Zora Neale Hurston was one of the most important and celebrated figures to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance. Outspoken, spirited and gifted, Ms. Hurston was the most prolific African-American woman writer of the 1930's. Adapted from the theatrical biography of her life by Laurence Holder, this performance brings to life her story. The site includes a handout to help you and your students enjoy, prepare for, and discuss Zora. Included inside are background information, an introduction to our co-sponsors, Library of Congress LIVE and The American Place Theater, resources from the Library of Congress, and student activities.

Mark Twain Project Online applies innovative technology to more than four decades' worth of archival research by expert editors at the Mark Twain Project. It offers unfettered, intuitive access to reliable texts, accurate and exhaustive notes, and the most recently discovered letters and documents.

This anthology is divided into five major sections, starting with the Colonial period and ending with the publication of Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl on the eve of the Civil War. Each section includes an overview and framework for approaching the readings, as well as overarching questions to help students think about the connections between the texts. There is also a brief introduction to each of the authors featured in these sections, followed by discussion questions based on the texts. The textual introductions do not include a great deal of biographical material; instead, I have used them to provide a frame (typically connected to the larger section introduction) that I hope will help students to navigate from. The discussion questions could also easily be used as open-ended exam questions or as essay prompts. Some of the discussion questions are also invitations for students to make intertextual connections, or to consider how the literary landscape changes from its “beginnings” to the Civil War.

This textbook takes a distinctly socio-historical approach to introducing Early American literature. The anthology will allow students to engage with literature in exciting and dynamic ways. The table of contents has been drafted, and we are currently looking for introduction authors and help securing public domain texts.

In this class, we questioned the very parameters of what counts as American literature. Is American literature defined by geographical boundaries? Experiences? Histories? Themes? What is the difference between American literature and American history? Who determines what counts as American literature? How does the in-depth study of early American literature prompt us rethink representations of American culture today? In our global era, it is clear that past definitions of American literature must be revisited. This anthology moves to answer the question “what is American literature?” by framing the texts in new and provocative ways that fit the modern age.

This course is primarily a literature seminar. We will use American literature as a lens through which to examine different passing tropes. It will provide an introduction to queer, gender, and critical race theories for science and math majors. We will read such works as Running A Thousand Miles for Freedom, Incognegro, and Focault's A History of Sexuality, to name just a few.

This collection offers access to the four Walt Whitman Notebooks and a cardboard butterfly that disappeared from the Library of Congress in 1942. They were returned on February 24, 1995.

The Thomas B. Harned collection of the Walt Whitman papers spans the period 1842 to 1937, with most of the items dated from 1855 to 1892. It was donated in 1918. The collection consists of correspondence, poetry and prose manuscripts, notes and notebooks, proofs and offprints, printed matter, and miscellaneous items, laminated and boxed in seven containers, and supplemented by one manuscript box of ancillary material. A detailed description of the Harned collection has been published in the Library of Congress publication Walt Whitman: A Catalog (1955), which contains an introductory essay on significant Whitman collectors and their collections and an annotated bibliographic listing of Whitman items located among the collections of various divisions within the Library of Congress.

This not-for-profit site is intended to make vocal music and lyrics of the of the early 19th century in the British Isles, Europe, Canada, the United States, and Australia more accessible. It includes contemporary music of the period and later settings (e.g., Brian Holmes's complete score for Death's Jest Book and Lori Lange's settings of Byron lyrics).

Introduces the literature of the land which is now the United States from mid-nineteenth century to the present. Revolves around written manifestations of the various interests, preoccupations, and experiences of the peoples creating and recreating American culture. Considers various literary forms, canonized (such as novel, narrative poem), popular (such as the serialized tale, verse) and unpublished (the jeremiad, Native American oratory, the slave narrative, diary).

Abstract: Authoring America: A Survey of American Literature from Its Beginnings to 2020 is a five-volume, completely-open anthology that features full text by over 100 authors. From Native American tales of origins to the latest poem read at a presidential inauguration, the selections represent the diverse voices in American literature. This anthology charts the development of the literary production in the United States, highlighting the writers who influenced and authored American letters.

Volume 1 was developed as an adaptation of the textbook "Becoming America: An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution" by Wendy Kurant, developed at the University of Georgia and the Galileo Open Learning Materials program.

Volumes 2-5 were developed as an adaptation of the textbook Writing the Nation a Concise Introduction… by Amy Berke, Robert Bleil, Jordan Cofer and Doug Davis, developed at the University of Georgia and the Galileo Open Learning Materials program. In volumes 4-5, copyrighted materials are linked to the University of Delaware Library's collections. Others using these volumes should check with their librarians to see if these materials are available and can be linked.

Description: Features: Contextualizing introductions to the major literary periods, over 100 historical images, and In-depth biographies of each author.

In this course we will read and write about works that explore symbolic encounters in the American landscape. Some of the assigned works look at uneasy encounters between ordinary individuals and animals—wolves, eagles, sandhill cranes—that Americans have invested with symbolic significance; others explore conflicts between the pragmatic American impulse to impose order on unruly nature and the equally American inclination to enshrine the unaltered landscape.