Fulfills Distributional Course in Arts & Letters

This course will cover the principal figures and movements in modern American poetry from its inception in Whitman's Leaves of Grass. We will not only be attending to the fundamentals of poetic craftsmanship, but also to the ways in which poets, like quivering seismographs, record the sensibilities of their particular times. In our reading we will consider both the unique personal vision of each poet as well as the way poetry contributes to the ongoing national dialogue about the nature of America. Authors will include: Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, Stevens, Pound, H.D., Hughes, Ginsberg, Plath, Snyder, Olds, Strand, the "Language" poets, and others. Requirements: three essays and a final exam.