01 CAC MW5 12145 COIRO MU-213
The Imitation of the Past and the Invention of Modernity
Seventeenth-century poetry is formally innovative and politically and intellectually daring. It is often funny and sexy; politically radical and (by our lights) politically inappropriate; part of the past and deeply relevant to the current moment. And sometimes it is all these things at the same time.
This class will read poems closely and in context. You will get a deep immersion into the craft of making poetry and the craft of reading poetry and writing about it. Through the process of working with these poems, you will engage with many now contemporary problems that first profoundly shaped the 17C: the long trauma of civil war; colonialism and the instantiation of the slave trade; the dawning understanding of the human degradation of the natural world; and the seismic shift in scientific understanding and the backlash against it.
We will read several poets whose work has had an enormous influence, shaping the history of English poetry (including John Donne, Ben Jonson, George Herbert, John Milton and Andrew Marvell). We will also read other major poets who were, until recently, cut out of serious consideration (including Amelia Lanyer, Mary Wroth, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Bradstreet, Katherine Philips and Hester Pulter).
Students will write a series of short papers, some critical and some creative. There will be no final exam. Attendance and participation are very important.