ENG 4973: Landscape and Language in American Poetry
Spring 2008
Wendy Barker
(wendy.barker@utsa.edu)
Office MB 2.472, Office Hours M 2-4 p.m. and by appt.
Office Tel 210-458-5362, Cell #210-269-4481
This course satisfies requirements for the B.A. degree in English in that it provides the three
semester credit hours required for a Senior Seminar. Students will have the opportunity to master
skills in reading literary texts, writing, and critical thinking.
Texts:
Galway Kinnell, ed., Essential Whitman
Thomas Johnson, ed., The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Ramazani, Ellman, and O’Clair, eds., The Norton Anthology of Modern and
Contemporary Poetry, Vol. 1
Calendar:
1/14
1/21
1/28
Introduction
No Class
Walt Whitman
2/4
Walt Whitman
2/11
Emily Dickinson
2/18
2/25
Emily Dickinson
T.S. Eliot
3/3
3/10
T.S. Eliot
H.D.
3/17
3/24
No Class
Langston Hughes
3/31
No Class
4/7
Wallace Stevens
Background, requirements, poetry as a genre
Martin Luther King Day
“Song of Myself” and Selection from Preface
to Leaves of Grass
“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” “Out of the
Cradle Endlessly Rocking”
94, 165, 232, 245, 248, 249, 251, 288, 303, 308,
324, 341, 392, 413, 435, 486, 492, 508, 530,
593, 601, 613, 657
Continue with poems listed 2/11
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “The Waste
Land”
Mid-term take-home essay exam due
“The Waste Land”
“Oread,” “Sea Rose,” “Garden,” “Helen,”
“Eurydice” (hand-out), Selections from
Tribute to the Angels
Spring Break
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “When Sue Wears
Red,” “The Weary Blues,” “Suicide’s Note,”
“Cross,” “Lament Over Love,” “Song for a
Dark Girl,” “Theme for English B,”
“Harlem”
Individual research and conferences on topics for
long essay
“Sunday Morning,” “Disillusionment of Ten
O’Clock,” “Anecdote of the Jar,” “The
Snow Man,” “The Emperor of Ice-Cream,”
“The Idea of Order at Key West” “The Plain
Sense of Things”
4/14
4/21
Wallace Stevens
Charles Reznikoff
4/28
W.C. Willliams
4/30
By 5:00 in ECP Office
Long Essay Due (10-12 pages, topics TBA)
5:00-7:30 p.m.
Final Exam, in class
5/5
Continue with poems listed 4/7
[On Brooklyn Bridge I Saw a Man Drop Dead],
[The Shopgirls Leave Their Work], [I Walked
through the Lonely Marsh], [It Had Long Been
Dark, though Still an Hour Before Supper-Time],
[Walk aboutthe Subway Station], “Heart and
Clock,” “Epitaphs,” Selection from Early History
of a Writer, “Selection from Holocaust
“The Red Wheelbarrow,” “This is Just to Say,”
“The Dance,” “Queen Anne’s Lace,” “The Widow’s
Lament in Springtime”
Description of Course:
We will meet to discuss poems—in depth, at length, at our leisure. Much of our time in
class will be spent reading together closely, and talking through poems.
Your punctuality, attendance, and commitment to the group are simply taken for granted.
More than three absences will result in your grade being lowered by one grade point.
Discussion is not only invited but will be an integral, if not central, part of the experience
of the class. Your participation is vital!
Although not everyone is equally confident speaking out loud (especially, sometimes,
about poetry!), everyone will have reactions, responses, hunches, from our reading and
talking together. Your participation is not to “show off” what you know, certainly not to
prove something to me, and definitely not to dominate, but to share in and contribute to
the dialogue among all of us and help to encourage, sustain, and develop it.
In addition to your class participation, you will also write a one- or two paragraph
informal response to the readings for each week. These should be printed, but do not need
to be essays, only personal responses to the poems and any related readings.
Requirements for Grade:
Participation, Weekly Responses
Mid-term Take-Home Essay Exam
Essay (10-12 pages):
Final Exam
15%
25%
30%
30%
Dickinson Poems
94
165
232
245
248
249
251
280
288
303
308
324
341
392
413
435
486
492
508
530
593
601
613
657
“Angels, in the early morning”
“A Wounded Deer – leaps highest –“
“The Sun – just touched the Morning –“
“I held a Jewel in my fingers –“
“Why – do they shut Me out of Heaven?”
“Wild Nights – Wild Nights!”
“Over the fence –“
“I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain,”
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?”
“The Soul selects her own Society –“
“I send Two Sunsets –“
“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –“
“After great pain, a formal feeling comes –“
“Through the Dark Sod – as Education –“
“I never felt at Home – Below –“
“Much Madness is divinest Sense –“
“I was the slightest in the House –“
“Civilization – spurns – the Leopard!”
“I’m ceded – I’ve stopped being Theirs –“
“You cannot put a Fire out –“
“I think I was enchanted”
“A still – Volcano – Life –“
“They shut me up in Prose –“
“I dwell in Possibility –“
ENG 4973
Senior Seminar: Language and Landscape in American Poetry
W. Barker
Mid-term Essay, due March 3, at 5:30, at beginning of class
Format:
Your essay is to be printed in 12 pt., Times New Roman or Garamond, and double
spaced. Margins are to be at least 1” on all sides.
At the top right hand corner of page 1, place your name and the date. At the top left hand
corner, staple your pages together.
Your essay is to have a title, centered, one-third of the way down the first page.
It is to be four to six pages in length.
It is to be carefully organized and developed with specific examples.
Be sure to proofread for typos and grammatical and punctuation errors.
Topics:
Choose one.
1. Write an essay in which you show what sort of “landscape” is portrayed in the poetry
Whitman and Dickinson. What sort of spatial world is shown in the poems? How do
these poets conceive of space? How do they write of the geographical and physical
features of the world around them? What kinds of images are used to convey these poets’
sensibilities?
2. Both Whitman and Dickinson use the lyric “I” frequently in their poems. How does
this use of the first person pronoun differ in their poems? What are the various ways the
“I” is used in the poems of each writer? What is the effect of the poet’s use of “I”?
William Carlos Williams Poems De/Composed by W. D. Snodgrass
Queen-Anne’s-Lace
Wild Carrot
Her body’s not so white as anemone petals
nor so smooth—
nor so remote a thing.
It is a field of the wild carrot
taking the field by force.
The grass does not rise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.
Each flower
is a hand’s span of her whiteness.
Wherever his hand has lain
there is a tiny purple blemish.
Each part is a blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being stem
one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a white desire,
empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over—
or nothing.
Queen-Anne’s-Lace
Her body’s not so white as anemone petals nor so smooth—nor so remote a thing.
It is a field of the wild carrot taking the field by force. The grass does not rise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness, white as can be with a purple mole at the center of each
flower. Each flower is a hand’s span of her whiteness. Wherever his hand has lainthere is
a tiny purple blemish. Each part is a blossom under his touch to which the fibres of her
being stem one by one, each to its end, until the whole field is a white desire, empty, a
single stem, a cluster, flower by flower, a pious wish to whiteness gone over—or nothing.
Spring and All
Spring and All
By the road to the cantagious hospital
under the surge of the blue mottled clouds
driven from the northeast—
a cold wind.
Beyond, the waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds standing
and fallen patches of standing water
and scattering of tall trees
All along the road
the reddish, purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy stuff
of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them,
lifeless vines.
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish—
dazed spring approaches.
They enter the world, naked, cold,
uncertain of all
save that they enter.
All about them, the cold, familiar wind.
Now the grass,
tomorrow the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined—
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf.
But now the stark dignity of entrance—
Still, the profound change has come upon them:
rooted, they grip down
and begin to awaken.
Poem
Poetry
As the cat climbed
over the top
of the jamcloset
first
the right forefoot
carefully
then the hind
stepped down
into the pit
of the empty flowerpot
Prose Poem
As the cat climbed over the top of the jamcloset first the right forefoot carefully
then the hind stepped down into the pit of the empty flowerpot.
ENG 4973
Senior Seminar: Language and Landscape in American Poetry
W. Barker
wendy.barker@utsa.edu
wendybarker@sbcglobal.net
Final Essay, due Wednesday, April 30, by 4 p.m.
(Late essays will be accepted with no penalty through Friday, May 2, by 4 p.m.)
Please submit your essay as a Word attachment to either one (or both) of my email
addresses. If you are unable to submit electronically, you may submit TWO copies (2
copies) of your essay to the English Department Office.
Your essay is to be 10-12 pages in length. If it is a little longer, that’s fine.
It is to be printed in 12 pt., Times New Roman or Garamond, and double spaced. Margins
are to be at least 1” on all sides.
Be sure to include your name on every page, and place page numbers in the upper right
hand corner (along with your name) of every page.
If you are turning in hard copies, staple the pages together on the top left hand corner. Do
NOT use a folder of any kind.
Your essay is to have a title, centered, one-third of the way down the first page.
It is to be carefully organized and developed with specific examples.
It should follow the MLA style sheet and have a Works Cited page.
Be sure to proofread for typos and grammatical and punctuation errors.
ENG 4973: Language and Landscape in American Poetry
Spring 2008
W. Barker
Final Exam
Choose to answer (2) two of the following questions. For each, you will write a well
organized essay supported by specific examples from the poems. Use examples from (3)
three of the poets we have studied for one question, and (3) three others for the second
question. You will, therefore, be using (3) three poets as examples for one of your essays,
and (3) three different poets for another. You will be using (6) six poets in all for your
examples.
For each of your essays, use the questions as a guide to formulating your own thesis, and
carefully organize your own essay accordingly.
Over the semester we have studied poems by Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot,
H.D., Langston Hughes, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams.
Answer (2) two of the following questions.
1.
“I am large—I contain multitudes,” states Walt Whitman in “Song of Myself.” “I was the
slightest in the House- / I took the smallest Room- ” says Emily Dickinson in P. 486.
In a well organized essay, discuss the ways each of these poets perceives of his or her self in
relation to a surrounding landscape. Of what is the surrounding landscape composed? What
relation does the poet have with that world?
Then choose one of the twentieth century poets we have studied and discuss how he or she
perceives of his or her self in relation to the landscape. Be sure to describe what sort of
world each poet experiences beyond the self, and show how the self fits in, or doesn’t fit, or
interacts with the physical world beyond (or connected with) the individual self.
2.
“The greatest poverty is not to live in a physical world,” said Wallace Stevens. Somewhat
similarly, his contemporary, William Carlos Williams, said, “No ideas but in things.”
Do the poems written by these two poets become vehicles for allowing readers to experience
the physical world? How have poets we have studied formed their poems so that reading the
poem becomes a physical experience? In other words, how do these poets use form (line,
rhythm, sound, stanza) to create the physical world of the poem? How do they use imagery
to express a physical world?
Write a well organized essay in which you discuss these questions in terms of the poems of
Stevens and Williams. Then show how one of the other poets we have studied either
demonstrates these statements made by Stevens and by Williams, or refutes them. Be sure to
use specific examples from the poems.
3. .
J. Hillis Miller posits that from the middle of the nineteenth century, writers began to feel
they could no longer experience God as both immanent and transcendent, a shift in
consciousness that caused many poets to experience the self as only a fragment of a broken
world. If the old certainty that an everlasting heaven had vanished, how, then, did poets see
themselves in relation to mortality, to death?
Using examples from poems by three of the poets we have studied, write a well organized
essay in which you discuss these poets’ views of religion and God, or of death and mortality.
Do they abandon faith altogether? Do they reconfigure faith? Do they argue with, redefine,
or ignore previous definitions of God or divinity, or of death? How do they view the
individual self in relation to deity and/or mortality? What images and/or poetic devices do
they use to state their positions?
4.
“Unreal City,” writes T.S. Eliot in “The Waste Land,” describing how “Under the brown fog
of a winter dawn, / A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many.” Much the imagery in
Eliot’s long poem and in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” derives from an urban
landscape, from a world of human-made objects and edifices.
In a well organized essay, discuss how (3) three of the poets we have studied incorporate
human-made objects and landscapes into their poems. What is the attitude of each poet
toward these images? What is the relation between human constructions and the natural
world? How does the poets’ use of such imagery contribute to overall themes or motifs of
their work?