LIT 207 (formerly 213) The Poetry of Being/The Being of Poetry (Not offered 1999-2000)
This course will attempt to show that poetry is central to an understanding
of human existence. Students will examine a number of existential
problems-philosophical, historical, cultural, aesthetic, ethical, political-as
poets have experienced and expressed them in twentieth-century American and
European poetry. The interaction of poetic forms of expression with the
experiences of living will be studied according to following relationships:
1) poetry and history (as expressed in the Holocaust poetry of Celan, Sachs,
Sutzkever and in Williams's epic poem Paterson); 2) poetry and death (as
presented in Rilke's Duino Elegies and Plath's Ariel poems); 3) poetry and
language (as found in Stevens and Ashbery); 4) poetry and nature (as dramatized
in Ammons's poems); 5) poetry and childhood (as presented in Elizabeth Bishop);
6) poetry and power (as analyzed in Walcott's poems); 7) poetry and myth
(as given expression in Neruda's The Heights of Macchu Picchu). Poetic and
critical works by Blanchot, Rich, Boland, Baudelaire, and Ponge will be discussed
as well. All readings are in English.
Requirements: active class participation, three 6-page papers, one midterm,
and an oral class presentation.