Course Syllabus--Fall 1998

Eng 241: Survey of the Literature of England

-----Poetry in an Age of Prose

Professor: D. F. Felluga
Office Hours: T, Th 3:00-4:30
HEAV 430; telephone: 43770
Class: T, Th 1:30-2:45; HEAV 111
E-mail: felluga@omni.cc.purdue.edu

Morris print

Course Description

Is life worth living without an appreciation of that within life that is poetry? This is one insistent question that will pursue us throughout the semester. Others include: can poetry survive in our modern age? What are the generic parameters of poetry as a form of expression? What debt do we owe to the poetry of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? In the course of responding to such questions, this class will come to understand the development of literature through the last two centuries. The class will also seek to understand and appreciate poetry: how does one read poetry? How does one analyze verse form? How does one make sense of poetic "license"? As a result, a significant part of each class will be spent analyzing individual poems, particularly shorter lyrics. We will also be examining a good deal of prose, two short stories, and a film; the emphasis, however, will be on poetry: the prose is about poetry and one might characterize the two short stories and the film we will discuss as themselves "poetic" in some way.

In addition, by the end of the semester, we will have, as a class, constructed a Web page that will serve as a studying resource; it will include a list of definitions for terms that we discuss in class. The Web page will grow from week to week depending on what we choose to discuss in each class. It can be found at the following URL:

http://omni.cc.purdue.edu/~felluga/guide241.html.





WEEK ONE:

Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:




WEEK TWO:

The union of this ever diverse pair!




WEEK THREE:

These two were rapid falcons in a snare,




WEEK FOUR:

Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.




WEEK FIVE:

Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,




WEEK SIX:

They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:




WEEK SEVEN:

But they fed not on the advancing hours:




WEEK EIGHT:

Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.




WEEK NINE:

Then each applied to each that fatal knife,




WEEK TEN:

Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.



map of Europe and Africa


WEEK ELEVEN:

Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul




WEEK TWELVE:

When hot for certainties in this our life!--




WEEK THIRTEEN:

In tragic hints here see what evermore




WEEK FOURTEEN:

Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force,




WEEK FIFTEEN:

Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,




WEEK SIXTEEN:

To throw that faint thin line upon the shore!


 

CLASS POETRY

Clayton Bartel

Shelle Dale

Andy Grimm

Brandon Harris

Heather Hassenplug

Clare Kembel

Susan Pumphrey

Sarah Robinson

Emily Rosko

 

 

 

 

Course Policies


Guide to Terms


Undergraduate Guide to Critical Theory




Last Revised: December 18, 1998

Paintings courtesy of
Carol L. Gerten

Morris prints courtesy of
The William Morris Gallery