ENGLISH 384 - Poetry and History

Institution:

Reed College

Subject:

Description:

Contemporary American Poetry Full course for one semester. This course is devoted to the works of American poets writing after 1945, beginning with poets ranging from Richard Wilbur to Charles Olson and ending with those writing now. While the class will focus on specific texts, we will also consider questions about the relationships between poetry, poetics, and American culture, trying to map the broad features of various poetic traditions and practices in the United States in the last half of the 20th century, with an emphasis on the heterogeneous nature of poetic practices. Prerequisite: English 211 or consent of the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2009-10. American Modernism Full course for one semester. Virginia Woolf wrote that on "or about December, 1910, human character changed," voicing a widely shared excitement over an anticipated revolution in the arts. The American poets who stayed in the U.S. shared this excitement, but also faced unique cultural circumstances. We will do close readings of poetry by Williams, Moore, and Stevens; look at how they were responding to and helping shape American attitudes about the arts; and evaluate the poets' ideas about poetry's place and function. Prerequisite: two English courses at the 200 level, or English 211 and an American history course, or consent of the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2009-1Politics and the Self in English Romanticism Full course for semester. A course on the relationship between the arguments and discourse arising from the American and French Revolutions (in what is called the revolution controversy) and the project and style of lyric poetry, especially in England. We will explore late 18th- and early 19th-century claims about poetic and political revolution, along with shifting ideas of personal identity. Writers may include the Wordsworths (William and Dorothy), the Shelleys (Mary and Percy Bysshe), Burke, Thomas Paine, William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Robinson, Mary Hays, Helen Maria Williams, and Anna Barbauld. Prerequisites: English 211 or a history course in the period. Conference.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.reed.edu

Phone Number:

(503) 771-1112

Regional Accreditation:

Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities

Calendar System:

Semester

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