English 106: Introduction to Literature: Poetry
Spring 2011
ENG 106–CRN: 32486
MWF: 2:00-2:50
Room: 248 Gerlinger Hall
Instructor: Corbett Upton
Office: 39 PLC
Phone: 346-1595
E-mail: [email protected]
Office Hours: Monday 9:00-12:00, and by appointment.
Course Description: ENG 106 is an introduction to poetry, one of the major genres in literary studies. Through
careful analysis of poems by major writers, you will be challenged to explain not only what a given poem might
mean to its readers, but also how a poem communicates meaning differently than a work of fiction, drama, or some
other mode of literary expression. ENG 106 is not a comprehensive introduction to the traditions of English and
American poetry; it is, rather, a series of intensive exercises designed to equip you with the analytical tools needed
to read, discuss, and write about poetry effectively. Weekly readings are relatively short but demanding, and
students will do a substantial amount of critical writing, including formal essays totaling at least 8-10 pages. As a
basic introduction to a major genre in the field of literary studies, this course satisfies the university's Group
Requirement in the Arts and Letters category. It is not recommended for English Majors, who are encouraged to
enroll in the department's more historically oriented and comprehensive Introduction to the English Major sequence,
ENG 220-222.
Required Texts:
R.S. Gwynn, ed. Poetry: A Pocket Anthology (7th edition)
Keetje Kuipers, Beautiful in the Mouth
Recommended: A good dictionary and a guide to MLA format. Active reading will require marking significant
passages. Plan to access texts accordingly.
Attendance and Participation: Punctual, regular attendance is a requirement for this class. You are allowed three
absences; every subsequent absence lowers your final grade by 1 step (A to A-, B+ to B, C to C-, etc.). You must be
prepared to discuss the reading assignment on the day that it is due, and to participate in a respectful and lively
discussion. Be prepared to read assigned texts closely, share your ideas, and ask questions of your peers and your
instructor.
Assignments: All readings are due by the beginning of the class time indicated on the assignment schedule attached
to this syllabus. Although the number of words and pages we will consider is somewhat less than in a fiction course,
the amount of time spent reading will be roughly equivalent because you will need to read each poem at least twice
and consider it carefully in order to be adequately prepared. Most of the assigned reading is from the Gwynn
collection, but you will access a few supplementary poems on Blackboard.
Writing Assignments: The writing assignments involve mechanical exercises and short essays. All writing
assignments are due at my office by 5:00 on the due dates (Fridays). No secondary reading is required or
encouraged, but if you do choose to use sources, they must be properly documented. I am happy to help you in
advance of the due date on any assignment. Please review the University policy regarding academic honesty (in
Schedule of Classes), which will be strictly enforced in this class. If you plagiarize or cheat, you will automatically
fail the course. All written work will be graded for form as well as content, so be sure to get help on writing and
essay form (including grammar) in plenty of time if you need it. Refer to the “Essay Checklist” at the end of this
document for formatting guidelines.
Reading Quizzes: An unspecified number of quizzes will be given throughout the term. These quizzes will ask
questions specific to the reading assignments and literary terms for the day or previous days. All quizzes are “takehome” and will be due the following class period. There are no make-ups; late quizzes will not be accepted.
Poem Memorization and Recitation: Your task for this assignment is to choose a poem from the course’s reading list
that is at least 12 lines long, to memorize it, and to recite it to me during office hours. Recitations must occur during
the week the poem is assigned. A sign-up sheet will be circulated during the first week of class. More guidelines and
suggestions are posted on Blackboard (“Preparing Recitations”).
Examinations: There will be two in-class examinations, a midterm and a final, to test reading comprehension,
vocabulary, and the information and ideas discussed in class.
Grading:
Attendance and Participation
Recitation
Quizzes
Writing Assignment #1
Writing Assignment #2
Writing Assignment #3
Midterm Examination
Final Examination
10%
5%
10%
10%
10%
15%
20%
20%
No late assignments or recitations will be accepted (unless you’ve made arrangements with me well in
advance of the due date), and, again, there are no make-up times for exams. Incompletes will be given for
documented medical emergencies only.
Accommodation: If you have a documented disability and anticipate needing accommodations in this course,
please make arrangements to meet with me soon, and request that the Counselor for Students with
Disabilities send a letter verifying your disability.
What is poetry? Some definitions: Poetry is . . .
. . . the art of uniting pleasure with truth by calling imagination to the help of reason.—Samuel Johnson
. . . the best words in the best order.—Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
. . . musical thought.—Thomas Carlyle.
. . . emotion put into measure.—Thomas Hardy
. . . If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.—Emily Dickinson.
. . . poems are bullshit unless they are / teeth or trees or lemons piled / on a step.—Amiri Baraka.
. . . Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another.—Robert Frost.
. . . prose bewitched.—Mina Loy.
. . . hundreds of things coming together at the right moment.—Elizabeth Bishop.
. . . Poetry is life distilled.—Gwendolyn Brooks.
Course Schedule:
Note: All writing and reading assignments are due on the day listed. This schedule is subject to change.
Week 1
M
3/28
Introduction. “Ars Poetica,” “The House on the Hill,” Reading a poem.
W
3/30
Read: “Literary History and Poetic Conventions” (41-44), “Lyric, Narrative, Dramatic” (9-11)
Poems: “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” (297), “Sir Patrick Spens” (58-60), “My Last Duchess” (144-46)
F
4/1
Read: “Speaker, Listener, and Context” (2-9), “Tone of Voice” (25-27)
Poems: “The Murder” (Blackboard), “The Unknown Citizen” (236-37), “Siren Song” (322)
Week 2
M
4/4
Read: “The Language of Poetry” (11-18)
Poems: “Silence” (211), “Incident” (232), “Sonnet 29” (66)
Terms: diction, concrete, abstract
W
4/6
Poems: “Bestiary” (354), “Tu Negrito” (367-68), “[After great pain, a formal feeling comes]”
(158-59), “Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast as Thou Art” (121)
Terms: poetic diction, level of diction
F
4/8
Poems: “Southeast Corner” (Blackboard), “Those Winter Sundays” (243),
“Spring and All” (201)
Terms: denotation, connotation
Week 3
M
4/11
Poems: “The Fish” (239), “The Victory” (Blackboard), “In a Station of the Metro” (202), “Sea
Rose” (206)
Terms: imagery, imagism
W
4/13
Read: “About Haiku” (Blackboard)
Poems: “Selections of Haiku (Blackboard), “Haiku from Japanese Internment Camps”
(Blackboard) “Contemporary Haiku” (Blackboard), “A Selection of Hokku”
(Blackboard).
F
4/15
Read: “Figurative Language” (18-22)
Poems: “Metaphors” (309), “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home” (350-51), “The
New Colossus” (171)-allusion, “The Pulley” (79)-implied, “The Flea” (71)-conceit
Terms: figures of speech, metaphor, implied metaphor, allusion
Week 4
M
4/18
Poems: “Idea: Sonnet 61” (64), “Sonnenizio on a Line from Drayton” (388), “A Red, Red Rose”
(100), “Sonnet: To Science” (135), “Neutral Tones” (168)
Terms: personification, apostrophe, hyperbole, understatement, metonymy, paradox, pun, simile
W
4/20
Read: “Repetition: Sounds And Schemes” (27-29)
Poems: “Bereft” (Blackboard), “Eight O’Clock” (172), “wishes for sons” (317)
Terms: euphony, cacophony, onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, anaphora
F
4/22
Poems: “Monologue for an Onion” (Blackboard), “from An Essay on Criticism” (90)
Due: Writing Assignment #1
Week 5
M
4/25
W
4/27
Poems: “God’s Grandeur” (169), “The Examiners” (357-58), “Ophelia” (205), “Oh, Oh, You
Will Be Sorry for That Word” (220-21) “My Papa’s Waltz” (238)
Terms: rhyme, exact rhyme, slant rhyme, end rhyme, internal rhyme, masculine and feminine
rhyme, rhyme scheme
Read: “Meter and Rhythm” (29-34)
Poems: “Astrophel and Stella: Sonnet 1” (63-63), “We Real Cool” (252), “ “This Be The
Verse” (261)
Terms: rhythm, stress, end-stopped, run-on line, meter, iambic pentameter, pentameter
F
4/29
Week 6
M
5/2
MIDTERM EXAMINATION (Bring a bluebook)
Read: “Free Verse, Open Form, and Closed Form” (35-36), “Stanza Forms” (37-38)
Poems: “A Poison Tree” (98), “Frost at Midnight” (111), “[Tell All the Truth, But Tell It Slant]”
(163), “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (102-03), “Song” (BB)
Terms: stanza, closed form, blank verse, quatrain, couplet, tercet, fixed form, nonce form
W
5/4
Poems: “For the Anniversary of My Death” (284-85), “Failure” (BB), “In the Life” (BB), “The
Colonel” (368-69)
Terms: open form, free verse, prose poems
F
5/6
Read: “Fixed Forms” (38-41)
Poems: “Amoretti: Sonnet 75” (61-62), “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (65), “What
lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” (221)
Terms: traditional form, sonnet, Italian sonnet, sestet, octave, English sonnet, Spenserian sonnet,
quatrain,
Week 7
M
5/9
Poems: “pity this busy monster, manunkind” (223). “Acquainted with the Night” (184), “Sonnets
from the Portuguese, 43” (127), “looking” (BB)
W
5/11
Poems: “One Art” (241-42), “We Wear the Mask” (183), “Do not go gentle into that good night”
(246), “In Flanders Fields” (BB), “Lonely Hearts” (BB)
Terms: villanelle, rondeau
F
5/13
Poems: “Bilingual Sestina” (386-387), “All-American Sestina” (329-30), “Paysage Moralise”
(BB)
Due: Writing Assignment #2
Terms: sestina
Week 8
M
5/16
Read: “Ballads” (BB), “Blues” (BB), “Rap” (BB)
Poems: “the ballad of chocolate Mabbie” (250-51), “Ballad of Birmingham” (243-44), “The
Ballad of Aunt Geneva” (358-60), “The Wreck of the Hesperus” (BB), “The Weary Blues” (23031), “Jailhouse Blues” (BB), “from Peter Piper” (BB), “Eleanor Rigby” (BB),
Terms: stanza, verse, refrain, ballad, ballad stanza, common meter
W
5/18
Read: “Allegory and Symbol” (22-24)
Poems: “The Road Not Taken” (245), “Anecdote of the Jar” (192-93), “Up-Hill” (164-65), “The
Second Coming” (178)
Terms: symbol, traditional symbols
F
5/20
Read: “Myth and Narrative” (253-55), “Archetype” (257-58), “Myth and Popular
Culture” (264-65), “Thinking About Myth” (271)
Poems: “Cinderella” (290), “First Love: A Quiz” (405), “Narcissus and Echo” (316), “final note
to clark” (BB)
Terms: myth, archetype
Week 9
M
5/23
Poems: “The Traveling Onion” (383-84), “Facing It” (362-63), “She Had Some Horses” (374-75),
“The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica” (378-79)
W
5/25
Read: Beautiful in the Mouth: Foreword (9-10), About the Author (91), 15-38.
F
5/27
Read: Beautiful in the Mouth: 41-55.
Week 10
M
5/30
MEMORIAL DAY. NO CLASS.
W
6/1
Read: Beautiful in the Mouth: 59-87.
F
6/3
Free reading.
DUE: Writing Assigment #3
Finals Week
M
6/6
3:15 in 248 Gerlinger Hall