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ENGLISH 613, “MAJOR AMERICAN POETS”

DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE (Summer 2003):

     English 613 will examine American poets who came to maturity before World War I.  The course will consider in depth four "major" poets: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Sarah Piatt, and Robert Frost. The works of six other important poets will be studied in some detail: Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, William Cullen Bryant, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and T.S. Eliot.  Finally, for the sake of completeness, the course will survey a number of other notable poets:  Edward Taylor, Timothy Dwight, Philip Freneau, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
     There will not be a single methodology, but rather a variety of critical methods--historical, psychoanalytic, feminist, textual--depending upon the needs of the moment.  The goal of this class is to promote familiarity with the historical development of American poetry from the 17th to the 20th century, while considering a number of issues: the intersection of poetic voice and ideology, the representation of death and mourning, the mechanics of belief and disbelief, and the politics of gender. Eclecticism will be encouraged, as students attend to two basic questions: How does this poem work?  What critical tools do we need to read it?

REQUIREMENTS:
     Regular attendance and assigned reading. 
     4-6 page paper–due in class, Tuesday, July 1.
     Midterm – Tuesday, July 15.
     6-10 page paper – due in class, Tuesday, July 29.
     Final exam – Thursday, August 7

REQUIRED TEXTS (click on each poet’s name for useful information):

Jane Eberwein ed., Early American Poetry (EAP)   (Wisconsin)

       Anne Bradstreet

       Edward Taylor

       Philip Freaneau

       William Cullen Bryant

Phillis Wheatley, The Poems of Phillis Wheatley   (Penguin)

Edgar Allan Poe, Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe   (Harper & Row)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson (Houghton Mifflin)

Walt Whitman, The Portable Walt Whitman (Penguin)

Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (Little, Brown

Frances Harper, A Brighter Coming Day: A FEWH Reader (Feminist Press)

Sarah Piatt, Palace-Burner: The Selected Poems of Sarah Piatt (Illinois)

Robert Frost, The Robert Frost Reader (Owl)

T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot (Harcourt, Brace)

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