In this course, we'll explore some of the many literary forms writers invented to suit modern life in the hemisphere Europeans first called the New World. We will read the works of three poets (Whitman, Stein, Cesaire) and three fiction writers (McKay, Borges, Lispector). All of our writers conceived new styles and rhythms they believed emerged from and responded to a unique set of American conditions. These conditions included great possibilities - democracy, liberty, rights - and terrible abuses - slavery, colonialism, racism. To confront realities of this kind, these writers revitalized language, updated sound and sense, and reconceived literature's relationship to other human activities in original and powerful ways. As we read their sometimes weird, sometimes difficult poems and stories, we will ask how writers respond through formal experimentation to the urgent political and social questions life in the Americas raises. This course will be taught in English.
