Major British Poetry 1660-Present
Martin Orzeck profile
TR 1:30-3
In this course we will examine some of the more radical transformations
in the relationship of English poets to their readership, and to their
work, occurring from the time of Pope to the time of Yeats. How does the
poet's role in society change as a result of the economic, social and
political upheavals in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe? To
what extent does the poet herald (or even participate in) those
upheavals? Among other issues, we will consider the poet as a renewer
of language, an arbiter of social values, and a definer of the heroic,
during a period marked by a growing sense of decline in each of these
areas of culture. Can great poetry arest or reverse that decline? Why
then do poets write? Students interested in the creative process and its
relationship to a perceived audience should find this course rewarding.
In addition to Pope and Yeats, we will be treating Blake, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Browning, Tennyson, Arnold, and some of the
decadent poets of the nineties. A short essay, a longer paper, and a
final will be required.
updated 2006-03-27
