This course focuses upon American fiction of the Gilded Age, the period between the end of the Civil War and the close of the nineteenth century. During the semester, we will consider the strategy of literary realism and its several variations (e.g., critical or social realism, psychological realism, local color, and naturalism)

Readings will include texts by Mark Twain, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary Wilkins Freeman, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Final grades will be based on two papers and two exams.