JEFFERSON COLLEGE
COURSE SYLLABUS
ENG255
POEMS AND THEIR MAKERS
3 Credit Hours
Prepared by:
John Pleimann
October 2016
Michael Booker, Division Chair, Communication and Fine Arts
Shirley Davenport, Dean, Arts and Science Education
ENG255 POETRY: POEMS AND THEIR MAKERS
I.
II.
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION
A.
Prerequisite: Reading proficiency
B.
3 semester hours credit
C.
Poems and their Makers includes the lives of influential American modernists from
Whitman to Plath. Students relate essential elements that contribute to poetry’s
insights and possibilities, with Voices and Visions sources. (F,S, O)
EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES AND ASSESSMENT MEASURES
ENG 255 Expected Learning Outcomes
Assessment Measures
Reading responses, quizzes, and exams
Understand and discuss important biographical
influences on major American poets featured in
the PBS Voices and Visions series.
Understand the following poetic elements within Reading responses, quizzes, and exams
the individual poem: image, sound and rhythm,
structure, and theme.
Show skill as a critical reader by demonstrating an Reading responses, quizzes, and exams
awareness of language, its denotative and
connotative meanings.
Be able to identify essential elements that
Reading responses, quizzes, and exams
contribute to the poem’s effectiveness.
Be able to choose a suitable topic for a longer Analytical paper
analytical paper, and then write an analysis in
proper MLA documented form.
III.
OUTLINE OF TOPICS (course content will be drawn from this)
A.
Introduction (what poetry is and is not)
1.
The class will read and react to a variety of contemporary poets (some
unknown) to decide on what poetry is.
2.
Poetry may not necessarily be rhymed or written in complete thoughts.
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B.
3.
Poetry may encompass a variety of topics, not just the “romantic” or
beautiful.”
4.
Poetry is compressed emotional thought “recollected.”
5.
Poetry is about something that is “bigger” than the poem; this “theme” is
often implied and comes out of poem’s implications.
6.
Poems say much in a few words; they may move through time and space
in non-narrative patterns.
7.
Poems arrange life experiences in other artistic patterns; thus, they are not
true-to-life, but they are “true” anyway.
Poets and their works
1.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
“The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.”
a.
b.
c.
d.
The poet as redeemer and representative man
The expansive line and Biblical parallelism
The transcendental good in all men
The catalogue as a poetic device
(1)
(2)
(3)
e.
f.
Human sexual experience
Whitman’s later influence: the Biblical Jeremiads
(1)
2.
Rhythmic patterning
World vastness and variety: Leaves of Grass
“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”: World Unity and Emerson’s
“Oversoul”
Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and “A Supermarket in California”
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
“Much Madness is divinest Sense - To a discerning Eye . . .”
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
The poet as limited observer
The condensed line and Calvinistic accountability
Hymn stanza: the Protestant musical tradition
The paradox of good and evil in all man/womankind
The poem as paradox, a study in contrasts:
(1)
In gain is loss: “Success is counted sweetest”
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(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
f.
g.
3.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
The poet as synecdochist, a part for the whole
The dialectics of an idea: two sides “Mending Wall” and “The
Road Not Taken”
The New England idiomatic voice: “After Apple-Picking”
Nature as “Destroyer”: “Out, Out -” and “Design”
Biography into the dramatic dialogue: “Home Burial”
The Sonnet
(1)
Tone (“Acquainted with the Night”)
(2)
Extended Simile (“The Silken Tent”)
Frost’s problem with fame
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
“Let the Gods forgive what I have made . . .”
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
5.
The truncated line (stylistic noun capitalization and the dash for
expansion)
Dickinson’s influence on modern poets: William Carlos
Williams, Adrienne Rich
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
“I have been one acquainted with the night.”
a.
b.
4.
Nature, a threat and comfort: “A bird came down the walk…”
Love: ecstatic and dangerous: “Wild nights, wild nights . . .”
Tensions between faith and doubt: “There’s a certain
slant of light . . .”
Death: an eternity or an abyss: “Because I could not stop
for Death . . .”
The poet as scholar and internationalist
The Sestina as a poetic form: “Sestina: Altaforte”
(1)
Student Sestina writing assignment
Oriental verse in translation
(1)
“Liu Ch’e”
(2)
“The River Merchant’s Wife: a Letter”
Imagism
(1)
“In a Station of the Metro”
Pound’s Politics
(1)
Incarceration and St. Elizabeth’s
(2)
Final days: influence on Ginsberg and Elizabeth Bishop
Thomas Sterns Eliot (1899-1965)
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons . . .”
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a.
b.
c.
d.
6.
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
“. . . no ideas but in things.”
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
7.
An American poet, not an expatriate
Keen medical/clinical observation
From modern art (the Armory Show) to modern verse technique
The poem as a construction “Spring and All”
The poem as word painting: “The Great Figure” and “The Pot of
Flowers” (after Charles DeMuth’s paintings)
“The Locust Tree in Flower” (two versions)
The artist as Icarus “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”
Second model paper for analytical midterm: “Explication of W.C.
Williams’ >The Young Housewife’“
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
“I’ve known rivers: . . .”
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
8.
St. Louis antecedents and European displacement
Early domestic turmoil and Freudian concepts: The dramatic
monologue “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Christian change: “Journey of the Magi”
Resolution of time: “East Coker” (Four Quartets)
Missouri Antecedents and European Displacement
The Harlem Renaissance and socialism
Blues Influence: “The Weary Blues”
(1)
Blues form and rhythm
(2)
Blues subject matter
Jazz poems: “Dream Boogie” and “Trumpet Player”
Cultural contexts: “Theme for English B”
Political awareness: “Harlem”
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
“Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?”
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Early Displacement: “sestina”
(1)
Review of the Verse Form
(2)
Antecedents: A Child’s View
Awareness of Self and Others: “In the Waiting Room”
Nature and Its Balm: “The Moose”
Brazil, Flora and Fauna: “The Fish”
“Questions of Travel: “the choice is never wide and never free”
Bishop’s friendship with Robert Lowell
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9.
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)
“I myself am hell/nobody’s here . . .”
a.
b.
c.
d.
10.
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
“I have done it again. / One year in every ten . . .”
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
11.
Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917 - )
Lucille Clifton (b. 1936 - )
Rita Dove (b. 1952 - )
Further Confessional Feminist Poets
a.
b.
c.
13.
Early paternal loss and depression: “Tulips,” “Lady Lazarus,” and
“The Bee Meeting”
Poetic fame: “Ariel”
Motherhood: “Morning Song”
Estrangement from Ted Hughes and Suicidal Involvement: “Daddy”
and “For a Fatherless Son”
Last Poems: “Fever 103" and “Edge”
Contemporary Black Women Poets
a.
b.
c.
12.
Rebellion of the elite Bostonian Brahmin
Conscientious objection and imprisonment:
“Memories of West Street and Lepke”
Joining the Catholic church
From allusive poetic formality to confessional self-exploration: “My
Last Afternoon with Uncle Devereaux Winslow” and “Skunk Hour”
Political dissent: “For the Union Dead”
Anne Sexton (1928-1974)
Adrienne Rich (b. 1929 - )
Louise Gluck (b. 1943 - )
Other Contemporary Influences
a.
b.
c.
d.
Richard Hugo (1923-1982)
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965)
Donald Hall (b. 1928 - )
Gary Snyder (b. 1930 - )
Note: These last selections encompass living poets, some of whom were influenced by the earlier
Voices and Visions group; these will change per each instructor’s background and updating.
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IV.
METHODS OF INSTRUCTION
A.
Written weekly units
B.
Library reserve readings
C.
PBS series Voices and Visions
E.
Student interpretative papers
F.
Analytical papers
V.
REQUIRED TEXTBOOK(S) WITH PUBLICATION INFORMATION
DiYanni, Robert. Modern American Poets: Their Voices and Visions, current edition
VI.
REQUIRED MATERIALS (STUDENT)
Internet access
VII.
SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES
None
VIII.
METHOD OF EVALUATION (STUDENT)
A.
Weekly reading responses
B.
Weekly quizzes
C.
One analytical paper
D.
Three Exams
IX.
ADA-AA STATEMENT
Any student requiring special accommodations should inform the instructor and the
Coordinator of Disability Support Services in the Library, phone 636-481-3169.
X.
ACADEMIC HONESTY STATEMENT
All students are responsible for complying with the campus policies as stated in the Student
Handbook (see college website, http://www.jeffco.edu).
XI.
ATTENDANCE POLICY
Regular and punctual attendance is expected of all students. Any one of these four options
may result in the student being removed from the class and an administrative withdrawal
being processed: (1) Student fails to begin class; (2) Student ceases participation for at least
two consecutive weeks; (3) Student misses 15 percent or more of the coursework; and/or (4)
Student misses 15 percent or more of the course as defined by the instructor.
Students earn their financial aid by regularly attending and actively participating in their
coursework. If a student does not actively participate, he/she may have to return financial
aid funds. Consult the College Catalog or a Student Financial Services representative for
more details.
XII.
OUTSIDE OF CLASS ACADEMICALLY RELATED ACTIVITIES
The U.S. Department of Education mandates that students be made aware of expectations
regarding coursework to be completed outside the classroom. Students are expected to
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spend substantial time outside of class meetings engaging in academically related activities
such as reading, studying, and completing assignments. Specifically, time spent on
academically related activities outside of class combined with time spent in class meetings
is expected to be a minimum of 37.5 hours over the duration of the term for each credit
hour.