4154

AML 4154: Modern American Poetry:

The Postbellum Era, Transatlanticism, and the Emergence of Modernism

Professor Giordano Monday/Wednesday 11:00-12:15

Office: DM-466B PC-213

Office Hours: M/W 1:30-2:30 Class Number: 18106

Office Phone: X3370 Section: U01

Course Description: This course examines American poetry from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the middle decades of the twentieth century. We will become familiar with traditional narratives of poetry’s development and evolution throughout these years; at the same time, we will question and revise these narratives by reading a healthy selection of work both by long-neglected American poets and by British writers. In doing so, we will consider a number of thorny questions that pervade any study of this period: when, exactly, does modernism begin? what textual features and attitudes define it? how is it tied up with issues of national, racial, and gendered identity? Through a careful analysis of these and other questions, students will be introduced to the politics of canon formation and revision as they pertain to the modernist period. More specifically, they will participate in the current debates that are circulating about late-nineteenth-century American poetry, aesthetic value, transatlanticism, and the political and cultural work poetry performs. Students will also receive significant practice in scanning poetry and in understanding poetry’s formal features.

Student Requirements:

Participation: Your participation will make the class more engaging and productive for everyone involved. Please come to class prepared with comments and questions so that you can contribute to our discussions. I want to foster as much discussion as possible, and so, if necessary, I will not hesitate to call on students in class.

Quizzes: There will be several short quizzes throughout the semester, based on the readings assigned for that day and the lectures of previous days. If you miss a quiz you will have one week to make it up; after the week expires, you will receive a zero on the quiz.

Midterm: You will take a midterm exam on the date indicated on the course schedule. This exam will test you on the first half of the course material. You will not be allowed to make up the midterm if you miss it.

Short Writing Assignments: Throughout the quarter I will assign several short writing assignments that I will collect and grade. These assignments generally will be answers to questions that I ask you to think about as you read.

Long Paper: You will write one longer paper this semester, 6-8 pages, that focuses on an author, text, and/or topic of your choice based on what we read throughout the course. This paper must accord with MLA conventions, and it will be during the last week of classes. I will not accept late papers.

Final Exam: You will take a final exam during finals week. This exam will test you on the second half of the course material. You will not be allowed to make up the final exam if you miss it.

Course Policies:

Attendance: It is impossible to do well in this course and to learn what is needed without regularly attending class. Each student will be allowed three free absences, no questions asked. Any student who misses more than three classes will begin to have his or her final grade reduced. If a student accrues more than five unexcused absences, he or she will be in jeopardy of failing the course regardless of his or her other grades. I will grant students excused absences (absences that don’t hurt your grade) on a case-by-case basis. An excused absence requires 1) that the reason for missing class was serious and unavoidable (serious illness, death in the family, athletic competition), and 2) that the student provides a written, documented excuse.

Late Policy: Please come to class on time and do not leave early. We will be covering a lot of material in each session and it is imperative that you are present for the entire class. Repeated lateness will be counted as an absence.

Cell Phones: Please be respectful and turn your cell phones off before class starts. If your phone rings during class, or if you are talking on, playing with, or attending to your phone during class, I may ask you to leave for the remainder of the class period. If this happens, you will receive an unexcused absence for that day.

Plagiarism: It is expected that all students have a firm command of basic writing skills. If you need assistance with your writing, please see me or consult The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6^th Edition. Please be sure that your work is your own and that you document any outside sources that you use according to MLA procedures. AVOID PLAGIARISM. Plagiarism is the representation of another’s works or ideas as one’s own: it includes the unacknowledged word for word use and/or paraphrasing of another person’s work, and/or the inappropriate unacknowledged use of another person’s ideas. Cases of plagiarism will result in an automatic grade of F for the course and will be reported to the Committee of Academic Affairs. If you have any questions about how to use sources and/or about whether or not you are plagiarizing, please see me before turning in your paper(s).

Grading Formula: Participation . . . . . . . 10%

Short Writing . . . . . . .10%

Quizzes . . . . . . . . . . . 10%

Midterm . . . . . . . . . . .20%

Long Paper . . . . . . . . 30%

Final Exam . . . . . . . . 20%

Required Texts:

The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, 3rd Edition, Volume 1

Sarah Piatt, Palace-Burner: The Selected Poetry of Sarah Piatt

Course Packet (available at the Copy Center in the Student Union)

Suggested Reading:

John Hollander, Rhyme’s Reason

Course Schedule

You will be expected to complete each reading assignment before the class period indicated on the calendar below. Please bring your texts and notes to each class period, and please be prepared with questions and comments on the given readings.

1/10: Introduction: Scansion

Looking Back: The Postbellum Era

1/12: Course Packet: George Santayana, “Genteel American Poetry”; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Day is Done”; Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Poet’s Mind”

1/17: Class Canceled: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

1/19: Class Canceled

1/24: Walt Whitman, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” “Cavalry Crossing a Ford”; Emily Dickinson, “341” (After great pain, a formal feeling comes—), “465” (I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—), “754” (My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—)

1/26: Course Packet: Robert Browning “My Last Duchess,” “Pictor Ignotus”; Sarah Piatt, Palace-Burner: “Giving Back the Flower,” “Shapes of a Soul,” “Beatrice Cenci,” “One from the Dead”

1/31: Course Packet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “A Man’s Requirements”; Sarah Piatt, Palace-Burner: “Mock Diamonds,” “The Palace-Burner,” “A Ghost at the Opera,” “We Two,” “After the Quarrel,” “A Pique at Parting,” “The Descent of the Angel,” “A Child’s Party”

2/2: Piatt, continued; Course Packet: James Whitcomb Riley, “When the Frost Is on the Punkin,” “Little Orphant Annie,” “An Order for a Song”

2/7: Course Packet: Herman Melville, “The House-Top,” “John Marr,” “Bridegroom Dick,” “The Berg”

2/9: Course Packet: Paul Laurence Dunbar, “Sympathy,” “When de Co’n Pone’s Hot,” “An Ante-Bellum Sermon,” “We Wear the Mask,” “A Negro Love Song,” “The Poet,” “Prometheus”

2/14: Course Packet: Elliott Blaine Henderson, “When the Moon Hangs Low,” “Seems Dey’s No Place,” “A Profuse Encomium,” “Stick to Your Race!” “Yes, Wees Got Er Flag”

2/16: Midterm Examination

Looking Modernly: Creating a Modernist Poetics

2/21: E. A. Robinson, “Richard Cory”; William Butler Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “A Coat,” “The Second Coming”; Ezra Pound, “A Retrospect”

2/23: T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Sweeney among the Nightingales”

2/28: T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”; Ezra Pound, “The Pact,” “In a Station of the Metro,” “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”

3/2: T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

3/7: T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

3/9: Gertrude Stein, from Tender Buttons, “Objects”; H.D., “Oread,” “The Pool,” “Sea Rose”

3/14: William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow,” “This Is Just to Say,” “The Dance,” “Spring and All”

3/16: William Carlos Williams, “Tract,” “The Young Housewife,” “To Elsie,” “The Yachts”

3/21: Spring Break

3/23: Spring Break

3/28: Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock,” “The Emperor of Ice Cream”

3/30: Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning,” “The Idea of Order at Key West”

4/4: Robert Frost, “Mending Wall,” “Home Burial,” “After Apple-Picking”; Course Packet: Robert Browning, “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”

4/6: Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken,” “The Oven Bird,” “Birches,” “Design,” “Desert Places”; Thomas Hardy, “The Darkling Thrush”

4/11: Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “The Weary Blues,” “Song for a Dark Girl,” “Theme for English B,” “Harlem”

4/13: Jean Toomer, “Her Lips Are Copper Wire,” “Reapers,” “November Cotton Flower”; Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool”

4/18: Theodore Roethke, “Cuttings,” “My Papa’s Waltz,” “The Waking”

4/20: Course Packet: Dana Gioia, “Can Poetry Matter?”