Dr. Oliver Scheiding

PS II: EARLY AMERICAN FICTION

Do 16-18 Raum 406 Beginn: 16.10.

This seminar is designed as a survey course about early American fiction. We are going to read various romances and novels persistently attacked by public authorities either as the "most dangerous kind of reading"for the nation's young readership or as "reveries of a perverted imagination."Thus, our goal will be to analyze the specific cultural function and literary dynamic of fiction in the early Republic (1790-1815). We will ask whether early American fiction offers/allows for alternative readings in terms of cultural self-exploration and individual self-empowerment or whether it only imports and imitates Old World narratives in a New World context. Accordingly, we are going to examine the particular "Americanness"and the narrative potential of fictional models such as romance and novel in shaping the new nation's cultural outlook. Finally, we will pose the question as to whether or not our texts provide a subversive message about the way Republican ideas have molded the cultural space within which early American fiction circulates.

Reading: The following books are to be purchased at local bookstores: William Hill Brown, The Power of Sympathy, 1789 & Hannah Webster Foster, The Coquette, 1797 (in one vol., Penguin classics Pb 1996); Susanna Haswell Rowson, Charlotte Temple 1794 ; (Oxford Pb 1986); Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly, 1799 (Penguin classics Pb 1988).

Requirements: Regular attendance in class and tutorial, oral report, two typed papers.

Registration: Thursday, July 10, 1997, 1-3pm, room 562.