Undergraduate Course: Understanding Poetry (LLLG07073)
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.
This course is an introduction to the theory of poetry. It provides an overview of the key categories of poetry, aiming to give students a theoretical and critical toolkit necessary in the analysis of poems. The course would work by examples and seek to provide a combination of theoretical principles and close reading. |
| Course description |
Week 1: Introduction. Poetry and Prose.
Week 2: The Main Categories of Poetry. Metre, Rhythm, Line, Rhyme. Types of Poem.
Week 3: The Language of Poetry. Metaphors and General Troping.
Week 4: The Poetic Genres. Epic/ Lyric/ Dramatic. The Epic and the Problems of Narrative Poetry.
Week 5: The Lyrical Genre and the Expression of Subjectivity.
Week 6: Poetry and Drama. Shakespeare, Browning, Eliot.
Week 7: Alternative Categorisations. Melopoeia/ Phanopoeia/ Logopoeia. On poetry meant to be sung. Poe, Hopkins. Alliteration and refrain.
Week 8: Phanopoeia and modern poetry. Imagism. Ezra Pound and H.D.
Week 9: Logopoeia -- the dance of the intellect among words. The Poetry of Reflection. Dickinson, Eliot, Ashberry.
Week 10: Conclusions. Poetry today. The revolution of modernity in poetry's status and function.
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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:
* explain the theoretical vocabulary necessary to the understanding of poetry.
* demonstrate close reading skills
* discuss the relationship between poetics and a poet's textual practice
* demonstrate an insight into personal taste and criteria of evaluating poetic texts.
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Reading List
Essential
Class handouts with texts for close reading will be made available on a week to week basis.
Reeves, James. 1965. Understanding Poetry, London: Heinemann.
Recommended
Turco, Lewis. 2000. The Book of Forms. A Handbook of Poetics, Hanover and London: University Press of New England. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
* Critical reading and analysis
* Participation in discussion
* Collaborative working
* Composition of discursive essays |
| Special Arrangements |
None |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Ms Rachael King
Tel:
Email: Rachael.King@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Zofia Guertin
Tel: (0131 6)51 1855
Email: Zofia.Guertin@ed.ac.uk |
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