|
Course Description |
Approaches to the Lyric
Instructor: Li-Chun Hsiao
National Taiwan University
Spring 2008
Course Description:
The objective of this course is to guide undergraduate students who are interested in poetry to more in-depth understanding of the English lyric, demonstrating a variety of available approaches that may help them further explore the lyric poetry. The term “lyric” here can first be loosely defined as any fairly short poem, though we will certainly arrive at a more rigorous and clear definition of the lyric as the semester progresses. As participants of an elective course, we’d like to aim higher than learning the basics in an introductory class. Through readings of an assortment of poems in English, students are expected to ask themselves such questions as “What constitutes a lyric (and more broadly, a poem)?” In other words, our hope is that by the end of the semester everyone can form a certain idea of poetry (particularly the lyric), which doesn’t have to be original or comprehensive but which will likely help you understand and enjoy numerous poems. In this sense, this course can be considered an undergraduate seminar on the poetics of the lyric poetry.
To some extent, it is also an open course: apart from the selected works we read and discuss together in the first half of the semester, students are expected to pick a few English lyrics they find most appealing in the second half and present to the class their interpretations of the chosen poems. Our common reading list, as well as your own list, doesn’t have to be based on the chronological order of the poets’ years of birth; in fact, they can be categorized along the line of theme (love, nature, art, etc.), poetic form (blank verse, couplet, ottava rima, etc.) or sub-genre (ode, sonnet, elegy, etc.), schools or periods (metaphysical poets, Romanticism, modernism, etc.), and other conceivable categories. Whatever our lists may be, we’ll approach the lyrics with “close reading,” leaving no word—not even punctuation—unnoticed, while different frameworks of interpretation are welcome after we gain familiarity with the texts. |
|
Course Objective |
Readings:
All the poems we cover in this course can be found in The Norton Anthology of Poetry (see detailed publication information below). It is necessary for you to have the exact texts of the selected readings, which will be announced at least 2 weeks before in-class discussions on them. Early in the semester we’ll begin our readings with “love poems,” which presumably would be more relevant and accessible to the majority of readers, before we move on to the sonnet, the ode, Romanticism, and modernist poetry. In addition, we will read a few critical essays on poetry in general and those on individual poems.
Required texts:
The Norton Anthology of Poetry, Shorter Fifth Edition. by Margaret Ferguson (Editor), Jon Stallworthy (Editor), Mary Jo Salter (Editor)
“What Is Poetry?” by John Stuart Mill (in photocopies)
“The Poet” by Ralph Waldo Emerson (in photocopies) |