Syllabus
1: A. E.
Housman, from A Shropshire Lad (1896)IV, XII, XVI, XIII, XX, XXV, XXVIII, XXXI, XXXII, XXXV, XXXVIII, XLIII, XLIV, XLV, XLIX, LI, LIII, LVI, LIX, LXIII 2: Thomas Hardy, from Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914)Channel Firing, The Convergence of the Twain, The Difference, When I Set out for Lyonesse, Wessex Heights, The Place on the Map, The Schreckhorn, Satires of Circumstance in Fifteen Glimpses, All of the Section entitled ‘Poems 1912-13, Veteris vestigia flammae’ 3: J. M.
Synge (1871-1909)I curse my bearing, I read about the Blaskets, I know the songs of the shower, To Ronsard, Prelude, On an Island, Dread, Samhain, In May, On a Birthday, A Question4: Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)The Torrent, Aaron Stark, Supremacy, Boston, A Poem for Max Nordau, The Children of the Night, Luke Havergal, Ballade of the Broken Flutes, The House on the Hill, Richard Cory, The Clerks, Verlaine, Cliff Klingenhagen21 April: Robert Frost (1874-1963)A Boy’s Will (1913), North of Boston (1914)28 April: W. B.
Yeats (1865-1939), Responsibilities (1914)5 May: T. S.
Eliot (1888-1963)Prufrock and Other Observations (1917)12 May: Edward Thomas (1878-1917)Poems written in 191519 May: Edward ThomasPoems written in 1916
Annotation
This course offers a new approach to the categorization and reading of poetic works from the beginning of the twentieth century. Previous critical models emphasised the narrative of Modernism as the basic framework for the period; we will explore the degree to which the direction and intensity of poetic creation accords with this characterisation, testing the continuity with authors of the nineteenth century, both in formal and thematic terms.
The novelty here lies primarily in the choice of poets such as Hardy and Yeats, who smoothly ensured the momentum of conventional formal poetry, while also offering new ways to revalue, transform and ultimately renew anglophone poetry.