ENGL 3264 - Articulations of Nation: Nineteenth-Century American Poetry Fall 2017-18 Instructor Saba Pirzadeh Room No. 137 Office Hours Email saba.pirzadeh@lums.edu.pk Telephone 2137 Secretary/TA TA Office Hours Course URL (if any) Course Basics Credit Hours 4 Lecture(s) Nbr of Lec(s) Per Recitation/Lab (per week) Nbr of Lec(s) Per Tutorial (per week) Nbr of Lec(s) Per Course Distribution Core Elective Open for Student Category 2 Duration 110 min Duration Duration No Yes Sophomores, Juniors, Seniors Course Description The nineteenth century was a transitional epoch for America in terms of antebellum developments, immigration, expansion, industrialization, race politics, gender issues, religious reform and ecological valuation. This transitional period produced varied perceptions and experiences which are reflected in the multiple poetic voices of the nineteenth century. Interpreting these voices as commentaries on the American dream opportunity, freedom, equality, land and abundance this course focuses on the role of poetry in articulating and contesting national constructs. Through a close examination of content, language and technique of selected poems, we will look at how poetry investigates issues of identity formation, notions of freedom, citizenship, cultural politics and socioeconomic progress. In doing so, we will develop an understanding of how nineteenth century poetry functioned as public discourse, engendered pluralist polity and influenced American culture.
Course Evaluation Attendance and Participation 10% Response Paper 15% Group Presentation 20% In-class Midterm Exam 25% Essay 30% Detailed Course Requirements Attendance and Participation 10% Consistent attendance and participation is a key requirement for this course. More than three unexcused absences will have a negative impact on your final grade. Students must complete their readings on time and be prepared to offer their interpretations, questions, and responses to the texts. The participation grade will reflect the quality of responses. The class will be based on extensive discussions of the historical backdrop of the poems, formal properties (such as plot, language, rhythm, diction, and figuration) and overall assumptions about the texts. Response Paper 15% Students will write a short response paper on a poem from the syllabus. The paper should focus on a close reading of a selected passage from the poem. The response should highlight the rationale for the selection, discuss the literary elements of the passage (such as key words, images, metaphors, themes, stylistic elements, and any other aspects) and mention its overall textual significance. The paper is due in class the day that we begin discussion of the particular poem. Group Presentation 20% Students will work in groups to design a digital poetry project using Microsoft PowerPoint. The project will be based on visual representation and conceptual re-interpretation of any nineteenth century American poem (not included in the syllabus). The project could use images, hyperlinks, video clips, and other media elements to provide a re-telling of the chosen poem. Detailed instructions about the project will be given close to the due date. Midterm Exam 25% The midterm will consist of short essays and will test students knowledge of texts, concepts, and literary terms covered in class.
Essay 30% The essay will be an argument-based, literary analysis of one or more poem(s) covered in class. It will allow students to develop the skills of literary interpretation in terms of the text and in relation to the overarching themes of the course. The essay should offer close readings of thematic/stylistic elements of the text(s) along with interpretive viewpoints about how these elements relate to the structure and reception of the chosen text(s). The strongest papers will offer original arguments that develop or go beyond the ideas and issues raised in class discussions. Students must get their topics approved in consultation with the instructor. Required texts Poems and critical readings will be in the course pack. I. Republic, Patriotism and War II. Texts/Reading 1. Introduction. 2. Philip Freneau American Liberty (1775), John Greenleaf Whittier Snowbound (1866), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Paul Rivere s Ride (1860) 3. Julia Ward Howe Battle Hymn of the Republic (1862), Herman Melville The March into Virginia (1861), Stephen Crane War is Kind (1896) 4. Emma Lazarus The New Colossus (1883), Mary Weston Fordham Stars and Stripes (1897) III. Race, Struggle and Belonging 5. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Song of Hiawatha (1855), Ina Coolbirth The Captive of the White City (1893), Alexander Posey Ode to Sequoyah (1899) 6. Paul Laurence Dunbar We Wear the Mask (1895), Sympathy (1899); Francis Ellen Watkins Harper Bury Me in a Free Land (1858)
IV. 7. Critical Readings 8. Sarah Piatt Her Talk with a Redbird (1871), The Descent of the Angel (1879), Questions of the Hour (1869) V. Female Poetics and Subversion 9. Alice Dunbar I Sit and Sew, Maria Lowell The Slave Mother (1907) 10. Alice Cary (1820-71), Growing Rich, The Homeless ; Phoebe Cary Dorothy s Dower (1896) VI. 11. Helen Hunt Jackson A Woman s Battle (1892), Ella Wheeler Wilcox Individuality (1883), The Cost (1911) 12. Critical Readings VII. Nature and Lyric Subjectivity VIII. IX. 13. Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven (1845), The Lake (1827), The Valley of Unrest (1831) 14. Lydia Sigourney (1791-1865) The Butterfly, Autumn 15. No class Midterm 16. William Cullen Bryant To a Waterfowl (1815), Thanatopsis (1817), A Forest Hymn (1824) 17. Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Snow Storm (1841), Hamatreya (1846), The Humble Bee (1899) 18. Robert Frost (1915) In A Vale, Stars, The Vantage Point, Into My Own X. Self and World 19. Critical Readings 20.Herman Melville (1819-1891) A Utilitarian View of the Monitor's Fight, Sara Helen Whitman, Science (1853), James Russell Lowell Science and Poetry (1902)
XI. 21. Emily Dickinson (1830-86) Because I Could Not Stop for Death, I Never lost as Much but Twice, The World is Not Conclusion, I am Afraid to Own a Body 22. Emily Dickinson, Faith is a Fine Invention, I Know that He Exists, Much Madness is Divinest Sense, I Dwell in Possibility, Wonder is not Precisely Knowing XII. 23. Walt Whitman, Song of Myself (1855) 24. Walt Whitman, O Captain, My Captain (1865), To a Locomotive in Winter (1900); I Hear America Singing (1860), The World Below the Brine (1900) XIII. 25. Critical Readings 26. Presentation XIV. 27. Presentation 28. Concluding remarks