Syllabus - Modern Poetry (English 334), Fall 2018

English 334 Fall 2018 Haley Hall 103 TR 3:00 - 4:30 Dr. Robert Volpicelli robertvolpicelli@rmc.edu Haley Hall 13 Office Hours: 10:30-11:30 TR and by appt. Modern Poetry Portraits of poets, from left to right: “Marianne Moore,” Marguerite Zorach, 1925; “Ezra Pound,” Wyndham Lewis, 1939; “Langston Hughes,” Winold Reiss, 1925; and “William Carlos Williams,” Emanuel Romano, 1951. Course Description: This course explores modern poetry as it developed from the turn of the twentieth century up through the post-WWII period, on both sides of the Atlantic. The structure of the course aims to balance a broad survey of poetic movements with an in-depth study of individual poets. This approach will enable students to familiarize themselves with how different poets conceived of the project of modernizing poetic verse. It will also encourage them to see modern poetry, not as a singular body of literature, but rather as several lines of innovation, each of them directed at the same goal of updating the literary tradition. During the course of this semester, we will consider how each poet on our syllabus employed distinctive methods of poetic experimentation to reconfigure the boundaries of what it means to write poetry. The first part the semester will have students hone their close-reading skills for interpreting poetic texts and their formal properties. As the semester progresses, the class will turn toward examining poems in their original publication formats and other material contexts; this will introduce students to the process of interpreting poems in relation to their process of composition. It should be noted here that the successful achievement of these goals requires a dedication to difficult reading, along with a willingness to engage openly and often in class discussion. Major Course Requirements: -regularly contribute to in-class conversations -lead a discussion session on a selected text -write a series of sequenced “close reading” assignments -produce a substantial final paper with draft 2 Required Texts: -The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Vol. 1: Modern Poetry, ed. Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O’Clair, 3rd edition (New York: Norton, 2003). ISBN: 9780393977912 Course Policies: Attendance: My overall attendance policy is simple: I expect you to come to every class unless your absence is absolutely necessary. Each student is allowed three absences per semester (note that I make no distinctions between “excused” and “unexcused” absences). For every class you miss after your third absence, I will deduct 20% from your participation grade. For every class you miss after your fifth absence, I will begin directly lowering your final grade by one mark (“B-” becomes “C+”). I reserve the right to fail students for absences in excess of this point. Class Preparation: Students need to be in class on time and prepared to participate. If a student is late to class more than two times, I will count this as an absence; other late arrivals will result in more absences. Being prepared means having the assigned reading with you. If you make a habit of coming to class without the assigned reading, then I will mark you absent. Additionally, I will only warn you only once about the improper use of cellphones or computers; if you continue to use these devices during class time, I will mark you absent or mark down your participation grade accordingly. Participation: Since this is an upper-level course, I have very high expectations for student participation. In this course, your participation grade includes a “poem presentation” where you will lead a class discussion on a chosen text. I will evaluate this work with the same care and attention that I give written work. Assignments: You will receive a more detailed description of each assignment when it is time to begin working on it. Always use a standard font (like Times New Roman), and make sure your assignments are double-spaced and stapled. Late papers will receive a deduction of one third of a letter grade per day. Extensions will not be granted on the due date, or after the date has already passed. If you foresee a problem with handing in an assignment, please come see me well in advance. Failure to hand in a final paper/project on the assigned date will result in a failing grade of “0” for that work. Academic Integrity: Violations of the college’s academic integrity policy will result in serious consequences, most likely in the form of academic sanctions. Making use of another person’s writing or ideas without attribution constitutes plagiarism and will be treated as such. If you ever have a question about proper citation or your responsibilities as a student, please come talk to me in advance. You can refer to the Randolph-Macon College Code of Academic Integrity in the R-MC Student Handbook, which is also available online through the Registrar’s website. Course Evaluation: Participation: 20% (including “discussion session”) Close-Reading Assignment Sequence: 50% (15%, 15%, 20%) Final Paper and Draft: 30% (5% for completeness of draft) 3 Additional Resources: The Writing Center is available for students who want extra feedback; it provides free, oneon-one conferences with trained tutors. The center is located on the first floor of the library, and you can make appointments online: http://www.rmc.edu/academics/academic-support. Students with disabilities will be fully accommodated in this course. Please let me know right away if you have a need that I can help address. If you have a disability that requires additional accommodation, the Office for Disability Support Services can help you register and provide you with other resources. My Office Hours are a designated time for you to come by and talk about your writing and other coursework. I encourage you to make use of this resource, as I can often provide more detailed feedback in person than I can in written comments on your drafts. Course Schedule: Schedule is subject to alterations. All readings and assignments are due on the date scheduled below. MP = The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. T 9/4: Course Introduction – Reading with Whitman (“Crossing the Brooklyn Ferry”) and Dickinson (“303” and “657”). R 9/6: Robert Frost, “Home Burial,” “After Apple-Picking,” “The Woodpile,” “Hyla Brook,” “Birches,” “Out, Out—,” “Design,” and “The Gift Outright” (MP 203-224) T 9/11: W.B. Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “When You Are Old,” “To Ireland in the Coming Times,” “The Song of Wandering Angus,” “Adam’s Curse,” “The Magi,” and “Easter, 1916” (MP 94-106) R 9/13: Yeats, “The Second Coming,” “The Tower,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” “Among School Children,” “The Circus Animals’ Desertion” (MP 111-143) T 9/18: Ezra Pound, “Imagism” essays; and “Contemporania” sequence from Poetry Magazine (issues 1.6 and 2.1; available through Modernist Journal Project); R 9/20: Pound’s essay on “Chinese Characters,” “Song of the Bowmen of Shu,” “The River Merchant’s Wife,” and “The River Song” (handout); “Hugh Selwyn Mauberly” (MP 354-361); close-reading assignment #1 T 9/25: H.D., “Oread,” “The Pool,” “Sea Rose,” “Mid-Day,” “Garden,” “Sea Violent,” “Helen,” “Fragment Sixty-Eight,” and “Epitaph” (MP 395-400) R 9/27: William Carlos Williams, “The Young Housewife,” “Tract,” “Danse Russe,” “The Great Figure Five,” “This is Just to Say” (MP 286-295); other early poems (handout) T 10/2: Williams, excerpt from Spring and All (handout); “Spring and All,” “The Farmer,” “To Elsie,” and “The Red Wheelbarrow” (MP 291-295) R 10/4: Marianne Moore, “To a Steam Roller,” “Critics and Connoisseurs,” “Black Earth,” “The Fish,” “Poetry” (both versions – handout), and “England” (MP 433-440) T 10/9: Moore, “A Grave,” “An Octopus,” “The Steeple Jack,” “The Paper Nautilus,” “What are Years?” (MP 441-452); 4 R 10/11: T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Preludes,” “Geronation” (MP 463472); and “Tradition and the Individual Talent” and “Ulysses, Order and Myth” (handout); close-reading assignment # 2 ***Fall Break: 10/13 – 10/16*** R 10/18: Eliot, “The Waste Land” (MP 474-487) T 10/23: Eliot, “The Waste Land” (MP 474-487) R 10/25: Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (MP 964-968) “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “When Sue Wears Red,” “The Weary Blues,” “Cross,” “Suicide’s Note,” “Po’ Boy Blues,” “Song for a Dark Girl, “Gal’s Cry for a Dying Lover,” and “Drum” (MP 687-693) T 10/31: Hughes, “Madam’s Past History,” “Madam and Her Madam,” “Silhouette,” “Life is Fine” and from Montage of a Dream Deferred (MP 697-704) R 11/2: Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning,” “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” “The Snow Man,” “Bantams in Pine-Woods,” and “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” (MP 237-248) T 11/6: Stevens, “The Idea of Order at Key West,” from The Man with the Blue Guitar, “Of Modern Poetry,” from Notes toward a Supreme Fiction, “The Plain Sense of Things” (MP 249267); close-reading assignment #3 R 11/8: Gertrude Stein, from Tender Buttons, “Susie Asado,” “Idem the Same: A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson” (MP 180-196) T 11/13: Countee Cullen, “Yet I do Marvel,” “Atlantic City Waiter,” “Incident,” “For a Lady I Know,” and “Heritage” (MP 726-729) R 11/15: Claude McKay, “A Midnight Woman to the Bobby,” “The Harlem Dancer,” “If We Must Die,” “The Lynching,” “The Tropics in New York,” “America,” “The White City,” and “Outcast” (MP 498-503) T 11/20: Muriel Rukeyser from U.S. 1 (handout) *** Thanksgiving Break: 11/21 – 11/25 *** T 11/27: W.H. Auden, “The Secret Agent,” “This Lunar Beauty,” “The Wanderer,” “On This Island,” “A Lullaby,” and “Spain” R 11/29: Auden, from In Time of War, “Musée des Beaux Arts,” “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” “The Unknown Citizen,” “In Memory of Sigmund Freud,” and “September 1, 1939,” T 12/4: Elizabeth Bishop, poems (handout) R 12/6: Draft Workshop *** Finals Week: 12/10 – 12/14 *** Final Paper Due, Tuesday, December 11, 10:30 a.m.