Course Calendar Note: Weekly Reflections will be due
| DATE | TOPICS AND ASSIGNMENTS | READINGS (to complete before class) |
| Week First: Feet First into Poetry | ||
| Tue 1/28 | Exposition | Sir Philip Sidney, “Sonnet 1” from Astrophil & Stella; Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias” |
| Wed 1/29 | Syllables and Feet; Rhymed Couplets | Geoffrey Chaucer, “General Introduction” to The Canterbury Tales,1-17; Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess” |
| Fri 1/31 | Variations in Meter and Rhyme | Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”; Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” |
| Week Second: Poetic Form and Meter | ||
| Tue 2/4 | Scansion and Sensation | William Blake, “Tyger! Tyger! Burning Bright”; Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses” |
| Wed 2/5 | The English (Shakespearean) Sonnet | Shakespeare, sonnets 73, 116 |
| Fri 2/7 | The Italian (Petrachan) Sonnet | John Milton, “On His Blindness”; William Wordsworth, “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” |
| Week Third: Figurative Language through Birds | ||
| Tue 2/11 | Ekphrasis | John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” |
| Wed 2/12 | No Class Wednesday, 2/12 | |
| Fri 2/14 | Symbol(s) and Perspective(s) | Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” “The Snow Man” |
| Week Fourth: Free Verse and Poetic Experimentation | ||
| Tue 2/18 | Free Verse | The King James Bible, “Psalm 29”; Walt Whitman, “When I heard the learn’d Astronomer,” “I Celebrate Myself”; Langston Hughes, “Theme for English B” |
| Wed 2/19 | Modernism | “Ezra Pound, “In a Station of the Metro”; William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow”; William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming” |
|
CLASS CANCELED; responses to the poems are still welcome! Irregular and Modern Sonnets |
Gerard Manley Hopkins, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire”; Ted Berrigan, “Sonnet 2” | |
| Week Fifth: Shakespearean Tragedy | ||
| Tue 2/25 | Peer Review for Essay 1 | |
| Wed 2/26 | “The Scottish Play” | Introduction to Shakespearean Drama |
| Fri 2/28 | Ambiguity and Close Reading | Macbeth, Act I |
| Week Sixth: Dramatis Personae | ||
| Tue 3/3 | Essay 1 Due | Macbeth, Act II |
| Wed 3/4 | Introduction to Literary Criticism; Close Reading Exercise | Macbeth, Acts II-III |
| Fri 3/6 | Fate and Fortune | Thomas De Quincey, “On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth” |
| Week Seventh | ||
| Tue 3/10 | The Objective Correlative | Macbeth, Act III |
| Wed 3/11 | Introduction to Literary Theory; Theoretical Writing Exercise | T. S. Eliot, “Hamlet and His Problems” |
| Fri 3/13 | “Out, damned spot!” | Macbeth, Acts III-IV |
| Week Eighth | ||
| Tue 3/17 | Hubris and Hamartia | Macbeth, Act IV |
| Wed 3/18 | Modern Literary Criticism | Critical Essay TBA |
| Fri 3/20 | Denouement; Essay 2 (Macbeth) Proposals | Macbeth, Act V |
| Week Ninth: The Short Story | ||
| Tue 3/24 | Allegory | Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” |
| Wed 3/25 | Peer Review for Essay 2 | James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues” |
| Fri 3/27 | The Religious Sense | Baldwin, cont’d. |
| Week Tenth | ||
| Tue 3/31 | Essay 2 due; Epiphany | James Joyce, “Araby” |
| Wed 4/1 | Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery” | |
| Fri 4/3 | John Cheever, “The Swimmer” | |
| Week Eleventh: The Novel | ||
| Tue 4/7 | Introduction to Jane Austen | Emma |
| Wed 4/8 | Final Research Essay Question, Preliminary Bibliography, and Working Thesis Due | Emma |
| Wed 4/8-Thu 4/16 – Spring Break: Read Emma and make space to think about your Research Papers | ||
| Week Twelfth | ||
| Fri 4/17 | Class Canceled (Prof. Nolan on Tour) | Emma |
| Week Thirteenth | ||
| Tue 4/21 | Emma | |
| Wed 4/22 | Free Indirect Discourse | Emma |
| Fri 4/24 | Final Research Essay Rough Drafts Due (I will send you my comments/edits during the break) | Emma |
| Week Fourteenth | ||
| Tue 4/28 | Austen’s Impact on the Novel | Emma |
| Wed 4/29 | Emma | |
| Fri 5/1 | Peer Review for Final Essay | Emma |
| Tue 5/5 | Emma | |
| Wed 5/6 | Resolution | Emma |
| Fri 5/8 | Final Research Essay Due via Blackboard | Emma |
| Week Fifteenth | ||
| Tue 5/12 | Finish Emma | |
| Wed 5/13 | Final Exam Review | Final Exam Review |
| TBA | FINAL EXAM | |
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