for syllabus, see below
Selected WWW Pages for authors on the syllabus
English 53 Spring 2000: American Poetry
Peter Schmidt
class: MWF 11:30-12:20pm, Kohlberg 116
e-mail: pschmid1
English 53 Web page address: http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/courses/engl53.html
office hours: LPAC 206, MW 1pm-3pm and by appointment
Course Readings
With emphases on long poetic sequences; on love poems; and on "late" poems written near the end of an author's life:
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass [including xerox selections]
Emily Dickinson, Final Harvest
William Carlos Williams, poems from Journey to Love [xerox]
Marianne Moore, four selections from Collected Poems [xerox]
Wallace Stevens, Collected Poems
Melvin B. Tolson, two sections from Harlem Gallery [xerox]
Marilyn Hacker, Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons
Arthur Sze, The Redshifting Web and Other Poems
A. R. Ammons, Garbage
Gayl Jones, Song for Anninho
PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO THE AMOUNT OF XEROX HANDOUTS, THERE WILL BE A $5 XEROXING CHARGE FOR THIS COURSE.
I DIDN'T FEEL I COULD ASK YOU TO BUY THE COLLECTED POEMS BY MOORE, WILLIAMS, AND TOLSON IN ADDITION TO ALL THESE OTHER BOOKS. IF YOU LIKE THESE POETS, HOWEVER, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THEIR COLLECTED WORKS FOR YOUR LIBRARY.
Course Requirements
· Regular attendance: more than 3 unexcused absences over the course of the semester will hurt your grade. You are also responsible for viewing the assigned videos.
· Come to class having studied the materials assigned for that day, with questions and ideas and passages from the poetry you'd like to discuss.
· The course will be part lecture and part group discussion. Participation in class discussions and other class activities will be a crucial part of your grade. This includes both leading class discussion occasionally as part of a group of student discussion leaders and contributing to discussion on your own during group sessions.
· Completion of writing assignments on time. There will be a series of three short papers assigned for the course: this format tends to work better with lyric poems. (For due dates, see syllabus below.) Late papers will be penalized in their grade. Some students who need work with their writing English papers may also be asked to revise a paper either whole or in part; such revision assignments become part of the course requirements.
· The writing assignments also include required journal entries (see syllabus) and comments upon them, plus two workshop sessions with the WAs assigned to this class, Aurelio Perez and Tamara Onwuegbuzia, for papers #s 2 and 3 (see syllabus). These meetings are required.
· Grading: The three papers will count towards 70% of your final grade; Quality of class participation, 30%. Poor attendance, poor class participation, and/or late papers will negatively affect your grade.
A note about honesty and coursework in English 53: All writing that you turn in for this course should be yours alone and done solely for this course. When you are borrowing ideas and language from others it is your responsibility to acknowledge these sources accurately-whether your sources are your fellow students or published literary critics. Not acknowledging borrowings from others constitutes plagiarism and severe penalties may be involved regardless of whether you "intended" to plagiarize or not. (For more information, see the Swarthmore Student Handbook on Academic Honesty). This does not mean you should be afraid of consulting with others (fellow students, me, a student at the Writing Center) or of borrowing good ideas from others: it is very simple to acknowledge these with a "thank you" at the end of a paper, or through footnotes. When you borrow from published material, including books used in this course and/or books in McCabe or materials on the Internet, you must acknowledge this in a bibliography at the end of your paper.
In almost all cases, you can cite relevant page numbers in the paper itself and the books or articles themselves in a Works Cited section at the end of the paper. Internet sources should be treated as carefully as more usual print sources; give Web addresses as part of your citation, and authors if
For a brief and simple guide to English paper citations, see the links to the English Department's Web page statements about plagiarism and how to cite sources for English papers. These include examples of the most common kinds of footnotes and bibliographic citations; they also include examples of citing poetry.possible.
Note: more detailed reading assignments will be given out in class for some of these sessions
assignments
Jan. 17 course introduction
19 Whitman: introductory lecture/discussion. "Europe," "A Boston Ballad," "There Was A Child Went Forth," "To Think of Time," and sections 1-6 of "Song of Myself." Optional: Malcolm Cowley's introduction.
20 (Thurs.) view Voices and Visions: Whitman in our Kohlberg classroom, 7:30pm
21 discuss video. Also: "Song of Myself," sections 7-52. Special emphasis: sections 11-13, 24-26, 28-30, 52. Write and print a journal entry on a Whitman passage over the weekend.
24 Whitman, "The Sleepers." Exchange Whitman journal entries.
26 selected love poems from Calamus [xerox]. Optional: "I Sing the Body Electric," in your Leaves of Grass edition. Return journals w/ comments.
28 selected late poems from "Sands and Seventy" and "Goodbye My Fancy" [xerox]
31 Dickinson, selected readings from Open Me Carefully, on General Reserve (see class handout)
Feb. 1 (Tues.) view Voices and Visions: Dickinson in Kohlberg 116, 7:30pm
2 discuss video; continue with selected readings from Open Me Carefully, on General Reserve (see class handout). Do your ED journal.
4 finish discussing poems from Open Me Carefully, on General Reserve (see class handout); also read poems 258, 290, 419, 520, 883, and 1461 [CP numbers]. Exchange Dickinson journal entries.
7 Dickinson readings from Final Harvest (see handout #2). Return journals.
9 Dickinson readings from Final Harvest (see handout #2)
11 Dickinson readings from Final Harvest (see handout #2)
14 4-5pp. paper due, on a poem (or section of poem) by Whitman or Dickinson
Williams, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" Parts I and II [xerox]
16 Williams, "Asphodel" Parts III and Coda [xerox]
18 Williams, "The Sparrow" [xerox]. Do a Williams journal entry.
21 Stevens, "Idea of Order at Key West," plus 2 poems from The Rock: "Vacancy in the Park" and "The Plain Sense of Things"
22 (Tues.) view Voices and Visions: Stevens in K116, 7:30pm
23 Stevens, poems from The Rock: To an Old Philosopher in Rome, The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain, Prologue to What is Possible, Song of Fixed Accord. Do a Stevens journal entry.
25 Stevens, poems from The Rock: The World as Meditation, Long and Sluggish Lines, final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour, Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself. Exchange Williams or Stevens journals.
28 Moore, The Fish and Melanchthon [xerox]. Return journal entries.
March 1 Moore, In Distrust of Merits [xerox]
3 Moore, The Mind is an Enchanting Thing [xerox]. Do a Moore journal.
SPRING BREAK
March 13 Tolson, section Psi from Harlem Gallery, plus notes [xerox]
15 Tolson, section Omega from Harlem Gallery, plus notes [xerox]. Do a Tolson journal entry.
17 re-read selected passages from Psi and Omega. Exchange Moore or Tolson journal entries.
20 Hacker, Love, Death..., sections I-II. return journals.
22 Hacker, Love, Death..., section III
24 Hacker, Love, Death..., section IV. Do a Hacker journal entry.
make WA appointment by today. You should give your WA a draft of your paper #2 and have a meeting sometime during the week of March 27th.
27 Hacker, Love, Death..., section V-VI. Exchange Hacker journal entries.
29 Hacker, Love, Death..., section VII. return journals.
31 Hacker, Love, Death..., sections VIII plus Coda
April 3 4-5pp. paper due, on Hacker, Tolson, Moore, Stevens, or Williams. Turn in WA'd draft of paper as well as final version.
Sze, early poems: Noah's/Dove (p. 55), Written The Day I Was to Begin a Residency at the State Penitentiary (86), Cloud Chamber (115), Axis (125), Black Java Pepper (171)
5 Sze, X-Ray, Redshifting Web
7 Sze, Original Memory, Archipelago, Before Completion section 1. Do a Sze journal entry.
10 Ammons, Garbage sections 1-6
12 Ammons, Garbage sections 7-12. Do an Ammons journal entry.
14 Ammons, Garbage sections 13-18. Exchange Sze or Ammons journal entries.
17 Jones, Anninho Part I. return journals.
18 (Tues.) view Quilombo video, K116, 9:30pm [note time]
19 Jones, Anninho Part II
21 Jones, Anninho Part III; re-read as much of poem as possible. Do a Jones journal entry.
24 open discussion week: introduce the class to a favorite American poet of yours
You should also make your WA appointment today. You should give your WA a draft of your paper #2 and have a meeting sometime either this week or next, before May 5.
26 continued. Write a journal entry this week (open topic)
27 continued. Final journal entry exchange (open topic).
May 5 4-5pp. paper due on a poem by any author from the syllabus on whom you've not yet written. No extensions. Turn in WA'd draft of paper as well as final version. Please also turn in 1-2 of your favorite journal entries from the course.
Selected WWW Pages for authors on the American Poetry syllabus
THE ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS SITE has good links for Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens, Moore, Williams, Hacker, Ammons, Sze. No Tolson or Jones links there, though. Try a regular Web search, or search within Yahoo etc. This site also has some SOUND files of poems being read.
WHITMAN
DICKINSON
Yahoo's Dickinson sites
(see also Academy of American Poets site listed above)
MOORE
not much on-line---only a few poems and brief biographical info
(see also Academy of American Poets site listed above)
STEVENS
U Penn English Department Professor Al Filreis's Stevens page
Yahoo's Stevens links
(see also Academy of American Poets site listed above)