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Fall 2000 | |
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English 332 |
Rice 24, (440) 775-8584 |
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MWF, 2:30-3:20 |
Office hours: MF, 3:30-5 |
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E-mail: David.Walker@oberlin.edu |
Texts:
Course requirements: regular attendance and participation; small-group meetings in preparation for Friday discussions; two short papers (3-4 pages); a longer paper (10-12 pages) due at the end of the semester; and a final exercise. I consider regular attendance and active participation in discussion to be integral parts of the course. Please feel free to see me whenever you have questions or problems you'd like to talk about, or to email me (David.Walker@oberlin.edu) with quick questions or comments. My office is Rice 24 (x8584); office hours are MF 3:30-5:00, TTh 1:30-3:00, and other times by appointment.
A note on goals and methods:
On one level, the purpose of this course is to introduce you to some of the world's best poetry written in the modern period, between (roughly) 1910 and 1945. At the same time, we'll be using this material to develop an understanding of the intellectual and aesthetic context in which these works were produced, the large and amorphous set of tendencies loosely known as Modernism. It's important to understand that not everything written in the modern period is Modernist, nor is it always easy to categorize: there's no airtight definition on which all critics would agree. Most discussions of modernist art, though, would emphasize the following tendencies: (1) deliberate reaction against what were perceived as the worn-out conventions of late 19th-c. art (Pound's "make it new"); (2) self-conscious formal experiment; (3) reflection of central developments in modern intellectual history (Darwin, Freud, Jung, Marx...); (4) heightened use of irony; and (5) new challenges for the reader/viewer. We'll want to keep this list of issues in mind, challenging and/or adding to them as necessary, as we study the individual poets.
Modernism was an international movement concentrated in Europe and the U.S., much too diverse in its schools and factions to be adequately encompassed in a single semester; rather than survey dozens of poets superficially, I've chosen to study a representative few in some depth. We will focus on five American poets (two of whom were expatriates), and will use a Spaniard, a Russian, and a Chilean to suggest the international scene. This means, regrettably, leaving out primary attention to Italian Futurism and Hermeticism, French Surrealism, and German Expressionism, among other schools. I hope the course will encourage you to read more widely in the period, and I will allow you the option of writing your final paper on a modernist poet other than those we're studying. I have also arranged to use the resources of the art museum periodically as a way of getting at modernism from a different but highly relevant angle (see schedule below).
Modernist art is inherently difficult, for reasons we'll discuss. Although we'll be paying serious attention to theoretical and historical concerns, in order to do the poems justice it will be necessary to spend the bulk of class time on careful, sustained, close reading. As a central modernist tenet has it, poetry is made not of ideas, but of words. If you're not prepared to share an interest in the intricacies of poetic language, texture, and form, then this class is probably not for you. I will also expect you to spend substantial time outside class coming to terms with the assigned poems (reading, rereading, discussing with each other, getting help from the reserve reading, etc.): the better prepared you are by the time you show up for class, the more productive our discussions are apt to be. By the end of the semester I hope you will all be confident and informed readers of modern poetry; it will take considerable effort, individually and collectively, for that to be accomplished, but the rewards should be considerable.
I will expect active participation in discussion from each member of the class; this means, first of all, preparing carefully, noting issues in the day's reading that seem to you particularly worth talking about. (I strongly encourage you to write all over your text as you read: making notes to yourself, marking passages that seem especially important or problematic, etc.) It also means listening and responding thoughtfully to each other in class, not just talking to hear yourself talk. Good discussion in a class this size doesn't usually happen automatically; it depends on everyone's willingness to cultivate the skills required. I'd like this class to feel like a genuine community, and for each of you to be committed to bringing that about.
Syllabus:
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W 9/6 |
Introduction |
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F 9/8 |
Imagism, the Self, and the Modernist Moment: read Pound's "A Retrospect" and poems by Swinburne, Dowson, and H.D. (all handouts) |
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M 9/11 |
from Ripostes (1912): Portrait d'une Femme (16);
from Lustra (1916): The Garden (26), Salutation (26),
The Spring (27), A Pact (27), Les Millwin (30), A Song of
the Degrees (31), In a Station of the Metro (35) |
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W 9/13 |
from Lustra: Alba (36), The Encounter (36), The
Tea Shop (37), The Lake Isle (38), Villanelle: The
Psychological Hour (39); from Cathay (1916):
The Beautiful Toilet (50), The River-Merchant's Wife: A
Letter (52) |
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F 9/15 |
"Hugh Selwyn Mauberley" (all poems 61-77) |
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M 9/18 |
Poems from Prufrock and Other Observations (1917):
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Portrait of a Lady,
Preludes, Rhapsody on a Windy Night, Morning at the Window,
Hysteria |
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W 9/20 |
from Poems 1920: Gerontion, Sweeney Erect, A
Cooking Egg, The Hippopotamus, Whispers of Immortality,
Sweeney Among the Nightingales |
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F 9/22 |
Class preparation: review this week's reading |
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M 9/25 |
The Waste Land (1922). Read the whole poem but ignore Eliot's notes. |
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W 9/27 |
The Waste Land. Reread the poem. Read the notes. Look at the copy of the facsimile of the manuscript on reserve. There's also a hypertext version available at http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com , though beware that some of its links are a little screwy. |
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F 9/29 |
Discussion. |
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M 10/2 |
from Al Que Quiere! (1917): Apology (16), Pastoral
(17), El Hombre (20), To a Solitary Disciple (23),
Dedication for a Plot of Ground (25); from Sour
Grapes (1921): To Waken an Old Lady (31), The Widow's
Lament in Springtime (34), The Lonely Street (35)
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W 10/4 |
from Spring and All (1923): Spring and All (39),
The Pot of Flowers (40), The Farmer (41), At the Faucet of
June (46), The Eyeglasses (48), The Right of Way (49), To
Elsie (53), The Red Wheelbarrow (56) |
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F 10/6 |
from Collected Poems 1921-1931: Young Sycamore (61), Poem (70), Nantucket (72), This is Just to Say (74), Death (78), The Botticellean Trees (80), The Descent of Winter (82) |
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M 10/9 |
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W 10/11 |
from An Early Martyr (1935): Flowers by the Sea (91), The Locust Tree in Flower (94), View of a Lake (95), To a Poor Old Woman (97), Proletarian Portrait (98), The Yachts (101); from Complete Collected Poems 1906-1938: Autumn (124), The Term (125), The Poor (129), The Defective Record (130) |
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F 10/13 |
from The Broken Span (1941): The Last Words of My English Grandmother (139), A Portrait of the Times (141), Against the Sky (142); from The Wedge (1944): A Sort of a Song (145), Burning the Christmas Greens (148), The Semblables (152), The Forgotten City (155), The Bare Tree (157) |
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M 10/23 |
from Harmonium (1923): Cy Est Pourtraicte (3), *Sunday Morning (5), Peter Quince at the Clavier (8), The Silver Plough-Boy (11), Six Significant Landscapes (15), *Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (20) |
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W 10/25
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The Death of a Soldier (35), *Metaphors of a Magnifico (35), Nuances of a Theme by Williams (39), *Anecdote of the Jar (46), *The Snow Man (54), Tea at the Palaz of Hoon (54), *A High-Toned Old Christian Woman (77) |
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F 10/27 |
Class preparation: review this week's reading. |
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M 10/30 |
from Ideas of Order (1936): The Sun This March (92), Autumn Refrain (94), *The Idea of Order at Key West (97), *Evening Without Angels (100), Sailing After Lunch (111), Mozart, 1935 (115), Sad Strains of a Gay Waltz (116), *Farewell to Florida (125) |
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W 11/1 |
from Parts of a World (1942): A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts (150), The Dwarf (152), Loneliness in Jersey City (153), Poetry is a Destructive Force (157), *The Poems of Our Climate (158), Dry Loaf (162), *The Man on the Dump (163), The Latest Freed Man (165) |
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F 11/3 |
Connoisseur of Chaos (166), Man and Bottle (173), *Of Modern Poetry (174), *Landscape With Boat (176), Mrs. Alfred Uruguay (186), The Well-Dressed Man With a Beard (190), Poem Written at Morning (197) |
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M 11/6 |
To a Steam-Roller (1915), Critics and Connoisseurs (1916), Sojourn in the Whale (1917), Roses Only (1917), Black Earth (1918), The Fish (1918), Poetry (1919), England (1920) |
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W 11/8 |
When I Buy Pictures (1921), A Grave (1921), Marriage (1923), Silence (1924) |
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F 11/10 |
To a Snail (1924), An Octopus (1924), The Steeple-Jack (1932), The Frigate Pelican (1934) |
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M 11/13 |
Ballad of the Little Square (7), Half Moon (29), Snail (33), The Street of the Mutes (45), The Little Mute Boy (51), The Little Mad Boy (51), In Another Mode (57), Useless Song (59), Song of the Barren Orange Tree (63) |
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W 11/15 |
Somnambule Ballad (65), The Faithless Wife (69), Ballad of One Doomed to Die (81), Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard (85), Your Childhood in Menton (111), The Dawn (123) |
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F 11/17 |
Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias (135), Gacela of Unforeseen Love (157), Gacela of the Terrible Presence (159), Gacela of the Dark Death (165), Gacela of the Flight (167) |
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M 11/20 |
Introduction (7); "He loved three things..." (31), Confusion (35), Evening (37), "Flowers and non-living things..." (38), "God's angel..." (49), "I have learned to live..." (50), "It smells of fire..." (51), "At my neck..." (59), Calumny (67), "Submit to you?..." (69), Lot's Wife (71), "Finally we have found..." (73) |
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W 11/22 |
Requiem (75-92) |
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F 11/24 |
[Thanksgiving break] |
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M 11/27 |
Cantos I-III, XIII, XLIX (96-105, 114-17, 141-42) |
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W 11/29 |
Cantos LXXIV-LXXXIII (153-78) |
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F 12/1 |
Reread Wednesday's assignment |
PABLO NERUDA (1904-1973)
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M 12/4 |
selected earlier poems, pp. 1-6 of handout (tr. Nathaniel Tarn, W. S. Merwin, and Anthony Kerrigan) |
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W 12/6 |
The Heights of Macchu Picchu (tr. David Young), parts I-VII |
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F 12/8 |
Macchu Picchu, parts VIII-XII |
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M 12/11 |
Final exercise |
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W 12/13 |
Conclusions
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Su 12/17 |
FINAL PAPER DUE |