Close readings: the modern poem

Aims

This course aims to:

• develop learners’ ability to read modern poems attentively
• examine how poetry of the period, 1880–1980, reflects and responds to modern social and cultural transformations
• encourage comparative analysis of poems, highlighting both differences and resonances across the period

Course content

Close Readings: The Modern Poem will invite you to explore the richness of English poetry from roughly 1880 to 1980, a century of profound artistic and social transformation. On this course, you will develop your skills in the art of close reading – the careful attention to the words, rhythms, images, and patterns of thought that make each poem distinctive. You will read short poems by key figures such as Thomas Hardy, Marianne Moore, Wilfred Owen, and W. H. Auden – as well as some less familiar works – and examine how they developed distinctive responses to the demands of modern life: a world in which religion is open to doubt, democracy is the dominant political system, and daily experience is increasingly shaped by mechanisation and technology.

At the start of each class I will provide background on the poem you’ll be reading and show how they fit into wider trends in modern poetry. Our focus thereafter, however, will not be on broad historical narratives but on the detail of each poem. I want, most of all, to know how you respond to the language of poetry and to help you learn to turn this apprehension of small units of text into a critical understanding of larger contexts. Such reasoning will also allow us to explore connections and contrasts across the century, comparing how different poets address similar themes or experiment with poetic form. By the end of the course, you will have honed your ability to read poems closely, to articulate your observations about poetry’s modern history, and to appreciate the craft and texture of modern poetry.

What to expect on this course

You will be part of a small, immersive seminar where close reading is at the heart of every session. Each class will begin with a short lecture introducing the poets and the key critical ideas you will need to approach the poems. We will then read the poems aloud and engage in guided discussion, exploring the sounds, rhythms, and imagery of the work. This is a highly participatory course: you will be expected to share your interpretations and respond to those of others. 

Course sessions

1. Thomas Hardy and Marianne Moore
on being a poet

2. Amy Lowell and Wilfred Owen
on the experience of war

3. William Carlos Williams and W. H. Auden
on history and the ordinary

4. Muriel Rukeyser and Amiri Baraka
on technology and entertainment

5. Veronica Forrest-Thomson and John Ashberry
on philosophy and its place in poetry

Learning outcomes

As a result of the course, you will gain a greater understanding of the subject, and you should be able to:

• read and analyse poems with close attention to language, sound, rhythm, and imagery
• recognise the modes and procedures of the short poem in the course of the twentieth century
• compare poems of contrasting types around shared themes and forms 

Required reading

There are no compulsory readings for this course. Not long before it begins, you will be sent the texts of the poems to be discussed. However, it may be useful to have read them beforehand – you can find them on the web. The titles are as follows:

Hardy, Thomas, ‘A Poet’ (1914)

Moore, Marrianne, ‘Poetry’ (1919)

Lowell, Amy, ‘Convalescence’ (1914)

Owen, Wilfred, ‘Strange Meeting’ (1917)

Williams, William Carlos, ‘Paterson’ (1926)

Auden, W H, ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’ (1938)

Rukeyser, Muriel, ‘Movie’ (1934)

Baraka, Amiri, [LeRoi Jones], ‘In Memory of Radio’ (1961)

Forrest-Thomson, Veronica, ‘Ducks & Rabbits’ (1971)

Ashberry, John, ‘Paradoxes and Oxymorons’ (1980)