Literary Histories (200-0-20)

Instructors

Matthew Davis

Meeting Info

Locy Hall 106: Tues, Thurs 9:30AM - 10:50AM

Overview of class

Topic: Sonnet Boom: An Introduction to a Versatile Form

In this seminar we will critically examine persistent hallmarks of the sonnets and how they have been creatively adapted to different purposes and contexts over time. Using Phillis Levin's Penguin Book of the Sonnet as our text, we will proceed in reverse chronological order, starting with twentieth-century sonnets that feature language and cultural assumptions similar to our own. From there, we will move steadily backward, all the way to the 16th century, such that the level of linguistic and cultural difficulty rises gradually. Sonnet writers to be featured will include classic English poets like Christina Rossetti, William Wordsworth, John Keats, John Donne, George Herbert, William Shakespeare, and Sir Philip Sidney, Americans like Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Emma Lazarus, E. A. Robinson, and Edgar Allan Poe, and representatives of cultures from around the world, like Claude McKay, Seamus Heaney, Judith Rodriguez, and Julia Alvarez. Many of the sonnets to be read will focus on love and romantic relationships, but there will be fourteen-line excursions into religion, politics, history, philosophy, science, and nature.

Teaching Method

Seminar

Evaluation Method

Students will memorize at least one sonnet of their choosing and learn, via the Oxford English Dictionary, how slippery or evolving meanings of single words over time complicate and enrich our interpretations. Written assignments will include two or three short response papers organized around research skills and a longer paper or dialogue digging into a sonnet or a passage in a sonnet. This last paper will be drafted, workshopped, and revised.

Class Attributes

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
SoC Humanities and Fine Arts Distro