DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS – FALL SEMESTER 2008
3010-001 CREATIVE WRITING, MW 9:30-10:45 BRADLEY
In this class students will develop writing skills by studying narrative and poetic conventions, reading exemplary poems and stories, and analyzing works in progress. Students are required to write fifteen pages of fiction and five poems. Students will also complete short writing exercises and are required to critique each other's work. However the class is not a competition ; it is a supportive, nurturing environment for helping us all to become better readers and writers.
3010-002 CREATIVE WRITING, MW 11-12:15 SHELDON
The writing workshop will introduce students to the craft of dialogue, monologue, short fiction and poetry. Students will do a significant amount of journal writing, and some of that material will be workshopped in small groups or with the entire class. There will be two portfolios submitted for a significant part of the grade (one at midterm and one at end of term). Quality participation is expected as students become stronger self-editors and editors of their peers' works. Also, students will be expected to build a “literary terms dictionary” throughout the term. Finally, there will be some readings, in-class assessments of those readings, as well as a midterm and final exam.
3010-003 CREATIVE WRITING, TR 11-12:15 LIPMAN
A writer's workshop introducing students to the practice of poetry, short fiction, visual language and other approaches to imaginative writing. For the serious beginner who wants to inventively explore language. How to begin, advance, compose and revise a creative text. Regular in-class prompts and exercises; out of class assignments. Grade based upon a portfolio of the semester's work. Expect to write regularly, practice, keep an author's journal or notebook and have your work distributed and discussed in class.
3010-004 CREATIVE WRITING, TR 5:45-7:00 STAFF
A basic introduction to creative writing. Students write poems, stories or creative nonfiction which serve as the basis for classroom discussion and for conferences with instructor. Prerequisite: College Comp. II
3010-005 CREATIVE WRITING, TR 7:20-8:35 STAFF
(SAME DESCRIPTION AS ABOVE)
3050-001 PERSUASIVE WRITING, TR 7:20-8:35 CATANAZARO
Analysis of and practice in the techniques of persuasive writing. Emphasis varies from writing about legal issues to writing about issues of public controversy.
3080-001 THE ART & PROCESS OF THE BOOK, MW 2-3:15 GEIGER
In this class students will learn about the history of the book, from scrolls, to the codex, to electronic publishing. We will examine the relationship between authors and publishers, in regards to the American small-press movement, in order to develop a deeper appreciation for the concept of the book. Students will learn the fundamentals of operating a small-press, and will have hands-on experience in the book arts, by producing (printing and binding) a limited edition letterpress chapbook of their own design .
3150-001 LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLES – WAC, MW 2-3:15, UH 4280 COLEMAN
This course focuses largely on human communication via speech and text. Neither is taken in isolation, however. Speech is one medium, in the real world, integrated with gesture, eye contact, body posture, movement, physical interaction with one's surroundings, and so on. Texts can be seen as having analogous components; for example, even an unillustrated book communicates something by the fact that it is unillustrated (that it is not to be understood in the same way as a comic book or graphic novel) and that it is bound as a book (that it is not to be read in the same way as, say, an article in Maxim magazine). Students will learn (1) about language as an ancient non-real-world explanation for human communication and (2) how we can instead see human communication in integrated, real-world terms . There are required readings for each class. Assignments include homework (which involves observing people communicating in real-world situations), a midterm exam, and a final exam (the exams contain multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions testing memory / comprehension of basic and advanced course concepts). Students are offered three grading options: (1) homework, class attendance/participation, midterm, and final; (2) midterm and final exams only; or (3) final exam only. Interested students are encouraged to contact the professor for details (Douglas.Coleman@utoledo.edu).
3150-002 LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLES – MW 4:10-5:25, UH 4280 COLEMAN
(SAME DESCRIPTION AS ABOVE)
3150-003 LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLES – TR 12:30-1:45 SIEGEL
This course is an introduction to basic principles of sound structure and sentence structure in natural language. Students begin by learning to use a phonetic alphabet for notating the sounds of speech and a simple descriptive terminology for classifying speech sounds. These tools are then put to active use in a number of exercises that involve distinguishing between sounds and the conventional spellings that represent them, capturing dialect differences, addressing certain language policy issues, and expressing generalizations regarding the behavior of speech sounds. The investigation of phonology continues with a study of the relation between the patterning of speech sounds and their perception; it ends with an investigation of the notion "phonological rule." The syntax unit of the course motivates the notions of deep and surface structure mediated by transformations. Emphasis is given to the distinction between universal, as opposed to language-particular, aspects of language structure. Cross-listed with LING 3150/5/7.
3600-001 AMERICAN LITERARY TRADITIONS, MW 9:30-10:45 LINDSAY
A study of major works by major American writers. Class discussion will focus on major short stories of writers and poems such as Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. There will be several short papers on assigned topics. In the final, you will comment on short passages from class discussions.
3720-001 LITERATURE AND MYTHOLOGY, MW 12:30-1:45 TURLEY
This course begins with an overview of selected creation myths and then specifically explores Western myths from Greek and Roman society using a wide variety of such genres as the epic (e.g. The Iliad ), poems, art, and drama. The course then further explores how archetypal characters and concepts as well as universal motifs of mythology shape events and characters through the ages. Students will be expected to identify these motifs (e.g. the hero's quest and cycles of nature) and recognize archetypal characters such as the guide, the temptress, the scapegoat etc. using some contemporary models. Some sources will be Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, Virgil, and Joseph Campbell. Students will write one paper, take quizzes and examinations as well as participate in class discussion.
3730-001 FOLKLORE-WAC, TR 3:30-4:45 COMPORA
This web assisted course examines different types of folklore and its importance in culture. This course primarily focuses on the work of noted American Folklore scholar Jan Harold Brunvand, though other perspectives are examined. This course delves into many different genres, such as folk music, folk games, religious and familial traditions, riddles, games, poetry and proverbs. Special emphasis is placed on urban legends and folklore in popular media. The course requires a research project in which students gather and research folklore, along with possible short writing assignments, quizzes, and an exam.
3750-001 WOMEN AND LITERATURE – WAC, TR 4:10-5:25 STAFF
Examines literary works in light of major issues raised by feminist criticism. Specific emphasis varies.
3770-001 WORLD LITERATURES & CULTURES, MW 8-9:15 ERBEN
World Literature(s) focuses on poetry, drama, autobiography, and fiction in English from around the world (with an emphasis on the non-Western world). The course examines postcolonial themes and techniques in an historical context, asking what postcolonial means. We begin with alternative readings of canonical texts like The Tempest and late nineteenth-century imperial fictions by such writers as Conrad and Kipling and turn to recent literature by Achebe, Desai, Rushdie and others. Topics include colonization and decolonization; writing in the colonizer ' s language, the relationship of the postcolonial to the postmodern and Orientalism. Cultural and historical context will be integrated into discussion by means of lectures and study questions.
3790-001 FOUNDATIONS OF LITERARY STUDY – WAC, TR 12:30-1:45 FREE
The new title and description of this course, “Foundations of Literary Study: “An overview and introduction to the discipline of literary study, its history, its methods, and its specialized language,” clarify its relationship to the English major and to the study of the humanities in general. The course introduces you to various approaches to the reading and criticism of literary texts and to the language used in discussing texts. It also gives you some practice in using these approaches and language. There will be a mid-term and final examination, both of which will test your ability to interpret and analyze texts using the terminology in the Guide . In addition you will be asked to write an eight to ten page paper.
3790-002 FOUNDATIONS OF LITERARY STUDY – WAC, TR 5:45-7:00 STAFF
An overview and introduction to the discipline of literary study, its history, its methods, and its specialized languages. Prerequisite: Comp. II or its equivalent (required).
3810-001 SHAKESPEARE I, MW 5:45-7:00 MATTISON
This course is an introduction to Shakespeare via a selection of plays drawn from the various genres in which he wrote—comedy, tragedy, history, and romance—and from all of the periods of his career. The emphasis throughout will be on the study of Shakespeare's language—the choices he has made on a small level—a study that should serve both as an introduction to this quintessential English playwright and a preparation for more advanced work on Shakespeare or other Renaissance writers. We will also discuss the historical background of Elizabethan England and the Renaissance theater.
3980-001 WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE, TR 3:30-4:45 STAFF
Group study of a period, genre, author or special literary topic.
4070-001 WRITING WORKSHOP – POETRY, MW 5:45-7:00 GEIGER
This workshop-format course is for the practicing poet. Each class will begin with a serious discussion of a poetry-related topic, or a reading assignment, and advance into the actual workshop itself. Students will work towards achieving a final unified portfolio of completed poems (a chapbook). Grades will be based on that portfolio (chapbook) and on class discussion and participation.
4080-001 WRITING WORKSHOP – FICTION, MW 12:30-1:45 BRADLEY
The goal of this course is to further develop writing skills which have been established in an introductory writing course. Students will study narrative conventions by considering theories of how stories are put together as well as how they can be taken apart. Students will review the rules of writing a traditional short story as they also consider ways to bend and break these rules. At the end of the quarter students will have written thirty pages of fiction and a revision. One story will be read and critiqued by the class. Although this will be basically a writing workshop, we will also read model stories from an anthology. Text to be used is Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft .
4090-001 CURRENT WRITING THEORY – WAC, MW 7:20-8:35 EDGINGTON
In this course, we will focus on past and current theories in the field of writing studies. Throughout the semester, students will read literature and research in such areas as process writing, literacy studies, writing and technology, writing and the community, social issues and writing studies, and motivation for writing. In addition to classroom discussions, students will be expected to participate in small group and online discussions and produce several academic papers, research texts, and reflective essays. The purpose of the course is to help students begin to understand their own writing theories and practices and how these can be used in future work and education environments.
4100-001 THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH, MW 12:30-1:45 SIEGEL
Prerequisite: Eng./Ling. 3150/5/7. Fluency with phonetic transcription and with the basic vocabulary of linguistic description is presupposed. This course is a survey of the social, historical, political, and purely linguistic forces that have shaped the English language from its origin in Indo-European down to the present. The course incorporates information concerning relevant library and web resources, and it features a visit to the Canaday Center to view examples of manuscripts and early printed books. Cross-listed with LING-4100/5/7.
4170/6-001 APPLIED LINGUISTICS RESEARCH & THEORY II, TR 11-12:15 REICHELT
Course is crosslisted as LING 4170. Focuses on theories of second/foreign language acquisition especially, but not exclusively, as they relate to English as a Second Language. Prerequisite: ENGL or LING 4150.
4200/5-001 BRITISH FICTION: 18 TH CENTURY, TR 9:30-10:45 FREE
This is a course in the rise of the novel as a major literary genre. Although the readings will be in eighteenth-century novels, there will be discussion of the relationship of eighteenth-century works to works written in prior ages that were called novels and to other literary genres. The novels chosen to be read show the range of possibilities explored by eighteenth-century writers and the lines of development that were continued in subsequent periods. The novels to be read are: Clarissa , Tom Jones , and Tristram Shandy . There will be a one-hour mid-term test, a final examination, and a term paper discussing the relationship of an eighteenth-century novel not on the list to the novels read in class.
4210/5-001 – L ISSUES IN ESL WRITING, TR 12:30-1:45 REICHELT
Course content includes key concepts in ESL writing instruction and research; characteristics of second language writers and their texts; curricular options; and responding to and assessing ESL writing.
4400/5410-001 EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE, TR 2-3:15 FITZGERALD
Early English Literature covers roughly 500 years of English literature and culture and a dizzying wealth of genres, ideas, themes, and stories enjoyed by audiences and readers in Anglo-Saxon through late medieval England (up to 1500). It also includes literature both sacred and profane—and often a surprising mix of the two—written by men and women in genres as diverse as heroic poetry, saints' lives, devotional texts, autobiography, bawdy tales, allegory, popular drama, personal letters, lyric poetry, and more. Thus, each offering of this course will attempt to focus on a single theme or interrelated range of issues or texts. Most readings will be in translation, although some of the easier Middle English texts will be in the original language, with plenty of glosses, notes, and instruction to assist your reading. Course requirements and graded materials will likely include a series of short papers to sharpen your analytic and close reading skills, a medium-length essay, and a final research paper divided into various stages. This course satisfies requirements for a course in pre-1800 literature.
4540/5-001 BRITISH LITERATURE: 20 TH CENTURY, MW 11-12:15 LINDSAY
A study of early twentieth century British poetry and criticism. We will read works by Hardy, Hopkins, Thomas, Housman, Yeats, Lawrence, Sassoon, Owen, and Auden. Several short papers will be required and a final exam. We will us The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry , 2 nd ed.
4620/5-001 AMERICAN ROMANTICISM, TR 11-12:15 REISING
This course focuses on American writing from the middle third of the nineteenth century, a time of social upheaval and artistic experimentation. Moreover, the decade from 1845 to 1855 produced many of the works we regard as the “classics” of American literature, including Emerson's “American Scholar” essay, Hawthorne ' s The Scarlet Letter , Alcott ' s Little Women , Melville ' s Moby-Dick , Thoreau ' s Walden , Douglass ' s Narrative , and Whitman ' s Leaves of Grass . Of course many other important writers, Poe and Dickinson, for example, were also active during these years. We will read widely in the literature of the era, among both commonly acknowledged classics and less well known but equally important works of art. Students will have a challenging reading list and will write two substantial papers and take a comprehensive (take home) final examination. Class attendance and participation will be required.
4640/5-001 EARLY 20 TH CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY, TR 8-9:15 LUNDQUIST
Modern poetry: “It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place. / It has to face the men of the time and to meet / The women of the time. It has to think about war / And it has to find what will suffice.” -- Wallace Stevens. This course is a survey of the contributions made by American poets to the international movement in the arts called modernism. We will read poetry and essays by T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, H.D., Langston Hughes, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams. Among the critical questions that this reading provokes are the following: What was modernism? How are the tenets of artistic movements such as dada, futurism, imagism, and surrealism used by American poets? What is the relationship of modern poetry to modern painting and music? How do the poets deal with their literary and cultural inheritances--English (Romantic and Victorian), European, African? How does each poet react in his/her work to the "complex fate" (James) of being an American? How do these poets exploit the "American language"? How does modern poetry anticipate or accommodate new readings of experience suggested by science, psychology, sociology, literary theory, feminism? Students will practice writing about poetry in frequent short papers. An oral presentation and a longer final paper will be required, as well as a final exam.
4650/5-001 AFRICAN AMERICAN WRITERS PRE-20 TH CENTURY, T 7:20-9:50 PHELPS
America is defined by a confluence of cultural experiences and perspectives embodied by its earliest inhabitants. An evaluation of texts produced by early African-American writers in particular will engage the ways in which this specific yet complex cultural perspective is integral to our historical and popular perceptions of American life. This semester, we will discover how these earlier American literary voices inspire our thinking about how we continue to define a collective American national identity and how this ideal is characterized by individual American voices in other mediums as well, including visual art and film.
4690/5-001 NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE & CULTURE, MW 11-12:15 ERBEN
Native American Literature and Culture interrogates a selection of texts by and about Native Americans, including the oral traditions of storytelling and mythology and selections by contemporary writers. The genres examined will be film, autobiography, poetry, short fiction, novels, history, and manifestos. We will read and discuss texts by Vine Deloria, Sherman Alexie, Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, and others. Cultural and historical context will be integrated into discussion by means of lectures and study questions.
4850/5-001 CHARLES DICKENS, MW 2-3:15 GREGORY
Spontaneous combustion! Ghosts! Mistaken identity! Orphans, pickpockets, stalkers, and eccentrics galore! You will encounter all this and much more in the works of Charles Dickens. A novelist, journalist, playwright, and performer, Dickens was one of the most successful authors of the nineteenth century, and his work continues to have fans worldwide. Perhaps you've heard stories of how American readers waited breathlessly on the docks to learn of Little Nell's death in the latest installment of The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) or fainted at Dickens's public readings of Oliver Twist (1837-39). Dickens was also one of the first modern literary celebrities: picnic baskets, neckties, and hairstyles inspired by his novels were all marketed under his name. This course offers an overview of some of Dickens's work with an eye toward considering the impact of this enormously prolific author: What have we inherited from Charles Dickens? As with any other single-author course, the purpose of your in-depth study of Dickens is to help you develop skills and techniques for literary research and analysis that can be applied to any author and text.
4860/5-001 RICHARD WRIGHT, R 7:20-9:50 PHELPS
Richard Wright remains one of the most complicated and intriguing figures in American and African-American history. His ability to creatively raise universal questions regarding the human experience, while invoking questions of race, gender, and nationhood, provoke important discussions of social and political urgency for readers. This semester, we will explore how much of Wright's texts – from short fiction and novels to essays and autobiographical writings – characterize conventional, valuable, and potentially controversial aspects of the American experience.
4890-001 CAPTSTONE: SENIOR SEMINAR IN WRITING, TR 2-3:15 STAFF
Focusing on a single topic which varies term-by-term, this capstone course offers students the opportunity to demonstrate the ability to write in a variety of genres, e.g. personal essay, poem, documented paper, reportage. Prerequisite: ENGL 3010 or permission of instructor.
4900-001 ENGLISH HONORS SEMINAR, M 4-4:50, UH 5080 GREGORY
This course will be a workshop designed to help you develop, draft, and finish a thesis project. You will select the topic; the course will help you to refine and develop it. You will be assigned a sequence of reading and writing assignments to help you successfully accomplish the various stages of your thesis. The weekly meeting will give you the opportunity to share and workshop your preliminary research and drafts in a structured environment; the rest of the work will occur through independent research, writing, and tutorials with your seminar professor (Dr. Gregory) and your Thesis Director. This is an ideal course for those students who are considering graduate school (not just in English) or who simply wish to experience the pleasure of pursuing an independent project. Prerequisite: Approval of the Honors Committee (please contact Dr. Gregory: melissa.gregory@utoledo.edu).
4950-001 WRITING ABOUT THE VISUAL ARTS-WAC, F 10:00- 1:00, VA 0090 LIPMAN
A once-a-week, interdisciplinary workshop characteristically enrolling advanced undergraduate and graduate students in English, Art, Art History, Art Education and MLS. "Writing About Visual Arts" provides an inter-arts environment. Taught at the Center for Visual Arts, the course takes advantage of exhibition opportunities of the Toledo Museum of Art galleries, thus, work on display during a given semester determines numerous directions and projects. Students pursue assignments as either exposition or as creative opportunity, with semester portfolios usually including the following categories of work: artist's statements & statements of artistic principles; reviews of current periodical literature; 2D exhibition reviews; 3D exhibition reviews; photography critiques, reviews, collaborations and photo-essays; artist's books; the visual arts essay; public arts investigations; description & explanation of technique, materials and media; collaborative projects; interdisciplinary projects, often combining studio art and writing; language as design element; correspondence; the artist's and writer's journal. Weekly assignments, prompts and exercises; peer critique and discussion; use of the CVA library and TMA galleries and archives; portfolio-based evaluation.
4960-001 ENGLISH HONORS SEMINAR, TBA GREGORY
These thesis credit hours are taken in conjunction with the Honors Seminar (ENGL 4900) and are required of all candidates for departmental honors. They represent the actual research and writing of the thesis. Prerequisite: Approval of the Honors Committee (please contact Dr. Gregory: melissa.gregory@utoledo.edu).
4980/5-001 AMERICAN POETRY BEFORE MODERNISM, TR 2-3:15 REISING
Examination of American poetry from the Puritans up to some early Robert Frost. We will concentrate on poetic traditions and on poetic forms, and we will spend extensive time studying individual works of art. Poets include Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Stephen Crane, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Robert Frost. Students will make one class presentation, write two short essays, and take one exam.
5150/7-004 LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLES, MW 4:10-5:25 SIEGEL
This course will familiarize students with principles of sound structure and sentence structure. Cross-listed with LING 5150/7.
5790-001 RESEARCH IN ENGLISH, TR 5:45-7:00, UH 4280 FITZGERALD
Between your undergraduate academic experiences and graduate school success lies an intellectual, professional, and even social gap that you have probably not yet crossed. This course aims to give you the tools to build the bridge that will reach across that gap. This class is a “how-to” class. It will teach you, in general, how to do research and other scholarly work at an advanced level in literary studies; it will explain to you what's expected of that research and address why we do it; it will teach you what it means to be a “junior scholar” in the profession and how to enter the scholarly conversation; it will provide opportunities to discuss advising issues; and it will teach something about the culture of graduate school and academia, especially in literary studies. It will, in short, give you the skills to succeed in all of your other classes and in the independent work you do in the MA Exam and MA Paper. Class activities will be built around a variety of assignments, practices, and instruction, but students will always be expected to participate actively in them all. Graded assignments in the past have included short assignments that test skills using various research tools, essays on the career path and work of a particular scholar, and a substantial final essay (plus a class presentation) on the current ‘state of the field' focused on a work from the MA Exam Reading list. Next year's class may involve students in learning what it means to produce an edition of a literary work or other text, using the impressive resources of UT's special collections materials in the Canaday Center .
6010-001 SEMINAR IN ENGLISH INSTRUCTION: COMPOSITION, TR 4:10-5:25, UH 4280 SCHNEIDER
This course travels through three moments. We begin with an inquiry into the theoretical underpinnings of the teaching of writing, extending those theories to consider our own classroom practices. We then turn to a consideration of key pedagogical strategies, working collaboratively to examine and model best teaching practices. Our third turn is to current scholarship in the field, where students take up a current critical debate, research it, and enter into it. The class culminates in the production of a statement of teaching philosophy, a revised syllabus, and a paper which argues for how the syllabus enacts the philosophy.
6060/8-001 SEMINAR IN ENGLISH INSTRUCTION: ESL, MW 7:10-8:40, UH 4280 COLEMAN
This course is designed to give master's students in ESL (MA-Ed in ESL or MA in English with ESL Concentration) a community-service internship experience in teaching English as a Second Language. Students submit lesson plans for professor review and commentary in advance of using them and submit focused reports of their teaching activities. The teaching experience typically lasts six weeks. Enrollment options are by professor approval. The course is graded S-U. [CONTACT THE PROFESSOR DURING THE SEMESTER PRIOR TO THE SEMESTER DURING WHICH COURSE REQUIREMENTS ARE TO BE FULFILLED.] Interested students are encouraged to contact the professor for details (Douglas.Coleman@utoledo.edu).
6180-001 METHODS IN COMPOSITION RESEARCH, COURSE DESIGN AND ASSESSMENT, MW 5:45-7:00, UH 5080 EDGINGTON
We begin by considering how it is we assess writing, reflecting on our own experience and theory and then extend that assessment of writing to how we design our courses. We then take up methods of research currently used in the field of rhetoric and composition, including but not limited to ethnography, discourse analysis, teacher-research, and inquiry. From that study, students produce a proposal for an extended research project that will be carried out in a capstone project that fulfills the final requirements for the Certificate in the Teaching of Writing. The class closes with a reflection on the assessment of writing as it is enacted in our research and course design.
6960-001 MASTER'S RESEARCH FITZGERALD
6980-001 SEMINAR: THE POETRY OF LABOR, M 7:20-9:50, UH 5080 MATTISON
This course explores classical and modern versions of the poetic form georgic, which is simultaneously about the work of agriculture and the work of poetry itself. Georgic is unique in that it appears more often as a mode within a wide variety of poetic forms than as a distinct genre. We will tease it out of a number of examples of English poetry from the Renaissance onward, including Spenser's conception of the poetic career and the poetic task in his shorter poems, Milton's self-deprecating poetic manifesto “Lycidas,” and other formulations of the relationship between agricultural and poetic labor by Herrick, Marvell, Pope, Cowper, Gray, Wordsworth, and Shelley, and critical and theoretical approaches by Philip Sidney, Thomas Macaulay, William Empson, and Anthony Low. In addition, we will think about the direct influence of Virgil's Georgics , the defining poem of the genre, which gives English poetry two of its most important ideas: poetry's unique response to nature, the seasons, and the land; and the myth of Orpheus, the singer (who can stand in for poets or poetry itself) whose musical gifts allow him to move the gods but also lead to his destruction and dismemberment by the worshippers of the wine-god Bacchus. We will read both a modern translation of this poem (by David Ferry) and John Dryden's very influential 1697 version, and trace the song of labor as it appears in English and American literature. We will end with the great American georgic, James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men , and discuss whether the idea of the poet-farmer is still possible.
7960-001 DOCTORAL READINGS FITZGERALD
8960-001 DISSERTATION RESEARCH FITZGERALD |