The Art of Poetry

Writing and speaking well about poems is a crucial goal of this course, which introduces you to the study of poetry as the most powerful of literary forms. We want to give you a critical vocabulary for analysis; a respect for your own ability to discern poetic quality in the many qualities of a poem; and a knowledge of the different historical periods as well as the various forms in which poems are written. We'll be moving from poets such as Sylvia Plath to William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson to William Blake, Nikki Giovanni and Langston Hughes to T. S. Eliot and Elizabeth Bishop, and many more. An important part of the course is reading poems aloud in class, and we'll be trying to experience the rhythms living within the lines that move us most. Along the way you'll develop a broad range of interpretive and critical abilities: building up your understanding of the poetic line, of stanza form as well as free verse patterning, of figurative language and more explicit literary diction. Questions of good evidence and clear argumentation will be important in your own writing, but the class does not draw an absolute line between critical and creative forms: I'm inviting a lively exchange between the two, while not requiring that you write poetry in order to experience and write about it.
Course Attributes: EN H; BU Hum; AS HUM; FA HUM; AR HUM

The Art of Poetry

ENGLISH LITERATURE 357

Section 01