LIT 385A - Reading Poetry: The American Experience from the Puritans to the Present

Institution:

Antioch University-Los Angeles

Subject:

Description:

How did Robert Frost model even some of his simplest poems after Greek and Roman Poetry Why did William Carlos Williams think that literally and figuratively, "so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow " What makes "The ReWheelbarrow" a poem in the first place Why are some twentieth century and contemporary poems so hard to understand This course offers an historical overview of American poetry and poets from the Puritans, Anne Bradstreet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson through the moderns, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Wallace Stevens; the late moderns, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, and Sylvia Plath, in addition to the rich mixture of genres and voices that make up the last forty years or so of our history. Students will also learn interpretative strategies, vocabulary, terminology and history to equip them for making sense of American poetry. The course also traces the thematic cross currents that typically run through American poetry: the world of work; Mysticism, Neo-Paganism, Buddhism and Christianity; Gay and Lesbian voices; immigration and cultural identity, feminist concerns; the uses of art, philosophy and theory; how American poets have responded to war, etc. HUMANITIES DOMAIN

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.antiochla.edu

Phone Number:

(310) 578-1080

Regional Accreditation:

Western Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Quarter

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