English 2223: Poetry

 

Kenneth Hodges

301 Gittinger

MWF 10:30-11:30

khodges@ou.edu

 

What is Poetry?

Jan 13 M        Introduction

      15 W         “Astrophil and Stella I” (192-93) “Introduction to Songs of Innocence” (673-4) “Introduction to Songs of Experience” (678) “Terence, This is Stupid Stuff” (1072), “Ars Poetica” (1270) “A Far Cry From Africa (1709)

      17 F           “Moth” (8), “To . . . Adam” (55), “Easter Wings” (330), “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” (1746).  Assignment: Response Paper.

      20 M         Martin Luther King Day

Meter

      22 W Fussell, 3-29

      24 F “Charge of the Light Brigade” (907-9), “The Ruined Maid” (1052-53), “The Long Love That in My Thought Doth Harbor” (113) “Love that Doth Reign and Live Within My Thought,” (123).  Assignment: Pick ten lines of a poem and scan them.

      27 M Fussell, 30-61.  “Caedmon’s Hymn” (1) “A Clock Stopped” (1014), “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” (1023) “The Tyger” (680-81)

      29 W  Hopkins (1062-67).

30    F Fussell, 76-105.  “Song of Myself” (961-65).  Assignment: Response Paper.

Form

Feb  3 M “Forms,” lxxi-lxxx. “Delight in Disorder” (318), “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” (1465-66), “Ye Goatherd Gods” (188-90), “Sestina” (1412-13).

        5 W “From fairest creatures we desire increase” (235), “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (235) “A woman’s face, with nature’s own hand painted” (236), “Not marble, nor the gilded monuments” (237).

        7 F Donne’s Holy Sonnets (287-89), Milton’s sonnets (378-79).  Assignment: Response Paper.

      10 M Wordsworth’s sonnets (726-27), Spenser’s sonnets 1, 15, 23 (165-67).

      12 W Sonnets from Meredith’s Modern Love (1007-1009)

      14 F “The Oven Bird” (1128),”Acquainted with the Night” (1132), Elizabeth Barret Browning’s sonnets (856), “I, being born a woman and distressed” (1273), “the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls” (1283).  Assignment: write a sonnet.

Diction

      17 M Monk’s Description, General Prologue lines 165-207 (21), “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” (928-33), “Pretty” 1334.

      19 W “Naming of Parts” (1457), “Judging Distances” (1457-58), “Jordan (1)” (334-35), “Death” (346), “Jabberwocky” (1032-34).

      21 F “L’Allegro” (365-69), “Il Penseroso” 369-73), “next to of course god america i” (1284).  Assignment: Response Paper

      24 M  “The Ruined Maid” (1052-53; second reading), “Chillen Get Shoes” (1319), “To a Mouse” (685), “We Real Cool” (1481).

      26 W  “Seafarer” (10-12), “Seafarer” (1187-89).

      28 F “Dulce et Decorum Est” (1276), “Timor Mortis Conturbat Me” (66-67), “Prtrait d’une Femme” (1186).  Assignment: Response Paper.

Speaker

Mar  3 M Riddles (7-8), “Wife’s Lament” (8-10), “The Flea” (279), “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –“ (1016).

        5 W “My Last Duchess” (911-12), “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” (913-914), “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church” (915-918).

        7 F “Fra Lippo Lippi” (918-926), “Ulysses” (896-97),  “Tithonus” (909-910), “Odysseus” (1634).  Assignment: Response Paper.

      10 M “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (744-759).

      12 W “They Flee From Me” (115), “Woman’s Constancy” (265), “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” (275-76), “Elegy: To his Mistress Going to Bed” (281-82)

      14 F  “Heritage” (1335), “A Farewell to America. To Mrs. S.W.” (659-61), “On Being Brought from Africa to America” (661) “Persimmons” (1878-80).  First 5-6-Page Paper Due.

 

Spring Break

Setting and the Pathetic Fallacy

      24 M “Mariana” (885-87), “Kubla Khan” (741-42).

      26 W  “Tintern Abbey” (699-703), “Judging Distances” (second reading) (1457-58), “Ozymandias” (799)

      28 F  “Mending Wall” (1121-22), “The Road Not Taken” (1127-28), “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (1131), “West-Running Brook” (1133-35).  Assignment: Response Paper.

Readings

30                M “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love” (233-34), “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” (140-41), “Come Live With Me and Be My Love” (Two Songs) (1341-42).   Led by Austin Dyches, Karmon Samples, and Patrick Perot.

Apr  2 W “To His Coy Mistress” (435-36), “Corinna’s Going A-Maying” (318-20), “To the virgins, to Make Much of Time” (320).  Led by Evan Meyer, Kylie Pedicord, Lacy Lambert.

        4 F “When You Are Old” (1085), “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1230-33), “Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star” (264).  Led by Audrey Kallenberger, Monica Ruyle, Jeffrey Monroe.  Assignment: Response Paper.

        7 M “The Sun Rising” (265), “Sailing to Byzantium” (1094-95), “Kanheri Caves” (1774-75), “A Philosopher” (1163), “The Little Black Boy” (673).

        9 W “The Mower Against Gardens” (440-41), “The Mower to the Glowworms” (441-42), “The Garden” (442-44).  Led by Jenny Vigil, Kathryn Guelzow, Lacy Carter.

      11 F “The Relic” (279), “Is My Team Ploughing?” (1070), “A Dialogue Between Soul and Body” (434-35).  Led by Michael Beavers, Rachel Burgess, Charles Stanek.  Assignment: Response Paper.

      14 M “The Fury of Aerial Bombardment” (1343-44), “Inscription for a War” (1377), “Vergissmeinnicht” (1514), “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” (1446), “Eighth Air Force” (1446) “The Shield of Achilles”1372-73).  Led by Leah Davis, Eric Baxter, and Rachel Kamphaus.

      16 W “The Eve of Saint Agnes” (833-842).

      18 F “Ode to a Grecian Urn” (848-49).  Led by Christel Cleveland, Kassie Reese, Greg Cogburn.  Assignment: Response Paper.

      21 M “La Belle Dame sans Merci” (842-43), “The Darkling Thrush” (1052).  Led by Holly Majors, Vicki Chavers, Ryan Jones.

      23 W “The Second Coming” (1091-92), “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (609-612).  Led by Tricia Oden, Chris Deason, and Meaghan Evans.

      25 F “Ode to the West Wind” (801-803), “The Cloud” (803-804).  Sarah Piazza, Krystal Chapman, Tina Thompson.  Assignment: Response Paper.

      28 M “The Rape of the Lock” (547-564).  Led by Lisa Coffin, Harold Stokes, Mark Moskal.

      30 W “Imperial Adam” (1374-75), “Advice to Young Ladies” (1375-77), Queen Elizabeth’s poetry (130-32), excerpt from Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (255-258).  Led by Collette Coleman, Traci Brown, Amy Blum.

May 2 F “The Description of Cooke-ham” (258-63), “To Penshurst” (296-298).  Led by Aliison Lauderdale, Leah Guillory, Mike Cesar.  No Assignment: work on final paper instead.

 

Monday, May 5: 5-6-page paper due in place of a final.

 

Required Texts

The Norton Anthology of Poetry, fourth edition.

Paul Fussell, Poetic Meter and Poetic Form.

 

Requirements

Short Assignments: 50 percent

First Paper: 15 percent

Second Paper: 20 percent

Poetry Discussion: 10 percent

Participation: 5 percent.

Attendance is mandatory.

 

Each week, an assignment is due on Friday.  Normally, this will be a response paper.  Response papers are to be no more than a page long, and they will either analyze one aspect of one or more of the poems we read or ask intelligent, fully-developed questions about the poems.  These response papers must cover the poetry read that week in class.  Late response papers will not be accepted.  They will be graded as check-plus (very good), check (competent), check-minus (needing improvement) or zero (not turned in).  At the end of the semester, the lowest grade on a response paper will be dropped.

 

There will be two papers, 5-6 pages each, that will be analytic, argumentative essays.  They should make a non-obvious, interesting claim about some of the poems we have read and then go on to justify that claim with persuasive textual evidence.

 

Pairs of students will have to lead a discussion of a poem on the syllabus.  They need to have ideas of their own but also to stimulate class discussion.  During the second week of class, pairs will sign up for the poems they want to cover.

 

Participation includes regular attendance and intelligent discussion in class.

 

Grading Standards

 

It's impossible to put down hard and fast rules, but the following rules of thumb might give you an idea of what I am looking for.

            An A is a paper with interesting, well-developed ideas, presented with convincing detail and skillful language. 

            A B has good ideas, but it is probably not as subtle as an A paper, and it may lack a sense of the implications of the ideas.  The language and supporting detail is sufficient to do the job.

            A C often makes an obvious point or discusses a subject without coming to a firm conclusion.  Sometimes murkiness in the prose prevents interesting ideas from being conveyed.

            A D does not adequately address the assignment.  The language may be confusing and distracting; the ideas scattered and incoherent.

            An F has such problems in content and language that is not useful even as a starting point for revision.

            Late papers: A paper that is late to me will go down a third of a grade a day until I receive it (so don’t just stick it in my mailbox, in case I forget to check my mail for a couple of days).  I will make exceptions that are reasonable in my judgment, and the earlier you talk to me, the more likely I am to judge an excuse reasonable. 

 

Plagiarism

           

As a rough rule of thumb, plagiarism is presenting as your own work something which someone else might reasonably consider her own work.  This includes not only quoting without acknowledgment, but also using ideas without acknowledgment, even if those ideas are re-worded.  You do not need to cite a source for well-known facts (for instance when Teddy Roosevelt was elected), even if you looked it up; do cite a source for obscure facts (the literacy rate of London in 1450).  Cutting and pasting from internet sources is plagiarism unless you cite not only every line but every idea taken from a website. 

            When in doubt, do two things.  Ask me.  And cite your sources.

      If all or part of a paper is plagiarized, that paper automatically gets an F.  Unless there are mitigating circumstances, the student will also get an F for the course, and I will report the incident to the appropriate authorities.