We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Lines, Knots, and Cyphers: Conceptions of History in the American Literature Survey.
- Authors
Hole, Jeffrey
- Abstract
This essay reflects on successful methods, techniques, and assignment sequences that I have used in the first two weeks of the early American literature survey, questioning the ostensible linear development of an American literary and cultural history. I do so in order to open up a set of questions related to what Debra Madsen has called "exceptional destiny" and to introduce students to the stakes of theorizing the varied and often contested concepts of history. Although a number of scholars have effectively addressed issues related to anthology construction, canonicity, as well as chronology and coverage in teaching the American literature survey, none have linked these issues directly to the problem of American exceptionalism nor to questions regarding concepts of history. William Cullen Bryant's "The Prairies" and Herman Melville's Benito Cereno serve as the principal literary texts, and I assign these works within the first week of class in order to introduce and model what it means to theorize history through literature.
- Subjects
SURVEYS; AMERICAN literature; LITERARY criticism; EXCEPTIONALISM (Political science); MELVILLE, Herman, 1819-1891; CERENO, Benito
- Publication
Teaching American Literature, 2014, Vol 7, Issue 1/2, p1
- ISSN
2150-3974
- Publication type
Article