English 180L

Literature: Lyric Verse

Other Readings and Media

Poems and essays will be available in a course reader or, whenever possible, electronically. No books will be required.

Description

We will spend much of the semester sorting out what the title of this course means. We?ll start by thinking about the so-called ?roots of lyric,? not only Sappho and Greek lyric, but other forms and shapes that are deeply buried within the matrices of modern poetry?chants, spells, charms, riddles, curses. Along the way, we?ll revisit some favorites from the English-language canon (Donne, Marvell, Blake, Keats, Hopkins, Dickinson, Stevens, Hughes, Moore, Bishop, Ashbery, Plath) as well as several recent experiments (Anne Carson, Harryette Mullen, Lisa Robertson). We?ll pair various poems with various media (painting, music, movies, dance, video games) and concepts (chaos theory, ecology, literary theory, cognitive science) in order to tease out some of the alternate currents running through the texts. Reading assignments will be small, but dense. In addition to a final exam, there will be one short essay (3-5 pages), and one longer essay (7-9 pages) that may be critical, historical, or a hybrid critical-creative piece.

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