"To the child, the genius with imagination, or the wholly untraveled, the approach to a great city for the first time is a wonderful thing." -- Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie

This Week:

The central purpose of this week is to analyze Theodore Dreiser's novel, Sister Carrie, which was published in 1900 and deals with Chicago and New York at the turn of the century. We'll look at the novel in itself and in regard to the interest of writers and other artists of the period in finding appropriate forms in which to represent and, in the process, convey a meaningful understanding of modern urban life. At the same time we'll take a look at some Chicago poets of the period.

Readings:

• Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (Signet Classics Edition)
  If you have another edition, there is no urgent need to purchase this one, but you you should be aware that there are two versions of the novel in print. The Signet Classic text is the one that was published in 1900; other editions (notably Penguin) contain a somewhat different and longer version that claims to restore the book to something closer to what Dreiser supposedly wanted. We'll discuss this in class.
• Photoduplicated packet of Chicago poetry (distributed in the American Studies Program office).
• Photoduplicated copy (also available in the office) of Carl Smith, "Introduction: Toward a Literature of Chicago," Chicago and the Literary Imagination, 1880-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 1-12.
  
  Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) was born in Indiana and came to Chicago as a teenager. He worked in Chicago and other cities (including New York) as a journalist before turning to fiction and becoming arguably the leading figure of a generation of young realist authors who transformed American literature in respect to subject, theme, and form. Some of Sister Carrie, which is Dreiser's first novel, is based on the experiences of one of his older sisters (he was the youngest in a large and poor family), who ran off with a married Chicago saloon cashier. But a good deal of it is at least indirectly autobiographical and/or based on some of his urban reporting. The anthology of Chicago poetry includes poems by Carl Sandburg, the journalist, biographer, and musicologist, as well as poet, whose work is closely identified both with the emergence of modern American poetry and with the city of Chicago; Harriet Monroe, the sister-in-law of the noted Chicago architect John Wellborn Root and editor of Poetry magazine, which was published in Chicago and was where a substantial amount of classic modernist poetry first appeared (including works by Pound, Eliot, and Sandburg); Edgar Lee Masters, one-time law partner of Clarence Darrow and poet of Chicago and the heartland, known for his Chicago poems and for Spoon River Anthology, which explores the isolation and bitterness of the rural Midwest; and Vachel Lindsay, the Illinois poet who tried in several ways to find a poetic idiom that would suit Chicago, the Midwest, and America. If any of these interests you, there's much more to read. The chapter from Chicago and the American Literary Imagination is meant to provide a partial framework for these readings.

Questions to Consider:

• How does Dreiser understand the nature of experience in late-nineteenth-century Chicago and New York? That is, how does Dreiser think modern urban life works? How is society organized? Why and how do people, individually or collectively, act in his novel? What kind of a place does this make Chicago and/or New York?
• How does Dreiser think Chicago life should be depicted? He is often called a realist, but what does a term like this mean? What is the nature of his literary style, and how does that relate to the ideas he presents?
• What does Dreiser say about, and how does he deepen, our understanding of some of the topics and texts we discussed in the fall quarter? Among these are the rise of the city, how newcomers experienced Chicago, class and gender relations in the city, the place of art and culture in Chicago, the world of skyscrapers and department stores and apartment buildings, the values of domesticity.
• What kind of evidence does fiction provide the urban cultural historian?

Students should bring to the class a 1-2 page typewritten response to one of the questions embedded in these clusters. These will help facilitate class discussion.

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Last Updated: 01/05/99