ENGL 40134 - Poetry and Liberal Education

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

With the work of six poets and several theories of poetry from the Renaissance to now as our guides, we will take up the large question of how poetry figures, or might figure, in liberal education. Some of the more specific but abiding questions we will consider are these: Does poetry offer ways of knowing as well as ways of saying? Does learning to understand poetry affect moral as well as intellectual development? Does it deepen our awareness of other kinds of language? Why has poetry often been seen paradoxically as both more sensuous and more abstract than other kinds of expression? Does the physicality rhythm of poetry illuminate Thoreau's puzzling claim that we "think as well through our legs and arms as our brain"? Is metaphor the realm in which we find our best meanings? We will focus on poems by Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, John Keats, P.B. Shelley, W.B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, and Adrienne Rich. Essays on poetry will range from Philip Sidney's "Defence of Poetry" (1595) to reflections by several 20th-century poets and philosophers and some recent work in cognitive psychology on the processing of figurative and rhythmic language.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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