English 269 - Modern British Poetry

Michael Thurston

TTh 1:00-2:50 p.m.

 

Rather than attempt a survey of twentieth-century British (and Irish) poetry, this course will follow a number of poets as they grapple with the question of a poet's responsibility in and to his or her historical moment. We will begin with poets of the First World War (Owen, Sassoon, Thomas, Rosenberg), and then read selections of volumes by William Butler Yeats, W.H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, T.S. Eliot, H.D., Philip Larkin, Geoffrey Hill, and Seamus Heaney. Our discussions will focus first on each poet's unique voice and vision and then on how each poet works through the pressing problem of poetic responsibility in the contexts of European war, nationalist terrorism, economic austerity, and cultural repression. Likely texts will include Yeats's Selected Poems and Two Plays , Auden's Selected Poems , MacNeice's Autumn Journal , Eliot' s “Little Gidding,” H.D.'s Trilogy , Larkin's Whitsun Weddings , Hill's Mercian Hymns , and Heaney's North . Students will be required to write one short paper and one long paper as well as a final exam.