Exploring Poetry
Prerequisites: UCLR 100, UCLR 100C, UCLR 100E, UCLR 100M, or equivalent; please check requirements for declared majors/minors for exceptions.
The course will survey British and American poetry, especially from the Romantic movement on, especially of lyric kinds. Class discussion will generally focus on the form and sense of individual poems, and will in general be about poetic ways of meaning, and individual poets' understandings of what poetry is and what it is to do.
Outcomes: Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of significant poems by selected British and American poets, demonstrate an understanding of basic critical terminology, and demonstrate an understanding of relevant critical perspectives on poetry.
Prerequisites: UCLR 100, UCLR 100C, UCLR 100E, UCLR 100M, or equivalent; please check requirements for declared majors/minors for exceptions.
The course will survey British and American poetry, especially from the Romantic movement on, especially of lyric kinds. Class discussion will generally focus on the form and sense of individual poems, and will in general be about poetic ways of meaning, and individual poets' understandings of what poetry is and what it is to do.
Outcomes: Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of significant poems by selected British and American poets, demonstrate an understanding of basic critical terminology, and demonstrate an understanding of relevant critical perspectives on poetry.
Pre-requisites: UCWR 110, C- or higher
Tier 2 Literary Knowledge
This is a writing intensive class. A grade of C- or better in UCWR 110 is required to enroll.
This course will act as an introduction to poetry in English, from the Romantic to the contemporary period. We will discuss the conventions and patterns poets often follow, and I will provide you with the standard terminology used to describe these conventions, such as line, stanza, measure, rhythm, lyric, etc. Perhaps more importantly, you will learn how to critically approach these texts. We will discuss how these poems work, what they might be arguing, what they suggest about the historical moment in which they were written, and how they relate to or comment on other texts. We will also examine the critical literature that surrounds these poems. Following Raymond Williams¿ The Country and the City (1973), our course¿s theme is ¿From Nature to City.¿ At first, we will root our thinking in Williams¿ critical examination of the ways in which ¿nature¿ is culturally and economically constructed. In doing so, we will consider how poets represent the natural world. For example, we will discuss the sublime, apostrophes to nature, and nature as a source of metaphor. Our thinking will then extend into examinations of the ¿unnatural¿ spaces of cities: mechanization, alienation, cosmopolitanism, and power. Finally, and as a feature of this section¿s ¿writing intensive¿ designation, we will discuss the expectations for strong academic writing, and you will be required regularly to compose low-stakes in-class journal responses and some higher-stakes single-page responses. You will also write two high-stakes three-page responses and one final five-page essay near the semester¿s end.
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