LIT 4033 Spring 2022 Epstein

This course provides students with a firm grounding in modernism and modern American poetry. It will also give you the skills necessary to read, understand, enjoy, and write about poetry in general. We will engage in a comprehensive investigation of the major figures, movements, and innovative styles in modern American poetry, as we move from its roots in the 19th century (Whitman and Dickinson) to the mid-20th century. The course will pay special attention to ongoing debates about the definition and nature of “modernism”; to situating the poetry within its cultural and historical context; to issues of gender, race, and the dialogue between poetry and politics; and to modern poetry’s relationship with other developments in the arts, such as modern painting.

Our in-depth study of the major American modernist poets will stress the central role of experimentation and avant-garde poetics within the American tradition. Throughout, we will consider the perennial question that has long concerned both poets and critics: what, if anything, is distinctively American about American poetry? How do poets respond to the tumultuous cultural and political upheavals of the 20th century? How do these poets develop new forms in order to capture the experience of everyday life in the modern world? Poets we will study include many of the most influential modern American poets, including Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Mina Loy, Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Robert Frost.

This course meets the Genre requirement for LMC majors.