Lyric Poetry and Music: The Color and Politics of Cry, Sound, and Voice
ENGL 304
Fall 2023 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
AMST 302, AFAM 305 |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate, Caribbean Studies Minor |
Lyric poetry may be the most musical of literary forms. In one of its basic definitions, the lyric poem begins after the overhearing of a sound. This sound may be familiar and pleasant, like the timbre and cadence of a lover's voice. Or it may be unrecognizable and terrifying. It may be imbricated with other senses and feelings, provoking a memory that stimulates a sense of touch or smell. Or it may stimulate a sense of horror at the inevitability of death. In any of these cases, sound is thought to reveal an attachment, a memory, and to give rise to composition in the poet's effort to reshape memory and feeling in lyric form. But such articulations do not always come out as evenly as this description may imply. Indeed, moans, screams, stutters, cries, and the madness of possession by the Muses are part of lyric's history and practice. In this course, we will read from African American, African diasporic, Caribbean, Latina/o/x, and Indigenous poetics, and we will consider their relation to myth and musical forms, such as the blues, son, bomba, biguine, jazz, reggae, hip-hop, salsa, among others. The dynamics between lyric speakers and musicians, sound and story, seen and voiced language will play out. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)(ENGL) |
Major Readings:
Readings may* works by include: James Weldon Johnson, Federico García Lorca, Fred Moten, Nathaniel Mackey, Tracey K. Smith, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Frances Aparicio, Raquel Salas Rivera, Édouard Glissant, Monchoachi, Ocean Vuong, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Susan Stewart, Tsitsi Jaji, Michael Smith, Sun-Ra. The poetry and essays will be arranged in relation to specific musical genres.
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Examinations and Assignments:
One short essay, one research-based essay, a sound/multi-media assignment |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Application deadline: Monday, April 12
Students: to be considered for enrollment, please send a one paragraph statement in a Word document or PDF to the Professor's Wesleyan email articulating the stakes of this class for your studies and research-based projects (be those in a written genre, visual, cinematic, sonic, some other medium, etc.). With this one paragraph statement of stakes, send, also, a two-page writing sample from a research paper, also in Word or PDF. This may be a fragment, and can have been written for any course subject, just let it convey your best writing and thinking to date.
Class of 22: This course fulfills the Literatures of Difference and Theory requirements and contributes to the American Literature, Race & Ethnicity, and Theory & Literary Forms concentrations of the English major.
Class of 23 and beyond: This course fulfills the Theory, Literary History 3, American Lit and World Lit requirements of the English major |
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