Spring 2015 Courses
English
ENGL 15000 / 35001 | Old English Poetry
Christina von Nolcken
A reading of some of the major poems in Old English. In addition to the texts, the course will examine the nature of the textual and critical problems encountered in studying this literature. There will be a term paper and a final examination.
ENGL 21912 | Modern Love in Victorian Poetry and Prose
Dustin Brown
This course reads much poetry and some fiction to investigate the relationship between modernity and love in Victorian literary culture. We turn to such writers as Browning, Tennyson, Trollope, and Gissing to consider “modern love”—the forms and functions assumed by erotic attachment in the wake of political, technological and social modernizations.
ENGL 20221 | Unsettling Metaphysical Poetry
Abigail Marcus
Through the close study of key sixteenth and seventeenth century English religious poets (Robert Southwell, John Donne, Amelia Lanyer, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and Thomas Traherne—with some guest appearances) this course explores the early modern period’s surprisingly subversive modes of relating to the divine, scripture, the body, uncertainty, and death among other subjects.
Germanic Studies
GRMN 21303 | Gedicht
Joela Jacobs
This course develops advanced German skills through the study of poetry of various authors from different periods.
Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
ISLM 40834 | Pre-Islamic Poetry: Mu’allaqat, Sa’alik, ritha’
Tahera Qutbuddin
Creative Writing
CRWR 12116 | Reading as a Writer: Poetic Series and Sequences
Stephanie Anderson
This course is for students interested in poems that stretch beyond the 1-2 page lyric, or who want to eventually write poem sequences or series. We begin with writings, primarily by poets, about seriality and sequentiality. We will attempt to articulate the differences between these modes and their areas of overlap. Then we turn to modern and contemporary poets who work in long poetic form – Gertrude Stein, Muriel Rukeyser, George Oppen, Bernadette Mayer, Clark Coolidge, Alice Notley, and others. What modes of attention are sustained in the reading and writing of long poems? What is the temporality of a poetry sequence? We will examine archival material to elucidate various processes of composition, and through attentive reading and research, uncover practices and techniques that we can then employ in our own work.
CRWR 13007 / 33007 | Intermediate Poetry Workshop: Poetic Sequences
Patrick Morrissey
“My plan is / these little boxes / make sequences…” writes Robert Creeley in his book-length poetic sequence Pieces. Multiple short poems gathered into a single yet open-ended structure—this way of working has been remarkably productive for 20th- and 21st-century poets (though we might trace its history back as far as Renaissance sonneteers). In this course, you will experiment with ways of writing, accruing, counting, dispersing, shuffling, stacking, and otherwise arranging your own “little boxes.” We’ll read and discuss a range of modern and contemporary poetic sequences by William Carlos Williams, Lorine Niedecker, George Oppen, Robert Creeley, Fanny Howe, Ed Roberson, Michael O’Brien, Harryette Mullen, and George Albon, paying particular attention to matters of craft: How are syllables, words, lines, and stanzas effectively arranged within a short poem? How are short poems effectively arranged in relation to one another? What’s the relation of parts to wholes in a poem or a sequence? What roles might repetition, variation, and echo play? We’ll also think about ways the poets we study and we ourselves can use the poetic sequence as an instrument of attention: How might writing “in pieces” help us notice and name things, events, feelings, and ideas that otherwise remain unnoticed or inarticulate? How might sequential composition open our writing to improvisation, unpredictability, and generative bewilderment?
CRWR 23109 / 43109 | Advanced Poetry Writing: Orphic Voices
Peter O'Leary
The myth of Orpheus covers impressive range: the greatest poet and musician of the mythical age, he married Eurydice after voyaging with the Argonauts, his song capable of taming wild nature, drawing listening animals into his aura, only to have his beloved slain by a serpent’s bite. From there, he charmed his way into the underworld with his lyrics, gaining permission to bring Eurydice back to the world on the condition he not look back, one that he couldn’t abide. In his grief, he sang mournful chants and praised Apollo above all, inspiring the wrath of Dionysus, who compelled his Maenads to thrash him to pieces. The legend concludes with Orpheus’ head bobbing down the Hebrus River, to wash finally to a cave on Lesbos, where it prophesied for ages until quieted by a command from Apollo. But was Orpheus’ voice ever truly silenced? There are four kinds of Orphic poets: the poet who sings plaintive songs of love; the poet who sings the glories of nature; the poet who, having visited the underworld, reveals its mysteries; and the poet-prophet. In this advanced poetry workshop, we will examine the works of five modern poets who exemplify one or more of these traits: Mina Loy (love and mysteries); Lorine Niedecker (nature); Ronald Johnson (nature, mysteries, prophecy); and Rainer Maria Rilke and Robert Duncan (all four traits). In addition to modeling their work after these poets, students will fashion their own version of the Orpheus myth.