech of Miss Polly Baker"). Do these selections develop colonial or local styles of humor? Are they subversive? Subversive of what?
Week 11: Literature of the Revolution
Reading: from chapter 11, William Livingston, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Judith Sargent Murray, and James Madison; from chapter 10, Peter Oliver. What kind of audience do these writers address? Does the manner or style of writing matter in political prose? Do the arguments have blind spots or unintended consequences?
Week 12: African-American Writers
Reading: from chapter 10, Gronniosaw and Equiano; from chapter 11, Ottobah Cugoano; from chapter 14, Phillis Wheatley and Lucy Terry. What ideas or ways of writing do these authors share with their white contemporaries? What kind of public do they imagine? How do they attempt to reshape their environment and the literary world in which they write?
Week 13: Eighteenth-Century Poetry
Reading: from chapter 14, Benjamin Tompson, Alexander Pope, Richard Lewis, Timothy Dwight, Joel Barlow, Annis Boudinot Stockton, Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson, Philip Freneau.
Week 14: Writing in the New Nation
Reading: from chapter 12, William Bartram; from chapter 13, "Alphonzo," Charles Brockden Brown, Susannah Rowson, Hannah Foster, Fisher Ames. Do these authors identify themselves with a nation in a way that differs from earlier authors? Why do they worry about the reading of novels, particularly by women readers?
A Junior- and Senior-Level English Department Course, Historically Organized
This is a somewhat more advanced course covering colonial literature. Readings range in historical sequence from Columbus to the early national period. Each unit is organized by theme. Most units deal with the conflict of cultures and peoples in the colonial world. Special attention is given to European relations with Indians, to problems of gender and race, to tensions between religion and secular culture, and to the implications of the Revolution.
Week 1: Discoveries of the Other
Reading: from chapter 1, Columbus, Vespucci, Nahuatl accounts; from chapter 2, Ralegh and Montaigne. Do the European writers share the same view of native Americans, or do they disagree?
Week 2: Conquest of America
Reading: from chapter 2, George Best, four views on plantation, Hariot, Bacon; from chapter 8, Andrew Marvell. How do these English writers differ from their European contemporaries? How are the causes of religion and economics balanced in their visions of the new world?
Week 3: Conquest of America, continued
Reading: from chapter 3, John Smith, John Cotton, William Bradford, Mourt's Relation, and Indian prophecies. How do these authors deal with the point of view of the Indians they encountered in America? What is their vision of a successful colonization?
Week 4: Peoples of the New World
Reading: from chapter 2, Lopez Vaz; from chapter 3, Edward Waterhouse, Thomas Morton, Bradford's view of Morton; from chapter 4, Richard Ligon, Great News from Barbadoes; from chapter 5, John Josselyn, Thomas Shepard, John Eliot; from chapter 7, Roger Williams; from chapter 10, Daniel Horsmanden. How do these writers imagine the multiracial world of the Atlantic? Who is an American?
Week 5: Order and Conflict in Settlement Culture
Reading: from chapter 3, Sir Henry Colt; from chapter 4, Richard Pindar, Ned Ward; from chapter 5, Winthrop's journal, Ned Ward; from chapter 6, the Antinomian controversy, the Keayne controversy, and Winthrop's speech to the General Court. Do these readings suggest a tendency toward democracy? Where does resistance to authority express itself?
Week 6: Order and Conflict in Settlement Culture: the Example of Aphra Behn
Reading: from chapter 4, two accounts of Bacon's Rebellion and Aphra Behn, The Widow Ranter. In this play, many kinds of order are upset at once: there is cross-dressing, class confusion, interracial love, and civil war. Does Behn take the same stance toward each?
Week 7: Captivity Narratives
Reading: from chapter 5, Radisson and Rowlandson. Compare these writers' depictions of Indians, and of themselves. Do they have different styles of storytelling? How do they shape their narratives?
Week 8: Everyday Life and Intimate Poetry
Reading: from chapter 5, Noyes, Sarah Knight; from chapter 8, Wigglesworth ("Song of Emptiness"), Bradstreet and Taylor; from chapter 10, Dr. Alexander Hamilton; from chapter 13, William Byrd's diaries; from chapter 14, Ebenezer Cooke, Benjamin Tompson. Does the colonial setting matter to these mostly very personal writers? What are the limits within which intimacy or privacy can be imagined?
Week 9: Personal Narratives and Religion
Reading: from chapter 5, John Rogers; from chapter 9, Edwards, Brainerd and Ashbridge; from chapter 10, Gronniosaw. How does the story of conversion shape the sense of a self? Does that story line result in any tensions or gaps?
Week 10: Personal Narratives and Secular Culture
Reading: from chapter 10, Benjamin Franklin, Olaudah Equiano, John Filson. What do these stories share with the conversion narratives studied in week 9? How do they shape the meaning of a life?
Week 11: Definitions of Liberty: The Problem of Slavery
Reading: from chapter 11, Samuel Sewall, John Saffin, Samuel Johnson, Ottobah Cugoano, Mason-Madison debate, and Benjamin Franklin (Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim); from chapter 14, James Grainger, Anonymous (from Jamaica), Phillis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa to America," and Sarah Wentworth Morton, "The African Chief." How does the argument over slavery shift in the course of these readings? Do the arguments about slavery lead to a new view of race?
Week 12: Definitions of Liberty: The Problems of Independence and Gender
Reading: from chapter 11, William Livingston, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson(Declaration), Thomas Paine, Judith Sargent Murray, James Madison, and William Manning; from chapter 13, "Speech of Miss Polly Baker." Whose revolution was it? Did the language of the Revolution serve different points of view equally well?
Week 13: Nature, Science, and Landscape
Reading: from chapter 7, John Wilkins and John Josselyn; from chapter 12, Jared Eliot,Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, William Bartram; from chapter 14, Annis Stockton, "Elegy on the Destruction of the Trees" and Philip Freneau, "The Wild Honeysuckle." How do these writers imagine the significance and usefulness of the environment? Is wilderness a good thing?
Week 14: Belles Lettres
Reading: from chapter 13, Benjamin Franklin's "The Ephemera," Alphonzo, Charles Brockden Brown, Susannah Rowson, Hannah Foster, Fisher Ames; from chapter 14, Richard Lewis, Phillis Wheatley, Timothy Dwight, Joseph Stansbury, Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson, and Philip Freneau. Is literary culture democratic? What would a national culture be like? Is civilization a good thing?
A Junior- and Senior-Level English Department Course, Organized by Theme
This course for upper-level students concentrates on themes or problems in colonial culture. Within each unit, it aims at provocative anachronism, taking materials from widely differing periods in order to foreground possible changes or continuities. The themes selected in this example include exploration and discovery, the redescription of the world through science, the rivalry of civilizations, the errand into the wilderness, the limits and outcasts of community, and the growth of a culture based in commerce.
Unit 1. Exploration and Discovery
Week 1
Discovery and its motivations. Reading: from chapter 1, Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville, Columbus, Vespucci; from chapter 7, John Wilkins; from chapter 8, Edmund Spenser and Andrew Marvell.
Week 2
Myths of conquest. Reading: from chapter 10, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, John Filson, and Noah Webster, "Story of Columbus"; from chapter 13, Thomas Jefferson(query 4).
Unit 2. Redescribing the World
Week 3
Inquiry and authority. Reading: from chapter 2, John Rastell; from chapter 7, Robert Boyle, John Josselyn, Increase Mather, three selections about smallpox; from chapter 12, Benjamin Franklin, "Of Lightning," Thomas Jefferson (query 6).
Week 4
The supernatural and the limits of reason. Reading: from chapter 5, Winthrop's journal, Richard Chamberlain, Lithobolia; from chapter 6, Deodat Lawson and Robert Calef; from chapter 9, Jonathan Edwards, "Of Being," Thomas Paine, from The Age of Reason; from chapter 14, Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson ("On the Mind's Being Engrossed by One Subject")
Unit 3. Rival Civilizations: Indians and Others
Week 5
Indians as a counter-voice to the European, or as the European image of natural man. Reading: from chapter 1, Nahuatl accounts; from chapter 2, The Great Chronicle of London, the first printed account of America in English, Thomas More, Michel de Montaigne; from chapter 3, Edward Waterhouse, Thomas Shepard, George Fox; from chapter 8, John Milton; from chapter 13, Benjamin Franklin, "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America."
Week 6
Colonial ethnography. Reading: from chapter 3, John Smith (selection 2), William Wood, Thomas Morton; from chapter 7, Roger Williams; from chapter 5, Pierre Radisson and Mary Rowlandson; from chapter 9, David Brainerd; from chapter 14, Henry Timberlake.
Unit 4. Errand into the Wilderness
Week 7
English visions of the future empire. Reading: from chapter 2, Richard Eden, William Lightfoot, Walter Ralegh, and definition of "colony" from A Planter's Plea; from chapter 3, John Smith (Description of New England); from chapter 14, Richard Lewis, Bishop Berkeley, Timothy Dwight, Joel Barlow, Philip Freneau.
Week 8
Puritan and secular visions of America's historical importance. Reading: from chapter 3, John Winthrop, John Cotton, William Bradford; from chapter 5, Ned Ward; from chapter 6, Samuel Danforth; from chapter 8, Anonymous (selections 3, 5, and 6), George Herbert, and Michael Wigglesworth; from chapter 10, Nathaniel Ames; from chapter 13, J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur.
Unit 5. The Limits of the New Community
Week 9
Outcasts, criminals, and dissidents. Reading: from chapter 2, George Best; from chapter 3, Bradford's view of Morton, Francis Higginson; from chapter 5, John Rogers; from chapter 9, Samson Occom; from chapter 10, Stephen Burroughs; from chapter 11, "To the printur of the Penselvaney Kronical," William Manning; from chapter 14, "The Cameleon Lover" and "The Cameleon's Defense"; Mary Nelson, "Forty Shillings Reward."
Week 10
Women and public community. Reading: from chapter 4, Aphra Behn; from chapter 5, Anne Bradstreet; from chapter 6, the Antinomian controversy, from chapter 8, Anne Bradstreet; from chapter 9, Elizabeth Ashbridge; from chapter 14, Phillis Wheatley ("To the University in Cambridge").
Week 11
The development of articulate feminism. Reading: from chapter 11, "Sentiments of an American Woman," Abigail Adams, Thomas Paine ("Occasional Letter on the Female Sex"), Judith Sargent Murray; from chapter 13, Hannah Foster; from chapter 14, Anonymous ("The Lady's Complaint"), Milcah Moore.
Unit 6. Commerce and Civilization
Week 12
From empire to commerce. Reading: from chapter 1, King Manuel; from chapter 2, Thomas Hariot, Francis Bacon; from chapter 4, King James I and John Smith; from chapter 5, Sarah Knight; from chapter 5, the Keayne controversy; from chapter 8, George Alsop ("Traffique is Earth's Great Atlas"); from chapter 10, William Robertson; from chapter 11, Adam Smith; from chapter 13, Benjamin Franklin ("Father Abraham's Speech").
Week 13
The slave trade. Reading: from chapter 2, John Sparke and Lopez Vaz; from chapter 5, John Josselyn; from chapter 11, Samuel Sewall and John Saffin; from chapter 10, newspaper advertisements; from chapter 11, Ottobah Cugoano, Mason-Madison debate, Benjamin Franklin ("Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim"); from chapter 10, Olaudah Equiano; from chapter 14, James Grainger, the Rector of St. Johns, Phillis Wheatley ("On Being Brought").
Week 14
Commercial culture, refinement, and belles lettres. Reading: from chapter 5, Nicholas Noyes; from chapter 10, Joseph Addison (Spectator #69); from chapter 11, Thomas Jefferson (Query 19); from chapter 13, Alexander Hamilton, Fisher Ames; from chapter 14, Ebenezer Cooke, Alexander Pope, John Dyer, Charles Hansford, George Berkeley, Timothy Dwight, Philip Freneau ("On the Emigration to America").
This course is an introduction to the history and legacies of colonialism. It concentrates on the period of the first British empire, ending with the American Revolution. It examines the relations among colonialism, race, gender, and politics. The course also looks at the rise of nationalism, the public sphere, social movements such as feminism and antislavery, and the broad context of what is called modernity. [Note: This course might be given a more comparative scope by the addition of other readings, such as Bernal Diaz, Bartolome de las Casas, Jean de Lery, Sor Juana, and Cabeza de Vaca.]
Week 1: Native Americans and Colonial Ethnography
Nahuatl accounts of the conquest of Mexico; The Great Chronicle of London; the first printed account of America; Thomas Hariot; Michel de Montaigne; John Smith; William Wood; Thomas Morton; Roger Williams; Thomas Shepard; George Fox; John Milton.
Week 2: New World Africans
John Sparke; Lopez Vaz; George Best; John Josselyn; Great News from the Barbadoes; Daniel Horsmanden; newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves; "The Cameleon Lover"; "The Cameleon's Defense"; Lucy Terry; Phillis Wheatley; "The Field-Negro; or the Effect of Civilization."
Week 3: Religion, Capital, and Empire
Richard Eden; Richard Hakluyt, Christopher Carleill, Edward Hayes, and George Peckham; William Lightfoot; Francis Bacon; John Smith (from A Description of New England); John Cotton; Jonathan Swift; John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon; Thomas Pownall; William Robertson; Edmund Burke; Adam Smith.
Week 4: Progress and Commercial Culture
The Keayne Controversy; George Alsop; William Byrd I; Nicholas Noyes; Samuel Sewall; Sarah Knight; Spectator #69; William Byrd II; Jonathan Edwards "Of Self-Love"; Benjamin Franklin ("Father Abraham's Speech"); Alexander Pope; John Dyer.
Week 5: Gender, Desire, and Colonization
Walter Ralegh; Anne Bradstreet; Richard Ligon; Aphra Behn; Ned Ward; Spectator #11; William Byrd II (from the diaries); Ned Botwood, "Hot Stuff."
Week 6: Indians and Settlers
Edward Waterhouse; Pierre Radisson; Mary Rowlandson; David Brainerd; Richard Lewis; Henry Timberlake; Samson Occom; Benjamin Franklin ("Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America"); John Filson; Philip Freneau.
Week 7: Witches, Criminals, and Other Dangers
The Antinomian Controversy; Michael Wigglesworth; Richard Chamberlain; Deodat Lawson; Robert Calef; John Rogers; Stephen Burroughs.
Week 8: Tradition and Revision in Religious Culture
John Winthrop; Nathaniel Ward; The Bay Psalm Book; Richard Pinder; Samuel Danforth; Increase Mather; Jonathan Edwards; Elizabeth Ashbridge; Thomas Paine; three versions of Psalm 137.
Week 9: Modernity and Personal Narrative
Anne Bradstreet, "To My Dear Children"; Henry Kelsey; Jonathan Edwards, "Personal Narrative"; Daniel Defoe; Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography.
Week 10: Modernity and Historical Narrative
William Bradford; John Esquemeling; William Byrd II; Nathaniel Ames; Peter Oliver; Edward Gibbon; William Robertson; Noah Webster; Lucy Terry.
Week 11: The Public Sphere
Dr. Alexander Hamilton; William Livingston; two popular broadsides; Benjamin Franklin("Edict by the King of Prussia"); Thomas Jefferson; Thomas Paine; Hannah Griffitts; Anonymous ("On the Snake"); James Madison; William Manning.
Week 12: Feminism in Public
"The Lady's Complaint"; Benjamin Franklin ("Speech of Miss Polly Baker"); Abigail Adams; Thomas Paine; Judith Sargent Murray; Milcah Martha Moore; Annis Boudinot Stockton; Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson; Sarah Wentworth Morton; Hannah Foster.
Week 13: Antislavery in Public
Samuel Sewall; John Saffin; James Grainger; Anonymous (from Jamaica); Samuel Johnson; Ottobah Cugoano; Ukawsaw Gronniosaw; Olaudah Equiano; Benjamin Franklin ("Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim"); George Mason and James Madison; Sarah Wentworth Morton.
Week 14: Nationalism
William Hooke; Charles Hansford; Timothy Dwight; Joel Barlow; J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur; Thomas Jefferson; Philip Freneau; Fisher Ames.
The texts in The English Literatures of America range from literary works to letters, sermons, diaries, execution narratives, popular ballads, autobiographical accounts, pamphlets, broadsides, and official documents. This diversity makes the volume an ideal reader for a historical survey. Students encounter primary documents from a wide range of contexts, illustrating the major themes of colonial history in the language of the times and from different points of view. The following list identifies texts that illuminate some of the most commonly emphasized events and themes in historical surveys.
Exploration and Discovery
chapters 1 and 2 (Marco Polo to A Planter's Plea)
Migration and Settlement
five letters from America (John Pory, Richard Frethorne, John Baldwin, George Calvert, (anonymous)
John Smith, from A Map of Virginia, Description of New England, and The Generall Historie of Virginia
The Tragical Relation of the Virginia Assembly
Robert Hayman, verses on Newfoundland
Anonymous, "A West Country Man's Voyage to New England"
Anonymous, "A Friendly Invitation to a New Plantation"
Anonymous, "New England's Annoyances"
Francis Higginson, journal
John Winthrop, journal and "Modell of Christian Charity"
John Cotton, from God's Promise to His Plantations
Sir Henry Colt, journal
William Bradford, from Of Plymouth Plantation
Mourt's Relation
Richard Ligon, from A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados
Henry Kelsey, "Now Reader Read"
Indian/Settler Relations
Thomas Hariot, A Briefe and True Report
John Smith, from A Map of Virginia
Edward Waterhouse, Declaration of the State of the Colony in Virginia
William Wood, from New England's Prospect
Thomas Morton, from New English Canaan
Roger Williams, from A Key into the Language of America
John Eliot, from Tears of Repentance
[Thomas Shepard], a visit to John Eliot's mission
Pierre-Esprit Radisson, The Relation of my Voyage, being in Bondage in the Lands of the Irokoits
Mary Rowlandson, The Soveraignty and Goodness of God
Thomas Shepard, an Nauset prophecy
George Fox, an Indian prophecy
Richard Steele, Spectator #11
David Brainerd, from the journal
Lucy Terry, "Bars Fight"
Henry Timberlake, "A Translation of the War-Song"
Samson Occom, A Sermon Preached by Samson Occom
John Filson, Adventures of Daniel Boon
Benjamin Franklin, "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America"
William Baylies, the legend of Moiship
Philip Freneau, "The Indian Burying Ground," "The Indian Convert"
The Interregnum and the Restoration
William Hooke, from New-Englands Tears for Old-Englands Fears
John Winthrop, journal
Nathaniel Ward, from The Simple Cobler of Aggawam
Samuel Danforth, A Brief Recognition of New-Englands Errand into the Wilderness
Local Autonomy and Imperial Administration
Francis Bacon, "Of Plantations"
James I, from A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco
John Smith, on tobacco
John Winthrop, speech on liberty
Richard Saltonstall, letter to the Boston church
John Cotton, reply to Saltonstall
John Esquemeling, from The Buccaneers of America
Ned Ward, from A Trip to Jamaica
Ned Ward, from A Trip to New England
Ebenezer Cooke, The Sot-Weed Factor
William Byrd II, History of the Dividing Line
John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, "Of Plantations and Colonies"
Thomas Pownall, from The Administration of the Colonies of America
Phillis Wheatley, "To the Right Honorable William, the Earl of Dartmouth"
King Philip's War and Bacon's Rebellion
Mary Rowlandson, The Soveraignty and Goodness of God
Nathaniel Bacon, "Manifesto"
Robert Beverley, from History and Present State of Virginia
Aphra Behn, The Widow Ranter
The Slave Trade
John Sparke, from The Voyage Made by Master John Hawkins
Lopez Vaz, an account of Francis Drake
John Josselyn, journal of the first voyage
Richard Ligon, from A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados
Anonymous, Great News from the Barbadoes
Samuel Sewall, The Selling of Joseph
John Saffin, A Brief and Candid Answer
newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves
Daniel Horsmanden, from Journal of the Proceedings Against the Conspirators
Nathaniel Ames, "A Thought Upon the Past, Present, and Future of British America"
James Grainger, from The Sugar Cane
Anonymous, from Jamaica
The Rector of St. Johns at Nevis, "The Field Negroe, or the Effect of Civilization"
Phillis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa to America"
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, from Letters of an American Farmer
Thomas Jefferson, from Notes on the State of Virginia
Ottobah Cugoano, from Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic
George Mason and James Madison, debate on the Constitution
Benjamin Franklin "Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim"
Olaudah Equiano, from The Interesting Narrative
Sarah Wentworth Morton, "The African Chief"
The Witch Crisis and the Popular Culture of Magic
John Winthrop, journal
John Josselyn, from Two Voyages to New England
Increase Mather, from Essay for the Recording of Remarkable Providences
Deodat Lawson, A Brief and True Narrative
Robert Calef, from More Wonders of the Invisible World
Richard Chamberlain, Lithobolia
Commerce and Anglicization
The Keayne Controversy
George Alsop, "Trafique is Earth's Great Atlas"
Nicholas Noyes, "An Essay Against Periwigs"
Samuel Sewall, from the diary
Sarah Knight, Journal
Ebenezer Cooke, The Sot-Weed Factor
William Byrd II, from the diaries
Joseph Addison, Spectator #69
Alexander Pope, from "Windsor Forest"
Dr. Alexander Hamilton, from Itinerarium and History of the Tuesday Club
Charles Hansford, from "My Country's Worth"
George Berkeley, "On the Prospect of Planting the Arts and Learning in America"
John Dyer, from The Fleece
William Robertson, from The History of America
Adam Smith, from The Wealth of Nations
Benjamin Franklin, "Father Abraham's Speech," Autobiography
Thomas Jefferson, from Notes on the State of Virginia
Gender
William Wood, from New England's Prospect
The Antinomian Controversy
John Winthrop, journal
Anne Bradstreet, "To My Dear Children" and poems
George Alsop, "The Author to His Book"
Richard Ligon, from A True and Exact History of Barbados
Michael Wigglesworth, from the diary
Samuel Sewall, from the diary
Ned Ward, from A Trip to New England
John Rogers, Jr., The Declaration and Confession of Esther Rodgers
Sarah Knight, Journal
Richard Steele, Spectator #11
William Byrd II, from History of the Dividing Line and diaries
Anonymous, "The Cameleon Lover" and "The Cameleon's Defense"
Anonymous, "The Lady's Complaint"
Benjamin Franklin, "Speech of Miss Polly Baker"
Elizabeth Ashbridge, from Some Account of the Fore-Part of the Life
Milcah Martha Moore, "The Female Patriots"
Phillis Wheatley, "To the University of Cambridge"
Ned Botwood, "Hot Stuff"
Abigail Adams, letter to John Adams
"Sentiments of an American Woman"
Thomas Paine, "An Occasional Letter on the Female Sex"
Judith Sargent Murray, "On the Equality of the Sexes"
Annis Boudinot Stockton, "Elegy on the Destruction of the Trees"
Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson, "On the Mind's Being Engrossed by One Subject"
Sarah Wentworth Morton, "Sonnet to the Full Summer Moon"
"Alphonzo," from The American Magazine
Susannah Rowson, from Charlotte Temple
Hannah Foster, from The Coquette
Revivals and the Great Awakening
Richard Pinder, from A Loving Invitation to Repentance
Jonathan Edwards, "Personal Narrative," "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," from Freedom of the Will and The Nature of True Virtue
David Brainerd, from the journal
Elizabeth Ashbridge, from Some Account of the Fore-Part of the Life
Samson Occom, A Sermon Preached by Samson Occom
The Enlightenment
Robert Boyle, from Heads for the Natural History of a Country
Three selections about smallpox
Benjamin Franklin, two revisions of Job, letter to Ezra Stiles, "Of Lightning"
Thomas Jefferson, from Notes on the State of Virginia
Thomas Paine, from The Age of Reason
William Bartram, from Travels
Republicanism and Revolution
John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, Cato's Letters #106
William Livingston, "Liberty of the Press"
Two popular broadsides
Milcah Martha Moore, "The Female Patriot"
Benjamin Franklin, "Edict by the King of Prussia"
Edmund Burke, from Speech . . . on Conciliation with the Colonies
Abigail Adams, letter to John Adams
Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence and from Notes on the State of Virginia
Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, #1
Hannah Griffitts, "On Reading Some Paragraphs in `The Crisis'"
Anonymous, "On the Snake Depicted at the Head of Some American Newspapers"
Joseph Stansbury, "To Cordelia"
Peter Oliver, from Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion
Stephen Burroughs, from Memoirs
William Manning, from The Key of Liberty
Fisher Ames, "American Literature"
The Constitution
George Mason and James Madison, debate on slavery
James Madison, The Federalist #10
William Manning, from The Key of Liberty
Toward a National Culture
Timothy Dwight, "Columbia"
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, from Letters of an American Farmer
John Filson, The Adventures of Daniel Boon
Joel Barlow, from The Vision of Columbus
Charles Brockden Brown and Thomas Jefferson, two views on the novel
Hannah Foster, from The Coquette
Philip Freneau, poems
Noah Webster, "The Story of Columbus"
Fisher Ames, "American Literature"
The English Literatures of America is, as its title indicates, a collection of English literature. Because it includes so many texts from English authors on empire, it makes a useful and convenient text for courses not only on American literature, but also on English national literature and imperial culture. With a selection of other texts, it could constitute a course focusing on the Renaissance, on the eighteenth century, or on the greater early modern period.
Texts for such a course might include the following:
Edmund Spenser, View of the Present State of Ireland
Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
John Dryden, Aurengzebe
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko
Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders
Below is a list of the works in The English Literatures of America that might serve especially well in a course on English culture. Most are not ordinarily thought of as American.
Sir Thomas More, from Utopia
John Rastell, from A New Interlude
Richard Eden, from translation of Peter Martyr
John Sparke, from The Voyage Made by Master John Hawkins
Lopez Vaz, an account of Francis Drake
George Best, from A True Discourse
Richard Hakluyt, Christopher Carleill, Edward Hayes, and George Peckham, on plantations.
William Lightfoot, from The Complaint of England
Thomas Hariot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia
Edmund Spenser, from The Faerie Queene
Walter Ralegh, from The Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empire of Guiana
Robert Hayman, "Verses on Newfoundland"
Francis Bacon, "Of Plantations"
William Strachey, from A True Reportory of the Wrack and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates
Anonymous, "A West Country Man's Voyage to New England"
George Herbert, from "The Church Militant"
Anonymous, "A Friendly Invitation to a New Plantation"
Andrew Marvell, "Bermudas"
George Alsop, "The Author to his Book," "Trafique is Earth's Great Atlas"
Richard Ligon, from A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados
Anonymous, Great News from the Barbadoes
John Milton, from Paradise Lost
Aphra Behn, The Widow Ranter
John Esquemeling, from The Buccaneers of America
Ned Ward, from A Trip to Jamaica
Ned Ward, from A Trip to New England
Ebenezer Cooke, The Sot-Weed Factor
Richard Steele, Spectator #11
Joseph Addison, Spectator #69
Alexander Pope, from "Windsor Forest"
Daniel Defoe, from Robinson Crusoe
John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, Cato's Letters #106, "Of Plantations and Colonies"
Jonathan Swift, from Gulliver's Travels
John Dyer, from The Fleece
Bishop Berkeley, "On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America"
Thomas Pownall, from The Administration of the Colonies
Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, from A Narrative
Peter Oliver, from Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion
Edward Gibbon, from Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
William Robertson, from The History of America
Edmund Burke, from Speech . . . on Conciliation with the Colonies
Dr. Johnson, from Taxation no Tyranny
Adam Smith, from Wealth of Nations
Ottobah Cugoano, from Thoughts and Sentiments
Phillis Wheatley, "To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth"