Guide syllabus English 115: Understanding Poetry More people probably enjoy poetry than completely understand how it works. English 1xx is intended to enhance the understanding of poetry, with a particular emphasis on learning how good poems are constructed. Students who have felt some apprehensions about the genre will be taught to examine the components of the poem in an orderly analytical process. Learning outcomes Students will become acquainted through reading assignments with some of the variety within the English-language tradition of poetry Students will acquire an appropriate critical vocabulary for describing the specialized features and techniques of the genre Students will develop the fundamental critical skills to write interpretations of poetry with appropriate insight into the craft Texts The Norton Anthology of Poetry (latest edition) Poetic Designs by Stephen Adams It Could Be Verse by John Timpane Assignments/evaluation of grades two critical/analytical papers 40% two quizzes on reading and technical terms 20% assignment journal 25% class participation* 15% * Class participation involves demonstrated knowledge of poems and reading assignments and regular contribution to classroom discussion. Course policies Because classroom discussion is such a vital part of this course, students will be asked to keep a journal recording reactions to each reading assignment, and this journal should be brought to each class meeting along with the regular textbooks. Entries may be long or
brief, but each should respond to one or two of the following prompts based on the poems read for a given class: I liked (or didn t like) the way I noticed (and why this was done, if possible) Why did? (A thoughtful question about an aspect of the poem s design) Commentary about the poem s achieved effect The reading journal material will be collected for evaluation once midway through the semester (week 7) and then at semester s end. See below for the two paper assignments. The first paper is due at the end of week 6; the second at the end of week 13. These papers and the two reading quizzes (in weeks 8 and during finals week) must be completed at assigned dates and times. Make-up papers or quizzes can be arranged only if officially validated excuses (such as notes from the doctor or the infirmary) are provided. Plagiarism (using the words or ideas of another without assigning proper credit to the source) will be treated as a serious offense. It would most likely result in a failing grade for the course, as well as possible action by the College. Please talk to me if you have doubts in this regard while preparing your papers; it is always best to err on the side of caution. SUNY Geneseo makes reasonable accommodations for persons with documented physical, emotional or learning disabilities. Students who have obtained such accommodations in consultation with the Director in the Office of Disability Services (Tabitha Buggie-Hunt, 105D Erwin) should inform me early in the semester so that I can be prepared to be of assistance. Assignment for first paper Review the one- or two-sentence notes you have been taking so far following the completion of each reading assignment. If any set of entries seems to follow a particular pattern, use this pattern as a focus for a paper in which you describe some technique you particularly value in the work of poets. Use references to several poems to show how the technique has appeared, and discuss how or why the technique contributed to the overall works. Remember that it is important that you show how the technical choice enhanced the poems as literary works (rather than to observe that it made you simply enjoy the poems more). To demonstrate this how you will need to suggest why the emphasized technique works effectively in the particular poetic contexts.
Assignment for second paper Your second paper should contain three elements: 1. In a single paragraph of no more than 100 words, summarize the poem. Try to express in your own words a clear, condensed description of the setting, situation, etc.--in other words, characterize the poem s plot or surface level of meaning. 2. Next (the major part of the paper), describe the application of technique in the poem. Use terminology from our class s discussions whenever appropriate regarding word use, tone, imagery, figurative language, sound effects, metrics, or whatever you choose to observe. You are always free to supplement such terminology with unique observations about how the poem is being rendered stylistically and technically (for example: long line lengths, sentence fragments, unusual punctuation, incorporation of slang--whatever you re pinpointing). The only specific requirement is that you must analyze at least some aspect related to the music of the poem--rhyme or meter or special sound effects, etc. 3. Briefly explain how the techniques you ve discussed contribute to the overall unified experience of the poem. I d like to offer some words of caution and advice. The first point is, don t use the terminology in the second part of your paper merely to duplicate or elaborate what you ve summarized in the first part. In other words, if an analysis of the speaker in part two offers unusual, sharp insights in a critical response to the poem, by all means discuss these insights. But do not use the concept of speaker as a mere excuse to extend your discussion of what is still, in fact, the plot /surface level of meaning (which is the concern solely of part one). In other words, part two is for analysis strictly, not merely prolonged description. Secondly, at this point in the semester we ve encountered a good number of poetic terms. As part of your brainstorming and fact-gathering for this paper, you may elect to use the critical terms in your notes as a kind of laundry list--you might examine the poem in regard to each term and see what you can come up with. But to turn the results of such a survey into a paper, you must supersede this laundry list approach. Obviously your investigation of some terms may come up empty. There may be no examples of synecdoche in the poem, for instance. Or even if you do discover an instance of synecdoche, this technical discovery may yield no immediate insight--it may not logically connect with your effort to present some unified vision of how the poem conveys its particular experience. In either case, please do not mention the synecdoche, then, just to call attention to its existence. Nor should you point out instances of some concepts only to offer vague generalizations about them (for example, indicating examples of visual imagery in the poem and then observing that their occurrence makes the poem more vivid, or indicating sounds only to observe that these make the poem flow better ). Write about only those features which you can assemble into an interesting and useful analytical pattern directed to an enhanced literary experience.
Finally, though this assignment suggests a sharp distinction between steps 2 and 3, the process of analysis might necessitate some blending of the two reasoning processes. By all means permit yourself this flexibility, especially as a means of avoiding redundancy in your final paper. week Topic outline / reading and assignment schedule 1 Liking poetry and reading poetry. It Could Be Verse 1-17; Tennyson, The Eagle ; Dickinson, There s a certain slant of light ; Yeats, Adam s Curse ; Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow ; Hayden, Those Winter Sundays 2 The language of poetry; imagery It Could Be Verse 18-42; Jonson, On My First Son ; Herrick, Upon Julia s Clothes ; Wordsworth, The World Is Too Much With Us ; Dickinson, A narrow fellow in the grass ; Hopkins, God s Grandeur ; Cullen, Incident ; Ginsburg, Howl [excerpt]; Gray, Elegy Written In a Country Churchyard ; Keats, To Autumn ; Pound, In a Station of the Metro ; Bishop, The Fish 3 Speaker and situation. It Could Be Verse 43-49; Moore, No Swan So Fine ; Koch, You Were Wearing ; Fenton, God, a Poem ; Lee, Persimmons ; {parallelism, antithesis, chiasmus, antimetabole: Poetic Designs 108-112}; Western Wind ; Drayton, Sonnet 61 from Idea: Since there s no help ; Bradstreet, Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Her House ; Browning, Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister ; Hughes, Theme For English B {climax, repetition, anaphora, epistrophe: Poetic Designs 112-114} 4 Tone and irony; paradox and oxymoron. Suckling, Out Upon It! ; Shelley, Ozymandias ; Hardy, The Ruined Maid ; Yeats, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death ; Reed, Lessons of the War ; Kinnell, The Correspondence School Instructor Bids Goodbye To His Students {symploce, epanalepsis, anadiplosis, polyptoton: Poetic Designs 115-116 and 144-146); Tichborne, My prime of youth is but a frost of cares ; Donne, Death, Be Not Proud ; Emerson, Brahma ; Dickey, The Lifeguard {ploce, epithet, parenthesis, epanorthosis: Poetic Designs 116-118} 5 Figurative language. Poetic Designs chapter 4 (concentrate on 105-108 and skim the remainder for now); Shakespeare, That time of year thou mayst in me behold ; Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning ; Emerson, Days ; Moore, The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing {periphrasis, euphemism, pleonasm: Poetic Designs 118-119}; Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry ; MacLeish, Ars
Poetica ; Hughes, Harlem {congeries, catalogue, polysyndeton, asyndeton: Poetic Designs 119-121} 6 Marvell, To His Coy Mistress ;Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est ; Raine, A Martian Sends a Postcard Home ; Komunyakaa, Facing It {ellipsis, zeugma, apostrophe, rhetorical question, exclamation, command, inversion, anacoluthon: Poetic Designs 121-128} ***first paper due*** 7 Symbol and allusion. Taylor, Upon a Spider Catching a Fly ; Blake, The Sick Rose ; Whitman, A Noiseless, Patient Spider ; Parker, One Perfect Rose {aposiopesis, anthimeria, transferred epithet: Poetic Designs 129-130}; Frost, The Road Not Taken ; Williams, This Is Just To Say ; Koch, Variations On a Theme By William Carlos Williams {hendiadys, diacope, neologism: PD 130-131} *** journals collected*** 8 Sound. Milton, Invocation to Paradise Lost ; Poe, Annabel Lee ; Dickinson, As imperceptibly as Grief ; Nash, The Turtle ; Brooks, We Real Cool {syllepsis, antanclasis, paronomasia: Poetic Designs 131}; Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock; Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner ; Schnackenberg, Supernatural Love *** quiz #1*** 9 Meter. Poetic Designs chapter 1; Herbert, Virtue ; Freneau, The Indian Burial Ground ; Jonson, Still To Be Neat ; Herrick, Delight in Disorder ; Watts, Our God, Our Help in Ages Past 10 Poetic Designs chapter 2; Blake, Introduction to Songs of Innocence ; Gilbert, I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General ; Yeats, Easter 1916 {metonymy, synecdoche: Poetic Designs 137-139}; Frost, The Wood-Pile ; Stevens, Sunday Morning and The Emperor of Ice Cream {antonomasia, personification: Poetic Designs 139-141} 11 It Could Be Verse 51-74; Yeats, The Second Coming ; Cummings, Somewhere I have never traveled,gladly beyond ; Thomas, Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night {hyperbole: Poetic Designs 142}; The Twa Corbies ; Wyatt, Whoso List to Hunt and They Flee from Me ; Muldoon, Meeting the British {meiosis, litotes: Poetic Designs 142} 12 Form. Poetic Designs chapter 3; It Could Be Verse 75-84; Shakespeare, Let me not to the marriage of true minds ; Dowson, Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae ;Yeats, Among School Children {cacozelia, tapinosis, bathos: PD: 142-143}; Jonson, To the Reader ; Herbert, Easter Wings ; Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci ; Bishop, Sestina {apophasis, aporia: Poetic Designs 142-143}
13 Lear, There Was an Old Man with a Beard ; Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain ; Frost, Acquainted with the Night and The Gift Outright {non sequitur, synaesthesia: Poetic Designs 146-147} ***paper #2*** 14 Keats, Ode to a Nightingale ; Moore, Poetry ; Nash, The Cow ; Hollander, Swan and Shadow ; Bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband ; Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to America ; Dickinson, Tell all the Truth but tell it slant ***journals collected*** finals week ***second quiz***