English 168 - Fall, 2011

20th Century American Poetry

Class Information

Instructor: Clover, Joshua
CRN: 83701
Time: TR 3:10-4:30
Location: 106 Olson

Description

This course will consider 20th Cen American Poetry by considering six poets: three from the earlier part of the century, three from the latter part (periods once called "modern" and "postmodern" though these terms have themselves taken on changed senses). In addition to the six poets, we will read accompanying critical essays.

This will not only provide careful investigation of significant poets, but will provide us the opportunity to think about historical change both in aesthetic terms (tracking certain developments in poetic mode), and in social terms (measuring those developments against a shifting historical situation). And these combined investigations will, with luck, improve our ongoing ability to understand the relation of art and society, aesthetics and politics, and so on — to use poetry as a way to think about the fluid world around us, and vice versa.



Grading

Grading will be based on a combination of one short and one longer essay, a final exam, attendance/participation, and a collection of four short responses.

Texts

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, John Ashbery
My Life , Lyn Hejinian
Descent of Alette, Alice Notley
The Pound Era, Hugh Kenner
A Draft of 30 Cantos, Ezra Pound
Harlem Shadows, Claude McKay
Tender Buttons, Gertrude Stein