513 20thc Eng Poetry

Course Objectives and Goals
To increase the range and depth of the students' understanding of selected twentieth century poets and their works. To tackle the issue of prosody. To see the poems as parts of oeures, not as isolated comprehension exercises. To understand the political implications of the works. To ascertain for each poet what s/he thinks poetry is, is for, what it should do or be - and why.

Evaluation and Grading	Percentage %
Midterm (s)	30
Final	40
Presentation	20
Attendance/Participation	10

Presentation topics: 30 minute presentations are on "The Poems of xxxxxxxx", each student to chose a poet not included in the course outline, eg: e. e. cummings, Robert Graves, Thom Gunn, Ivor Gurney, HD,. E. Houseman, James Joyce, Jackie Kaye, Rudyard Kipling, Any Lowell, Walter de la Mare, Edna St Vincent Millay, Ezra Pound, Edith Sitwell, Stevie Smith, Walt Whitman.

. . . And every phrase

And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,

Taking its place to support the others,

The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,

An easy commerce of the old and the new,

The common word exact without vulgarity,

The formal word precise but not pedantic,

The complete consort dancing together)

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,

Every poem an epitaph. . . .

(From T S Eliot, Little Gidding)

Do you agree?

Course Objectives and Goals