In Crèvecouer’s Letters from an American Farmer, he asks the question, “What is an American?” How have American writers attempted to
EN 305 American Literature
Fall 2020
Literary Analysis Paper
Directions: Please select one of the following topics/set of questions to use as
the basis of this paper:
In Crèvecouer’s Letters from an American Farmer, he asks the question,
“What is an American?” How have American writers attempted to
answer this question? Select three authors that we have read and analyze
the ways in which they engage with Crèvecouer’s question, defining,
reinforcing, and/or challenging his ideas.
In our reading, we have continued to encounter texts that could fit in the
category of “re-declarations of independence.” In other words, texts in
which the author appropriates or refers to the ideals of the American
Revolution, especially as embodied in the Declaration, to illustrate a gap
between these ideals and the realities of American culture, politics, and
society. Freedom, these authors point out, was not an absolute principle,
but was contingent and relative. The reality of freedom was that as a
social principle it was inherently limited, and its limitations served certain
interests and disserved others. Write a paper in which you analyze three
texts that you see as “re-declarations of independence,” illustrating how
they measure America’s potential against its actualities.
Select three texts (for poetry, you may choose a poet, rather than one
specific poem) that address the lives of women in America between
1820-1914. Looking at these portrayals as a group, what generalizations
occur to you about the status of women in various communities
nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America?
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