English 136: Romantic Poetry
Spring 2013–2014; M, W 1:15–3:05; room 200-105
Professor Denise Gigante
Office: 460-329; 725-70r80; Office hours TBD
dgigante@stanford.edu
Romantic poets experimented with conventional verse forms, inventing hybrid forms
(Lyrical Ballads, Dramatic Poem), making vital use of the fragment, rethinking the nature of
symbol and allegory, and otherwise reinventing genres such as romance, drama, and epic.
This course, designed not to overlap with material covered in Poetry and Poetics winter
quarter, will emphasize aesthetics and the philosophy of poetic form.
Required Text: English Romantic Writers, 2nd ed, ed. David Perkins
Week 1:
Poetic Theory
3/31
Coleridge, On the Principles of Genial Criticism; Biographia Literaria, Ch. 1314; On Ancient and Modern Art, Mechanic and Organic Form
4/2
Thomas Love Peacock, The Four Ages of Poetry
Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry
Assignment #1 (due 4/7 in class): Shelley wrote A Defence of Poetry as an
impassioned response in response to his friend Peacock’s essay. Choose an
idea or statement by Peacock, Coleridge, or Shelley and write a 2pp. response
to it. You may choose to adopt the style of either Coleridge or Shelley, but if
so, please subtitle your piece “A Coleridgean” or “A Shelleyan” Response.
Week 2:
Lyrical Ballads I
4/7
Wordsworth, “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” (+1802 appendix); Goody Blake
and Harry Gill; Simon Lee; Anecdote for Fathers; Lines Written in Early
Spring; We are Seven; The Last of the Flock, Her Eyes Are Wild; The Idiot
Boy
4/9
Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, 17–18; Wordsworth, “The Thorn”; Lucy
Poems (315–17)
Week 3:
Lyrical Ballads II
4/14
Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”; Wordsworth, Expostulation
and Reply; The Tables Turned; The Two April Mornings
4/16
Wordsworth, The Old Cumberland Beggar; Michael; Tintern Abbey; There
Was a Boy; Nutting; Coleridge, The Nightingale
Assignment #2 (due 4/21 in class): The traditional ballad voice tends to be
communal, anonymous, and narrative. The poems in Lyrical Ballads
complicate that picture and raise the question of perspective. Choose a
poem and, in 3-4pp., discuss where and how perspective presents an
interesting problem.
Week 4:
Fragment I
4/21
Coleridge, Christabel; Kubla Khan
4/23
Keats, On Seeing the Elgin Marbles; Hyperion, Books 1-3;
Week 5:
Fragment II
4/28
Keats, The Fall of Hyperion; Lamia
4/30
Shelley, Ozymandias; The Triumph of Life
Assignment #3 (due 5/5 in class): Fragments—whether giant relics of the
past that stand as a theme in poetry, or poems that are actually broken off—
present objects of fascination to Romantic poets. Choose a particular
fragment and, in 3-4pp., discuss how it self-consciously works to rupture one
totality and/or produce another. Please keep your focus quite tight.
Week 6:
Symbol and Allegory
5/5
Coleridge, Symbol & Allegory (618); Wordsworth, Resolution and
Independence (335) [review, in this context, Wordsworth, The Old
Cumberland Beggar; The Thorn; Nutting; Lucy Poems; Coleridge,
Christabel]
5/7
Blake, The Mental Traveller; The Crystal Cabinet; The Book of Thel; Visions of
the Daughters of Albion (please read illustrated editions of Thel and Visions at
www.blakearchive.org)
Assignment #4 (due 5/12 in class): Choose a figure (e.g. Geraldine in
Coleridge’s “Christabel,” Wordsworth’s Thorn, Blake’s Clod of Clay) or a
scene that presents itself as allegory (e.g., in Blake’s “Mental Traveler,”
Wordsworth’s “Nutting”) and discuss in 2pp. how the sophisticated manner
in which the poet is using the technique of symbol or allegory.
Week 7:
Romance
5/12
Shelley, Alastor; or the Spirit of Solitude (+ Preface)
5/14
Keats, Eve of St. Agnes; Byron, from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
Week 10:
Drama
5/19
Coleridge, Stage Illusion (614); Byron, Manfred
5/21
Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
Paper Assignment #3 (due 5/12 in class):
Week 8:
Epic I
5/26
Memorial Day: No Class
5/28
Byron, Don Juan (Books I, II)
Week 9:
Epic II
6/2
Wordsworth, Prelude, Books 1-5 (371–396)
6/4
Wordsworth, Prelude, Books 6-14 (396–422)
Assignment #5 (due 6/11 by noon): Please discuss, in 7–8pp., how a single
Romantic poet approaches an age-old genre such as Romance, Drama, or
Epic, and makes it new. Please keep your argument focused by choosing a
single feature of “newness” in one of the longer poems from Weeks 7–9, or
a character who stands out as surprising or unusual in his/her role as an epic
hero, for example, or a tragic hero, a romance quest-hero, a dramatic
antagonist, or damsel in distress.
Course Requirements:
1) Attendance at all class sessions, and active participation. No unexcused absences.
2) Four brief writing assignments: 2 of 2pp (Weeks 1 &6); 2 of 3-4pp. (Weeks 3 &5)
3) One 7–8 pp. paper, due 6/11 at noon. Please refer to three critical sources for
this paper. You may search academic journals (e.g. Studies in Romanticism, Studies in
English Literature, Essays in Criticism, English Literary History, Romanticism, European
Romantic Review, Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net, &c.) or consult the
Romanticism bibliography provided by Broadview Press :
(http://sites.broadviewpress.com/babl/files/2012/01/BiblioVolume4Web.pdf)
or the Select Bibliography provided by Professor Nicholas Halmi of Oxford
(http://users.ox.ac.uk/~engf0119/biblio.html). The Stanford Library also
provides other search tools, including the online catalogue.