Covering both English and American traditions, we will study the abiding preoccupation of writers from the Romantics onward with nature and the environment. The location of nature as site of knowledge, experience and self-examination, as well as the sense of its endangerment will be of primary concern. A strong emphasis will be placed on reading poetry, and the course will include poems by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Clare, Hopkins, Hardy, Frost, Moore, Bishop, Heaney and Ammons. We will also read Thoreau's Walden and Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, along with shorter prose pieces by John Burroughs, Gary Snyder and Rachel Carson. Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: class participation, four short papers (about 5 pages each). No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected: 19). Preference to first-year students. This course is writing intensive.

Hour: NOHRNBERG