This course looks at a few of the important colonial writers – Williams Bradstreed, Wheatly - and follows the growth of American literature from independence in 1776 through the writing produced in the turbulence of the Civil Rights era. Attention is given to well-known American writers such as Dickinson, Whitman, Melville, Twain, and Ellison. Other authors include Toni Morrison, Walt Whitman and Richard Wright. The course also looks at the American vernacular, the effects of slavery, and the role of the individual on the formation of American literature