In some ways, this is a course about firsts. In 1930, novelist Sinclair Lewis became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1938, novelist and memoirist Pearl S. Buck was the first American woman to win the Award and the third American overall (playwright Eugene O'Neill won it in 1936). Both were not only highly esteemed writers; Lewis a satirist of American classes and cultural manners, and Buck largely known for her realistic works about Asia (she grew up in China), the theme of the pull of tradition against rebellion, and her biographies of her missionary parents. Both were popular as well: Lewis's novels Babbitt, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, Mantrap, Dodsworth, Ann Vickers, and Cass Timberlane were made into films. Buck's novels The Good Earth, Dragon Seed, China Sky, and Pavilion of Women were made into films as well as her script for what turned out to be Leo McCarey's last film, Satan Never Sleeps. Except for Lewis's dystopian novel about a fascist takeover of the United States, It Can Happen Here, the works of neither author are as read as they were at the authors' height of fame. This course is an exploration of some the major and lesser-known works of Lewis and Buck, and a consideration of their status in American letters. Why did their best works make the impact they did? And how did their work affect the direction of American literature, particularly from the 1920s through the 1940s?
Course Attributes: EN H; AS HUM; FA HUM; AR HUM; EL NC
