Introduction to PoetryModule Details

Background and Rationale
 

This module will introduce students, through study of a wide range of poems by poets writing in English from the early modern to the contemporary periods, and including some American poetry, to some of this poetic tradition’s major verse forms, modes of organization, and genres (e.g. blank verse, the couplet, the stanza, lyric, elegy, sonnet, epic, pastoral, ode, open form). Students will be introduced to the often shifting relationship between genre and theme (e.g. elegy and death).

Learning Outcomes

After completion of the course students are expected to be able to:
 Recognize the main themes and stylistic concerns of English Poetry
 Explain poetic terms and illustrate these in examples
 Situate English Poetry within a wider literary context
 Formulate interpretations of poems in coherent essays and assignments
 Assess the contribution of poetry to English Literature