An introduction to poetry in English. We will explore poems written during several periods and in several genres (nature-poems, narratives, the epic, sonnets, odes, experimental forms.) Our focus will be less on names and dates than on tactics of analytic reading. Poets whose work we’ll read include William Shakespeare, John Milton, John Keats, William Blake, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, and many others. Special course-related events (readings, lectures, film screenings) may take place on selected evenings throughout the term; regular classroom-hours will be reduced in the weeks for which special events are scheduled.
