Department of English

Can poetry change the world? How does a sonnet work? Why do male writers of satire (and hip-hop artists today) deploy "feminine rhyme"? This course is a survey of British poetry from the 1660s to the beginning of the 20th century, with an emphasis on the 18th and 19th centuries. We will study literary movements of the Restoration period and the Romantics. You will learn how forms like the epic, ode, pastoral, and elegy are reinvented over the course of two centuries. Key themes will be nature, sex, and the sublime; illness, consumer culture, and revolution; slavery & antislavery. Poets will include: Milton, Rochester, Behn, Finch, Pope, Wheatley Peters, Swift, Gray, Goldsmith, Smith (Charlotte), Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Blake. For this class you will write two short essays (2-3 pages) and one comparison essay (6-8 pages) and complete a midterm exam as well as a creative, final group project. To help you learn the basics of scansion, there are weekly short exercises on prosody, rhythm and meter.