LIT 4033

This course will provide 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 politics and poetry; and to modern poetry’s relationship with other developments in the arts, such as modern painting. Poets we will study include many of the most influential American poets, including Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Mina Loy, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen, and Robert Frost.