Kutztown University
Kutztown, Pennsylvania
COURSE TITLE: SPE/MUS 217, The Music of Poetry
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course is designed to develop and intensify the student's intellectual,
emotional and aesthetic responses to the aural qualities of poetry and music through an
examination of the similarities and differences between them. Emphasis will be placed upon
those poems that particularly convey their meanings through aural and temporal devices.
Specific attention will be given to structural aspects common to both poetry and music, such
as meter, rhythm, tonality, and form. Analogies to be drawn between music and poetry will
provide the student with provocative frames of references for study.
Prerequisites: MUS 010 and one basic Literature course. 3 s.h.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
1. To compare the aural and temporal elements of poetry and music;
2. To compare the structural aspects common to both poetry and music;
3. To examine content and form in poetry and music, with the resultant analogues functioning as
frames-of-reference for further study;
4. To experience and study works of art that integrate poetry and music via adaptive and/or literal
uses of texts;
5. To develop the capacity to experience poetry and music intellectually, and/or emotionally and/or
aesthetically.
ASSESSMENT:
Assessment of each student‟s level of accomplishment with reference to the course objectives will be
based upon a subset of the following:
1.
Objective tests.
2.
Writing assignments.
3.
Group and solo presentation/performances on educational topics.
4.
Essays.
5.
Midterm examination.
6.
Library research project.
7.
Written personal philosophy of education.
8.
Management plan.
9.
Final examination.
10.
Active participation in class and electronic discussions.
COURSE OUTLINE:
I. Content
A. Language
1. Characteristics
a. meaning
b. sound
2. Arrangement
a. syntax
b. alliteration
c. rhyme
d. rhythm
e. meter
B. Tonality
1. Characteristics
a. meaning
b. sound
2. Arrangements
a. melody
b. rhythm
c. meter
d. tempo
II. Form
A. Traditional
1. Poetry
2. Music
B. Free Form
1. Poetry
2. Music
III. The Experience
A. Intellectual
B. Emotional
C. Aesthetic
IV. The Intergration of Poetry and Music
A. Music of Poetry
1. Stimulus for the content
2. Stimulus for the form
B. Poetry in Music
1. Literal renditions of text
2. Adaptations of text
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
1. Read texts as assigned.
2. Listen to assigned tapes.
3. Participate in informal class creative projects (games).
4. Volunteer to report and/or lead a discussion for one unit of the course. To get credit for
this assignment, turn in an outline of the ideas you intend to discuss.
5. Demonstrate proficiency in two content examinations: one right after mid term, one at
final examination time
6. Demonstrate proficiency in one of the following major course projects:
a. Choose a poet. Study his life and representative poems.
To what extent is the poet "musical"?
b. Analyze a major poem (or poems) for its "music". Choose a musical composition that is similar
in content, and/orexperience. Discuss.
c. Analyze the content of a major poem (or poems). Select or create a musical composition that
enhances the experience of this poem(s). Discuss.
d. Analyze a composition that integrates poetry and music, either adapting and paraphrasing the
text, or literally employing the text. Introduce the class to its experience.
e. Analyze a composition for which the libretto was later written. To what extent do the two
entities harmonize?
f. Choose a critic or an aesthetician. Apply key theories to a composition and a poem. See
bibliography attached.
Each student may choose to work on a project alone or in a group. The solo project will receive 10
minutes for an oral report and demonstration. Group projects will be restricted to 20 - 25 minutes. In
either case, an outline of your content and an annotated bibliography of your research should be
submitted the day your project is due.
COURSE EVALUATION: (jointly by both professors)
1/3 - class participation, volunteer project and completion of listening assignments
1/3 -content examinations
1/3 - major course project
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Athanases, Steven A. “When Print Alone Fails Poetry: Performance as a Contingency of Literary Value.”
Text and Performance Quarterly 11 (April 1991): pgs. 116 - 127.
Bennett, Michael D. Ear Bending: Twelve On and Off Beat Guides to Classical Listening. Mephis: Pop
Hits Publishing, 1977.
Bernstein, Leonard. Findings. New York: Simon and Schuster Inc., 1982.
________. The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bosanquet, Bernard. Three Lectures on Aesthetics Delivered at University College, London. Millwood,
NY:Kraus Reprint and Periodicals, 1968.
Beebee, Thomas O. “Ballad of the Apocalypse: Another look at Bob Dylan‟s Hard Rain.” Text and
Performance Quarterly 2 ( January 1991): pgs. 18 - 34.
Cage, John. Silence: Lectures and Writing. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961.
Cage, Timothy and Rosenfeld, Lawrence B. “Ekphrastic Poetry in Performance: An Examination of
Audience Perceptions of the Relationship between Poetry and Painting.” Texts and Performance
Quarterly 9 (July 1989): pgs. 199 - 206.
Ciardi, John and Williams, Miller. How does a Poem Mean? 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961.
Cluck, Nancy Anne, ed. Essays on Form: Literature and Music. Provo, Utah: Bringham Young University
Press, 1981.
Copland, Aaron. What to Listen for in Music, 2nd ed. New York: New American Library, 1953.
Dance, Frank E.X. “Ong‟s Voice I, the Oral Intellect, You and We.” Text and Performance Quarterly 9
(July 1989): pgs. 185 - 198.
Drew, Elizabeth A. Discovering Poetry. New York. W.W. Norton and Co., Inc., 1962.
Dudley, Louise, et al. The Humanities, 6th ed. New York: McGraw - Hill, 1978.
Eliot, T.S. “The Music of Poetry.” On Poetry and Poets. London: Faber and Faber, Inc., 1985.
Farber, Jerry. A Field Guide to the Aesthetic Experience. North Hollywood, CA: Foreworks, 1982.
Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957.
Gross, Harvey. Sound and Form in Modern Poetry. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1968.
______. The Structure of Verse, 2nd ed. West Menlo Park, CA: Echo Publishers, 1980.
Hoffer, Charles. The Understanding of Music, 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1989.
Hoy, Mikita. “Joyful Mayhem: Bakhtin, Football Songs, and the Carnivalesque.” Text and Performance
Quarterly 14 (October 1994): pgs. 289 - 304.
Knight, Jeff Parker. “Literature as Equipment for Killing: Performance as Rhetoric in Military Training
Camps.” Text and Performance Quarterly 10 (April 1990): pgs. 157 - 168.
Kramer, Lawrence. Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1984.
Langer, Susan K. Philosophy in a New Key, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957.
Long, Berverly Whitaker. “Performance Criticism and Questions of Value.” Text and Performance
Quarterly 11 (April 1991): pgs. 106 - 115.
MacLeish, Archibald. Poetry and Opinion. Brooklyn: Haskell Booksellers, Inc., 1974.
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Rinehart and Winston, 1979.
Maritain, Jacques. Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952.
Martin, J. David. The Humanities Through the Ages, 3rd ed. New York: McGraw - Hill, 1983.
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O‟Brien, James P. The Listening Experience. New York: Schirmer Books Inc., 1956.
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Jovanovich, 1987.
Richards, I.A. Practical Criticism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1956.
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Rose, Heidi. “Stylistic Features in American Sign Language Literature.” Text and Performance Quarterly
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Sauceda, John Steven. “The „Wordloosed Soundscript‟: Performing James Joyce‟s Finnegans Wake.”
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_______. “„His Silvery Incantation‟: Assessing James Joyce as a Performer of his Works.” Text and
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Schaefer, R. Murray. When Words Sing. New York: G. Schirmer Inc., 1970.
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EEM 8/21/96