The first semester includes a chronological study of American literature from the colonial Period to the close of the 19th century. Major authors are Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. Composition focuses on paragraph and essay organization as well as papers of description, analysis, and review. The second semester continues the study of American literature from the 19th century to the present. Major authors include Stephan Crane, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and William Faulkner.
Composition focuses on argumentation, literary criticism and description.
Works from Sumerian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Persian, Arabic, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Classical Greek and Roman, and Medieval European cultures will be covered. Major works and writers include Gilgamesh , selections from the Old Testament and the Koran, Confucius, Homer, Virgil, and Dante. The effect of these works on each other as well as their effect on the modern global culture will be addressed. World Literature Y is a second semester course for juniors and seniors that continues the survey of world literature begun in World Literature X. Eras covered are the Renaissance, the Age of Rationalism, Romanticism and Realism, the Modern World, and the Contemporary World. Authors include Machiavelli, Milton, Goethe, Tolstoy, Kafka, and Camus, as well as contemporary writers from Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe.