CE 320, Thurs. 11:30-2:15

Professor: Dr. Mark Silverberg
Office: CC 214
Office Phone: 563-1150
Office hours: Mon & Wed 3:45-4:30, Thurs 3-4:30
E-mail: mark_silverberg@capebretonu.ca

"Poetry is a renovation of experience.

Originality is an escape  from repetition." 

  (Wallace Stevens)

Images: (top) Robert Frost, Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams; (middle) Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, Gertrude Stein; (bottom) Amiri Baraka, Ezra Pound, Frank O'Hara.

Kenneth Patchen Slides

James Schuyler Slides

Course Description

From Pound and Eliot’s international modernism to Robert Frost’s backwoods trails; from the telling silences of Elizabeth Bishop to rowdy proclamations of Allen Ginsberg; from Plath’s and Lowell’s Confessional angst to O’Hara and Ashbery’s ironic camp; from New York City’s dockyards, art studios, Jewish ghettos, and Harlem streets, the major American poets of the twentieth century have been at the cutting edge of cultural and artistic innovation. Beginning with the two most influential American poets of the 19th century, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, this course will examine the voices and visions of some of the essential poets of modernism and postmodernism. Through formal, historical, and cultural analysis we will work to appreciate both the poets’ innovations and the changing American landscape their works reflect. Topics and movements such as Imagism, Objectivism and Black Mountain poetry, the Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts movement, Feminist poetry, Confessional poetry, Beat poetry, and New York School poetry will be examined. .

Texts

Ramazani, Ellmann, O’Clair, eds. The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry.

William Carlos Williams, Imaginations .

Kenneth Patchen, Selected Poems

Procedure, Assignments and Workload

This is a small class in a big space: a dynamic which offers challenging and rewarding possibilities.   Because of the length of the class and the relatively small size considerable emphasis will be put on your contribution. In order to contribute effectively in this seminar you need to do the following things:

•  Attend class regularly, having completed the reading and any homework questions, and being ready to participate in discussions.   To facilitate this discussion, I'd like everyone to come to each class with at least one prepared question, comment, observation, challenge, etc.

•  Read in a thorough and active way: i.e. marking up your text and taking notes—thinking about what is important, intriguing, odd, or worthwhile for you.   Readings for poetry classes tend to be shorter—but more intense—than those for prose-based classes.   Please try to read at least some of the poems (those that interest you most) more than once.

•  Read and post messages to the class Message Board on a regular basis.   You are required to complete at least one response per week, but I encourage you to go beyond this and especially to respond to other students' messages.   The message board is a great source for generating ideas and essay topics, expanding your notes, keeping up with your colleagues, etc.

•  Complete the short response assignments and come to class prepared to discuss your answer.

 

You should allot at least 8 hours a week for work outside of class time.

 

Please feel free to see me anytime during office hours, or make an appointment for another time if these don’t work for you.

Evaluation

Essays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . .35% first term; 40% second term

                                                                            (3@ 35% total; 1@ 10%, 1@ 30%)

 

Christmas and Final Exams . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . 35% (each term)

 

Responses . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . .  . . . .  . . . . . . . . .  15%  (each term)

 

Presentations. . . . . . . . .  . . . .  . . . . . . .  . . . . . .   . .15% first term; 10% second term

*Click here for Grading Scale and Criteria

 

Responses / Message Board Posts

 

On most weeks I will ask you to complete a short (approximately one page) informal assignment that records your thoughts about the poet/poems under consideration for the day.   Some responses will be to specific assigned questions; others will be left more open-ended. While the style of this work can be informal, I will still expect specific illustrations, examples, or quotations to substantiate your ideas.   Assignments must be posted to the Web CT message board by 6 pm the day before class at the latest and handed in to me in hard copy on the day of class .   Late assignments will not be accepted .   Responses will be evaluated as credit (acceptable, 1 point), no credit (unacceptable, 0 points), or credit plus (exceptional responses, 1.3 points).   Your grade will be based on the number of assignments you complete and their quality (For example, if there are 10 assignments and you receive credit for each you would score 10/13 = 77% or a B+; if you handed in all 10 and received credit+ for 3 of those, your grade would be 84% or an A)

 

Presentations

 

As well as regular class contributions each day, you will be asked to do three individual presentations on single poems.   These can be based on the poems you will use for your essays. Presentations should be about 10 minutes long—with additional time available for class discussion. I strongly encourage you not to read your presentations from a paper, but to speak or perform them (using your notes as much as you need).   Presentations given in an engaged and lively way are both the most interesting and the most likely to stimulate response.

 

Each presentation should begin with a rehearsed reading of the poem (or section of a longer poem) and some kind of oral thesis statement, by which you introduce the class to the main point you want to prove or emphasize in your presentation.   Because of the short time allotment, focus and purpose are essential for this kind of presentation.   Tell us what we're going to learn from your presentation before you begin.   A portion of your time must be spent looking closely at the poet's language: voice, tone, diction, imagery, figures of speech, overall structure, sound effects, allusions (where recognizable), etc.   Of course, you needn't comment on all these things; you might in fact focus on only one or a few.   Your presentation should end with one or more provocative questions for the class to consider.

 

Possible things you might do:

- Connect the poem to a larger theme (one we've considered in class or not).

- Connect this poem with other works from this poet or compare/contrast it with the work of another poet on the course.

- Connect the work to the movement the poet represents.   How does it fit the pattern and how does it differ? How is it representative?   How is it unique? Where are its anomalies?

 

Essays

In first term you will write three short papers (approximately 1000-1200 words) analyzing single poems (worth 35% of your first term grade in total).   Essays will be on the same poet/poem as your presentations and will be due one week after your presentation date (which you will sign up for in class). In second term, you will write one short paper and then a long research paper—topics for these will be discussed later.

 

I would suggest that you begin your first term essays by brainstorming: listing, journaling, free-writing, clustering, asking questions, etc. to start generating some ideas on paper .   A dictionary will be an essential source at this stage.   Look up words you know the meaning of as well as those you don't.   (Note: the Oxford English Dictionary is available on-line through the library website

 

Next, I would suggest doing a careful, line by line paraphrase of the poem.   This will likely lead not only to new discoveries but also new questions .   Continue your pre-writing by asking yourself questions about the poem and making notes on your answers.   At this stage you may want to use the class handouts on reading poetry to help generate questions .

 

These questions are the starting point for your essay.   Your final paper should be not a random collection of insights into the poem, however, but a well-focus argument about what and how the poem means.   In other words, your essay needs to have a clear thesis.   Having considered how the poem's multiple elements (voice, tone, diction, imagery, sound, structure, etc. contribute to the poem's total meaning, state that total meaning as a thesis about the poem. Then prove you've got it right by presenting the evidence and analysis that led you to your conclusions.

Essay Presentation

All graded work must adhere to the following guidelines:

- All essays must be typed or word-processed, double spaced, with a one inch margin on both sides and at the top and bottom of the page.   All pages should be numbered.   Staple pages together.   Put your student number instead of your name , along with your essay title, date, etc. on a title page or at the top of the first page.   Use as standard size font—Times Roman 12 point is a good choice (you do not want a font much bigger or much smaller).   Please avoid fancy graphics or distracting fonts.

- Essays are due in class on the assigned date.   If you are unable to be in class that day, make an arrangement with me at least 24 hours in advance .   Late assignments will receive a penalty of –5% for the first day late, and then –10% for up to one week late.   After a week I will not accept assignments.

- Essays must meet university-level standards for basic grammar, mechanics, sentence structure, and formatting.   To meet this standard essays can have no more than 3 errors of any type per page.   Papers that do not live up to this standard will receive a full grade (10%) deduction.   Papers considerably below this standard may not receive a passing grade.

.
A Note on Plagiarism and the Internet

Plagiarism means taking another person's words or ideas as your own without properly acknowledging their source. This can include anything from buying an essay, downloading one off the internet, copying sentences or phrases from an unacknowledged source (cutting and pasting lines from internet sites), or using someone else's ideas (whether in direct quotation or paraphrase) without giving them credit.   Plagiarism is a serious academic offense with serious consequences.   Cases of plagiarism will be reported to the relevant dean's office and students will face the following penalties: First offence: zero on the assignment and offence noted on the student's academic file; second offence: zero in the course, and possible discontinuation from CBU; third offence: discontinuation from CBU .   Avoid unintentional plagiarism by making sure you keep careful record of any ideas or text you've borrowed from other sources. When working with text on the internet, always cut and paste the URL at the top of your page so you'll be able to easily refer back and cite your source.

ENGLISH 352 FIRST SEMESTER CALENDAR

The following is a general syllabus which indicates daily topics and readings. While some readings may change slightly based on our progress, you should plan to read at least all of the following:

ENGLISH 352 SECOND SEMESTER CALENDAR

The following is a general syllabus which indicates daily topics and readings. While some readings may change slightly based on our progress, you should plan to read at least all of the following:

Handouts and Resources

Course Requirements: Second Term

Contemporary American Poetry Final Paper

Modernism: some background notes