In an 1856 letter to R. W. Emerson, Walt Whitman wrote, “As for me, I love screaming, wrestling, boiling-hot days.” I can’t promise such weather in the coming months, but I can promise literature that addresses (or is set in) summertime. We’ll pass the long days with Shakespeare’s rude mechanicals, Whitman’s roughs, Lewis Carroll’s dormouse,
Emily Dickinson’s Tropic Bride, Virginia Woolf’s flower-seller, and Joan Didion’s hippies. Expect a great deal of reading, writing, and conversation

Texts:

• William Shakespeare (Peter Holland, ed.). A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Oxford UP. [0192834207]
• Walt Whitman (edited by Michael Moon). Leaves of Grass and Other Writings. W. W. Norton. [0393974960]
• Lewis Carroll (Martin Gardner, ed.). The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition. W. W. Norton. [0393048470]
• Emily Dickinson (Thomas H. Johnson, ed.). The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Back Bay Books. [0316184136]
• Virginia Woolf. Mrs. Dalloway. Harvest Books. [0156628708]
• Joan Didion. Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. [0374521727]