Undergraduate Course: Modern American Poets and the Visual Arts (LLLG07080)
Course Outline
School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 7 (Year 1 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
Summary | THIS IS A FOR-CREDIT COURSE OFFERED BY THE OFFICE FOR LIFELONG LEARNING (OLL); ONLY STUDENTS REGISTERED WITH OLL SHOULD BE ENROLLED.
Modern poets have often been interested in trends and events happening in the visual arts. Starting from the doctrine of the image outlined by Ezra Pound in 1912, poets on both sides of the Atlantic sought to develop the visual aspect of poetry, either by explicitly referring to specific works of art in their work, modelling poetic form on painting, sculpture, or design, writing articles and elaborating poetic manifestos using art theorising as inspiration, or even collecting art themselves. Artists responded in kind, by painting or modelling portraits of poets or integrating icons of them in their work. This course aims to explore these networks of influence, both at personal and artistic level and understand the ways in which poetry and art enriched each other's modes of expression. |
Course description |
Week 1: Introduction. Modern poetry and the arts.
Week 2: Embodying America. Walt Whitman and the Hudson River School. 'Starting from Paumanok' (Leaves of Grass, 1892)
Week 3: Gertrude Stein and Modernist painting: 'Picasso' and 'Matisse' (1908. Camera Work 1912)
Week 4: Ezra Pound, the doctrine of the image and the London Vorticism. Cathay (1915).
Week 5: Ezra Pound and the cubist collage in poetry. Canto 8 (1925).
Week 6: William Carlos Williams and the American modernist painting.(Spring and All, 1923)
Week 7: Wallace Stevens between Cezanne and Dada (Harmonium, 1923)
Week 8: The poet as painter. The painting as poem: e.e. cummings (Tulips and Chimneys, 1923) and Kenneth Patchen 'Painted poems' (Collected Poems, 1969)
Week 9: On the move: Frank O'Hara and abstract expressionism. (In Memory of My Feelings, 1967)
Week 10: Revisiting portraiture: John Ashberry. 'Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror' (1975)
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
* demonstrate a familiarity with the relationship between poetry and the visual arts in modern America
* understand the relevance of the visual in modern poetry
* evaluate the importance of the personal and artistic connections between poets and painters/sculptors.
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Reading List
Essential
Ashberry, John. 1990. Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Cummings, E. E. 1997. Tulips and Chimneys. New York: Liveright.
O'Hara, Frank. 2005. In Memory of my Feelings. Selected Poems. Ed. Bill Berkson. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
Patchen, Kenneth. 1968. Collected Poems. New York: New Directions
Pound Ezra. 1964. The Cantos. London: Faber.
Pound, Ezra. 1968. Collected Shorter Poems. London: Faber.
Stein, Gertrude. 1934. Portraits and Prayers. New York: Random House
Stevens, Wallace. 1975. Harmonium. London: St. James Press.
Whitman, Walt. 1965. Leaves of Grass. New York: New York UP.
Williams, Carlos William. 2000. Selected Poems. Harmondsworth: Penguin Modern Classics.
Recommended
Bohan, Ruth. 2006. Looking into Walt Whitman. American Art 1850-1920. University Park: Penn State UP.
Halter, Peter. 1994. The Revolution in the Visual Arts and the Poetry of William Carlos Williams. Cambridge: CUP.
Ferguson, R. 1999. In Memory of My Feelings. Frank O'Hara & American Art. Berkeley: U. of California Press.
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Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills |
* Critical reading and analysis
* Participation in discussion
* Collaborative working
* Composition of discursive essays
* Understanding of interpersonal relationships.
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Special Arrangements |
None |
Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
Course organiser | Dr Anya Clayworth
Tel:
Email: aclaywor@staffmail.ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Sabine Murdoch
Tel: (0131 6)51 1855
Email: Sabine.Murdoch@ed.ac.uk |
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