Syllabus: LIT 4348 American War Literature

All readings, other than books listed on cover page, are in packet.
** = Reaction paper due any time during coverage of this book.

Date due Topic/Reading

1/10 Introduction to course

Civil War literature

Whitman, "Beat! Beat! Drums!" (handout)

1/12 Whitman, "A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest and the Road Unknown"
---, "The Wound Dresser"
Melville, "The College Colonel,"
---, "Stonewall"

1/17 DeForest, "The First Time Under Fire"

Bierce, "A Little of Chickamauga,"
---, "The Coup De Grâce"
---, "One Officer, One Man"

1/19 Crane, "A Mystery of Heroism"

---, "The Veteran"
---, The Red Badge of Courage, introduction

1/24 ** The Red Badge of Courage

1/26 The Red Badge of Courage

1/31 Crane, "An Episode of War,"

---, "The Upturned Face"
---, poems from War is Kind: #76, 87, 96

2/02 Spanish-American War literature

Howells, "Editha"
 LIT 4348 Syllabus 2

World War I literature

Wharton, A Son at the Front

2/07 ** A Son at the Front

2/09 Lowell, "In the Stadium"

---, "September, 1918"
Pound, from Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, parts IV and V
Cummings, "next to of course god america i"
---, "lis"
---, "look at this)"
---, "my sweet old etcetera"

2/14 Dos Passos, letters from the front

---, from Three Soldiers
Hemingway, "War Medals for Sale" (packet)
---, Chapters I, III, VI, and VII (in Collected Short Stories)
Anderson and Stallings, from What Price Glory, Act II

2/16 Hemingway, "In Another Country" (in Collected Short Stories)

---, "Soldier’s Home" "

2/21 Hemingway, "A Very Short Story" "

---, A Farewell to Arms

2/23 ** A Farewell to Arms FIRST GRADED PROJECT DUE

2/28 Spanish Civil War Literature

Hemingway, Dos Passos, et al., The Spanish Earth (video, on reserve)

---, "Night Before Battle" (Collected Short Stories)

3/02 World War II Literature

Auden, "September 1, 1939"
Jeffers, "May-June 1940"
 LIT 4348 Syllabus 3

3/7 – 3/9 Spring Break(!)

3/14 Mailer, The Naked and the Dead

3/16 ** The Naked and the Dead

3/21 Jarrell, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"

Eberhart, "The Fury of Aerial Bombardment"
Simpson, "The Battle"
Nemerov, "The War in the Air"

3/23 Moore, "In Distrust of Merits"

Williams, "Burning the Christmas Greens"
Cummings, "why must itself up every of a park"

3/28 Brown, A Walk in the Sun

Pyle, dispatches from Italy, from Ernie's War 206-25
Gellhorn, "World War II" (introduction) 108-09
---,"The Black Widow" (both in packet)

3/30 Dickey, "The Driver"

Hecht, "More Light! More Light!"

4/04 Heller, Catch-22

4/06 ** Catch-22 2ND GRADED PROJECT DUE

4/11 VI. Vietnam War literature

Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

4/13 Slaughterhouse-Five
 LIT 4348 Syllabus 4

4/18 Kinnell, "Vapor Trails in a Frog Pond"

O'Brien, The Things They Carried

4/20 ** The Things They Carried