Old Poetics for New Poets
ENGL 283
Fall 2020
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01
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We today tend to assume that poetry is lyrical, personal, emotional, and short. These assumptions are not universal truths but products of a specific historical moment; they were popularized by Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth at the turn of the 19th century. This class will explore poetry and poetics before Romanticism, when poems were as often public and political as personal, as often philosophical and scientific as emotional, as often book-length as quite short. These are poems in which metaphors are stretched to their furthest limits, and passions pop to life to figure in allegorical plots. In them, the lyric "I" is less important than the didactic "you," the narrative "he"/"she," or the satirical persona. We will explore the workings of different forms and figures in this old poetics, including meter, rhymes, couplets, personas, personifications, periphrases, and conceits. Wonderfully, some of these old techniques are in the ascendant again today: hip hop privileges rhyme, and post-humanism raises new questions about personification.
Students in this course will read poetry, but they will also write it. We will think about how older poetic techniques and tropes offer resources to new poets. Both trained and amateur poets are welcome! |
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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: (ENGL)(ENGL-Literature) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 90% or above |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Poetry by John Donne, George Herbert, Abraham Cowley, John Milton, Anne Finch, Andrew Marvell, Mary Wortley Montagu, Alexander Pope, John Gay, James Thomson, Thomas Gray, Phyllis Wheatley, Charlotte Smith, and others, as well as critical/historical essays on these poems, theoretical readings in poetics, and works by contemporary poets that this poetry has inspired.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Two analytical papers and frequent creative imitation assignments. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course will involve both asynchronous work (prerecorded lectures and Perusall annotations) as well as shorter, 40 minute synchronous discussions twice a week. There will be occasional *optional* in-person group meet-ups for students who happen to be on campus.
English majors who prefer an in-person course and need to fulfill their Literary History II requirement may wish to consider Prof. Stephanie Weiner¿s ENGL288: ¿Poets, Radicals, and Revolutionaries.
This course fulfills the Literary History 2 requirement and contributes toward the British Literature and Theory & Literary Forms concentrations of the English major.
Class of 2023 and beyond: This course fulfills the Literary History 2 and British Lit requirements and contributes to the Literature path of the English major. |
| Instructor(s): Smith,Courtney Weiss Times: ..T.R.. 11:10AM-12:30PM; Location: ONLINE; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 25 | | SR major: 6 | JR major: 6 | | |
| Seats Available: 3 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 2 | JR non-major: 1 | SO: 10 | FR: 0 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 2 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 2 |
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