English 71B: The Lyric Poem in English
Peter Schmidt
MWF 11:30am - 12:20pm, Kohlberg 116
Office: LPAC 206. Office hours: MW 1:30 - 3pm, and by appointment.

Jan. 20 and 22nd Assignments

Full Syllabus (Assignment Dates, etc.)

Keats Assignments

Topics List for Assignments:

• love poems
• poems about loss
• poems on nature and art
• poems on religion
• poems on history
• comic poems

General Course Description

Course Requirements and Statement re Plagiarism

For Full Syllabus, Scoll Down Assignments for the first week, Jan. 20 and 22: Jan. 20 Read the 7 poems listed below (all are short) plus the Heaney essay (see below). Memorize 2-6 lines of any one 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. All of the following poems are in the Norton. Use the index (for titles, authors, and/or first lines) or the Table of Contents to find poems. anon., Now Go'th Sun under Wood anon., Cuckoo Song Hopkins, The Windhover Plath, Black Rook in Rainy Weather plus some love poems, to start us off on the first section of readings: Shakespeare's O Mistress Mine Wyatt, They Flee From Me Elizabeth I: When I Was Young and Fair Finally, read Seamus Heaney's essay "Crediting Poetry,". You may copy the Heaney essay if you wish but since the essay is copyrighted, use it only for your own private use for this class. To start things off, I'll read several of the poems and lecture some and then open up the discussion. Jan. 22: Read chapter 1 of The Western Wind and come prepared on Friday to discuss its ideas and its examples in class. Look at the exercises at the end of the chapter for possible topics for your first paper, due Monday the 25rd in class. You may also choose one poem from the readings done so far. I'll discuss the assignment more thoroughly in class on Friday. ENGLISH 71B FULL SYLLABUS SPRING 1999 Class Assignments by Date Jan. 18 / introduction to course 20 / discussion of 7 poems plus the Heaney essay "Crediting Poetry" (on WWW) 22 / Western Wind, ch. 1 25 / love poems: "Western Wind," Chaucer, Wyatt, Donne. 2-3pp. paper due. 27 / student-led discussion: Shakespeare sonnets #s 18, 33, 73, 116, 129 (see WWind, pp. 392-94) 29 / Keats, assignment #1 (see Keats assignment pages) Feb. 1 / Herrick, Waller, Suckling, Marvell, Lady Montague. 2-3pp. paper due. 3 / student-led discussion: ballads (Bonnie Barbara Allen, Mary Hamilton); Elizabeth I; Lady Montague 5 / Western Wind, chs. 2-4 (pp. 20-93) 8 / Browning, Pound, Williams, Roethke, Larkin 10 / student-led discussion: Millay, Rukeyser, Plath, Rich, Lorde 12 / Keats, assignment #2; students for Feb. 17 group confer 15 / introduction: the elegy; Feb. 17 group announce poems to focus on. 2-3pp. paper due. 17 / student-led discussion of selected poems about loss 19 / Western Wind, chs. 5-7 (pp. 97-181); Feb. 24 students confer 22 V/ aughn, Milton, Gray; Feb. 24 group announce focus poems. 2-3pp. paper due. 24 / student-led discussion 26 / Keats, assignment #3; March 3 students confer March 1 Ammons, Kumin; March 3 students announce focus poems 3 / student-led discussion 5 / Frank Sinatra songs of love and loss: I've Got You Under My Skin, I Get a Kick Out of You, I'm a Fool to Want You, Angel Eyes Spring Break March 15 / introduction: poems about nature & art (Nashe, Milton, Keats, Hongo) 17 / Dickinson, Whitman, Frost 19 / Western Wind, chs. 8-10 (pp. 182-277) 22 / Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey; Shelley, Mont Blanc. 2-3pp. paper due. 24 / student-led discussion: Wallace Stevens 26 / Keats, assignment #4; March 31 students confer 29 / Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality; March 31 students announce focus poems. 2-3pp. paper due. 31 / student-led discussion April 2 / Western Wind, chs. 11-12 (281-337); April 7 students confer April 5 / Yeats, Bishop, Ammons, Heaney; April 7 students announce focus poems 7 / student-led discussion 9 / Keats, assignment #5; April 14 students confer 12 / poems on religion: How Goeth Sun; This Endris Night; Hopkins; April 14 students announce focus poems. 2-3pp. paper due. 14 / student-led discussion on poems on religion 16 / Western Wind, chs. 13-14 (338-81); April 21 students confer 19 / poems on history: anonymous ballad; Lady Montague; Pound; Reed. April 21 students announce focus poems. 21 / student-led discussion 23 / Keats, assignment #6; April 28 students confer 26 / comic poetry: Chaucer, Pope, Carroll; April 28 students announce focus poems 28 / student-led discussion 30 / conclusion to course FINAL EXAM: on date to be assigned by Registrar

Keats assignments Keats Assignment #1, Jan. 29th through Spring 1817 poems "O Solitude!" (Keats' first sonnet); "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," "On The Grasshopper and the Cricket," "On The Elgin Marbles," "[Second Sonnet to Haydon]." See also notes to poems in back of the Bush Keats volume. letters to Haydon, May 1817 in Bate: chs. I - VIII, pp. 1-192, to Spring 1817 and the end of Keats' work on Endymion. See esp. 84-89 on "Chapman's Homer"; 147-48 on "Elgin Marbles"; and 120-22 on "Grasshopper" Keats Assignment #2, Feb. 12th Summer 1817 - Spring 1818 poems "On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again," "When I Have Fears," the opening of Endymion (ll. 1-62; 293-306); "Epistle to J H Reynolds" [written 25 March 1818]. See also notes to poems in back. letters see especially three letters to Reynolds in 1818: two in Februrary and one long letter, 3 May in Bate: pp. 193-338. Especially: on Keats and Wordsworth (pp. 238-40, 264-73); on Hazlitt and "the poetical Character" (255-61); and on "The Emergence of a Modern Poet" (ch. XIII, pp. 316-38).   Keats Assignment #3, Feb. 26th Summer 1818 - March 1819 poems "Written Upon the Top of Ben Nevis," Hyperion, Book I, ll. 1-149; Book III, ll. 91 to end; "Meg Merrilies," "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (both versions), "Why Did I Laugh To-Night?" optional: "The Eve of St. Agnes." See also notes in back. letters to Hessey, Oct. 1818; to George and Georgiana Keats, Dec-Jan 1818-9 and Feb-May 1819 (pp. 280-90); to Fanny Brawne, July and Oct. 1819 in Bate: pp. 339-485. Especially: on Hyperion (pp. 388-417); on Fanny Brawne (420-31); on "Why Did I Laugh?" (460-65); on "La Belle Dame" (478-83); on Keats' Scottish tour: 339-62. ["St. Agnes" 438-51] Keats Assignment #4, March 26th April and May, 1819 / Part I poems "Ode to Psyche," "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn." Also recommended: "To Sleep." See also notes in back. letters to Bailey, Nov. 1817; to his brothers, Dec. 1817, on "Negative Capability" in Bate: pp. 486-524; see also Bate on Negative Capability, pp. 233-63 see also Helen Vendler's book on the odes (on Honors Reserve for Romantic Poetry) Keats Assignment #5, April 9th April and May, 1819 / Part II poems "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode on Melancholy," "Ode on Indolence." Also recommended: sonnets "On Fame" and "On the Sonnet." See also notes in back. letters to Bailey, Nov. 1817; to his brothers, Dec. 1817, on "Negative Capability" in Bate: pp. 486-524; see also Bate on Negative Capability, pp. 233-63 see also Helen Vendler's book on the odes (on Honors Reserve for Romantic Poetry) Keats Assignment #6, April 23rd Summer and Fall 1819, to Keats' death in 1821 poems The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream, "To Autumn," "[Lines Written in the MS. of The Cap and Bells" ("This Living Hand"), c. August 1820]. See also notes. letters to Fanny Brawne, Feb. and March 1820; to Shelley, Aug. 1820; to Brown, Nov. 1820; see also Severn's letter on Keats' death, 27 Feb. 1821 in Bate: 525-699 see also Helen Vendler, esp. on "To Autumn" (Honors Reserve, Romantic Poetry)

Course Description Three books in the bookstore (all required): The Norton Anthology of English Poetry , Fourth Edition; The Western Wind ; John Keats: Selected Poems and Letters (Ed. Douglas Bush), and W. Jackson Bate, John Keats (biography). This syllabus is also available on the English 71B Web page, linked to my home page. http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/engl71b/ 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, John Keats', 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. In general, the format of the course will be lecture and discussion using Norton readings on Monday, discussion using Norton readings on Wednesday, and discussion and performance on Friday using either the assigned chapters in The Western Wind or the assigned Keats readings. Western Wind and Keats assignments will alternate with each other each Friday; see syllabus and any handouts for further details. 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 perhaps even more important as an oral art than as a written one. English 71B 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 4 of your 7 papers on poetry from the period desired. Please talk with me to "sign up" if you plan on meeting the pre- or post-1830 requirement.

Course requirements and Statement on Plagiarism: Regular attendance and participation in assigned activities, both inside and outside of class. These will include leading several class discussions on assigned poems. The course meets three times a week and regular attendance is required; missing more than 3 classes without permission will result in a lower final grade. Completion on time of 7 short (2-3pp.) papers, usually due on Mondays. These papers may be based on the exercises in Western Wind for the section studied the previous week or they may be discussions of the form and content of a poem of your choice from recent reading assignments. You may substitute one 5-6pp. paper for any 2 of the shorter papers if you'd like to work in a slightly longer format. Late papers will result in lower grades. Completion of Final Exam. 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 course, but when you use the books and notes that are part of the course's assigned and optional readings, be sure to give credit where credit is due. If you have any questions regarding proper procedures for footnotes, a bibliography at the end of the paper, 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.

Required readings in The Norton Anthology of Poetry on the topic of love 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. Supplemental required readings on this topic in The Western Wind then follow below, also arranged more or less in chronological order; these are in the "anthology" of poems in the last part of the book. 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] Shakespeare: see the sonnets in Western Wind listed below 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 post-1830: 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 on love 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 post-1830: 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], Armenonville Parker: all 3 poems Plath: The Colossus, Daddy, Lady Lazarus Rich: Living in Sin, Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law Lorde: Coal, 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']

Loss Required readings in The Norton Anthology of Poetry on the topic of loss 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. Supplemental required readings on this topic in The Western Wind then follow below, also arranged more or less in chronological order; these are in the "anthology" of poems in the last part of the book. Norton anthology/Fourth Edition: Required Reading poems on Loss   Ubi Sunt... [p. 13] Timor Mortis [66]; A Lyke-Wake Dirge [68] The Unquiet Grave, The Wife of Usher's Well [pp. 88- ] Gascoigne's Lullaby Isabella Whitney, both poems Tichborne's Elegy Donne: A Nocturnal upon St. Lucie's Day Jonson: On My First Son Bradstreet: Upon the Burning of Our House Milton: Lycidas, Il Penseroso Vaughan: They Are All Gone Into a World of Light! Gray: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Philips, Epitaph Leapor, Mira's Will Elliot, The Flowers of the Forest Barbauld, Life Burns, To a Mouse Coleridge, Frost at Midnight; Dejection: An Ode post-1830: Poe: The City in the Sea Whitman: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd Dickinson: Poem 341 C. Rossetti: Remember [sonnet] Hopkins: Spring and Fall (To a Young Child); Carrion Comfort; No Worst...; I Wake... Housman: Here Dead Lie We... Williams, The Yachts Eliot: The Waste Land Hughes, Cross Auden, Shield of Achilles Bishop: Sestina; One Art Roethke: Elegy for Jane Klein, Indian Reservation Hayden: Mourning Poem for the Queen of Sunday, Paul Laurence Dunbar Berryman, Dream Song #1 Thomas: Do Not Go Gentle... Brooks: Medgar Evers Lowell: Quaker Graveyard..., For the Union Dead Larkin: Sad Steps Dickey: The Lifeguard Ginsberg: Howl Ali, The Dacca Gauzes Komunyakaa, Banking Potatoes, Smokehouse Schnackenberg, Supernatural Love Lee, Persimmons [for other elegies as optional rather than assigned reading, see elegies by Shelley [Adonais, on Keats], Tennyson, and Arnold]   poems on loss from The Western Wind, "anthology" section:   Kumin: The Retrieval System [537-38] Walker: "Good Night..." [573] Simmerman: Child's Grave... [588] Schnackenberg: Nightfishing [590-91] Lee: Eating Alone [594]

Nature/Art Required readings in The Norton Anthology of Poetry on the topic of nature and art 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. Supplemental required readings on this topic in The Western Wind then follow below, also arranged more or less in chronological order; these are in the "anthology" of poems in the last part of the book. Required Readings / Poems about Nature and Art in the Norton, Fourth Edition:   Anglo-Saxon riddle #3 [8]; Cuckoo Song [p. 13] first 2 paragraphs of Chaucer's General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales Nashe: Spring, the Sweet Spring Milton: How Soon Hath Time [sonnet] Marvell: The Garden Vaughan: The Waterfall Finch: Nocturnal Reverie Pope, Essay on Criticism, ll. 201-252 and 337-93 [pp. 541-43] Leapor, Epistle of Deborah Dough Charlotte Smith, Written Near a Port on a Dark Evening Wheatley: To S.M., A Young African Painter... Blake: The Tyger Wordsworth: Tintern Abbey, Ode: On Intimations of Immortality Shelley: Mont Blanc Clare, Badger Keats: Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, To Autumn   post-1830: Emerson: The Snow-storm, Brahma, Days Whitman: Song of Myself excerpts D. Rossetti: A Sonnet is a Moment's Monument [1005] Housman: Loveliest of Trees Hardy: Neutral Tones, Darkling Thrush Hopkins: God's Grandeur, The Windhover, Pied Beauty Yeats: Lapis Lazuli Dunbar: We Wear the Mask Frost: Mending Wall, Birches, Design Stevens: The Idea of Order..., Poems of Our Climate, The House Was Quiet... Williams: The Dance [1169] H.D.: Sea Violet Moore: Poetry, The Steeple Jack Bogan: Roman Fountain Crane: Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge Hughes: Weary Blues, Negro Speaks of Rivers, Theme for English B Smith: Thoughts About the Person From Porlock, Pretty Auden: Musée des Beaux Arts Dylan Thomas: Fern Hill Brooks: kitchenette building Clampitt: Syrinx Wilbur: A Baroque Wall-Fountain... Ammons: Corson's Inlet, The City Limits, Pet Panther Merrill: The Victor Dog O'Hara: The Day Lady Died, Ave Maria Ashbery: Melodic Trains, Rain Moving In Kinnell: The Correspondence School Instructor ... Wright: A Blessing Snyder: Mid-August... Hill: p. 1725: from An Apology for the Revival... #9: The Laurel Axe [sonnet] Plath: Black Rook in Rainy Weather, Tulips, Ariel Baraka, In Memory of Radio Lorde: Coal Strand, Dark Harbor XVI Harrison, 2 poems with Keats references: Them & [uz]; A Kumquat for John Keats Heaney: The Forge   poems on Art & Nature from The Western Wind, "anthology" section: Francis: Pitcher [on baseball] [499] Nemerov: Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry [528] C.K. Williams: Tar [560-62] Hongo: Mendocino Rose [582-83] Dove: Ö [584-85] Cervantes: Freeway 280

Religion, History, Comic Verse, etc. Norton Anthology/Fourth Edition Required readings in The Norton Anthology of Poetry on the topic of religion 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. Supplemental required readings on this topic in The Western Wind then follow below, also arranged more or less in chronological order; these are in the "anthology" of poems in the last part of the book.   Religion Now Goeth Sun Under Wood [p. 3] I Sing of a Maiden [63] Donne: Holy Sonnets #s 10 and 14 Milton: On the Morning of Christ's Nativity Herbert: Prayer I, The Windows, Love III, The Flower Taylor: Meditation 8 Smart: Jubilate Agno / "...For My Cat Jeoffry [cf. the Psalms] post-1830: Thoreau: Smoke Dickinson: Poems 249, 258, 435, 465, 712, 1545 Hopkins: all poems Smith: No Categories! Larkin, Church Going Nemerov: The Historical Judas Merrill, from The Book of Ephraim   Poems on War, History, etc. on war: The Three Ravens [pp. 86- ] post-1830: Melville: Shiloh, The Maldive Shark Whitman: By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame Arnold: Dover Beach Pound: Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, parts I - V [to the line "a few thousand battered books"] Owen: Dulce et Decorum Est Jarrell: Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, Eighth Air Force Lowell: For the Union Dead Hecht: "More Light! More Light!" Levertov: Tenebrae Creeley: Heroes on history in general: Lady Montague: Epistle from Mrs. Yonge to Her Husband Hannah More, from The Slave Trade Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa Blake: London Coleridge: Kubla Khan Freneau: To Sir Toby Shelley: Ozymandias, England in 1819 post-1830: Clare: Gypsies Tennyson: Ulysses Lawrence: The English Are So Nice! Pound: Hugh Selwyn Mauberley parts I - V [to the line "a few thousand battered books"] Dunbar: We Wear The Mask Hughes: The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Harlem, Theme for English B Cullen: Heritage Jeffers, Shine Perishing Republic Ginsberg, Howl M. Walker, Since 1619 Plath: The Colossus, Daddy, Lady Lazarus Rich: Living in Sin, Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law Baraka: all poems Walcott: The Gulf Lorde: all poems Brathwaite: both poems Walcott: The Gulf Ali: The Dacca Gauzes Tony Harrison: all poems Komunyakaa: all poems Dove: all poems     Early satiric and comic poems Chaucer: Complaint to His Purse Wyatt: Mine Own John Poins Jonson: Inviting a Friend to Supper Herrick: To the Sour Reader Wilmot: A Satire Against Mankind Pope: from The Dunciad [The Triumph of Dulness]   Modern Comic Verse Carroll: Jabberwocky Gilbert: When You're Lying Awake with a Dismal Headache Nash: The Turtle, Arthur Parker: all poems Reed: all poems many other poems above also qualify for these last 2 categories, depending how they are read