LITR 102 Reading of Literature: Poetry
General Education Rationale: Literature 102 provides an overview of key elements poets consider while writing and readers consider when reading poetry—including imagery, voice, tone, rhythm, and poetic forms. It is designed to introduce students to poetry by a wide range of writers living at different historical moments, discussing the relationship between culture and literature as well as offering a vision of how poetry changes over time. As a Humanities course, Literature 102 will help students learn to analyze poetry not only in terms of its form and its ideas but also as an art form with implications for the development of and/or response to culture.
Helpful Websites about Poetry:
=> Understanding Poetry: Grey Owl
=> Understanding Poetry: UNCP Poetry
=> Writing about Poetry: Hamilton Poetry
=> MLA Format: Purdue Owl
Course Requirements: Attendance. This course is primarily discussion based, so it is important that you are here on a regular basis. Missing more than two classes will affect your grade dramatically.
=> One and a half to two page analysis papers are to be type-written six times throughout the semester: three before the mid-term and three between the mid-term and the final exam. Two of them should have references to secondary sources. They are to be written about the poems being covered on the day you are submitting it, not works previously covered in class. These should be formal analyses, not personal responses. Don’t explain why you liked the work, or how you related to it, but rather, analyze and aspect of the work itself. Furthermore, don’t simply summarize the poem! I will not accept two papers from one person on the same day, nor will I accept papers on the days of the exams.
=> There will be twelve pop quizzes throughout the semester, based on what was assigned for the day of the quiz. The lowest will be dropped.
=> There will be one five page paper due on Nov. 16.
=> There will be two essay exams: a mid-term and a final. The final exam will also include one in class essay question to be written during the final exam period.
Course Policies:
=> Turn off all cell phones.
=> Use Lap-Tops for course work only.
=> Be on time. Arriving late is rude and will cause you to miss important information.
=> If you are absent, find out what you missed from a class mate. It is a good idea to exchange phone numbers with people for this purpose.
=> All work must be typed (with a font size of 10-12 and in Times New Roman typeface), double spaced, and stapled, following the standard MLA format.
Course Outcomes: By the end of the semester, students should
=> have an understanding of the works discussed throughout he semester
=> have an understanding of the cultural background from which the works came
=> be literate in the critical terminology used to discuss literature
=> be able to critically discuss poetry.
Course Structure:
=> The course is primarily based around lectures and class discussions. Other aspects of the course may include small group discussions, debates, and films.
Course Supplies:
=> Ferguson, Margaret, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy, eds. The Norton Anthology of Poetry, the Shorter 5th Ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2005.
=> A collegiate dictionary and a stapler are also necessary for this class. All of the local bookstores have good ones.
=> It is also recommended that you acquire an MLA handbook, but this isn’t required.
Plagiarism:
=> This is the act of using a source (a quote, a fact, or a paraphrase) without properly citing the information (i.e. giving credit where it is due). This is often done accidentally, without knowing how to properly cite things. The conventions will be covered throughout the semester so as to take care of this problem.
Paper Assignment:
=> The paper will be approximately five pages long.
=> It will be based on a poem from the list provided which includes longer works by ten of the poets covered throughout the semester.
=> You are to construct an analysis of one of the poems while relating it to at least two other works we have cover this semester.
=> You are also to include references to at least three secondary sources.
Grading: There are a total of 1000 points throughout the semester
=> The response papers are worth ten points each - 60 points
=> The quizzes are worth ten points each, (the lowest will be dropped) - 110 points
=> The paper is worth 200 points
=> The mid-term is worth 200 points
=> The final is worth 300 points
=> Participation is worth 130 points (this is based on a variety of things: attendance, discussion, effort, promptness of assignments, etc.)
Schedule:
Sept 5 Introductions; Poetry Handout: William Shakespeare: “Shall I Compare thee to a Summer’s Day;” Walt Whitman: “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer;” William Carlos Williams: “The Red Wheelbarrow”
Sept 7 Medieval Poetry: “The Seafarer” ll 1-25 P 11; Geoffrey Chaucer: from The Canterbury Tales: “The General Prologue” ll 1-34 P15; Ballads: “Lord Randal” P 89; “Bonny Barbara Allen” P 93
Sept 10 Renaissance: Christopher Marlowe: “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” P 168; Sir Walter Raleigh: “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” P 121; Queen Elizabeth I: “The Doubt of Future Foes Exiles my Present Joys” P 112;
Sept. 12 Poetry in Translation: Petrarch: Selected Sonnets handout
Sept 14 William Shakespeare: 116 (“Let Me not to the Marriage of True Minds”) P 176, 130 (“My Mistress’ Eyes are Nothing like the Sun”) P 177; Chidiock Tichburne: [“My Prime of Youth is but a Frost of Cares”] P 120
Sept 17 Robert Herrick: “Delight in Disorder” P 226, “To the Virgins to Make much of Time” P 228, “Upon Julia’s Breasts” P 228; John Milton: “On the Late Massacre at Piedmont” P 275
Sept. 19 Thomas Campion: “I Care not for These Ladies: P 183; John Donne: Holy Sonnet 10 (“Death, be not Proud”) P 207, Holy Sonnet 14 (“Batter my Heart, Three-personed God”) P 208
Sept. 21 Ann Bradstreet: “The Prologue” P 282, “The Author to her Book” P 285; Margaret Cavendish: “Of Many Worlds in This World” P 302
Sept. 24 Andrew Marvell: “To His Coy Mistress” P 293; Alexander Pope: “Epistle to Miss Blount” P 375
Sept. 26 Romanticism: Phillis Wheatley: “On Being Brought from Africa to America” P 438; William Blake: “The Lamb” P 441, “The Tyger” P 446, “The Garden of Love” P 447, “London” P 448
Sept. 28 Robert Burns: “To a Mouse” P 452 “To a Louse” handout; William Wordsworth: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” P 483, Composed upon Westminster Bridge” P 477
Oct. 1 William Wordsworth: “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” P 458
Oct. 3 Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Kubla Khan” P 486, “Frost at Midnight” P 488
Oct. 5 George Gordon, Lord Byron: “She Walks in Beauty” P 767, from Don Juan “Fragment on the Back of the Ms. of Canto I” P 512, from “Canto the First” Stanzas 1-20 P 513
Oct. 7 Percy Bysshe Shelly: “Ozymandias” P 541; John Keats: “Ode on a Grecian Urn” P 585
Oct 10 The American Renaissance: Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The Rhodora” P 589; Julia Ward Howe: “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” P 673; Herman Melville: “The Maldive Shark” P 674
Oct. 12 Walt Whitman: from “Song of Myself” P 679, “A Noiseless Patient Spider” P 702
Oct. 14 Walt Whitman: “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” P 691, “To a Locomotive in Winter” P 703
Oct. 17 Emily Dickenson: 202 [“Faith is a Fine Invention”] P 721, 269 [“Wild Night - Wild Night”] P 722, 591 [“I heard a Fly buzz – when I died”] P727, 479 [“Because I could not stop for Death”] P 726
Oct. 19 Victorianism: Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Ulysses” P 629; Robert Browning: “My Last Duchess” P 643
Oct. 21 Thomas Hardy: “The Ruined Maid” P 747, “The Convergence of the Twain” P 748; Rudyard Kipling: “Recessional” P 766
Oct. 24 Matthew Arnold: “Dover Beach” P 711; Christina Rossetti: “In an Artist’s Studio” P 734; Lewis Carroll: “Jabberwocky” P 736
Oct. 26 Modernism: William Butler Yeats: “The Second Coming” P 774, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” P 768; Paul Lawrence Dunbar: “A Summer’s Night” P 794, “Sympathy” P 795
Oct. 28 Ezra Pound: “The Garden” P 845, “A Pact” P 845, “In a Station of the Metro: P 846; William Carlos Williams: “This is Just to Say” P 830
Oct. 31 T. S. Eliot: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” P 862; Mid Term Exam Due
Nov. 2 Robert Frost: “Mending Wall” P 795, “Birches” P 802, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” P 803
Nov. 4 Wallace Stevens: “The Idea of Order at Key West” P 824; Edna St. Vincent Millay: “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” P 887; e.e. Cummings: “anyone lived in a pretty how town” P 895
Nov. 7 The Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes: “The Weary Blues” P 912, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” P 913, “Dream Variations” P 914; Jean Toomer: “Reapers” P 898
Nov. 9 Sterling A. Brown: “Slim in Atlanta” P 910, “Bitter Fruit of the Tree” P 912; Countee Cullen: “Incident” P 923, “Yet do I Marvel” P 923
Nov. 12 Poetry in Translation: Tu Fu: “Visiting Ts’an: Abbot of Ya-Yum;” Mei Yao Ch’en: “On the Death of a New Born Child;” Su Tung P’o: “Thoughts in Exile” handouts
Nov. 14 Charles Baudelaire: “The Lover’s Wine;” Arthur Rimbaud: “Evening Prayer;” Paul Valéry: “The Friendly Wood” Handouts
Nov. 16 Contemporary Poetry: Dylan Thomas: “After the Funeral” P 987, “Fern Hill” P 989; Adrienne Rich: “Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law” P 1115; Paper Due
Nov. 19 Langston Hughes: “Harlem” P 915, “Dinner Guest: Me” P 916; Nikki Giovanni: “for Saundra” handout
Nov. 21-23 No Class: Thanksgiving Holiday
Nov. 26 Richard Wright: Haikus P 958; Robert Hayden: Those Winter Sundays” P 968, “Night, Death, Mississippi” P 969
Nov. 28 Allen Ginsberg: “Howl” P 1061, “A Supermarket in California” P 1067; Lawrence Ferlinghetti: “Constantly Risking Absurdity” handout
Nov. 30 Amiri Baraka: “In Memory of Radio” P 1154; Seamus Heany: “Digging” P 1179; Yusef Komunyakaa: “Facing It” P 1209; Anne Sexton: “The Truth the Dead Know” P 1096
Dec. 3 Contemporary Poetry in Translation: Jorge Louis Borges: “The Parable of Cervantes,” “The Cloisters,” “Note for a Fantastic Story” Handouts
Dec. 5 More contemporary translations TBA
Dec. 7 N. Scott Momaday: “Headwaters” P 1158, “The Gift” P 1159; Louise Erdrich: “I was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move” P 1241; Margaret Atwood: “Flowers” P 1178
Dec. 10 Agha Shahid Ali: “Lenox Hill” P 1213; Li-Young Lee: “Persimmons” P 1243; Gjertrud Schnackenberg: “Supernatural Love” P 1240; Audre Lorde: “Coal” P 1156
Dec. 12 Song Lyrics TBA handout
Dec 17 Final Exam Due
Poem List for the Paper:
Geoffrey Chaucer: “The Miller’s Tale” (you can read the modern translation)
Christopher Marlowe: “Hero and Leander”
John Milton: “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”
Alexander Pope: “The Rape of the Lock”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Walt Whitman: “I Sing the Body Electric”
Ezra Pound: “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley”
T. S. Eliot: “The Wasteland”
Robert Hayden: “The Middle Passage”
