Unit 1  Reasons for Reading Poetry: the art of reading, the function of a poem (p. 1-5)

• Intro (What are the reasons of poetry?) 

• Prose and Verse Criticism of Poetry

Unit 2  Making Sense of Poems: subject matters of poetry (p. 6-7)

Peter Porter, "Mort aux chats"

• Peter Porter (bio, bibliography, awards, critical perspective)

• Peter Porter (bio, audio clips of Porter reading 5 of his poems)

• Diction: Word Choice
• Connotation/Denotation (with exercise)

Alfred Tennyson, "The Eagle"

• The Tennyson Page

• The Victorian Web: Alfred Tennyson

• Alfred Tennyson (bio, 2 audio clips of Tennyson reading--very scratchy)

• Exercise for "The Eagle"

Langston Hughes, "Cross"

• "Cross" (poem and readers' comments)

• "Langston Hughes of Kansas" (a long but interesting article on Hughes and his family)

• Drop Me Off in Harlem (exploring the themes and works of the Harlem Renaissance)

• Voices and Visions  Langston Hughes: The Dream Keeper (video documentary about Hughes, 1 hour)

• "Langston Hughes and His Poetry" (webcast, 20 mins., transcript available; slow-going but introduces many of his important poems)

• The Harlem Renaissance and the Flowering of Creativity (online exhibition)

• "The African American Oral Tradition," Herbert Woodward Martin (lecture, performs samples, 1 hour)

William Cowper, "The Poplar Field"

• William Cowper

• William Cowper: Brief Biography

Unit 3  Imagery (p. 13-16)

• Explicit Imagery

• Implicit Images

• Imagery in Poetry (Introduction, Imagery in Poetry Today)

Ezra Pound, "In a Station of the Metro"

• A Brief Guide to Imagism
• A Brief Guide to Modernism
• Ezra Loomis Pound (1885-1972): "In a Station of the Metro" (Pound's commentary on the poem)
• Prose Paraphrase of the poem

Edwin Morgan, "One Cigarette"

• "Now You See It, Now You Don't': The Love Poetry of Edwin Morgan," Christopher Whyte
• Scotland Discussion Forum: Edwin Morgan
• Edwin Morgan Poems (text, audio clips)

Vernon Scannell, "Incendiary"

• Vernon Scannell (bio, audio clips of Scannell reading 3 poems)

• Metaphor and Simile (by Tim Love)
• Jaron's World: The Meaning of Metaphor (cognitive angle on metaphor)

Emily Bronte, "Tell Me, Tell Me, Smiling Child"

• Emily Bronte (1818-48): An Overview
• Bronteana

James Stephens, "The Wind"

• Activity for Stephens' "The Wind"
• James Stephens

William Wordsworth, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

• "Daffodils" (poem and analysis)
• Wordsworth's "Daffodils"
• TCG's Wordsworth's Page

Assignment 1 given

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Rhodora"

• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
• "The Rhodora" (poem with readers' comments)
• "The Rhodora" (6 different recordings of the poem by volunteers for Earth Day"
• Images to Supplement "The Rhodora"
• "Still Ahead of His Time" (article on Emerson's thoughts in Smithsonian)
• The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (complete works, Emerson Glossary, time line, and more)

Anne Bradstreet, "To My Dear and Loving Husband"

• Anne Bradstreet, Poems
• Anne Bradstreet (biography by Ann Woodlief)
• Selected Poetry of Anne Bradstreet (ca. 1612-1672) (notes on life and works, 11 poems with some notes)
• "To My Dear and Loving Husband" with Study Notes
• Anne Bradstreet, "To My Dear and Loving Husband" (bio, reading, re-reading, explorations, links)
• Brief Notes on Anne Bradstreet (background, poetry, sources and influences, common features also found in later poets)
• Anne Bradstreet: America's First Poet (NPR's interview of Bradstreet biographer Charlotte Gordon by Scott Simon; audio and excerpt from Gordon's book)
• Chapter 1: Anne Bradstreet (bibliography, study questions)
• Puritanism in New England

Seamus Heaney, "Mid-Term Break"

• Seamus Heaney, "Mid-Term Break" (bio, reading, re-reading, explorations, links)
• Seamus Heaney (bio, poem commentary, link)

Assignment 1 due beginning of class

• Allusions (by Tim Love)

Robert Frost, "Nothing Gold Can Stay"

• "On Robert Frost's 'Nothing Gold Can Stay'" by Dana Gioia
• "Frost's Synecdochic Allusions" (journal article by Gerard Quinn; Chula network access only)

Bible

• Genesis Chapter 2 (audio and text)
• Genesis Chapter 3 (audio and text)
• bibles.net (directory of searchable bibles and biblical reference materials online)
• English Bible Versions (annotated links to bible resources, historical articles and images)
• English Bible Versions (extensive links to individual versions and discussion of translations; however many links are obsolete)

Margaret Atwood, "Siren Song"

• "Siren Song" (audio of Atwood reading poem and text)
• Margaret Atwood Reference Site
• The Odyssey Book XII (Trans. Samuel Butler)
• Study Guide for Homer's Odyssey

• Metonymy (explanation with link to databank of metonymy examples) 
• What is metonymy?
• Semiotics for Beginners: Rhetorical Tropes by Daniel Chandler

James Shirley, "Death the Leveller"

• James Shirley (1596-1666)

• Synecdoche and Metonymy (discussion of problems in distinguishing between the two)
• A fun list of oxymorons

Francis Beaumont, "On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey"

William Blake, "Eternity"

• Poet! Poet! Burning Bright: An Ode to William Blake on the Eve of his 250th Birthday (an op-ed article by Philip Pullman) 

Richard Crashaw, "A Song of Divine Love"

Assignment 2 given

Stephen Crane, "A Man Saw a Ball of Gold in the Sky," The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895)

• "In Search of the 'Real' Stephen Crane (or, Tales of a Literary Sleuth)" by Paul Sorrentino (interesting account of Crane research)

Anne Sexton, "To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph"

• Daedalus and Icarus
• On "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" (discussion of the myth in relation to Pieter Brueghel's painting)
• Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (more remarks on  the myth and Brueghel's painting with links to the poems of Auden and Williams on the topic) 
• "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" by Pieter Brueghel (painting; 514k)

• Definition of Symbol (with links to an exercise and studies of two poems)

Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"

• On "The Road Not Taken"
• HarperAudio (link to audio files of Frost reading this and many of his poems)
• "The Road Not Taken" (online audio of Frost reading this poem, a bit clearer sound than Harper's)
• The Robert Frost Tutorial (places and poetry, research tips, hallmarks of Frost's poetry, the poetics of Robert Frost, the Frost Free Library, and more)
• A Frost Bouquet (electronic exhibit by the University of Virginia)

• Reflections on Allegory (several definitions and discussions of allegory)
• Introduction to Medieval Allegory
• Definition of Allegory (with link to allegory exercise)

George Herbert, "Peace"

• "Peace" (1633 poem with footnotes; requires Apple Quicktime to hear the music)
• "Ecclesiastical Controversy in George Herbert's 'Peace'" (journal article by Michael West; Chula network access only)

Assignment 2 due beginning of class

Langston Hughes, "Green Memory"

• "Hughes's Life and Career"

• Langston Hughes (bio, focuses on period in Washington, DC)

• "Advanced, Repressed, and Popular: Langston Hughes During the Cold War" (journal article by Jonathan Scott; Chula network access only)

• "Poetic Interpretations of Urban Black Folk Culture: Langston Hughes and the 'Bebop' Era" (Chula network access only)

• A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes

• Langston Hughes (short bio pieces, chatty, aimed at younger audiences)

• Langston Hughes Resources

William Blake, "The Chimney Sweeper"

• Notes on Blake (includes discussion of irony in "The Chimney Sweeper")

• Tate Learning: "The Chimney Sweeper" (look, listen, think, summary, analysis)

• Blake List Archive discussion thread

• The William Blake Archive

• Blake Digital Text Project

• Contraries Game 2.0 (a game of critical interpretation based on William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience)

Thomas Hardy, "By Her Aunt's Grave"

• Thomas Hardy Resource Library (texts, biography, media, Dorset, links)
• "Thomas Hardy's English Lessons" (The New York Times review of Claire Tomalin's biography, by Thomas Mallon; some interesting insights into Hardy's life and verse)

• Writing Exam Essays

Ben Jonson, "It Is Not Growing Like a Tree"

• Ben Jonson's "Oak and Lily" (a self-deprecating but good reading/paraphrasing of the poem in an irreverent blog)
• The poem in context (and non-modernized spelling; notice the rhyme and type problem we mentioned in class is made clear in this version)
• Ben Jonson (brief bio)
• Ben Jonson (biography)
• Online Literary Criticism Collection: Ben Jonson (1572-1637) (links to criticism about Ben Jonson)

Philip Larkin, "A Study of Reading Habits"

Margaret Cavendish

• "Soul's Raiment" (text of poem)
• Cavendish Timeline
• Sample paraphrase of Cavendish's "Body and Soul" and "Of the Theme of Love"

Prose paraphrase homework

• Alliteration (with examples)
• Alliteration (with many examples from actual speech; distinguishes immediate and non-immediate alliteration)

• Notes on Rhyme (by Tim Love)
• Rhythmic Analysis
• The Sounds of Poetry I
• Self-administered quiz on meter and scansion

Assignment 3 given

Continuous form

• William Carlos Williams, "The Widow's Lament in Springtime" (text of the poem)
• On "The Widow's Lament in Springtime" (criticism: discussion and analysis of the poem)
• Robert Frost, "After Apple-Picking" (text of the poem)
• On "After Apple-Picking" (several discussions of various aspects of the poem, from rhyme to imagery to subject matter and theme)
• Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses" (text of the poem with notes)
• Alfred Tennyson's "Ulysses" (quick overview of ideas about the poem with further links to more detailed material)

Verse or "Stanza" Form: sonnets

• Basic Sonnet Forms at Sonnet Central

Edna St. Vincent Millay, "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed"

Robert Frost, "Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same"

• On "Never Again Would Birds' Song Be The Same" (a selection of criticism on the poem)

Edmund Spenser, from Amoretti

Fixed form

• Limerick Discussion Page (Basic Rules and Definitions, Fine Points and Judgment Issues)
• The Limerick (article on the limerick by Marco Graziosi; includes discussion of the form, its prehistory, rise of the limerick book, Lear's contribution, and the naming of the limerick)
• Edward Lear Home Page (about Edward Lear, his nonsense works, his art, essays on Lear and the limerick)

Narrative poems: epic

• Notes on Heroic Poetry: The Primary and Secondary Epic page 1 and 2
• HyperEpos: Epic on the Internet
• Muses (brief entry)

Narrative poetry: romance

• Notes on Middle English Romance
• The Sir Gawain Room (synopsis and analysis)
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Trans. Jessie L. Weston)
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1400, Middle English e-text)
• The Cid (article about El Cid)
• Le Mort d'Artur (e-text, vol. 1)
• Tristan and Isolt (e-text)

Assignment 3 due beginning of class

Poetry Conference session and paper proposals due

• Ballad (description of the folk and literary ballad)
• A Book of Old English Ballads (some well-known ballads with illustration by George Wharton Edwards)
• The Traditional Ballad Index: List of Keywords (with definitions of selected keywords; mainly a search database)

"Edward"

A. E. Housman, "Is My Team Ploughing"

Lyric poetry

• On Reading Lyric Poetry 
• Elegy (brief description)
• Elegy (entry in The Columbia Encyclopedia on Bartleby)
• Ode (explanation of different types of odes)

William Shakespeare, "Sigh No More, Ladies" (from Much Ado About Nothing)

• Act II, scene iii  Leonato's orchard (the poem/song in the context of the play)
• In Search of Shakespeare: The Investigation (dossier, players, locations, evidence, glossary, works)

John Keats, "To Autumn"

• "Ode to Autumn" (1819) (poem and analysis)
• "To Autumn" (composition, general comments, stanza by stanza analysis)
• John Keats, "To Autumn" (reading and re-reading questions, explorations, links)

Richard Lovelace, "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars"

• Richard Lovelace (bio)

D. H. Lawrence, "Peace and War"

• D. H. Lawrence: Celebrating a Literary Life (biography, interactive timeline, events, Lawrence in the East Midlands, Lawrence and the University of Nottingham)
• D. H. Lawrence Resources (brief and extended biography, bibliography, etc.)
• D. H. Lawrence: A Literary Legacy (online exhibition)

Randall Jarrell, "A Lullaby"

• About Randall Jarrell by William Pritchard

Sir Walter Ralegh, "Sir Walter Ralegh to His Son"

• "Sir Walter Ralegh to His Son" (introduction by Linda Gregerson with audio clips to three readings of the poem)

Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays"

• Overview: "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden (introduction to poem with line by line explication)

Assignment 4 given

Peter Meinke, "Advice to my Son"

• An Interview with Peter Meinke by James Plath

Andrew Hudgins, "Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead"

• An Interview with Andrew Hudgins by Troy Teegarden (audio and transcript)

Assignment 4 due beginning of class

Final paper due beginning of class