EN 2110.06 Introduction to Poetry

 

This course will tackle the problem of poetry in the hope of arriving at an understanding. Poetry is what many people " even English majors " with regret or perverse pride admit to being "terrible at". Poetry is very occasionally met in subway ads, but mostly nowadays leads a rather subterranean existence. What we will try to do is comprehend that poetry, even free verse, is not prose cut up into very small lines; that it is not made up out of emotions but out of words; and that it is an ancient and honourable craft which, surprisingly, is alive and well.

 

The problem of a course like this is that for economic reasons we tend to depend on one immense anthology, rather than tasting poetry the way it mostly lived and lives: in small volumes. Life being real and earnest, we will use the Norton Anthology of Poetry as our basic text, and add some small volumes and the Internet as and when. [The exception is Homer"s Iliad (tr. Robert Fitzgerald, Anchor Press) which students should buy as soon as possible, start reading as soon as possible, and read throughout the year.]

 

NOTE: For 2005-2006, this course will continue its experiment in online learning. With the help of Dr. Jason Nolan, University of Toronto, as our learning technologies advisor we will be using course web-based journaling software called Blogger (See http://blogger.com). The class will be divided into smaller sub-groups of about five students. Each student will have the weekly assignment of writing 300 words in his/her online journal, and of reading the journals of the other students in the same sub-group, as well as the Course Director's webpage (http://rogerkuin.net). In addition to the online journal (the general term for them is a Blog), students will be expected to write one test around Christmas, and one test at the year's end. There will usually be weekly classroom contact, but not always: blogging and the sharing of journals facilitate dialogue, and maintain a sense of community, even when we are not meeting face to face.Students who have access to fairly up-to-date computer equipment and an interest in this kind of experience as well as in literature are those who will be happiest in this course. They will be expected to participate actively in the work, in terms of both reading course material and writing/communicating their experience among themselves. NOTE: Students who register in this course are asked as soon as possible after their registration to contact the course director by e-mail: rkuin@sympatico,ca

 

Course Requirements:

 The main written work of the year is a Blog or Weblog, basically a journal of reading and thoughts about the course material. Students will be expected to write 300+ words per week in their blog, and to read as a minimum the blogs of the course director and of the others in their subgroup. Each student in, say, Section 02, subgroup 1 will undertake to read, at least once a week BEFORE class time, the blogs in subgroup 1 as well as the course director"s and the Section 02 TA"s. Each student will undertake to do the assigned reading, and to discuss it in his or her own blog at the rate of 300 words (minimum) per week; also, to interact with other students via the "Comment" feature of the blogs on a regular basis.

Grading will be as follows: Journal I (September to Mid-October): 10%; Journal II (mid-October till end of Fall Term): 20%; Test I (late November): 15%; Journal III (January till Reading Week): 20%; Journal IV (RW till end of Winter Term): 20%; Test II (late March): 15%. Journal (Blog) marks will be based on assiduity, punctuality, co-operation, engagement with reading materials, and demonstrated commitment.

 

1. Assiduity " measured in the number of blogs put up in the period;

 2. punctuality/regularity of blogging;

 3. co-operation " measured in number of comments made on others" blogs;

 4. engagement with the course texts " intellectual quality of the blogs;

 5. demonstrated commitment to the course " all the above plus other relevant factors.

 

NB: All books ordered through, and available ONLY from, the Bob Miller Book Room, 180 Bloor St West (Lower Concourse), Toronto ON M5S 2V6, tel. 416-922-3557, e-mail bmbr@globalserve.net (contact person: Carol Vine)

 

Reading List: Norton Anthology of Poetry; Homer, The Illiad,  tr. R. Fagles, (Penguin Classics Deluxe)

 

 Recommended Texts: Preminger, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. (Princeton).

 

Course Outline

 

The course will proceed first on a thematic basis, then gradually move more toward the historical. NB: It is NOT a poetry workshop. Every week, we will begin with an 'Anchor poem' for the week's topic, which will help develop skills of analysis.

 

Anchor Poems (poems marked N are in the Norton):

 

Fall Term

1. O Mistress mine (N)
2. As I Look at your Picture (a Hallmark card poem, from RK)
3. The Tay Bridge Disaster (McGonagall website)
4. La Gioconda (Pater website)
5. Caedmon's Hymn (N)
6. Practical Cats and Ecclesiastical Limericks (from RK)
7. Jabberwocky (N)
8. Beowulf (frag.), Pearl (N)
9. Horace's The Art of Poetry  (from RK)
10. Inviting a Friend to Supper (N)
11. Three Elegies (Tichborne, Milton, Merwin) (N, from RK) 
12. How Like A God (Sappho, Catullus) (Web or from RK)

 

Winter Term

1. Gentle deer; I lie with her; The Sunne Rising (N)
2. Full Fathom Five; Everything's True in a Different Sense (N, Eliot Family Reunion)
3. The Lady's Dressing-Room; Essay on Man (N, Pope website)
4. Elegy, Written in a Country Churchyard (N)
5. Lines, Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey (N)
6.  READING WEEK
7. My Last Duchess; When Our Two Souls (N, from RK)
8. Vitai Lampada; Tommy; Recessional (from RK, N)
9. Now God Be Thanked; Anthem for Doomed Youth (from RK, N)
10. The Waste Land (N)
11. The Idea of Order at Key West (N)
12. Four Quartets (N)