English 47 Assignments



English 47: The Lyric Poem in English / General Information

Peter Schmidt
TTh 1:15 - 2:30, PAC 301
Office: LPAC 206. Office hours: TTh 2:30 - 4 (after class) and by appointment

This course will introduce you to a wide range of poets and poetry written in English from the middle ages to the present, from British writers to writers outside of England (many in former colonies such as the U.S., Ireland, the Caribbean, Australia, etc.) who are now making vital contributions to the "tradition" of poetry in English and revisions of our sense of what this tradition means. I've organized the many readings according to "topics" (love poems; poems about loss,; poems about nature and art; poems on religious faith, history, and other topics so that you can see the deep continuities that exist between early and contemporary poetry.

It is a survey course and so will introduce you briefly to many different writers and styles. In class we will be able to focus extensively on only a few of the readings at a time, but my hope is that these classes will be exciting and stimulating and will allow you to do further explorations on your own.

We will study one writer's work, Elizabeth Bishop's, in detail, so you can see how an understanding of a writer's life and entire career will deepen your interest in individual poems and your appreciation for the difficult lives artists lead.

The class assumes no prior experience with or love for poetry, especially technical analyses of poetic scansion, etc. It does assume that you're willing to experiment and to learn and to work hard and to see if you might in fact like or love poetry after all. We will learn basic techniques of paying attention to music and rhythm in poetry, but the primary focus will be not on undertaking technical analyses for their own sake but for a study of how in the best poems music and message miraculously merge.

There will also be some emphasis on memorization, to remind us all that poetry is as important as an oral art as a written one.

Four books in the bookstore (all required):
The Norton Anthology of Poetry/Fourth Edition, The Western Wind, Elizabeth Bishop's Collected Poems, and One Art: The Letters of Elizabeth Bishop.
There may also be occasional supplemental readings, via xerox.
There will also be readings available on General Reserve in McCabe (see list).

Course requirements /English 47

Regular attendance and participation in assigned activities, both inside and outside of class. These will include leading several class discussions on assigned poems and exchanging several papers for comment and critique with a fellow student in the course. Missing more than 3 classes without permission will result in a lower final grade.

Completion on time of nine short 1-2pp. papers, due in class on selected Tuesdays during the semester; see the syllabus. (Late papers will result in lower grades.) These papers are to be short and intensive analyses of several lines of a chosen poem testing out what you've learned from the Norton, the Western Wind, your Bishop reading, and class discussion. Some of these papers will be exchanged with a fellow student for comments before I see them. You will have a good deal of freedom to choose a subject and a topic for these assignments, which will be discussed in more detail in class before the papers are due.
You may substitute one 4-5pp. paper for any 2 of the shorter papers if you'd like to work in a longer format, but discuss this with me before writing the paper.

Completion of memorization assignments. Don't worry, these will be short and you can choose the lines you memorize.

Completion of a mid-term and a final exam.

Grading: papers (~50%); class participation (~25%); exams (25%).

English 47 welcomes both English majors and non-majors. Note: For English majors, this course may be counted as either a pre-1830 course or a post-1830 course towards distribution requirements for the Major; to receive this credit you must write at least 5 of your 9 papers on poetry from the period desired. If you have any question about this, please see me.

All writing that you turn in should be your own. Ideas and quotations that come from others should be properly footnoted. There will not be an emphasis on doing literary research in this paper, but when you use the books that are part of the course's assigned and optional reading, be sure to give credit where credit is due.

If you have any questions regarding proper procedures or acknowledgment of others' work, please see me before you turn your paper in. Swarthmore's penalties for plagiarism are severe: see the Swarthmore Student Handbook.

English 47 Assignments



Assignment for Thursday, Sept. 5: 3 parts

1)
Read the 7 poems listed below

Read al of the following poems except the Bishop poem are in the Norton. Use the index (for titles, authors, and/or first lines) or the Table of Contents to find the poems. plus some love poems, to start us off on the first section of readings:
I'll read several of the poems and lecture some and then lead discussion on these poems and on the Heaney essay on Thursday to start things off.

2)
Memorize 2-6 lines of any of these poems, or more if you want. I'll want us over the next few weeks to talk about the difference between hearing a poem and reading it.

3)
Read Seamus Heaney's essay "Crediting Poetry," available here and also on General Reserve in McCabe. You may print it if you wish but since the essay is copyrighted, use it only for your own private use for this class.



General Syllabus for English 47

Date Assignment

Sept. 3 introduction to course
Sept. 5 read assigned poems & Heaney essay

Sept. 10 further Norton readings on Love (see assignment sheet);
1-2pp. paper due

Sept. 12 Bishop: introductory readings (see Bishop assignments below)

Sept. 17 Bishop: further readings; paper due
Sept. 19 Chapters 1-3 in The Western Wind

Sept. 24 Norton readings on Loss (assignment sheet handed out Sept. 19);
paper due

Sept. 26 further Norton readings on Loss (see assignment sheet)

Oct. 1 Chapters 4-6 in The Western Wind; paper due
Oct. 3 Bishop

Oct. 8 Bishop
Oct. 10 further Norton readings on Loss (see assignment sheet)
a short mid-term to be given this week, time TBA
FALL BREAK

Oct. 22 Norton readings on Nature & Art (assignment sheet)
Oct. 24 Norton readings on Nature & Art

Oct. 29 Chapters 7-9 in The Western Wind; paper due
Oct. 31 Norton readings on Nature & Art

Nov. 5 Bishop; paper due
Nov. 7 Bishop

Nov. 12 Norton readings: poems on miscellaneous topics; paper due
Nov. 14 Norton readings: poems on miscellaneous topics

Nov. 19 Bishop; paper due
Nov. 21 Chapters 10-12, Western Wind

Nov. 26 Norton readings
Nov. 28 Thanksgiving

Dec. 3 finish Western Wind; paper due
Dec. 5 Bishop

Dec. 10 final Norton readings; course conclusion

Final Exam: date to be announced


Required Readings for English 47
from the Norton Anthology and Western Wind, organized by topic.

I will give further instructions in class about specific poems within each of these groupings to focus on.
Required readings in The Norton Anthology of Poetry are listed first below, more or less in chronological order. Use the table of contents or the author- and title-index in the back of the Norton to find these poems. You're free to do further reading in the Norton on your own, of course.
Readings in The Western Wind that also fit these topics are listed below as well; these are in the "anthology" of poems in the last part of The Western Wind.

Love
Either a male or a female speaker:
Western Wind [p. 68]
Love Me Little Love Me Long [103]

poems written by men
Alison [15]
I sing of a maiden [63]
Fine Knacks for Ladies [105]
Weep You No More [106]
Skelton, To Mistress Margaret Hussey
Wyatt: "The Long Love..." [Petrarchan sonnet], They Flee From Me, Patience, My Lute
Gascoigne, And If I Did What Then?, For That He Looked Not upon Her ['English' sonnet]
Spenser: Prothalamion
Marlowe: Passionate Shepherd to his Love
Ralegh: The Nymph's Reply [cf. Marlowe's poem]
Philip Sidney: Sonnet 1
Campion: My Sweetest Lesbia, When To Her Lute Corinna Sings
Donne: Good-Morrow, Sun Rising, Song (Go and Catch...), Canonization, Elegy XIX: To His Mistress.
Jonson: Song: To Celia (I)
Herrick: Delight in Disorder
Waller: Go Lovely Rose
Suckling: Out Upon It!
Marvell: To His Coy Mistress
Burns: Green Grow the Rashes
Keats: La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Byron: Don Juan I, cantos 86-94
Robert Browning: Two in the Campagna
Lear: The Owl and the Pussycat
Meredith: Modern Love, Sonnet # 17
Yeats: Leda & the Swan, Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop
Williams: Queen-Ann's Lace, This is Just to Say
Pound: The River Merchant's Wife
cummings: somewhere i have never travelled...
Hughes: Harlem Sweeties
Roethke: My Papa's Waltz, The Waking
Hayden: Those Winter Sundays
Larkin: Talking in Bed
Snodgrass: April Inventory
Snyder, Four Poems for Robin
poems written by men from The Western Wind's "anthology" section:

Shakespeare: the 5 sonnets [pp. 392-94]
Auden: Lullaby [504]
Levine: Keep Talking [548-49]



poems written by women:
Lord Randal [?] [83]
Bonny Barbara Allan [?] [90]
Mary Hamilton, both versions [91- ]
Get Up and Bar the Door [96]
Elizabeth I: When I Was Young and Fair
Lady Montague: The Lover: A Ballad, Epistle from Mrs. Yonge to Her Husband
Wroth, "In this strange labyrinth" [sonnet]
Bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband
Baillie, A Mother to her Waking Infant, Song: Woo'd and married and a'
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Sonnet 43
Dickinson: Poems # 640, 754
Millay: I Being Born a Woman... [sonnet],
Parker: all 3 poems
Plath: The Colossus, Daddy, Lady Lazarus
Rich: Living in Sin, Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law
Lorde: From the House of Yemanjá, Hanging Fire

see also Love Me Little Love Me Long; the Ralegh poem above (The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd) paired with the Marlowe poem listed above; Yeats' poem spoken by 'Crazy Jane'; and Pound's The River Merchant's Wife [all listed above]

poems on love by women, from The Western Wind, "anthology" section:

Rukeyser: Effort at Speech Between Two People [513-4]
Clifton: homage to my hair, homage to my hips [560]
Walker: Even As I Hold You [572]
Erdrich: Jacklight [593-94] [see also p. 47, discussion questions in topic 'E']



English 47 / Elizabeth Bishop readings

Thursday, Sept. 12
Focus on these poems:
Imaginary Iceberg, Quai d'Orleans, The Man-Moth

Other relevant poems:
The Colder the Air, Cirque d'Hiver, The Weed, The Miracle for Breakfast, Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore

Letters
browse through pp. 3-129; also the Introduction and the Chronology (to get an overview of EB's life)
Quai discussed 60- ; Miracle on 54, 57
central topics: EB's family background; Vassar; her friendships; her interest in the arts; her discovery of Europe and Florida; her relationship to Marianne Moore; worries about her writing

Becoming a Poet
read pp. 3-106 (focuses on EB's relations with Marianne Moore); also read James Merrill's "Afterword"
Quai 65-67
Man-Moth 18-20
The Weed 16-18, 43-5
Miracle 47-50

Remembering Elizabeth Bishop (general reserve)
read the background to Quai 69-70
optional reading: 1-126
Costello's "Afterword"
on The Weed and Herbert 103

Tuesday, Sept. 17
Focus on:
The Fish, Jeronimo's House, Coochie, Florida

Other relevant poems:
Late Air, Songs for a Colored Singer [Billie Holiday], Seascape

Letters
browse through 3-129
the Fish 87 [79]
Florida 58
Jeronimo's House 68
Coochie 88, 110, 479

Becoming a Poet
Fish 85-87; see also 92-93
Jeronimo's 69-71, 88
Florida 73-75

Remembering Elizabeth Bishop (general reserve)
Jeronimo's 72
Florida 71-2, Songs for a Colored Singer 158-9, 328

Bishop readings Thursday, Oct. 3
Focus on:
A Cold Spring, At the Fishhouses

Letters
browse through pp. 131-308 between Oct. 3 and Oct. 8
general topics: Yaddo and the Library of Congress and EB's fears
ending her time in Key West
her new friendship with Lowell, vs. with Moore
her struggles with her publisher, Houghton Mifflin
her new life in Brazil
don't miss the letter on 306-8
on Fishhouses, 148-49, 307-8
on her second book 222, 268-

Becoming a Poet
read 109-93
Fishhouses discussed, 121-2

Remembering Elizabeth Bishop (general reserve)
Fishhouses 307, 339-40; 354-5
optional reading: pp. 127-62 covers this period


Bishop readings Tuesday, Oct. 8
Focus on:
Over 2000 Illustrations.... [a critique of the travel poem]
Insomnia, Shampoo [two love poems]

Other relevant poems:
Four Poems (originally "Love Poems), esp. I and III
Argument

Letters
browse through 131-308; for general topics, see last class's list
2000 Illustrations 222, 307
Four Poems 188-9, 191, 308
Insomnia 299
Shampoo 241

Becoming a Poet
read 109-93
2000 Illustrations 129-31

Remembering Elizabeth Bishop (general reserve)
optional reading, through pp. 162
2000 Illustrations 108
Shampoo 141-2
Insomnia 159
Four Poems 120


Bishop readings Tuesday, Nov. 4
Focus on:
Questions of Travel; Brazil, Jan. 1, 1502; Squatter's Children; Twelfth Morning

Other relevant poems:
Arrival at Santos, Song for the Rainy Season, Manuelzinho, Burglar of Babylon, Riverman, Under the Window: Ouro Preto

Letters
browse 309-484 (end of Part IV)
Manuelzinho 320, 321, 479
Riverman 382, Burglar [Moore's reading] 431
Under the Window 440

Becoming a Poet
read 194-232
on Questions of Travel 213-
Brazil, Jan. 1 194-5
Squatter's 216-
Arrival 195
Song for the Rainy Season 214-16
Manuelzinho 217
Burglar 252

Remembering Elizabeth Bishop (general reserve)
optional: pp. 127-268
Questions of Travel 192-3
Brazil, Jan. 1 164
Arrival 127-
Manuelzinho 140-41

Bishop readings / Thursday, Nov. 7
Focus on:
Sestina, First Death in Nova Scotia, Filling Station, View of the Capitol

Other relevant poems:
From Trollope's Journal, Sunday 4am, Sandpiper, The Armadillo

Letters continue browsing pp. 309-484
Filling Station 638 (EB's last letter)
First Death 566
View of Capitol 210, 307
Trollope 387, 439

Becoming a Poet read 194-232
Sunday 4am 174
First Death 218-20
Armadillo 185-88

Remembering Elizabeth Bishop (general reserve)
optional: 127-268
Filling Station 355
Armadillo 108

Bishop readings / Tuesday, Nov. 19
Focus on:
the Brazilian poems (review); In the Waiting Room, The Moose

Letters
continue reading, 487 to the end

Becoming a Poet
232-50

Remembering Elizabeth Bishop (general reserve)
269-



Tuesday, Dec. 5
Focus on:
One Art, Crusoe in England, Five Flights Up, Santarém, North Haven [Lowell elegy]

Letters
continue reading, 487 to the end

Becoming a Poet
232-50

Remembering Elizabeth Bishop (general reserve)
269-