American Literature: Colonial to 1900

More information about the MA Qualifying Exam can be found in the Guidelines.

Each of the three one-hour essay questions in this area addresses a broad issue of the period but asks for in-depth analysis of specific authors and works. For each question students must choose appropriate works to discuss; in most cases they must choose authors as well. They may choose authors and works other than those suggested below, so long as their choices reflect an understanding of important developments of the period.

Representative narratives of exploration and first encounter:

Writers such as Columbus, Las Casas, Diaz del Castillo, de Vaca.

Works such as:

Representative poetry of the seventeenth and eighteenth century

Writers such as Bradstreet, Taylor, Wigglesworth, Wheatley, Freneau, Sarah Morton

Works such as:

Representative prose of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Writers such as Smith, Bradford, Woolman, Occom, Franklin, Jefferson, Crevecoeur, Paine, Equiano, Rowson.

Works such as:

Representative poetry of the nineteenth century

Writers such as Bryant, Poe, Emerson, Whittier, Whitman, Dickinson.

Works such as:               

Representative  prose 1800-1865

Writers such as Irving, Cooper, Emerson, Hawthorne, Poe, Fuller, Thoreau, Douglass, Jacobs, Melville.

Works such as:

Representative prose 1865-1900

Writers such as Twain, Howells, James, Jewett, Chopin, Crane, Norris, Wharton.

Works such as:     

* For representative writings, see, for instance, the current edition of The Norton Anthology of American Literature.

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English Department
College of Arts & Sciences
Oklahoma State University
205 Morrill Hall
Stillwater, OK 74078
Phone: 405-744-9474
For Information about English Programs: english.information@okstate.edu
Webmaster: engweb@okstate.edu

Statement of
"Organic Knowledge"
for Literature and Film

A student with "organic knowledge" of the reading lists will

1. understand the way individual texts reflect the material and intellectual conditions of the time of their production; this means that the student can perceive an author's work in reference to history, including literary or film history, and to contemporary social and philosophical issues;

2. consider the way texts exemplify the major concerns and formal features that critics have associated with literary or film periods, movements, and genres; further, the student will be aware of the ways that texts change, depart from, or undermine the conventions of movements or periods to which they belong;

3. in summary, be able, on request, to forge links between author or filmmakers, their individual works, and various intellectual, social, and aesthetic traditions, when applicable.