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Last modified: May 13 / 2003

Final Papers and Grades (Update)

Abbreviations

    N = The Norton Anthology of Poetry
    A = A Glossary of Literary Terms
    x = photocopy

Essay Assignments

    Essay #1 (3-4 pages): Due Thursday, Feb. 13
    Essay #2 (3-4 pages): Due March 11
    Essay #3 (5-7 pages): Due April 10 (RD), April 15 (FD)
    Essay #4 (5-7 pages)

Course Description and Policies

SCHEDULE

Week One

Tuesday, Jan. 21

Introduction

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 130: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (1609)

Ezra Pound, "In a Station of the Metro" (1913)

Thursday, Jan. 23

Today we will discuss, among other things, figurative language and metaphor in particular.

Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man" (1923) [N 718]

Frank O'Hara, "Why I Am Not a Painter" (1971) [N 970]

Michael Goldberg, Sardines, 1955

Joseph Brodsky, "A Polar Explorer" (1977)

Read Abrams: “Conventions,” "Connotation and Denotation," “Stanza,” “Figurative Language,” “Persona, Tone, and Voice” [A]

Read for class: R. J. McCaffery, "Metaphor, the Crux of Poetry"

Read for class: Jane Reichold, "Metaphor in Basho's Haiku"

There are several problems with McCaffery's explanation of metaphor which we will discuss in class.

Short Assignment: Select a Poem from Norton

Week Two

Tuesday, Jan. 28

Eliot's "Prufrock"; uses of criticism; metaphor and metonymy.

T. S. Eliot, “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1917 ) [N 767]

Read for class: Critical remarks on "Prufrock" [N 767], especially those by Hillis Miller, Christ, North, and Mitchell.

What does Hillis Miller mean by "this subjectivizing of everything"?

What does Christ mean when she writes that, in "Prufrock," "Eliot avoids envisioning the female"?

What does North mean by "the transition from metaphor to metonymy" in the poem?

Why does Mitchell think Eliot's poem is so important?

Be prepared to respond to these questions in class.

Also: be sure to bring a copy of the critical remarks on the poem so that you can refer to them during the discussion.

Thursday, Jan. 30

Prufrock II

Kenneth Koch, “To World War Two” (2002) [x]

Again: T. S. Eliot, “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1917) [N 767]

Read again for class: Critical remarks on "Prufrock," especially those by Hillis Miller, Christ, North, and Mitchell.

Read (again) for class: Abrams on "Persona, Tone, and Voice" and "Figurative Language"[A]

Week Three

Tuesday, Feb. 4

Kenneth Koch, "Talking to Patrizia"

John Ashbery, “What is Poetry?” (1975)

Frank O'Hara "Having a Coke with You"

Lisa Jarnot, "Lunch Poem" (1998)

Read the assignment for Essay #1 (3 pages): Due Thursday, Feb. 13

Thursday, Feb. 6

Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 [N 161]

Mina Loy, "Apology of Genius" (1922)

Mina Loy, "Lunar Baedeker"

Be sure to look up any unfamiliar words in Loy (e.g., "Baedeker," "somnambulists," "parvenues").

Read for class: two excerpts from Hilda Bronstein, "‘Intermittent — Unfinishing': Mina Loy and the Elusive Text as Resistance". These discuss the two Loy poems.

Week Four

Tuesday, Feb. 11 Two Romantics: Keats and Whitman John Keats, "To Autumn" [N 513] John Keats, "Bright Star" [N 514] Walt Whitman, from "Song of Myself" [N 591] Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" [N 596] Walt Whitman, "When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer" [N 600] Walt Whitman, "Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night" [N 600] Walt Whitman, "To a Locomotive in Winter" [N 612] Deleuze, "Whitman" [x] As you read the poems, consider the similarities and differences between the English Romantic Keats and the American late-Romantic Whitman. Read their (very) short bios in the back of Norton in order to better situate them in relation to each other. Regarding the essay assignment: read online advice on writing about poetry. They include a list of sample topics. Thursday, Feb. 13 Note: Class will begin today at 3.15 PM. Due: Essay # 1 Read through all the examples of Emily Dickinson in Norton [N 629-641]. Pick a few on which to concentrate. As you read, compare Dickinson's poems to Donne's Holy Sonnets. Read, in particular, sonnets 5 [N 191] and 10 [N 192].

Week Five

Tuesday, Feb. 18

Class Canceled due to Weather. Stay home and read.

Thursday, Feb. 20

Lowry's Eye-Opener. Plath's Morning Song.

Marianne Moore, "The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing" [N 766]

Robert Frost, "Provide, Provide" [N 707]

Read for class: These words by Frank Lentricchia on Frost's poem.

Malcolm Lowry, "Eye-Opener" [N 867]

Week Six

Tuesday, Feb. 25

Gender, Genre, Polyphony, and Intertextuality

Read for class these Two Views on Plath's Life and Career.

Plath, "Daddy" [N 1031]

Read for class: the critical comments on "Daddy" by Blasing, von Hallberg, Steiner, and Britzolakis (down somewhat on the page).

Plath, "Lady Lazarus" [N 1034]

Read for class: the critical remarks on "Lady Lazarus" by Aird, Oberg, Vendler, Breslin, and Britzolakis.

In Breslin's comments, pay attention to his sense of mimetic and rhetorical functions. We might want to focus on this distinction in class.

The Second Essay Assignment will be discussed.

Re-read: Dickinson, 613 ("They shut me up in Prose--") [N 636] with these remarks by Cushman and Galvin.

Read this brief and worthy note on the famous dash.

Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Sympathy" [N 699]

Robinson Jeffers, "Carmel Point" [N 759]

Pound, "Cino"

Read for class: Pound's notes on "In a Station of the Metro"

Essay Assignment 2

Once More: "Poetry"

Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress" [N 271] and "The Defintion of Love" [N 272]

Marianne Moore, "Poetry" [N 760]

Read these critical remarks on Moore's "Poetry." Read especially the remarks by Hall, Joyce, Altieri, and the short piece by E. R. Gregory.

Stevens, "Anecdote of a Jar" [N 721]

Read the short remarks on "Anecdote" by MacLeod, Lentricchia, Gutierrez, and Carroll.

Thursday, March 6

CLASS CANCELLED

Week Eight

Tuesday, March 11

An example of Poetic Lineage (in America)

Whitman, "Vigil Strange I Kept on a Field One Night" [N]

Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855)

Two poems by Allen Ginsberg: "A Supermarket in California" and "America" available on this page.

How does Whitman's idea of America in his Preface relate to Ginsberg's idea in "America"?

Due: Second Essay Assignment

Thursday, March 13

Rhyme and Meter

Read for class: Stallworthy on versification [N 1103-1122]

Read for class: Jahn on meter and rhyme. These sections are joined on the same page for convenient reading and are full of helpful examples, some of which we'll go over in class.

Week Nine

Tuesday, March 18

NO CLASS: SPRING BREAK

Thursday, March 20

NO CLASS: SPRING BREAK

Week Ten

Tuesday, March 25

Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled [horizontal black painting], c. 1953

Read once more: Whitman, from Song of Myself [N]

Read through the Whitman, paying attention to its affinities with its descendant, "Howl."

Allen Ginsberg, "Howl" (part I) [N 958]

Read on this page the exerted remarks by James E. B. Breslin on "Howl."

Emotionalism in "Howl" and Robert Rauschenberg

Thursday, March 27

Due in class: Rhythm, Meter, and Rhyme Reference Sheet

Using the sections at the end of Norton, Jahn, and any other sources you may find, put together a two to three page reference sheet listing, organizing, and defining, for easy reference, the key terms of metrical scansion, rhyming, and poetic form, including the main kinds of metrical feet, the kinds of meter, the main verse forms, and the different kinds of rhyme. Remember that ease of reference is desired, so limit the detail to what is essential. Use tables or labeled outlines or whatever combination of formatting you feel is best. This assignment is a chance to experiment (and have some fun) with layout, always a good skill to develop.

Please bring a copy to hand in and a copy for yourself.

Aphra Behn, "Song" [N 296] and "To the Fair Clarinda" [N 300]

Keats, "To Homer" [N 497] and "On the Sonnet" [N 506]

Merrill, "The Victor Dog" [N 966]

Week Eleven

Tuesday, April 1

NOTE: CLASS WILL START TODAY AT 3 PM

Poems about Poems (being a poem, writing a poem, other poems)

William Carlos Williams, "The Read Wheelbarrow" and "This is Just to Say" [N]

Read the explanation of "The Red Wheelbarrow"; also: the remarks by Hugh Kenner on the same page.

Koch, "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams" [N 950]

Koch, "Energy in Sweden" [N 951]

Ashbery, "Paradoxes and Oxymorons"

on the same

Thursday, April 3

Poet about Poems: O'Hara on (His) Poetry

Assignemnt: Essay # 3. Rough draft due: Thursday, April 10th. Final draft: Tuesday, April 15th.

Richard Wilbur, "Advice to a Prophet" [N 928]

O'Hara, "Adieu Norman ...," "For You" [x]

O'Hara, "Personism: A Manifesto" [x]

Due in class: In one to two paragraphs, please provide a paraphrase of O'Hara's argument in "Personism." What is he saying about poetry, about his own poetry? What is its difference from other, earlier poetry?

Section III: Poetry and the Visual Arts

Week Twelve

April 8

Ekphrasis I

Mitchell, "Ekphrasis and the Other"

Shelley, "On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci"

Due in class: How does Mitchell define ekphrasis? Very briefly, what are the different kinds or aspects of ekphrasis he describes?

Example: Ekphrasis in Last Year at Marienbad (1961).

Also: I will say a few more things about the choice of poems for Essay 3.

April 10

Ekphrasis and Alterity II

Mitchell, continued

Graham, "San Sepolcro," "How Things Work," "Three Names" (x)

Note: If you're missing "San Sepolcro," access a version via the assignment 3 page.

Be sure to bring Norton to class. (But feed him beforehand.)

Discussion of Loy, Plato, and Brancusi

Important addendum to Essay 3. As mentioned in class, the due dates have been adjusted. But I now want you to include Mitchell in your paper. You will need to relate "Ekphrasis and the Other" to some aspect of your analysis. This should involve at least two quotes and some reasonably precise explication.

Week Thirteen

Tuesday, April 15

Graham, "Fission" [x]

Graham visuals:

Essay # 3: Bring two copies of rough draft to class for peer review.

Thursday, April 17

Varieties of Ekphrasis in Frank O'Hara

O'Hara, "Why I am Not a Painter" [N], "The Day Lady Died" [N, x], "Rhapsody" [x]

Which aspects of Mitchell's analysis of ekphrasis could apply to O'Hara's poems? To what extent does O'Hara, in the last two, treat New York City, a human-made cultural object, or some of its parts, ekphrastically?

Bring "Fission" to class. Read it again. We'll want to talk about it.

Essay # 3 (5-7 pp): Final Draft due in class.

The fourth essay will be due on the last day of class.

The formatting guidelines are the same as those for essay # 3 (5-7 pp, etc.)

You will need to discuss any one of a number of groupings of poems, usually a pair, with either a linked essay or short extracted criticism.

Most of these groupings will consist, at least in part, of previously assigned material.

You will need to relate the poems within the selected group, using the critical material to advance your discussion.

Week Fourteen

Tuesday, April 22

Once again: "Fission"! (We're not getting any younger!)

Yeats, "Leda and the Swan" [N 682]

Yeats, "Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop" [N 685]

O'Hara, "An Image of Leda" (c. 1950):

The cinema is cruel
like a miracle. We
sit in the darkened
room asking nothing
of empty white
space but that it
remain pure. And
suddenly despite us
it blackens. Not by
the hand that holds
the pen. There is
no message. We our-
selves appear naked
on the river bank
spread-eagled while
the machine wings
nearer. We scream
chatter prance and
wash our hair! Is
it our prayer or
wish that this
occur? Oh what is
this light that
holds us fast? Our
limbs quicken even
to disgrace under
this white eye as
if there where real
pleasure in loving
a shadow and caress-
ing a disguise!

Auden, "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" [N 846]

Stevie Smith, "No Categories!" [N 828]

Again: The assignment for essay # 4 is available.

Thursday, April 24

O'Hara, again: "The Day Lady Died" [N], "An Image of Leda" (above)

Optional: commentary on the poem

Barbara Guest, "Wild Gardens Overlooked by Night Lights"

On "The Tale of Genji," to which Guest alludes. Also this one.

Guest, "Unusual Figures"

Who/what are these "unusual figures"?

Bring Norton.

Some additions to essay # 4 inspired by Tuesday's class:

Auden, "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" [N 846]

Auden, "In Praise of Limestone" [N 848]

Focusing especially on the relation between the last section of "In Memory" (ending with "Teach the free man how to praise") to the second poem.

Any three or four Dickinson poems with some of the criticism

Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" [N 722]

Wordsworth, "Lines (Composed a Few Miles . . . )" [N 404]

Langston Hughes, "Theme for English B" [N 825]

Dickinson, 754 ("My Life had stood ...") [N 637]

plus the cri-cri-criticism

Week Fifteen

Tuesday, April 29

Langston Hughes, "Theme for English B" [N 825]

Rough draft (at least 4 pp) for paper # 4. Workshop.

Thursday, May 1

Due in class: Fourth Essay Assignment (Final Paper)

Charles vs. Charles: Bernstein and Bukowski

Note: It is not necessary to inlcude the assigned poems in a works cited but be sure to identify them by title in your text.

Final Papers and Grades

I will be in my office in Murray Hall, 032, on Tuesday, May 13, 4.30-5.00 pm or so with final papers.

After that time grades will NOT be posted on my office door (because I've learned that we are no longer allowed to do so).

Your papers, however, are in a brown cardboard box in front of my door.

So much depends
upon

a brown cardboard (heh) --

This semester has been brought to you by . . .

Have a good Summer.

Genre Comparison Table 1