English 191.02: Introduction to Poetry
Spring 2014
Stony Brook University
Mon/Wed 7:00 – 8:20 PM
Physics 122
Instructor: Connor Pitetti
Office: Humanities 1035
Office Hours: Mon/Wed 5:30 – 7:00 PM
Email: [email protected]
What makes a poem a poem? Is it defined by its form (line lengths, a rhyme
scheme, etc.) or its content (love, lamentation, hope, etc.)? Does it do something special,
something other uses of language are unable to do? How do we go about getting meaning
out of a poem? Why should we care about poetry?
This class will address these questions of what poetry is and what it can do, both
for us as individual readers and for the world at large. The goal of this course is to begin
familiarizing students with the tradition of poetry in English, and to equip them with the
necessary critical tools and vocabulary to discuss poetry in classroom settings, in
conversation, and in their writing. Assignments include the memorization and recitation
of poems, regular written responses, and midterm and final exams.
Course Objectives
Students in this course will:
Learn critical vocabulary for discussing poetry.
Learn some of the major forms and modes of English poetry.
Learn to give an interpretation of a poem based on its form, genre, theme, etc.
Develop (hopefully) a lasting appreciation for poetry.
Required Texts
The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Edition
Available in the Bookstore
Additional material will be posted on Blackboard.
*Bring your book and/or Blackboard printouts to every class.*
*Students who do not have the texts will be marked absent.*
Laptops, e-readers, and other electronic devices are not allowed in the classroom.
Class Requirements
All assignments are due at the beginning of class on the day they are listed on the
syllabus. No late work will be accepted, and make up exams will not be offered. If you
are going to miss class it is your responsibility to make arrangements to submit your
work early.
Readings All readings are to be completed before class on the date they are listed on the
syllabus. Because this is a poetry course, our readings will be short. Do not, however,
allow this to become an excuse to put off the reading until the last moment. You will be
expected to read these short texts closely, and to be prepared to speak about them in
detail in class – a good approach would be to read each poem multiple times.
Reading Responses (1-2 pages) (15 points) These assignments will not be evaluated in
terms of grammar or composition, and you are free to respond to the day's readings in any
way you see fit. However, you should be making use of the terminology and approaches
to reading poetry that we discuss in class in writing your responses. A good response will
move beyond “I liked/didn't like the poem” and will discuss specific details from the text
– what is it in the poem that struck you, and why? Responses should be typed, double
spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font, with one inch margins. Each response is worth
a single point, and will be graded √ (1 point), √- (½ a point), or no credit.
Recitations (20 points) Each student will memorize and recite four poems of 100 or more
words (about the length of a sonnet). Any of the poems in our textbook are fair game, but
do not feel restricted to this archive – if you wish to recite something not included in our
anthology you simply need to get your chosen poem approved by the instructor. After
each round of recitations, students will turn in a short (1-2 page) response to one of their
peers' readings. Each recitation is worth five points: 2 points for accuracy, 2 for style and
clarity of delivery, and 1 for the written response.
Midterm and Final Exams (25 points each) The exams will consist of a combination of
passage identification, short answer, and essay questions. Any and all of the poems on the
syllabus may appear on the exams, whether or not we have discussed them in class.
Class Participation (15 points) This will be evaluated and will affect your grade.
Attendance: Attendance will be recorded daily. Students will be allowed two absences;
the third, fourth, and fifth absences will result in the reduction of your final grade by 5
points, or half of a letter grade. Any student who misses six or more classes will receive a
failing grade for the course. Please note that I do not differentiate between excused and
unexcused absences. If you cannot avoid missing class, discuss it with me as far in
advance of the anticipated date of absence as possible. It is your responsibility to ensure
that your presence in class has been recorded; if you do not see or hear me mark you
present do not assume that I have done so.
Writing Center
The Campus Writing Center, Humanities Building, Room 2009, (631) 632-6748 or
www.stonybrook.edu/writingcenter, is a good resource for writing at any point in the
process. If you would like help developing ideas, focusing your essay, thinking about
other directions for your writing, with editing, or with other parts of the writing process
they are happy to work with you. Undergraduate and graduate students who possess
strong skills as writer and peer responders staff the Writing Center. It works best if you
can make an appointment, but you can also try dropping in. When you go to the Writing
Center, be sure to bring a draft of what you’re working on and your assignment sheet. If
you have not begun to write you should do that first—Writing Center staff will not help
students that have not begun the assignment themselves.
Disability Support Services (DSS) Statement
If you have a physical, psychological, medical, or learning disability that may impact
your course work, please contact Disability Support Services (631) 632-6748 or
http://studentaffairs.stonybrook.edu/dss/. They will determine with you what
accommodations are necessary and appropriate. All information and documentation is
confidential.
Students who require assistance during emergency evacuation are encouraged to discuss
their needs with their professors and Disability Support Services. For procedures and
information go to the following website:
http://www.stonybrook.edu/ehs/fire/disabilities/asp.
Academic Integrity Statement
Each student must pursue his or her academic goals honestly and be personally
accountable for all submitted work. Representing another person's work as your own is
always wrong. Faculty are required to report any suspected instance of academic
dishonesty to the Academic Judiciary. For more comprehensive information on academic
integrity, including categories of academic dishonesty, please refer to the academic
judiciary website at http://www.stonybrook.edu/uaa/academicjudiciary/
Critical Incident Management
Stony Brook University expects students to respect the rights, privileges, and property of
other people. Faculty are required to report to the Office of Judicial Affairs any disruptive
behavior that interrupts their ability to teach, compromises the safety of the learning
environment, and/or inhibits students' ability to learn.
Subject Matter Disclosure
Poems read in this course may contain potentially objectionable subject matter, including
but not limited to sexual and/or violent imagery. No alterations will be made to the
syllabus for any individual student, nor any exceptions made to course requirements, on
any grounds.
Course Calendar
This schedule is subject to revision, as the needs of the course or the weather require.
Readings may be added or dropped. If there is anything you think it would benefit us to
read I encourage you to suggest that we add it.
Week 1 – Introductions
Mon 1/27 Syllabus Review
Wed 1/29 How to Read a Poem
W.H. Auden - “Musee de Beaux Arts”
Billy Collins - “Introduction to Poetry”
Response 1
Week 2 – What is Poetry?
Mon 2/3
Heather McHugh, “What He Thought”
Dorothea Lasky, “Ars Poetica”
Wallace Stevens, “Anecdote of the Jar”
Moore, “Poetry”
Wed 2/5
Response 2
Adrienne Rich, “letter to Jane Alexander”
Adrienne Rich, “Aunt Jennifer's Tigers”
Langston Hughes, “Theme for English B”
William Shakespeare, (“Not marble, nor the gilded monuments”)
Week 3 – Imagery and Metaphor
Mon 2/10
Selection for Recitation #1 due
John Donne, “The Flea”
Seamus Heaney, “The Skunk”
Shakespeare, (“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day”)
Pablo Neruda, “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market”
Robert Hass, “Meditation at Lagunitas”
Wed 2/12
Response 3
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself 6
Adrienne Rich, “What Kind of Times are These?”
Carl Sandberg, “The Grass”
Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
Ted Hughes, “River”
Week 4 –Poetic Structure
Mon 2/17 Lines and Stanzas
Elizabeth Bishop, “The Fish”
e.e. cummings, “in Just–”
Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man”
John Milton, “How Soon Hath Time”
William Butler Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium”
Wed 2/19 Sound Devices
Robert Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays”
Seamus Heaney, “Digging”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Mariana”
Gerard Manly Hopkins, “God's Grandeur”
Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven”
Response 4
Week 5 – Recitation #1
Mon 2/24 Group 1
Wed 2/26 Group 2
Week 6 – Rhythm and Meter
Mon 3/3
Response 5
from Beowulf
William Shakespeare, (“From fairest creatures we desire increase”)
Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”
Theodore Roethke, “My Papa's Waltz”
Gilbert, “Modern Major-General”
Wed 3/5
Philip Larkin, “Church Going”
Wallace Stevens, “The Emperor of Ice Cream”
John Donne, “To His Mistress on Going to Bed”
Lord Byron, “Destruction of the Sennacherib”
Response 6
Week 7 – Poetic Form
Mon 3/10
Midterm Review
Wed 3/12
Midterm Exam
Selection for Recitation #2 due
Response 7
Week 8 – Spring Break
Mon 3/17 Spring Break
Wed 3/19 Spring Break
Week 9 – Recitation #2
Mon 3/24 Group 2
Wed 3/26 Group 1
Week 10 – Sonnets
Mon 3/31
Selection for Recitation #3 due
Response 8
Shakespeare, Sonnet 73
Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
Milton, “When I Consider How My Light is Spent”
Donne, Holy Sonnet 7
Wed 4/2
Response 9
Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias”
Edna St. Vincent Millay, “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed”
Claude McKay, “If We Must Die”
Claude McKay, “America”
William Butler Yeats, “Leda and the Swan”
Week 11 – Villanelles and Ballads
Mon 4/7 Villanelles
Response 10
Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night”
Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art”
Marilyn Hacker, “Villanelle”
Wed 4/9 Ballads
Response 11
“The Douglass Tragedy”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Oscar Wilde, from “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”
Sterling Brown, “Slim in Atlanta”
Week 12 – Recitation #3
Mon 4/14 Group 1
Wed 4/16 Group 2
Week 13 – Pastoral Poetry
Mon 4/21
Selection for Recitation #4 due
Response 12
Andrew Marvell, “The Garden”
Marlowe, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
Raleigh, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”
William Carlos Williams, “Raleigh Was Right”
C. Day Lewis, “Two Songs”
Wed 4/23
Response 13
Robert Frost, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”
William Butler Yeats, “The Lake-Isle of Innisfree”
D.H. Lawrence, “Love on the Farm”
Elizabeth Bishop, “The Moose”
Week 14 – The Elegy and the Ode
Mon 4/28 The Elegy
Robert Frost, “On the Death of the Hired Man”
Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
Sylvia Plath, “Daddy”
Seamus Heaney, “Punishment”
Response 14
Wed 4/30 The Ode
Keats, “To Autumn”
Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”
Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”
Lucille Clifton, “Homage to My Hips”
Bernadette Mayer, “Ode on Periods”
Response 15
Week 15 – Recitation #4
Mon 5/5 Group 2
Wed 5/7 Group 1
Finals Week
Tues 5/20
Final Exam (5:30 – 8:00 pm)