Early American Literature to 1830 Ph.D. Exam

Primary Works (arranged roughly in chronological order)

In those cases where selections or excerpts rather than entire volumes are required (poetry of Anne Bradstreet, prose of John Smith, etc.), students are instructed to consult the two major anthologies of the period, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume A, and The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Fifth Edition, Volume A. For authors whose selected works date from the beginning of the nineteenth century (Sigourney, Bryant, Child), Volume B of both anthologies should be consulted.

Selected Native American oral tales

Christopher Columbus, letters to Luis de Santangel Regarding the First Voyage and to Ferdinand and Isabella Regarding the Fourth Voyage

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, The Account

Bartolome de Las Casas, The Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies, excerpts

Bernal Diaz Del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, excerpts

Gaspar Perez de Villagra, The History of New Mexico, excerpts

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, selected works

Thomas Hariot, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

John Smith, selections from The General History of Virginia and A Description of New England

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation

John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity”

Roger Williams, selections from A Key into the Language of America

The Whole Book of Psalms (Bay Psalm Book), selected psalms

Anne Bradstreet, selected poems

Michael Wigglesworth, The Day of Doom (available in Harrison Meserole, American Poetry of the Seventeenth Century)

Edward Taylor, selected poems

Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson)

Samuel Sewall, selections from The Diary Cotton Mather, selections from The Wonders of the Invisible World and Magnalia Christi Americana

Sarah Kemble Knight, The Journal

William Byrd, selections from A History of the Dividing Line, The Secret History of the Dividing Line, and The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover

Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, A Divine and Supernatural Light, and Personal Narrative

Elizabeth Ashbridge, Some Account of the Fore Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge

Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography; The Way to Wealth; Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America; Speech of Miss Polly Baker

Ebeneezer Cook, The Sot-Weed Factor

John Woolman, The Journal

J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, The Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

Thomas Paine, Common Sense, selections from The Age of Reason

The Federalist Papers, numbers 1, 6, 10

Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

Judith Sargent Murray, On the Equality of the Sexes

Philip Freneau, selected poems

Joel Barlow, The Hasty Pudding

Phillis Wheatley, selected poems

Samson Occom, A Short Narrative of My Life

Royal Tyler, The Contrast

Sarah Wentworth Morton, selected poems

William Hill Brown, The Power of Sympathy

Susanna Haswell Rowson, Charlotte: A Tale of Truth

Hannah Webster Foster, The Coquette Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland or Edgar Huntly

Rebecca Rush, Kelroy

Washington Irving, The Sketch Book

James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans or The Pioneers

Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Hope Leslie and Cacoethes Scribendi

William Cullen Bryant, selected poems

William Apess, An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man and Son of the Forest

Lydia Maria Child, selected works

Lydia Sigourney, selected poems

Literary Histories (in chronological order)

Moses Coit Tyler, History of American Literature, 1607-1765. 1895. 810.9 t97h W.P. Trent, ed. Cambridge History of American Literature. 1922. 810.9 c14 Robert Spiller, ed. Literary History of the United States. 1948. 810.9 Sp4l 1974. Emory Elliot, ed. Columbia Literary History of the United States. 1988. 810.9 c72 Sacvan Bercovitch, ed. Cambridge History of American Literature, Volume I: 1590-1820. 1994. 810.9 C14b

Dictionary of Literary Bibliography

Vol 24, American Colonial Writers, 1606-1734 Vol 31, American Colonial Writers, 1735-1781 Vol 37, American Writers of the Early Republic Vol 200, American Women Prose Writers to 1820

Websites and Databases

American Antiquarian Society (www.aas.org) Evans Digital Edition of Early American Imprints, Series I (Walker Library website) McNeil Center for Early American Studies (www.mceas.org) Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture (www.wm.edu/oieahc/) Society of Early Americanists (www.hnet.uci.edu/mclark/seapage.htm) Journals

American Literary History American Literature Early American Literature Early American Studies Journal of the Early Republic New England Quarterly Studies in Puritan-American Spirituality William and Mary Quarterly

Selected Secondary Works

Axtell, James. The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967.

Baym, Nina. Woman’s Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women, 1820-1870. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978.

Brown, Richard D. Knowledge is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700- 1865. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Cheyfitz, Eric. The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Colonization from The Tempest to Tarzan. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991.

Davidson, Cathy. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. Expanded edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Davis, Richard Beale. Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585-1763. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1978.

Delbanco, Andrew. The Puritan Ordeal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989

Derounian-Stodola, Kathryn Zabelle. The Indian Captivity Narrative, 1500-1900. New York: Twayne, 1993.

Eccles, W.J. France in America. 1972. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1990.

Foster, Stephen. The Long Argument: English Puritanism and the Shaping of New England Culture, 1570-1700. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Franklin, Wayne. Discoverers, Explorers, Settlers: The Diligent Writers of Early America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

Greene, Jack P. The Intellectual Construction of America. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993

Hubbell, Jay B. The South in American Literature, 1607-1900. Durham: Duke University Press, 1954.

Kerber, Linda. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980.

Kolodny, Annete. The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975.

Miller, Perry. Errand Into the Wilderness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956. ---The New England Mind: From Colony to Province. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953. --The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1939.

Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York: Norton, 1975.

Parrington, Vernon Louis. Main Currents in American Thought: The Colonial Mind. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1954.

Pearce, Roy Harvey. The Continuity of American Poetry. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961.

Rubin, Louis D., Jr., ed. The History of Southern Literature. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985.

Ruland, Richard and Malcolm Bradbury, From Puritanism to Postmodernism, chs. 1-3.New York: Viking, 1991.

Shields, David S. Oracles of Empire: Poetry, Politics and Commerce in British America, 1690- 1750. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1973.

Spengemann, William C. A New World of Words: Redefining Early American Literature. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

Todorov, Tzvetan. The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999.

Warner, Michael. The Letters of the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth- Century America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. Weber, David J. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.

Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969.

Ziff, Larzer. Puritanism in America: New Culture in a New World. New York: Viking, 1973.