Consult 3-4 sources beyond the Norton Anthology in preparing a researched essay on a topic approved by the professor. The paper will be 7-8 pages in length and include the proper citation of sources. If direct text from the author/works list is used, please cite from the Norton Anthology attached. Otherwise, feel free to use any other scholarly peer-reviewed sources.
Preapproved topic:
Discuss how women writers have helped to shape America, and the ways in which feminine literature has helped to change how women are seen today. Show the styles, themes, or methods of their writing to illustrate that, and how overtime it changed how women were seen; from meek, simplistic housewives as they were sometimes thought or made out to be, to intellectuals full of curiosity and desires, humans exploring the world around them and examining their daily or greater struggles through the written word and fighting for literary acceptance. (I hoped to pinpoint a more specific thesis throughout my research, but this was my starting point. Feel free to get more specific.)
Possible Author/Work Choices for Essay (Any of these can be used, as many or as few, though it would be nice to start with an older author, then one in the middle, and end with a newer author to show the changes; they are in order from earliest to latest):
• Anne Bradstreet, “The Author to Her Book;” “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” “A Letter to Her Husband,” “Upon the Burning of Our House”
• From the Letters of John and Abigail Adams, pgs. 666-680.
• Judith Sargent Murray, “On The Equality of the Sexes”
• Phyllis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America;” “To the University of Cambridge,” in New England,” “To His Excellency General Washington”
• Harriet Jacobs, chapters I-XLI
• Emily Dickinson, (poem 207, 225, 620, 656)
• Rebecca Harding Davis, “Life in the Iron Mills”
• Louisa May Alcott, “My Contraband” (“Louisa May Alcott created strong, self-reliant female characters presenting a new definition of the role of women in America.”)
Possible Sources (You may use these or find new ones, as long as they are scholarly, peer-reviewed sources):
Showalter, Elaine. A Jury of Her Peers : American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx. 1st ed., Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.
Snyder, Nancy. “Women’s Contribution to Early American Literature.” Owlcation, The Arena Group, 26 Oct. 2022, www.owlcation.com/humanities/female-perspectives-in-American-literature.
Example of Norton Anthology Citations for author work and for the intro to an author:
Bradstreet, Anne. “To My Dear and Loving Husband.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, edited by Robert S. Levine, 9th ed., W. W. Norton, 2016, p. 237.
Levine, Robert. “Anne Bradstreet.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, edited by Levine, 9th ed., W. W. Norton, 2016, pp. 217-219.
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