Lecture notes · The American Novel Since 1945 · Lecture 1

Introductions

Yale ENGL 291 The American Novel Since 1945, lecture 1, explained in plain English

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Part 1 · 0:00–10:00

Professor Hungerford introduces the course, which is a reading course about American novels written since 1945, and explains its themes, its requirements, and a chance for students to pick a novel.

Key ideas

The course is a tour of American novels since 1945. The professor says these books deal with many themes, including war, love, race, identity, slavery, and suicide. 1:12
The course also asks how writers handled the new styles of the modernist period. Did they drop those styles, build on them, or reject them? 2:49
Students can nominate their own novel for the last reading. Nominating gives no extra grade, but it is a fun way to show off a book you love. 4:57
The course is open to English majors and non-majors alike. Its main goal is to get you to read, think about, and talk about the novels. 8:17
There are two papers of five to eight pages each, plus a final exam. The professor says a good paper takes careful word choice, not last-minute writing. 9:47

Words to know

modernism: A powerful period in the early twentieth century when writers and artists tried many new styles and ways of making their work.
syllabus: The course plan that lists the books, the schedule, and the requirements for the class.
formal: Having to do with the form of a book, meaning how it is built and written, as opposed to what it is about.
nominate: To suggest something, such as a novel, so that others can consider or vote on it.

Example

Think of a book club where everyone reads the same novels and talks about them over coffee. Nobody has to be a literature expert to join, and the fun comes from sharing what you thought of each book. This course works the same way, with more reading and a few papers.

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Part 2 · 10:00–20:00

The professor says papers and exams in this course depend on doing the reading, and then he uses a 1934 Ulysses ad to show how the ad tried to make a hard novel seem easy and familiar.

Key ideas

Length alone does not make a paper good. Every sentence should move an argument forward, and a short paper written well can beat a long paper written poorly. 10:23
The final exam is meant to be manageable if you do three things: read the novels, come to lecture, and attend section. The novels are distinct from each other, so they are easy to remember. 10:51
The reading load is heavy because many recent novels are over 400 pages. The professor moved some reading earlier in the term to make the long novels after break lighter. 11:18
The 1934 advertisement for Ulysses tells readers they do not need to know what critics know. It presents the critic as fussy, and presents the reader who hesitates as weak. 16:09
The ad also uses famous names like Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare. This signals cultural capital, meaning the knowledge that marks someone as part of the educated elite, so the book is both for everyone and for the elite. 18:40

Words to know

Substantive: Meaningful and real, containing actual ideas rather than filler.
Excerpt: A short part taken from a longer text.
Modernism: A early-to-mid twentieth-century movement in art and writing that broke with older styles. Ulysses is called a modernist classic.
Cultural capital: Knowledge, such as knowing famous books or history, that gives people status and a sense of belonging to an educated group.

Example

Think of a sign at a gym that says 'Anyone can lift this weight, you just need nerve.' It makes the job seem easy and makes people who hesitate feel weak. The Ulysses ad worked the same way: it promised an easy read while quietly signaling that the reader should know the famous names.

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Part 3 · 20:00–30:00

Nabokov argues that a good reader uses impersonal imagination to enter the world the writer creates, rather than reading only for personal feelings.

Key ideas

Nabokov gave college students a quiz on what makes a good reader. They mostly picked emotional identification, action, and social or economic angles. 20:27
Nabokov says a good reader has imagination, memory, a dictionary, and some artistic sense. 21:26
The weak kind of imagination is personal. The reader feels a book only because it reminds them of their own life, or because they identify with a character. 21:57
The right kind is impersonal imagination mixed with artistic delight. The reader stays a little aloof but still enjoys the book deeply. 23:32
The writer holds the real power, because the reader must enter the world the writer has made. 24:47

Words to know

identification: Feeling that you are the same as a character in a book, and seeing your own life in their story.
modernist: Relating to a 20th-century style of art and writing that broke from older traditions and often focused on the artist's inner view and form.
aloof: Keeping a calm distance from something, so you are not caught up in it personally.
impersonality: A stance where the artist or reader sets aside personal feelings and experiences to focus on the work itself.

Example

Think of a travel photo from a friend versus a painting of a place you have never visited. With the photo, you may only think about your own trips and memories. With the painting, you have to step into the artist's view and picture the place they made.

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Part 4 · 30:00–40:00

A writer's life story was cut and reshaped by publishers and a book club, which shows that autobiographies are still carefully made literary works that raise questions about truth.

Key ideas

The lecturer uses a made-up example: a writer's autobiography is cut down by Oprah's Book Club. It becomes a shorter book that the writer never meant to publish. 30:43
Richard Wright's autobiography, then called American Hunger, was cut by the Book of the Month Club. The board liked only the Mississippi part, so the Chicago part was removed. 33:45
An autobiography is still literary. The writer must choose which scenes to include, and that choice shapes the story. 36:08
Critics questioned whether some scenes were true. The mother's whipping seemed unlikely, the mother's teaching job was described inaccurately, and a scene about a horse and cart seems to have happened to Ralph Ellison, not Wright. 36:56
These doubts raise a bigger question: what exactly is autobiography, and how far can it be trusted as fact? 39:38

Words to know

autobiography: a book in which a person tells the story of their own life.
page proofs: an early printed draft of a book, used to check it before it is published.
blurbs: short praise written by other writers, printed on a book to help sell it.
valedictorian: the top student in a high school graduating class, who usually gives a farewell speech.

Example

Imagine a friend writes a long story about their summer trip, but a magazine editor asks them to cut the middle chapters so it fits in one issue. The friend still lives the same summer, but the story people read is different. Autobiography works the same way: the writer chooses what to keep and what to leave out.

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Part 5 · 40:00–47:17

Faulkner and Richard Wright argue about whether a true-life book must be made more universal, and the lecture ends by asking what fiction can do that other media cannot.

Key ideas

Faulkner told Wright that lasting writing comes from imagination and from understanding the suffering of everyman, not just from remembering your own grief. He felt Black Boy was not fictional enough. 40:00
Fiction has a built-in step that turns a private story into a story about people in general. A memoir that only recalls personal pain may skip that step. 40:22
Wright said that telling the truth about yourself is very hard. You want to change facts and dress up your feelings, and you have to fight that urge. 41:14
Wright also used stories from other people in Black Boy. He did this on purpose, to show a generic life of a black boy in the South. The titles back this up, because they are not about one named person. 42:25
The lecture ties this to course themes: what writing has to do with the real world, how a writer relates to a reader, and how a self is made. Roth's character Coleman Silk shows a life lived like a fictional autobiography. 43:53

Words to know

autobiography: A book in which a person writes the true story of their own life.
fiction: Made-up stories, such as novels, even if they may be based on real life.
embellishment: Adding extra details or decoration to make something sound better or more exciting than it was.
generic: General or typical, not tied to one specific person.

Example

Think of a friend who tells you about a hard year they had. If they describe only their own pain, you feel sad for them. If they tell it so that you see how many people face the same struggle, you can see yourself in it too. Faulkner wanted the second kind of story.

3 checked practice questions for this part are in the app.

Notes written by AI (Claude) from the lecture's official transcript, so check anything important against the lecture. Open Yale Courses · CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · not affiliated with or endorsed by Yale. These notes are shared under the same license.

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