350:315
Colonial American Literature

The readings for this course will be drawn from the remarkably broad range of written work produced within, or about, the colonial Americas from the late 16th to the late 18th century. In this period, which stretches from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, Euro-American ideas about science, politics, markets, religion and empire were seriously challenged and, in many cases, radically revised. Our discussions and assignments will center on close readings of passages from works that address these changes and controversies from the perspective of New World explorers, planters, preachers, natives, creoles, slaves and former slaves, diplomats and journalists. We will attempt to cover all of the main colonial American literary genres: discovery accounts, sermons, plays, novels, captivity narratives, autobiographies, poems, and essays. We will pay particularly close attention to the literary representation of Native Americans; the discourses of slavery and the scientific, economic, and ethical debates that slavery engendered; and the dynamics of the ever-shifting relationship between church and government in the colonies. Most of the texts that will appear on the syllabus were originally written in English, but we will also cover a selection of French and Spanish colonial writings in translation.