Department of English

In this course we will read much of the work of the major British Romantic poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron, and Shelley with particular attention to concepts of poetic expression and autonomy. Among our concerns will be issues of poetic form, the theory of genius and the role of the poet in society, relations of poetry to revolutionary change and to nature, philosophies of perception and imagination, and ideologies of gender and class in the construction of poetic knowledge. We will have the pleasure of reading many of the most beautiful and significant poems in the history of British literature and the opportunity to question and renew our relation to their forms. Requirements for the course will include two brief response papers, a take-home mid-term examination of 5-6 pp., and a take-home final examination of 6-7 pp.