1800’s American Literature and Me
It’s the first day of classes of my sophomore year. I take my seat in the front row of a lecture hall for a class about American politics. Computer screens immediately open to Netflix and online shopping pages reveal the truth about this class: it’s painfully boring. Still I brave the course for two weeks before deciding, on the last day of add/drop period, that I must escape. I rush to Dr. D’Alessandro’s office to beg for a permission number to his 1800’s American Literature course, the only open class offered at the same time.
Admittedly, the course subject didn’t seem so glamorous at first glance. Having read Moby Dick in high school as my primary exposure to these writings, I didn’t feel much connection to 1800’s American literature and knew little about the literary movements and authors of the era. I was nervous, too, to jump into an upper-level English class without having taken the introductory course first.
Nevertheless, the class proved to be surprisingly exciting. I reveled at the chance to close-read selections from Emily Dickinson’s poetry, study early Native American advocacy literature, and somehow write my final paper comparing a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story to a music video by The Killers. D’Alessandro, student discussion, and the course’s teaching assistants helped me think about the texts we read from perspectives I hadn’t considered and with the critical language that high school never exposed me to.
The class also contextualized course materials with artifacts provided by D’Alessandro, allowing students to learn more about the historical developments of 19th century America. While reading Thoreau’s Walden, we looked at a trailer for a video game about the text. D’Alessandro assigned the movie Django Unchained as a homework assignment during a unit about slave narratives. Towards the end of the semester, we visited the Walt Whitman archives at the Rubenstein Library to see handwritten notes and poetry drafts from Whitman. These opportunities enriched our discussions about the literature, allowing the class to draw connections between outside knowledge of American history and modernity with the writings in front of us.
Most significantly, 1800’s American Literature introduced me to the English department and major. I had already studied Introduction to Creative Writing with Jessica Stark, but I felt newly empowered to continue learning about literature. This semester (my second semester of sophomore year), I’ve continued studying English by taking Dr. Vadde’s introductory English course on calculation and recklessness, a screenwriting class, as well as an internship writing articles for the English Department. The major is structured so that students take courses across different eras of English literature from the medieval to the modern period, as well as electives including creative writing. I’m looking forward to gaining more breadth in my knowledge of English while expanding my creative writing abilities.
Dr. D’Alessandro, now my English major advisor, is leaving on a sabbatical for the next academic year. I’m headed to Denmark next semester for a study abroad program, but look forward to exploring more of the English Department and preparing a distinction project soon.
I don’t know where my English studies will take me in the future, but the analytical and creative reading and writing skills I hope to continue developing will certainly help me in any career or facet of life. It’s exciting to spend a significant amount of time in my undergraduate years reading and discussing a diverse collection of literature with a brilliant group of expert faculty and students. For those who haven’t had the opportunity to study English in their time at Duke yet, I can’t recommend 1800’s American literature, a creative writing class, or the English Department highly enough.
