English 190

Research Seminar: Poetry and the Archive

Book List

Eliot, T.S.: The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts...; Howe, Susan: Souls of the Labadie Tract; Philip, M. NourbeSe: Zong!; Reznikoff, Charles: Holocaust; Schiff, Robyn: Revolver; Wright, C. D. : One With Others

Other Readings and Media

A course reader, including writing by Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Hayden White, Fredric Jameson, Marjorie Perloff, Muriel Rukeyser, Hayden White, and William Carlos Williams.

Description

This is a class about poets who have gone looking for the muse. They’ve found her in the form of libraries, photographs, legal records, interviews, websites, advertisements, and material artifacts, and have used these archival materials to shape their own artistic creations. All the poems we’ll read, in some form or another, contain history—a trait that, according to Ezra Pound’s definition, makes them epics. Yet many of these poems resist the impulse to encapsulate a culture, or even to present a linear narrative, and some present the kinds of strong, individual feelings we tend to associate with lyric poetry. We’ll explore the cross-pollination of these genres from the early twentieth to twenty-first centuries, as well as the forms poets have lifted, or altered, from the archive. Throughout the semester, we’ll ask what it means for poets to do documentary and historical work. What is the relationship between poetry and fact? What are a poet’s responsibilities to the people or events he or she documents? How might poetry engage with the past differently than, say, a film or a history book? What can poetic engagement with history tell us about history itself?

You’ll have a series of short writing assignments throughout the semester, leading up to either a 20-page research paper or archival poetry project. Our last few meetings will serve as workshops for your papers or projects, with each student assigning reading and facilitating class discussion.

Please read the paragraph on page 2 of the instructions area of this Announcement of Classes for more details about enrolling in or wait-listing for this course.

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