84
Lectures
30
minutes/lecture
1.
Introduction to Classics of American Literature
What do we mean by a "classic"? And what makes these original and uncompromising works "American"?
1.
Introduction to Classics of American Literature
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43.
The Turn of the Screw—Do You Believe in Ghosts?
The Turn of the Screw is a candidate for the greatest story in literature, even though it has none of the Gothic features so familiar to us. Its themes of innocence and guilt, swirling around two children, have no less power to terrify us than any of Poe's or Hawthorne's darkest stories.
43.
The Turn of the Screw—Do You Believe in Ghosts?
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2.
Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography—The First American Story
Franklin is one of the towering figures of America. His life is an example of self-making so potent it created what we now call the American Dream.
2.
Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography—The First American Story
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44.
Turning the Screw of Interpretation
There are two totally opposed readings of James's famous ghost story—one that denies it has any ghosts at all—and we see how the story reveals the moral stakes of interpretation, and how lethal that interpretation can be.
44.
Turning the Screw of Interpretation
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3.
Washington Irving—The First American Storyteller
This no-longer-fashionable writer has much more than nostalgic value, revealing many of the growing pains and anxieties that accompanied the momentous shift from English colony to independent nation.
3.
Washington Irving—The First American Storyteller
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45.
Stephen Crane and the Literature of War
The Red Badge of Courage, written by a young man who had never been in battle, took the world by storm and gave birth to a new kind of American writing about war: an unflinching, quasi-journalistic vision that showed a new image of the human combatant.
45.
Stephen Crane and the Literature of War
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4.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Yesterday—America's Coming of Age
Ralph Waldo Emerson was the guiding spirit of American Romanticism, and his early works created a resounding "declaration of independence" from the Old World in culture, literature, and ethics.
4.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Yesterday—America's Coming of Age
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46.
The Red Badge of Courage—Brave New World
Crane's central strategy is to juxtapose the inner private world of a soldier in battle with the external world around him, and we see how he invents a new kind of expressionistic prose to accomplish this.
46.
The Red Badge of Courage—Brave New World
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5.
Emerson Today—Architect of American Values
Emerson's most famous work, "Self-Reliance," offered a bold and confident vision of the Self to which American values are still in debt—provided we remain alert to its radical implications.
5.
Emerson Today—Architect of American Values
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47.
Stephen Crane—Scientist of Human Behavior
Many argue that Crane's greatest accomplishments lie in the realm of the short story. We take a close look at two of his most famous forays in this genre: "The Open Boat" and "The Blue Hotel."
47.
Stephen Crane—Scientist of Human Behavior
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6.
Emerson Tomorrow—Deconstructing Culture and Self
Though Emerson is easily misconstrued as a facile optimist, his thinking went much deeper, vigorously confronting issues like alienation even as he envisioned a heartening ethic of freedom.
6.
Emerson Tomorrow—Deconstructing Culture and Self
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48.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman—War Against Patriarchy
Gilman's work is filled with tribulations of family, especially the impossible demands placed on women. Her fateful encounter with America's ruling physician of hysteria, S. Weir Mitchell, ultimately produced this harrowing account of a woman essentially going mad by a doctor's orders.
48.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman—War Against Patriarchy
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7.
Henry David Thoreau—Countercultural Hero
Long regarded as a shadow to Emerson, Thoreau has made his own reputation as dissenter and environmentalist, achieving in Walden a homespun pragmatism of great appeal in a society that has lost contact with the land.
7.
Henry David Thoreau—Countercultural Hero
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49.
“The Yellow Wallpaper”—Descent into Hell or Free at Last?
This 20-page story is one of the most unforgettable pieces of prose in all of American literature, lodging itself in the mind in a Kafkaesque manner and leaving readers with a most difficult task of final assessment.
49.
“The Yellow Wallpaper”—Descent into Hell or Free at Last?
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8.
Thoreau—Stylist and Humorist Extraordinaire
Thoreau deserves far more serious accounting as a writer—a voice rich in pungent humor, biting satire, and splendid evocations of the natural world.
8.
Thoreau—Stylist and Humorist Extraordinaire
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50.
Robert Frost and the Spirit of New England
The reputation of Robert Frost is by no means a settled matter, and there are many scholars who still insist on denying all seriousness in his work. But a careful look at some of his most well-known poems shows us that they are considerably more complex and less settled than is usually thought.
50.
Robert Frost and the Spirit of New England
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9.
Walden—Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Thoreau transcends ideology as he fashions a breathtaking new language for portraying nature. In his paean to the surging life forces at Walden Pond, he offers us a new discourse of hope.
9.
Walden—Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
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51.
Robert Frost—“At Home in the Metaphor”
Every poet has a stake in the significance of metaphor, and we learn about the debate over whether this vital tool too often substitutes a poet's own projections for "hard facts." Frost was critically alert to this problem, and some of his most interesting poems show us that they are considerably more complex and less settled than is usually thought.
51.
Robert Frost—“At Home in the Metaphor”
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10.
Edgar Allan Poe
Poe's poetry is often dismissed, but his finest work is haunting in its suggestiveness. Even more certain is the impact of his famous theory of literature, which forever altered the course of European poetry.
10.
Edgar Allan Poe
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52.
Robert Frost and the Fruits of the Earth
Although countless poets have waxed lyrical about Nature and the "good life," Frost remains one of the few who have written about work. We look at some of his most unforgettable poems about labor in all of its guises.
52.
Robert Frost and the Fruits of the Earth
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11.
Poe—Ghost Writer
Well before Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Poe was plumbing the depths of the divided self in haunting tales such as "William Wilson," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," and "The Fall of the House of Usher," raising familiar phantoms that haunt all of us.
11.
Poe—Ghost Writer
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53.
T.S. Eliot—Unloved Modern Classic
Eliot's importance as both poet and critic was recognized almost as soon as he burst on the scene, and this lecture begins our examination of a career that ultimately defined him as the arbiter for English-speaking poetry in the first half of the 20th century.
53.
T.S. Eliot—Unloved Modern Classic
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12.
Poe's Legacy—The Self as “Haunted Palace”
An examination of three of Poe's most fully realized short stories—"The Black Cat," "The Tell-tale Heart," and "The Pit and the Pendulum"—shows how rich and bristling Poe's territory is.
12.
Poe's Legacy—The Self as “Haunted Palace”
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54.
T.S. Eliot—“The Waste Land” and Beyond
No poem challenges us like "The Waste Land," which demands that we domesticate its fierce strangeness and confront its formidable array of artifice and allusion. We journey into the heart of this monumental poem before concluding with a brief look at Eliot's haunting final work, "The Four Quartets."
54.
T.S. Eliot—“The Waste Land” and Beyond
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13.
Nathaniel Hawthorne and the American Past
Hawthorne was America's first great artist of the novel and short story, and in this lecture we see how his search for subject matter drew him into a past he saw as richer and more compelling than the young nation of his own time.
13.
Nathaniel Hawthorne and the American Past
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55.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby—American Romance
F. Scott Fitzgerald is our great chronicler of the Jazz Age, and this distinguished masterpiece shows why. But the book is more than mere chronicle. As we look at the writer understood to be the "lyric poet of Capitalism," we begin to understand the burning desire that drives Gatsby.
55.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby—American Romance
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14.
The Scarlet Letter—Puritan Romance
In telling this complex tale of Puritan crime and punishment, Hawthorne creates a fresh, riddling vision of fiction that defies our own efforts to arrive at a final interpretation.
14.
The Scarlet Letter—Puritan Romance
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56.
The Great Gatsby—A Story of Lost Illusions?
We take a closer look at Gatsby's flawed characters and the dreams they pursue, and we grapple with the same questions that faced their author: Is the dream itself flawed? And can desire—even the superhuman desire that has animated Gatsby—be sustained once it is gratified?
56.
The Great Gatsby—A Story of Lost Illusions?
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15.
Hawthorne's “A”—Interpretation and Semiosis
Hawthorne's "A" is the most famous and potent hieroglyph in American literature, with meanings that transcend the boundaries of the obvious "Adultery" to include "Able," "Angel," and, indeed, "Art."
15.
Hawthorne's “A”—Interpretation and Semiosis
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57.
Fitzgerald's Triumph—Writing the American Dream
We learn that Fitzgerald saw the story of Gatsby as a tale of how dreams give glory to life, whether they are true or not, and that the dream itself is incorruptible, no matter how the dreamer and the woman he loved might be discredited.
57.
Fitzgerald's Triumph—Writing the American Dream
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16.
The Scarlet Letter—Political Tract or Psychological Study?
The traditional reading of The Scarlet Letter is a psychological one. But this remarkable novel also reflected many of the political conflicts of the mid-19th-century America in which it was written, including the women's movement, the threat of anarchy and revolution, and the nature of dissent.
16.
The Scarlet Letter—Political Tract or Psychological Study?
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58.
Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises—Novel of the Lost Generation
As the 20th century ends, Hemingway's reputation in the American canon is under fire, even though his status as the most influential American prose-writer of the century is without dispute. We begin our examination of how this irony came to be with a look at the novel often regarded as Hemingway's best.
58.
Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises—Novel of the Lost Generation
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17.
Hawthorne Our Contemporary
Hawthorne is the first American writer to brood on the idea of the past—both personal and societal—and to explore morality without flinching. He heralds the great dark novels of Faulkner and other Southern writers, as well as the New England literature of Cheever, Lowell, and Gaddis.
17.
Hawthorne Our Contemporary
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59.
The Sun Also Rises—Spiritual Quest
On the surface, this novel—which first introduced America to the Paris of the 1920s—seems like pure realism. We soon realize that the plight of Hemingway's Americans in Europe has deeply symbolic overtones.
59.
The Sun Also Rises—Spiritual Quest
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18.
Herman Melville and the Making of Moby-Dick
Melville had already built a successful reputation as a true-life adventure writer by the time he began work on Moby-Dick.
18.
Herman Melville and the Making of Moby-Dick
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60.
Ernest Hemingway—Wordsmith
More than any other writer, Hemingway remade the American literary language; much of the verbiage and rhetoric of "English" has vanished from American prose because of his efforts. Yet nothing is as simple as it appears, and this lecture about the way Hemingway used words may change the way you view this seminal writer.
60.
Ernest Hemingway—Wordsmith
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19.
The Biggest Fish Story of Them All
Although whaling is covered in extraordinary detail, Melville's ultimate topic is greatness itself. His depictions of whales at sea are springboards for profound meditations on the nature and whereabouts of truth.
19.
The Biggest Fish Story of Them All
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61.
Hemingway's The Garden of Eden—Female Desire Unleashed
In this posthumously published and fiercely edited version of a 1500-page manuscript that Hemingway worked on for more than a decade, we finally see the explosive sexual issues that lurked behind the scenes of his other work, as well as his first fully developed female character.
61.
Hemingway's The Garden of Eden—Female Desire Unleashed
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20.
Ahab and the White Whale
In Ahab, Melville creates and indigenous American tragic hero—a mad imperial figure whose quest becomes a map of the human enterprise, the heights and depths of which Melville charts in unforgettable ways.
20.
Ahab and the White Whale
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62.
The Garden of Eden—Combat Zone
We conclude our look at Hemingway with the frankest account we will ever have from him about the relationship between the sexes.
62.
The Garden of Eden—Combat Zone
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21.
Moby-Dick—Tragedy of Perspective
A limited point of view is the fate of all people, and one of Melville's greatest achievements is to render Ahab's monomaniacal quest from the perspectives of several participants, giving readers a dramatic perspective.
21.
Moby-Dick—Tragedy of Perspective
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63.
William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury—The Idiot's Tale
Beginning with an overview of William Faulkner's career, this lecture introduces the masterpiece that marks his reinvention of the novel form: the account of a Southern family's decline that opens with the most famous piece of American prose of the 20th century—the idiot's monologue.
63.
William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury—The Idiot's Tale
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22.
Melville's “Benito Cereno”—American (Mis)adventure at Sea
One of Melville's most brilliant works is the largely unread short story, "Benito Cereno." In this strange and complex account of an encounter with a mysterious slave ship, Melville's choice of narrator allows him to make a striking and original contribution to the contemporary debate over race and colonialism.
22.
Melville's “Benito Cereno”—American (Mis)adventure at Sea
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64.
The Sound and the Fury—Failed Rites of Passage
We see how Faulkner enlists stream-of-consciousness style to explore the gathering drama of a young man's agonized sense of failure—giving us a prose that duplicates in print the rich, choruslike nature of human thought.
64.
The Sound and the Fury—Failed Rites of Passage
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23.
“Benito Cereno”—Theater of Power or Power of Theater?
The true meaning of the strange events of Benito Cereno" is withheld from the narrator—and thus the reader—until the very end. This technique enables Melville's meditation on power to make its most telling point about the nature of "vision" as a cultural product.
23.
“Benito Cereno”—Theater of Power or Power of Theater?
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65.
The Sound and the Fury—Signifying Nothing?
In the final part of the novel, Faulkner narrates in the third person, thereby changing entirely what the reader sees and bringing issues of community into this drama of a sick and dying nuclear family.
65.
The Sound and the Fury—Signifying Nothing?
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24.
Walt Whitman—The American Bard Appears
Emerson, spokesperson for mid-19th-century literary America, had asked when America would have the poet it deserved. Leaves of Grass, published in 1855, is the dramatic answer, in which Whitman celebrates the political, moral, and verbal grandeur of democratic America.
24.
Walt Whitman—The American Bard Appears
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66.
Absalom, Absalom!—Civil War Epic
Published in the same year as Gone With the Wind, Faulkner's most complex novel collapses all of the narrative distinctions of Margaret Mitchell's linear plot, crafting a story that moves forward, backward, and sideways in giving us a profound view of the unhealed wounds of the Civil War.
66.
Absalom, Absalom!—Civil War Epic
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25.
Whitman—Poet of the Body
Whitman's powerful portrayal of the human body struck a deep—and often offensive—note in his 19th-century audience. Reversing body/spirit dualism and its religious corollary of a superior spirit, he insisted instead on the sanctity of the body and its natural passions.
25.
Whitman—Poet of the Body
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67.
Absalom, Absalom!—The Language of Love
This lecture will explain the reasons behind Faulkner's intentionally disjointed prose and the remarkable impact it allowed him to make.
67.
Absalom, Absalom!—The Language of Love
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26.
Whitman—Poet of the City
Whitman ranks as one of the first poets to plumb the changes wrought by the modern city. In one of his greatest poems, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," he bears witness to the city as an unparalleled locus of energy, encounter, and attachment.
26.
Whitman—Poet of the City
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68.
Absalom, Absalom!—The Overpass to Love
In this final lecture on Faulkner, we see how the two youthful narrators are made to epitomize the novel's deepest concerns: how we process the past and what we bring with us when we enter the lives of other people and other times. Their joint narrative heroics constitute Faulkner's noblest utterance about what literature can predict.
68.
Absalom, Absalom!—The Overpass to Love
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27.
Whitman—Poet of Death
Although Whitman is properly seen as a vital, even titanic, force whose poems celebrate life in all its varieties, a deep intimacy with death runs throughout his work. As life's truth and art's source, death emerges as the bedrock of his poetry.
27.
Whitman—Poet of Death
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69.
The Grapes of Wrath—American Saga
Published in 1939, this documentarylike tale of people uprooted from their land by the Great Depression created a literary sensation, selling 430,000 copies in its first year. We see how Steinbeck's novel bears witness to the destruction of a way of life—a covenant between man and the land—that cannot survive the displacements of the industrial age.
69.
The Grapes of Wrath—American Saga
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28.
The Whitman Legacy
This lecture examines the signature features of Whitman's art: the humor, elusiveness, open-endedness, and the genial persona as intimate and guide that endows his work with such an intense, personal flavor.
28.
The Whitman Legacy
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70.
John Steinbeck—Poet of the Little Man
Although he has been maligned as a superficial writer who deals in stereotypes rather than credible characters, Steinbeck's prose has a remarkable bite and pungency that reveals the collective voice of a nation and the forces that govern it.
70.
John Steinbeck—Poet of the Little Man
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29.
Uncle Tom's Cabin—The Unread Classic
Harriet Beecher Stowe published several novels, but she is known only for this one, which captured the attention of the entire world in 1852 but has since virtually vanished from the landscape. Her book changed the course of American history, but many readers have trouble with it, and we examine why.
29.
Uncle Tom's Cabin—The Unread Classic
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71.
The Grapes of Wrath—Reconceiving Self and Family
Will the revenge implied by the title actually come? Does justice prevail? Is there a reward for the innocent? Wisely, Steinbeck refrains from answering, but in the novel's controversial conclusion, he reconceives the bonds of family with a redemptive vision.
71.
The Grapes of Wrath—Reconceiving Self and Family
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30.
Stowe's Representation of Slavery
Stowe approaches the outrage of slavery and its assault on the family from the viewpoint of a mother who has herself lost children, and we see how the book's authority is inseparable from its family theme.
30.
Stowe's Representation of Slavery
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72.
Invisible Man—Black Bildungsroman
Ralph Ellison's novel comes at a time when Richard Wright's Native Son seemed to epitomize the goals of much black writing: a tragic, brilliant account of conflict depicted as social realism. We see how Ellison creates an entirely new idiom commensurate with the rich, multileveled story he wants to tell.
72.
Invisible Man—Black Bildungsroman
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31.
Freedom and Art in Uncle Tom's Cabin
The power of Stowe's classic depiction of slavery derives from the alternative vision she proposes at every step: an absolute freedom whose spirit shimmers throughout the book, which emerges as a far greater tribute to art than we have thought.
31.
Freedom and Art in Uncle Tom's Cabin
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73.
Invisible Man—Reconceiving History and Race
Much of the drama of this famous work—often regarded as a candidate for "novel of the century"—is rooted in the protagonist's search for authority. We see how the events of his life repeatedly re-emphasize his "invisibility," and how each bout of futility and exploitation is contrasted with moments of passion and self-discovery.
73.
Invisible Man—Reconceiving History and Race
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32.
Emily Dickinson—In and Out of Nature
Dickinson's poems are either breathtaking in their immediacy, with the natural world delivered fresh and vital for our inspection—or inferential to the point of madness. This lecture explores how Dickinson's poems often put our own deciphering powers to the test.
32.
Emily Dickinson—In and Out of Nature
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74.
Invisible Man—“What Did I Do, to Be So Black and Blue?”
The patron saint of Ellison's book and of his artistic vision is Louis Armstrong, and we see how Armstrong's music—composed of bits and pieces of black history, improvisational rather than rigid, adept at recycling and "signifying"—announces the new aesthetic that reigns in this novel.
74.
Invisible Man—“What Did I Do, to Be So Black and Blue?”
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33.
Dickinson's Poetry—Language and Consciousness
We see how Dickinson's poetry helps us realize that the project of great literature is frequently one of unnaming—cleansing the world from its customary labels in order to invite fresh perceptions.
33.
Dickinson's Poetry—Language and Consciousness
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75.
Eugene O'Neill—Great God of American Theater
Though O'Neill's language can seem flat on paper, his plays succeed magnificently on stage, where he rules supreme as America's premier dramatist, single-handed creator of an entire repertory of plays and theatrical techniques. We examine his roots and see how key events of his life are central to many of his plays.
75.
Eugene O'Neill—Great God of American Theater
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34.
Dickinson—Devotee of Death
Dickinson is perhaps best known for her startling poems about death, including her own death, and we see the extraordinary range that this unsettling subject provides her.
34.
Dickinson—Devotee of Death
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76.
Long Day's Journey Into Night—There's No Place Like Home
O'Neill's genius lies in his theatrical vision, his ability to invest the simplest everyday events into shimmering symbols, resonant with feeling and history. By the end of this story of accusation and revelation, every member of a tortured family has bared his or her soul, and we know the full power of the theater.
76.
Long Day's Journey Into Night—There's No Place Like Home
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35.
Dickinson—"Amherst's Madame de Sade"
Dickinson was far from the simple figure she cunningly constructed for posterity—the virginal, demure, wrenlike observer of the world around her—and we enjoy the tonic provided by her harsh language and recurring bouts of murder and mayhem that punctuate so many of her poems.
35.
Dickinson—"Amherst's Madame de Sade"
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77.
Tennessee Williams—Managing Libido
This lecture examines the great themes of Williams's work and takes a close look at The Glass Menagerie, the only major Williams play to be untroubled by sexuality, before introducing his masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire.
77.
Tennessee Williams—Managing Libido
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36.
Dickinson's Legacy
We examine a legacy that is clear in many regards, including her role as a "poetic founding mother" among feminists in particular and women in general, and her status as the great metaphysical poet of the 19th century—with a sense of wit and brilliance that have no counterpart in American literature.
36.
Dickinson's Legacy
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78.
A Streetcar Named Desire—The Death of Romance
Two of Williams's most memorable characters negotiate a tense battle over the place of beauty and poetry in a harsh and pragmatic culture, while beauty itself makes a pathetic stand against the passage of time.
78.
A Streetcar Named Desire—The Death of Romance
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37.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer—American Paradise Regained
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was Mark Twain's first foray into children's literature, but its enduring hold on the American imagination is testimony to his already keen, even shrewd, sense of American boyhood and innocence.
37.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer—American Paradise Regained
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79.
Death of a Salesman—Death of an Ethos?
The passage of time is also a character in Arthur Miller's most memorable play, as the "national conscience" of American theater tells the story of a salesman facing the agonizing realization that he is becoming obsolete in his own lifetime.
79.
Death of a Salesman—Death of an Ethos?
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38.
Huckleberry Finn—The Banned Classic
Ever since its appearance, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has offended, with its views on race and language hotly disputed. But its significance as a central text about the journey to freedom is indisputable.
38.
Huckleberry Finn—The Banned Classic
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80.
Death of a Salesman—Tragedy of the American Dream
Miller's play becomes a tragedy of the Modern Age, questioning our notions of defining, achieving and sustaining success in a world that breeds disillusion.
80.
Death of a Salesman—Tragedy of the American Dream
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39.
Huckleberry Finn—A Child's Voice, a Child's Vision
We see the truth in Hemingway's claim that all modern American literature comes from this single volume. We come to understand Twain's achievement in examining slavery through the eyes of a child who discovers that his conscience, shaped by the society in which he lives, is at war with his heart.
39.
Huckleberry Finn—A Child's Voice, a Child's Vision
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81.
Toni Morrison's Beloved—Dismembering and Remembering
Toni Morrison has become the pre-eminent American novelist of our time, and in this first of three lectures devoted to her most acclaimed work, we see her original approach to exploring the profound wound that slavery has left in the black—and the national—psyche.
81.
Toni Morrison's Beloved—Dismembering and Remembering
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40.
Huckleberry Finn, American Orphan
We learn that the central truth of this great novel is Huck's orphanhood, and now Jim's symbolic role as Huck's father is only achievable when all of the obstacles of race and class have been surmounted.
40.
Huckleberry Finn, American Orphan
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82.
Beloved—A Story of “Thick Love”
Though we know from the outset that Morrison's novel deals with a hidden crime, the full horror and resonance of that crime are slow to unfold. When they do, however, we are immersed in a monstrous tale, before arriving at Morrison's astonishing version of a people's origins.
82.
Beloved—A Story of “Thick Love”
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41.
Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson—Black and White Charade
Pudd'nhead Wilson is Twain's most experimental, even surrealistic, novel, and it deserves much fuller recognition as his boldest account of the conventions of race and class—a meditation on the kinds of freedom that are available to us, in art if not in life.
41.
Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson—Black and White Charade
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83.
Beloved—Morrison's Writing of the Body
Morrison shows us that a literature of the body is both possible and long overdue, producing a work whose power comes from its insistent translation of slavery into physical terms—a crime committed against the body and against the tenderness and compassion that any human being should be able to share.
83.
Beloved—Morrison's Writing of the Body
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42.
Henry James and the Novel of Perception
Henry James is not easy for modern readers. His writing displays a complexity not easily negotiated by those accustomed to the work of Hemingway and the Minimalists. A look at The Ambassadors will allow us to gauge both the Jamesian manner and the crucial role that imagination plays in his fictional world.
42.
Henry James and the Novel of Perception
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84.
Conclusion to Classics of American Literature
In concluding this course we learn that literature, more than anything else, is a privileged access to the lessons of the past, a past we continue to live in, even as we turn our attention to the future.
84.
Conclusion to Classics of American Literature
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48
Lectures
30
minutes/lecture
1.
Anglo-Saxon Roots—Pessimism and Comradeship
What is English literature? We begin with Anglo-Saxon oral literature, including an in-depth look at Beowulf, the 6th-century foundational text that barely survived the Dark Ages in which it was born.
1.
Anglo-Saxon Roots—Pessimism and Comradeship
|
25.
Scott and Burns—The Voices of Scotland
Sir Walter Scott initially gained fame as a lyric poet before achieving immortality through historical novels such as Waverley. Robert Burns found the identity of Scotland in its common people and their songs, transmuting their ballads into poetry.
25.
Scott and Burns—The Voices of Scotland
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2.
Chaucer—Social Diversity
Writing in a language still evolving after the Norman conquest, Geoffrey Chaucer took full advantage of the literate audience available for The Canterbury Tales and its groundbreaking depth of observation and diversity of character.
2.
Chaucer—Social Diversity
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26.
Lyrical Ballads—Collaborative Creation
The era from 1770 to 1830 was one of widespread revolution not only in politics, but also in literature. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were an unlikely pairing in this Romantic revival, but their Lyrical Ballads overthrew the poetic diction of the Augustan establishment and took poetry in new directions.
26.
Lyrical Ballads—Collaborative Creation
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3.
Chaucer—A Man of Unusual Cultivation
A remarkable life as soldier, businessman, scholar, government official, and far-ranging traveler gave Chaucer a deep knowledge of people, on display here in some of the most memorable tales from his most famous work.
3.
Chaucer—A Man of Unusual Cultivation
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27.
Mad, Bad Byron
We look at both Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan, the best-known poems of an artist whose scandalous reputation and development of the world-weary misanthropic "Byronic" hero should not obscure a talent for wit that equaled that of the Augustans.
27.
Mad, Bad Byron
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4.
Spenser—The Faerie Queene
See how literature can articulate the values that unite a society, nowhere exemplified as well as in Spenser's The Faerie Queene, whose knightly heroes embody the moral virtues of England.
4.
Spenser—The Faerie Queene
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28.
Keats—Literary Gold
The poetic career of John Keats spanned only five years, but he earned immortality. His explorations of beauty, self-destruction, and other mysteries belied the prejudices of upper-crust critics unwilling to forgive his working-class "Cockney" origins.
28.
Keats—Literary Gold
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5.
Early Drama—Low Comedy and Religion
Drama's modern form evolved from the so-called mystery or miracle plays staged by guilds, which communicated biblical stories to the masses. These works helped make literature available to a broad populace in spite of widespread illiteracy.
5.
Early Drama—Low Comedy and Religion
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29.
Frankenstein—A Gothic Masterpiece
It may be difficult to imagine Frankenstein as the product of an 18-year-old mind. But with Mary Wollstonecraft for a mother, William Godwin for a father, and Percy Shelley for a lover and husband, Mary Shelley was, perhaps, genetically and environmentally destined for literary greatness.
29.
Frankenstein—A Gothic Masterpiece
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6.
Marlowe—Controversy and Danger
Our discussion of Christopher Marlow—murdered at 29 in what was likely an act of political intrigue—focuses on his masterpiece, Dr. Faustus. In this and three other tragedies, Marlowe probed the theme of man's vaulting ambition and left us a treasure of dramatic innovations.
6.
Marlowe—Controversy and Danger
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30.
Miss Austen and Mrs. Radcliffe
Jane Austen, who viewed the novel as a source of moral authority, would have seen her contemporary Ann Radcliffe's bestselling gothic fiction as a corruption and prostitution of literature. Nonetheless, she read and even relished the fiction of her great opposite.
30.
Miss Austen and Mrs. Radcliffe
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7.
Shakespeare the Man—The Road to the Globe
By the age of 30, Shakespeare had risen to the top of London's theatrical world as both playwright and actor. This lecture turns to a history, a comedy, and a Roman play drawn from his early works such as Richard III, The Taming of the Shrew, and Titus Andronicus.
7.
Shakespeare the Man—The Road to the Globe
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31.
Pride and Prejudice—Moral Fiction
Pride and Prejudice explores the questions surrounding the marriage decision in a country where the law made women profoundly vulnerable. Like much of Austen's fiction, the novel does not protest against England's laws so much as it examines their implications in the domestic arena.
31.
Pride and Prejudice—Moral Fiction
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8.
Shakespeare—The Mature Years
Shakespeare retired while still in his 50s, at the height of his career, but not before his maturity yielded the finest of his many masterpieces. We explore several, including four great tragedies: Macbeth, King Lear, Hamlet, and Othello.
8.
Shakespeare—The Mature Years
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32.
Dickens—Writer with a Mission
Having captured his public with the comic novel The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens resolved to use fiction as an instrument for social reform in an age of injustice—a resolution made clear by the novel explored in this lecture, Oliver Twist.
32.
Dickens—Writer with a Mission
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9.
Shakespeare's Rivals—Jonson and Webster
Great writers happen in company, more so than chance would predict. We look at two who took on the difficult task of following Shakespeare—one writing comedies and the other tragedies. Their work marks the end of a great period for English theater.
9.
Shakespeare's Rivals—Jonson and Webster
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33.
The 1840s—Growth of the Realistic Novel
The 1840s saw a phenomenal growth in the realistic novel's popularity. We explore four from this period—Dickens's Dombey and Son, Mrs. Gaskell's Mary Barton, Disraeli's Sybil, and Thackeray's Vanity Fair. Each asked hard questions about the direction in which England was headed.
33.
The 1840s—Growth of the Realistic Novel
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10.
The King James Bible—English Most Elegant
The King James Bible of 1611 is the most read work in English literature history, and it owes its greatest debt to William Tyndale. His work on an English translation a century earlier and falling out with Henry VIII led to his own execution.
10.
The King James Bible—English Most Elegant
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34.
Wuthering Heights—Emily's Masterwork
The 19th century saw the emergence of women novelists, with Charlotte and Emily Brontë joining Jane Austen in achieving dominance. This lecture explores Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, a romance narrative built on a sophisticated framework and showcasing characters of psychological complexity.
34.
Wuthering Heights—Emily's Masterwork
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11.
The Metaphysicals—Conceptual Daring
Many modern readers and scholars consider the work of John Donne and the other so-called "metaphysical" poets to be the highest achievement in English verse. In their day their work circulated in manuscript form, and only among an educated elite.
11.
The Metaphysicals—Conceptual Daring
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35.
Jane Eyre and the Other Brontë
Charlotte was the only Brontë sister to live long enough to compile a body of work. Jane Eyre—whose heroine navigates a male-dominated world through intelligence, morality, and spirit—contains many Feminist elements and was the most popular novel of the period.
35.
Jane Eyre and the Other Brontë
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12.
Paradise Lost—A New Language for Poetry
What novelties did Milton employ in creating a work meant "to justify the ways of God to men"? In examining one of literature's enduring masterpieces, we see that the invention of a new language was only one of many innovations of this blind poet.
12.
Paradise Lost—A New Language for Poetry
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36.
Voices of Victorian Poetry
The Victorians revered poetry. We look at three revered voices: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Their work, a bridge from high Romanticism to Modernism, paved the way for the poetic achievements of the 20th century.
36.
Voices of Victorian Poetry
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13.
Turmoil Makes for Good Literature
Literature both contributed to and reflected England's turmoil in the mid-17th-century overthrow of the monarchy and the subsequent restoration. We see how these roles are illuminated in Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan and John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.
13.
Turmoil Makes for Good Literature
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37.
Eliot—Fiction and Moral Reflection
The woman who wrote as George Eliot was more than the leading female intellectual of her time. Her novel Middlemarch is a vast canvas of ambiguities, taking Realism to its fullest extent and, in asking how society and individuals can be made better, demanding much from readers.
37.
Eliot—Fiction and Moral Reflection
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14.
The Augustans—Order, Decorum, and Wit
As a prosperous England became a leader in European commerce, science, and diplomacy, writers such as Alexander Pope and John Dryden sought to emulate the cultural achievements of Augustan Rome, including its love of wit and satire.
14.
The Augustans—Order, Decorum, and Wit
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38.
Hardy—Life at Its Worst
Thomas Hardy never shrank from his belief that "the way to the better" demands a "full look at the worst." Jude the Obscure reflects his pain over the demise of English prosperity and his Wessex birthplace, and is the most autobiographical and pessimistic of his novels.
38.
Hardy—Life at Its Worst
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15.
Swift—Anger and Satire
In two works by the first great Irish writer—the Tory pamphlet A Modest Proposal and the fable Gulliver's Travels—we see how Jonathan Swift's simple, satiric prose masks a seething anger with the English court, the Crown, the scientific community, and even mankind.
15.
Swift—Anger and Satire
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39.
The British Bestseller—An Overview
Though often neglected as "literature," popular fiction can endure as well as those works recognized as classics. This lecture covers popular fiction by Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and H. G. Wells, a pioneer of science fiction.
39.
The British Bestseller—An Overview
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16.
Johnson—Bringing Order to the Language
Few writers have ever had as much of an authority over their subject matter as the luminary known as "Dr. Johnson." In focusing on his great dictionary project, we see how he established an enduring foundation for the English language and its literature.
16.
Johnson—Bringing Order to the Language
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40.
Heart of Darkness—Heart of the Empire?
Although the interpretation and reputation of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, a devastating look at the colonial enterprise in Africa, have changed more than once since it was written, the novel continues to force an examination of the truths and prejudices held in our own hearts.
40.
Heart of Darkness—Heart of the Empire?
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17.
Defoe—Crusoe and the Rise of Capitalism
We can date the emergence of the novel almost precisely with the publication of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe in 1719. More than just a great novel that reflects the emerging economic ideas of its time, it created a genre that inspires greatness and innovation to this day.
17.
Defoe—Crusoe and the Rise of Capitalism
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41.
Wilde—Celebrity Author
Oscar Wilde was perhaps the first celebrity author. Although he does not rank with such writers as Shakespeare, Milton, or Byron, his witticisms, aesthete's guise, and persecution have become enshrined in our memories and help sustain his position in the canon of English literature.
41.
Wilde—Celebrity Author
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18.
Behn—Emancipation in the Restoration
In introducing a woman whose work is the equal of any male writer of the Restoration period, we focus on her masterwork, Oroonoko, the powerful tale of an African prince enslaved and ultimately killed by whites in a colony off the coast of South America.
18.
Behn—Emancipation in the Restoration
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42.
Shaw and Pygmalion
Although the Dublin-born playwright George Bernard Shaw was radically antiestablishment in his espousal of Socialism, feminism, and evolution, he was revered by the English and wildly successful. This lecture looks at Pygmalion, Shaw's satire on language and the class system in English society.
42.
Shaw and Pygmalion
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19.
The Golden Age of Fiction
Many factors brought about the rise of the novel in the 18th century—including a new mass literacy, urbanization, and technological advances in printing. These forces helped bring us the work of Laurence Sterne, which anticipated much of what we now call Postmodernism, the sentimental romance of Samuel Richardson, and the realism of Henry Fielding.
19.
The Golden Age of Fiction
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43.
Joyce and Yeats—Giants of Irish Literature
In the second of two lectures featuring the Irish voice, we look at the lives and work of James Joyce and W. B. Yeats, two giants who rejected Victorianism and pioneered new forms and themes for the writers who followed.
43.
Joyce and Yeats—Giants of Irish Literature
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20.
Gibbon—Window into 18th-Century England
In examining The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, we see how the enduring literary quality of Gibbon's work gives us a window into 18th-century England as it was becoming an imperial power in its own right.
20.
Gibbon—Window into 18th-Century England
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44.
Great War, Great Poetry
The carnage of World War I produced a flood of great poetry in England: bitter, angry, haunting, and beautiful. We look at several poets who found the inspiration for art amid the horror, including Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, Isaac Rosenberg, and Robert Graves.
44.
Great War, Great Poetry
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21.
Equiano—The Inhumanity of Slavery
Professor Sutherland introduces us to the first major black author, who was a slave from age 11 until his early 20s. His works are as important to British literary history as the slave narratives of Frederick Douglass and others are to American literary history.
21.
Equiano—The Inhumanity of Slavery
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45.
Bloomsbury and the Bloomsberries
The Bloomsbury Group was a civilized set of writers, thinkers, artists, and political theorists who helped reshape English society, culture, and literature in the aftermath of World War I. We focus on its two most prominent literary members, Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster.
45.
Bloomsbury and the Bloomsberries
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22.
Women Poets—The Minor Voice
This lecture takes up the unique voices of several women who wrote private lyric poetry, including Queen Elizabeth I, Anne Bradstreet, Margaret Cavendish, Katherine Philips, and Anne Finch. Their work expresses the consciousness and experience of women in this characteristic form.
22.
Women Poets—The Minor Voice
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46.
20th-Century English Poetry—Two Traditions
The two broad 20th-century streams of English poetry are the traditional, with Thomas Hardy at its headwaters, and the Modernist, steered by T. S. Eliot. In addition to poetry by these masters—including Eliot's "The Waste Land"—we'll also look at work by W. H. Auden, Philip Larkin, and Seamus Heaney.
46.
20th-Century English Poetry—Two Traditions
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23.
Wollstonecraft—"First of a New Genus"
We examine the life of a remarkable, largely self-educated woman who determined at age 28 to chart new territory for a female author. Her great work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, still speaks loudly to us across the centuries.
23.
Wollstonecraft—"First of a New Genus"
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47.
British Fiction from James to Rushdie
Quality fiction has expanded remarkably since the Victorian novel. This lecture looks at the genre's changing role in the 20th and 21st centuries, introducing a broad range of writers that includes Henry James, D. H. Lawrence, George Orwell, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and Salman Rushdie.
47.
British Fiction from James to Rushdie
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24.
Blake—Mythic Universes and Poetry
William Blake created an entirely new method of poetry—a method that requires us to learn his highly individual way of thinking in order to understand the ferociously authoritative voice that dares the reader to disagree.
24.
Blake—Mythic Universes and Poetry
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48.
New Theatre, New Literary Worlds
We conclude with a look at the vital changes in British drama since the early 20th century, focusing primarily on the geniuses of anger and absurdity—Samuel Beckett, John Osborne, and Harold Pinter—and closing with the greatest theatrical wit since Ben Jonson: Tom Stoppard.
48.
New Theatre, New Literary Worlds
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