E 28A: POETIC IMAGINATION
MWF 1-1:50, HH 142
Instructor: Susanne Hall (email: sehall@uci.edu)
Course list-serv: 21010-W04@classes.uci.edu
Office Hours and Location: MW 2-3, Kreiger Hall 527
REQUIRED TEXTS:
The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 4th edition (bookstore)
Rhyme’s Reason, John Hollander, 3rd edition (bookstore)
Recommended text: A Glossary of Literary Terms, M.H. Abrams, 7th edition (2 copies are
available from the reference desk in the library for you to use; also available from amazon.com)
Library reserve readings will also be required
COURSE INTRODUCTION AND GOALS:
English 28A is designed as an introductory survey of poetry written in English. It is not intended to be a comprehensive survey-in ten weeks this would be impossible-but rather to help you develop the skills necessary to read, think, and write about poetry. This will involve mastering a vocabulary and specific reading skills that help us to understand poetry. In your written work, as well as in class discussion, you will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of scansion, rhythm, rhyme, diction, syntax, tone, figurative language, and rhetorical devices-and how such conventions create meaning within their given contexts. We will sketch out the tradition of poetry in English, focusing closely on the Renaissance, Romanticism, and Modernism.
This class will not simply be about memorizing poetic terminology; understanding a poem is no easy task, and despite the usefulness of the terms and tools that we will develop in this course, you should not expect that poems are puzzles that can be solved if only you possess the right terminology. We must understand that the use of conventions fluctuates over time-Shakespeare’s use of end rhyme means something quite different than Ezra Pound’s-and that most poets writing in English are quite concerned with traditions of English poetry and their place in that tradition. We will spend a great deal of time trying to understand how each poet we study conceptualizes the formation, conventions, and goals of the poetic text within his or her historical moment, as well as his or her relationship to the poetic tradition. To this end, it will be a special goal of this course, when possible, to focus upon poems that themselves meditate explicitly on the problems of poetry. In addition to reading essays written by poets on their craft, we will pay special attention to how the problems and goals of poetry can unfold explicitly in poems. Ultimately, we will want to try to understand to what extent is every poem a meditation on the possibilities and problems of the aesthetic expression. This inquiry will not amount to simply studying these texts in a vacuum, however, because such poems will necessarily lead us to discussions of the place of the poetic text in the complex world.
ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING:
Paper # 1 (3-4 pages): 15%
Paper # 2 (4-5 pages): 20%
Paper # 3 (5-6 pages): 25%
Final Exam: 20 %
Participation/Quizzes: 15%
Recitation /Discussion Leading: 5%
Papers: You will write three formal papers for this course. I will provide prompts for these papers at least one week in advance, but you will always be welcome to design your own paper topic in consultation with me. Papers should be written in MLA format; MLA handbooks are available at the Bookstore. For the first paper I will require the submission of a rough draft; the rough draft should not be an outline, but rather a complete, if unpolished, version of your paper. Late papers are not accepted. I will require the submission of papers to turnitin.com, an online site that protects against plagiarism. Plagiarism is the use of another person’s ideas of writing without crediting him or her. It is a serious intellectual crime. Consequences of plagiarism can range from failure on the paper to dismissal from the course. You are responsible for familiarizing yourself with UCI’s policies on Academic Honesty.
Final Exam: Given during exam week, this comprehensive exam will include both essay questions that ask you to synthesize the wide-ranging ideas discussed throughout the course as well as short answer questions on particular poets, poems, and terms. We will discuss the exam in more detail as it approaches.
Participation/Quizzes: This class will be driven by discussion, not lecture. It is expected that you will come to class having read all assigned materials. Because most of the poems we will read are relatively short, it is expected that you read each poem carefully, multiple times. Do not simply skim poems or read them as if they were prose; take time to pay attention to form as well as content. Write in your books! Annotate the poems as you read. Every day you should bring to class at least two specific questions or ideas about the reading for that day-these questions or ideas must be written down and will periodically be collected! If I find that people are unprepared for class, I will be forced to resort to weekly quizzes to ensure proper preparation. We will have at least one quiz on poetic terms during the quarter.
Recitation/Discussion Leading: During the first week of the quarter, each student will choose one poem from the syllabus to recite (read, not memorize) to the class during weeks 2-10. The student will then be responsible for offering a brief (5 minute) reading of that poem that goes beyond simply pointing out the formal aspects of the poem. This will be a very informal presentation, but you should still practice reading the poem aloud and do enough reading and thinking to offer more than obvious ideas about your poem.
COURSE POLICIES:
Attendance: Because this is a discussion driven course, your presence in class is necessary to your own success and the success of the class as a whole. I will allow each student two “free” absences to be used in case of sickness, travel, or other reasons-I won’t require an explanation. Missing more than two classes will negatively effect your participation grade. Excessive absence could result in failing the course. Tardiness is very disruptive and is unacceptable. Three tardies will result in one absence. If you have extenuating circumstances (family emergency, serious illness), you must communicate that to me in a timely manner so we can discuss how to handle it.
Email:
I will use our course list-serv to distribute important information throughout the quarter-from emailing you handouts to adjusting assignments. You are responsible for checking your email on a daily basis. If you would like me to add an alternate (non-UCI) email address to our list-serv, let me know and I will do so.
Drop/Add Policy:
*I will be using the “second day rule.” This means that in order to remain in the course, you must be present on the second day of class-Monday, January 12th. At the end of class on the 12th if there are openings, I will consider adding any students who wish to join the course. Order of preference is given by seniority.
*Dropping the course: The last day to drop this course is January 23rd. If you wish to drop the course you must get me to sign a drop card before that date. An “F” will appear on your transcript f you stop coming to the course without officially dropping it.
SCHEDULE: (subject to revision throughout the quarter)
(all poems are from the Norton unless otherwise noted)
Week 0:
Fri 1/9: An introduction to the course
Week 1:
Mon 1/12: Introduction to prosody; read introduction to “Versification” in Norton (lxi)
Wed 1/14: Shakespeare Sonnets: 1, 3, 12, 18, 20, 30, 33, 55
Fri 1/16: Shakespeare Sonnets: 65, 71, 106, 107, 116, 130, 138
Week 2:
Mon 1/19: Martin Luther King Day-No Class
Wed 1/21: John Donne: “The Good-Morrow,” “Woman’s Constancy,” “The Sun Rising,” “Love’s Alchemy,” “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning,” “The Flea”
Fri 1/23: Donne: Holy Sonnets 5, 10, 14; George Herbert “The Altar,” “Easter Wings,” “Discipline,” “Death”
Week 3:
Mon 1/26: William Blake: all Norton selections from Songs of Innocence; Draft of paper 1 due
Wed 1/28: Blake: all Norton selections from Songs of Experience
Fri 1/30: William Wordsworth: “Preface to the Second Edition of Lyrical Ballads” (Prose, to be put on reserve), “Lines” (Tintern Abbey)
Week 4:
Mon 2/2: Wordsworth: “Ode” (Intimations of Immorality); Percy Shelley “To Wordsworth,” “Ozymandias,” “Mutability”
Wed 2/4: Gerald Manley Hopkins: “God’s Grandeur,” “Spring and Fall,” “That Nature is Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection”; Paper 1 due
Fri 2/6: Emily Dickinson: selected letters (on reserve), Poems 303, 435, 505, 569, 613
Week 5:
Mon 2/9: Dickinson: 249, 341, 465, 754, 1078, 1545, 1763
Wed 2/11: Walt Whitman: Selection from Song of Myself
Fri 2/13: Whitman: “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing,” “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
Week 6:
Mon 2/16: Presidents’ Day-No Class
Wed 2/18: Ezra Pound: Selection from ABC of Reading (reserve); selected poems (reserve)
Fri 2/20: Pound: selections from Cantos (reserve)
Week 7:
Mon 2/23: T.S. Eliot: Selection from “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” (reserve) “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Preludes”; Paper 2 due
Wed 2/25: T.S. Eliot “The Waste Land”
Fri 2/27: Gertrude Stein: some selected poems (reserve)
Week 8:
Mon 3/1: Marianne Moore: “Poetry,” “The Steeple-Jack,” “The Fish,” “Critics and Connoisseurs” (handout)
Wed 3/3: William Carlos Williams: Selections from I Wanted to Write a Poem (reserve), “The Red Wheelbarrow,” “This Is Just to Say,” “Poem,” “The Yachts”
Fri 3/5: Williams: “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime” (reserve), “Portrait of a Lady” (reserve), “Apology” (reserve), “The Great Figure” (reserve), “The Host” (reserve)
Week 9:
Mon 3/8: Hart Crane: “My Grandmother’s Love Letters,” “At Melville’s Tomb,” “Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge,” “To Emily Dickinson”
Wed 3/10: Langston Hughes: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “Cross,” “Harlem,” “Theme for English B”
Fri 3/12: Muriel Rukeyser: selected poems (reserve)
Week 10:
Mon 3/15: Elizabeth Bishop: “The Fish,” “The Armadillo,” “Sestina,” “In the Waiting Room” “One Art”; Robert Lowell: “Skunk Hour,” “Water,” “Epilogue” Paper 3 due
Wed 3/17: Allen Ginsberg: selected poems (reserve)
Fri 3/19: Late 20th century poetry (handout)
Final Exam: Wed. March 24th 1:30-3:30