127012 KO Critical Readings in Literature (2023S)

"Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The American Scholar"

The course will examine American Transcendentalism, a significant cultural, social, and intellectual movement that emerged in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century. Students will engage with the writings and ideas of key figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, and Orestes Brownson, among others, as well as the cultural and historical context in which these authors' ideas and texts emerged.

Close readings of primary texts will be supplemented by secondary literature in order to provide a fuller understanding of what has been described as the nation's first counterculture, its relationship with American and European Romanticism, and its exploration of the self, nature, freedom, race, women's rights, and social justice. In addition, students will explore the relationship between American Transcendentalism and the Hudson River School, a group of New York City-based landscape painters that coalesced around 1850 under the influence of the English émigré painter Thomas Cole.

By the end of the course, students will have developed the skills to critically analyse and interpret literary texts and to engage in informed discussions about the philosophical, cultural, and historical significance of the Transcendentalist movement.