Week One: What is Poetry?

During this first week we will consider the question "What is poetry?" by discussing various types of poetry with which we are (or are not) familiar, our reactions to them and their place in a social context. Some suggested selections: Yeats, Kinnell, Homer, Browning, Olds, Owen.

Week Two: The Language of Poetry

Poetic language often differs from prose or even colloquial language. We will discuss the various aspects of poetic language, how poets employ them and their ultimate affect upon the reader. Some suggested selections: Williams, Carroll, Cummings, Wordsworth, Marvell, Hall.

Week Three: The Meaning of Poetry

"A poem does not mean, it simply is." True, but poems do mean something to each one of us. We will examine how poems create meaning, and often times, an ambivalence of meaning, through a variety of methods. Some suggested selections:  Blake, Frost, Keats, Plath, Hopkins, Shakespeare.

Week Four: Imagery

The language of poetry is a language of images. Just how do these images stimulate our senses and heighten our response to poetry? Some suggested selections:  Pound, Roethke, Hopkins, Coleridge, Yeats, Stevens, Coleman.

Week Five: Figures of Speech

Remembering our previous discussions concerning language and meaning, we will examine the various figures of speech which assist the poet in developing a specific poem. Some suggested selections:  Shakespeare, Plath, Momaday, Levertov, Burns, Ashberry.

Week Six: The Form of Poetry

Every poem follows a pattern and has a form. A poem may be patterned around a central theme providing an essential form. Or a poem might utilize rhyme scheme, meter, stanza length, and graphic representation on the page as elements of formal construction. We will analyze these various formal elements, paying attention to the particular established forms -- sonnet, etc. -- and how form influences content. Some suggested selections:  Donne, Petrarch, Bishop, Whitman, Herbert, Dickinson.

Week Seven: Song, Sound & Rhythm

Poetry origin lies in song. We will examine the musicality of a poem, and consequently, the emphasis it places upon voice. Some suggested selections:  Robinson, Simon, Poe, Lennon & McCartney, Housman.

Week Eight: Song pt. 2

We will continue our discussion of poetry as song. Some suggested selections:  Hopkins, Brooks, Parker, Millay, Hughes, Whitman.

Week Nine: Symbolism

Symbolism and Myth are essential aspects of all art forms. In poetry they are of particular interest to the literary critic. We will analyze their significance and spend time discussing Formalist Criticism of poetry. Some suggested selections:  Baudelaire, Pound, Eliot, Yeats, Brooks, Frye.

Week Ten: Voice & Identity

Just as poets speak poetry, poetry speaks the poet. A poem offers us insight into the voice and identity of a specific poet. In discussing voice and identity we will also examine Biographical and Feminist criticism. Some suggested selections:  Plath, Hughes, Justice, Lorca, Olds, Fiedler, Showalter.

How the World Reads Poetry

We will continue our discussion concerning how we read poetry. As well, we will critically examine the way hypertext functions within the study of poetry. Some suggested selections: Mallarme, Eliot.

"William Carlos Williams, "A poem is a small...machine"

Hypertext Poetry

Week Eleven: How Poetry Reads the World

Just a a shell impresses itself upon sand, so too, does the world impress itself upon the poem. How does the poem serve as an artifact of the time in which it was written? In answering this question we will pay special attention to Historical Criticism of poetry. Some suggested selections:  Hughes, Tennyson, Owen, Reed, Sassoon, Whitman, Lukacs.

Hypertext Poetics

We will continue our discussion of the act of reading the poem and conclude our course by reviewing the interactive process which poetry and hypertext demand.

Week Twelve: How the World Reads Poetry

In light of previous discussion, we will examine the aspects of conversation, collaboration and interactivity and their special place in the poem. While engaging this topic we will pay close attention to Reader-Response Criticism of poetry. Some suggested selections: Fish, Scholes. Bidart. Ai.