The rise of the nineteenth-century American novel from its origins (Irving, Cooper), through the American Renaissance (Hawthorne, Stowe, Melville), to realism (James, Howells, Twain) and naturalism (Dreiser, Wharton). This course will attend to the historical and cultural contexts in which these novels were written, but it will focus equally on novelistic form.

Novels to include The Pioneers, The Scarlet Letter, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Benito Cereno, Washington Square, The Rise of Silas Lapham, A Connectituct Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Sister Carrie, and The House of Mirth.