A Reading Literature
In order to understand how poems achieve expressiveness by means of rhyme, rhythm, formal structure, and diction, we will devote the first half of the semester to reading, analyzing, and discussing major lyric and narrative poems by poets considered the greatest of their respective eras: Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Pope, Keats, Tennyson, Christina Rossetti, T. S. Eliot, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. In the second half of the course we will study dramatic literature and fiction: one play by G. B. Shaw (Pygmalion) and one by Terence Rattigan, to understand how drama achieves its powerful emotional impact; we will also read a selection of short stories and novellas by notable practitioners of narrative art: Melville (Billy Budd), W. Somerset Maugham, and Katherine Anne Porter (Noon Wine). Six short papers will help you improve your writing skills and your ability to write papers about the three genres of literature. 3 hrs. lect./disc.