ENGLISH 368W-1 (2621): IRISH WRITERS / WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
SPRING 2011, MONDAY/WEDNESDAY 1:40 PM – 2:55 PM
Instructor:
Jeff Cassvan
Office:
Klapper 706
Phone:
(718) 997-4710
Office Hour: Wednesdays, 3:00PM – 4:00 PM
email:
[email protected]
We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with
ourselves, poetry. Unlike the rhetoricians, who get a confident voice from
remembering the crowd they have won or may win, we sing amid our
uncertainty; and, smitten even in the presence of the most high beauty by the
knowledge of our solitude, our rhythm shudders.
W. B. Yeats in Per Amica Silentia Lunae
For nothing can be sole or whole / That has not been rent.
W. B. Yeats, “Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop”
It seems to me that I have found what I wanted. When I try to put all into a
phrase I say: ‘Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.’
W. B. Yeats
Course Description
This course will enable a thorough exploration of the work of William Butler Yeats, the
greatest twentieth-century poet of the English language. In addition to our concentration
on all of the periods of his varied poetic career, we will consider Yeats’s prose and his
drama in the context of Irish history and culture. We will also focus on the ways in
which a number of the major trends in literary theory and criticism have been applied to
the interpretation of this diverse material. This will include an exploration of the
question of the relationship between the study of literature and the study of history and of
the concept of tradition itself. Our careful reading of Yeats’s work will be accompanied
by a theoretical interrogation of the modes of literary criticism and interpretation.
Required Texts
Finneran, Richard J, ed. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems.
2nd edition. Simon & Schuster, 1997. [ISBN 0684839350]
Howes, Marjorie, and John Kelly, eds. The Cambridge Companion to W. B. Yeats.
Cambridge University Press, 2006. [ISBN 0521658861]
Pethica, James, ed. Yeats’s Poetry, Drama, and Prose. Norton Critical
Edition. [ISBN 0393974979]
*Please note that a number of course documents will only be available for you to
download and print from Blackboard.
Learning Goals
By the end of the semester, students will:
1) Acquire a deeper appreciation and understanding of the poetry, drama and prose of
William Butler Yeats, the greatest twentieth-century poet of the English language, in the
context of Irish history and culture.
2) Acquire an enhanced ability to recognize the poetic elements of diction, figurative
language, imagery, tone, sound and rhythm and understand the ways in which they
function in a wide range of poems.
3) Recognize the conventions of a range of lyric subgenres and fixed forms including the
ballad, the aubade, the debate-poem, the elegy, the ode, the pastoral, the sestina, the
sonnet, the valediction and the villanelle.
4) Acquire an understanding and appreciation of the diverse ways in which Yeats
experiments with and exploits a wide range of lyrical subgenres and fixed forms.
5) Improve their ability to read more productively and to recognize the conventions of
critical and theoretical academic essays.
6) Be able to analyze in a clear and convincing written argument the relationship between
the form and the content (the style and the meaning, the rhetorical and the thematic
dimensions) of some of the richest and most demanding poems written in English in the
twentieth century.
7) Be able to make very convincing use of evidence quoted from the texts of poems and
of secondary critical and theoretical sources in their analytical essays and in their
discussion board posts.
This course can be used to fulfill the College Option Literature requirement.
Course Requirements
Since this course is designated as writing-intensive, you will be required to produce two
formal essays, each of approximately 1,000-1,250 words (4-5 pages) for the semester.
Each essay will undergo a process of revision. In addition, you will be required to post
written responses to class readings (between 300-500 words) on Blackboard (“Discussion
Board”) prior to our class meeting (usually) on Wednesday each week. In these responses
you will record your questions, thoughts and explorations of the assigned texts and you
will receive a general grade for this work at the end of the semester. You will be
expected to participate in class discussions and you will be required to do at least one inclass presentation on a reading assignment. You must meet a standard of adequate
attendance. Any student with more than one unexcused absence should expect this to be
reflected in the final grade. All writing assignments must be typed, double-spaced, in 12
point type, with 1” margins. You must take the time to proofread and edit all of your
work and you must use MLA guidelines for citing sources and constructing a works cited
list. Formal essays submitted for final evaluation must be accompanied by all earlier
drafts of the essay. There will also be a final examination.
Final course grades will be determined as follows:
Preparation and Participation
Reading Responses
essay 1
essay 2
final exam
--15%
--20%
--25%
--25%
--15%
For Wednesday, February 2nd, please complete the following reading and writing
assignment:
In Pethica’s Yeats’s Poetry, Drama, and Prose:
*Pethica’s introduction, pp. xi-xxiv
*pp. 3-11 from Crossways, paying special attention to “The Song of the Happy
Shepherd,” “The Sad Shepherd,” “Ephemera,” “The Stolen Child,” “To an Isle in the
Water,” “Down by the Salley Gardens” and “The Meditation of the Old Fisherman”
In Finneran’s The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems:
*pp. 5-23
In The Cambridge Companion to W.B. Yeats:
Marjorie Howes's "Introduction,” pp.1-18
You are required to generate and post on the class "Discussion Board" of Blackboard a
response of 300-500 devoted to a consideration of one or two poems in the
collection Crossways by no later than 11 AM Wednesday, February 2nd. Your response
should consider specific details (words, images, sounds, ideas) in one or two poems.
Please quote from the poems in order to support your observations and feel free to
consider poems in relation to each other. Your responses should be informed by your
reading of the introductions by Pethica and Howes and by our class discussion during the
first session. Please be sure to take the time to read through some of your peers'
responses before coming to class on Wednesday.
**Please note that all other weekly assignments for the semester will be available in
the “Assignments” section of Blackboard.
Tentative Schedule of Required Readings
Please note that updated information regarding all weekly reading and writing
assignments must be accessed in the “Assignments” section of Blackboard.
Jan
31
Feb
2
Feb
7
Feb
9
Feb
14
Feb
16
Feb
Feb
21
23
Introduction to the course, discussion of epigraphs and “The Balloon of
the Mind”
In Pethica’s Yeats’s Poetry, Drama, and Prose: introduction, pp xi-xxiv,
pp 3-11 from Crossways (paying special attention to “The Song of the
Happy Shepherd,” “The Sad Shepherd,” “The Indian upon God,” “The
Indian to his Love,” “Ephemera,” “The Madness of King Goll,” “The
Stolen Child,” “To an Isle in the Water,” “Down by the Salley Gardens”
and “The Meditation of the Old Fisherman”), pp 5-23 in Finneran’s The
Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems
Poems of Crossways cont’d and Marjorie Howes's "Introduction,” pp.118 in The Cambridge Companion to W.B. Yeats
Poems of The Rose (in Finneran and in Pethica): “To the Rose upon the
Rood of Time,” “Fergus and the Druid,” "The Rose of the World," "A
Faery Song," “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “The Pity of Love,” “The
Sorrow of Love,” “When You are Old,” "The White Birds," “A Dream of
Death,” "The Countess Cathleen in Paradise," “Who goes with Fergus?”
“The Man who dreamed of Faeryland,” “To Ireland in the Coming Times”
Poems of The Rose cont’d, "Hopes and Fears for Irish Literature" (pp
258-260 in Pethica), Jahan Ramazani's "The Elegiac Love Poems: A
Woman Dead and Gon(n)e"(pp 394-399 in Pethica), George Bornstein's
"Yeats and Romanticism" (Cambridge Companion)
Poems of The Rose cont’d, George Watson's "Yeats, Victorianism and the
1890s," Margaret Mills Harper's "Yeats and the Occult" (Cambridge
Companion), Handout for Work on W.B. Yeats's "Rose" Poems (scanned
version of James Clarence Mangan's poem "Dark Rosaleen," Percy Bysshe
Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" and Harold Bloom's comments on the
relationship between Shelley's poem and W.B. Yeats's "The Secret Rose,"
available in the "Documents" section of Blackboard)
College Closed—President’s Day
Monday Schedule The Countess Cathleen (Blackboard), Poems of The
Wind Among the Reeds: "The Hosting of the Sidhe," "The Lover tells of
the Rose in his Heart," "The Fish," "Into the Twilight," "The Song of
Wandering Aengus," "The Lover mourns for the Loss of Love," He
reproves the Curlew," "He remembers forgotten Beauty," "He gives his
Beloved certain Rhymes," "The Cap and Bells," "The Valley of the Black
Pig," "He tells of the Perfect Beauty," "He hears the Cry of the Sedge,"
"He thinks of Those who have spoken Evil of his Beloved," "The Secret
Rose," "He wishes his Beloved were Dead," "He wishes for the Cloths of
Heaven," "The Fiddler of Dooney"
Feb 28
March 2
Poems of The Wind Among the Reeds cont’d
John P. Harrington's "Preface" to Modern Irish Drama (available as a
"Document" on Blackboard), Yeats's "An Irish National
Theater" (Blackboard), Cathleen ni Houlihan (pp 133-140 in Pethica), C.J.
Watson's essay on this play (Blackboard), David Krause's "The
Hagiography of Cathleen ni Houlihan" (Blackboard), the twelfth-century
tale "The Adventure of the Sons of Eochaid Mugmedon" (Blackboard)
March 7
Poems of The Wind Among the Reeds cont’d, The King's Threshold,
Patrck Ford's introduction to Guaire's Greedy Guests (a source for The
King's Threshold), Arthur O' Shaughnessy's "Ode," George Russell's
"Exiles" and J.M. Synge's "The Passing of the Shee" (all available in the
"Documents" section of Blackboard)
Poems of In the Seven Woods: "The Arrow," “The Folly of being
Comforted,” “Never give all the Heart,” “Adam’s Curse,” "Red
Hanrahan's Song about Ireland," "The Old Men admiring Themselves in
the Water," “O do not Love Too Long,” “The Players ask for a Blessing
on the Psalteries and on Themselves”
First Draft of the First Essay Due
March 9
March 14
March 16
Poems of In the Seven Woods cont’d, Declan Kiberd's "Revolt into
Style—Yeatsian Poetics" (pp 340-346 in Pethica) and George Bornstein's
essay "The Aesthetics of Antinomy" (pp 382-386 in Pethica)
Poems of The Green Helmet and Other Poems: "A Woman Homer sung,"
"Words," "No Second Troy," "Reconciliation," "Against Unworthy
Praise," "The Fascination of What's Difficult," "A Drinking Song," "The
Coming of Wisdom with Time," "To a Poet, who would have me
Praise...,"
"The Mask," "At the Abbey Theatre," "These are the Clouds" and "All
Things can tempt Me"
March 21
March 23
Poems of The Green Helmet and Other Poems cont’d
On Baile's Strand (pp 141-160 in Pethica), translation of the Old Irish text
"The Death of Aife's One Son," Lady Gregory's "The Only Son of Aoife,"
James W. Flannery's essay on the play (all available in the “Documents”
section of Blackboard)
March 28
Poems of Responsibilities: "September 1913," "To a Friend whose Work
has come to Nothing," "To a Shade," "When Helen Lived," "On Those
that
hated 'The Playboy of the Western World,' 1907," "The Three Beggars,"
"The Three Hermits," "The Realists," "The Witch," "The Peacock," "To a
Child dancing in the Wind," "Two Years Later," "A Memory of Youth,"
March 30
"Fallen Majesty," "The Cold Heaven," "The Magi," "The Dolls" and "A
Coat"
Poems of Responsibilities cont’d
Final Draft of First Essay Due
Poems of The Wild Swans at Coole: "The Wild Swans at Coole," "In
Memory of Major Robert Gregory," "An Irish Airman foresees his
Death," "Men improve with the Years," "The Collar-bone of a Hare," "The
Living Beauty," "The Scholars," "Lines written in Dejection," “The
Dawn,” "The Fisherman," "Memory,” "Broken Dreams," "Presences,"
"The Balloon of the Mind," "On being asked for a War Poem," "Ego
Dominus Tuus" and "The Double Vision of Michael Robartes"
Poems of The Wild Swans at Coole cont’d
April
4
April
6
April
11
April
13
April
April
18
20
College Closed—Spring Break
College Closed—Spring Break
April
April
25
27
College Closed—Spring Break
Poems of The Tower: "Sailing to Byzantium," "The Tower," Meditations
in Time of Civil War: V and VI, "Nineteen Hundred and
Nineteen," "Fragments," "Leda and the Swan" and "Among School
Children," “Wisdom”
May
2
May
4
Poems of The Tower cont’d, Paul de Man’s “Image and
Emblem in Yeats” and “Semiology and Rhetoric” (Blackboard)
Poems of The Winding Stair and Other Poems: “Death,” “A Dialogue of
Self and Soul,” “At Algeciras--a Meditation upon Death,” “The Choice,”
“Byzantium,” “Vacillation," "Crazy Jane and the Bishop," Crazy Jane
Talks with the Bishop"
May
9
May
11
May
16
Poems of Michael Robartes and the Dancer: "Michael Robartes and the
Dancer," "Easter, 1916," Towards Break of Day," "The Second Coming,"
"A Prayer for my Daughter," "A Meditation in Time of War" and "To be
carved on a Stone at Thoor Ballylee"
Poems of Michael Robartes and the Dancer cont’d, Jahan Ramazani's
essay "'Easter, 1916' and the Balladic Elegies" (pp 394-399 in Pethica),
Poems of Parnell's Funeral and Other Poems: "A Prayer for Old Age,"
"The Four Ages of Man," "Meru"
Poems of New Poems: “Lapis Lazuli," "Beautiful Lofty Things," "The
Spur"
Poems of Last Poems: “Under Ben Bulben,” “Long-legged Fly,” "A Stick
of Incense," “Man and Echo,” “The Circus Animals’ Desertion,”
May
18
“Politics"
Poems of Last Poems cont’d Second Essay Due
Final Examination TBA