Postgraduate Course: How Poets Work: Form, Metre, and Meaning (ENLI11053)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | English Literature |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | An understanding of metre and other formal characteristics of poetry is essential to literary critics and practising poets alike; it is barely possible to evaluate the effects achieved by an author or to establish one's own style without a working knowledge of the models and modes within and against which individual voice may be defined. Yet all too often the criticism on the subject consists of a series of definitions, with excerpts from poems treated as specimens that exhibit the characteristics described. Aimed at both critics and creative writers, this course is designed to redress the balance, taking actual poems as its starting point and focusing on the play between formal characteristics, such as metre and natural ones, such as rhythm. Naming the parts will be secondary to understanding how they work in practice.
The course will trace a broadly chronological pattern, beginning with forms and metres first attested in Middle English and ending with free verse, but overall chronology will be of less concern than analysis of how individual forms and metres develop: in many weeks the suggested reading will range from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. We shall focus in particular on the way in which grammatical, syntactical and formal elements of the texts interact, and thereby with the way in which form both influences and is influenced by meaning. The aim will be to provide tools not only for close critical reading and historical understanding of the development of poetic genres, but also for the writing of new poetry. Critics and poets alike will gain a thorough knowledge of the poet's medium, and with it the insights that come from thinking through, rather than about, technique.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | Essential course texts. |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
Students successfully completing the course should develop:
- a familiarity with a wide range of distinct poetic forms
- a recognition of and ability to evaluate the historical development of certain forms
- an ability to assess, critically and creatively, the specific interactions of the elements of poetic form and meaning
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Assessment Information
| 1 essay of 4,000 words |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Not entered |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Not entered |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | |
Course secretary | Mrs Anne Mason
Tel: (0131 6)50 3618
Email: Anne.Mason@ed.ac.uk |
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