334 Topics

20th Century American Poetry
English 334

Schedule or Syllabus

Professor: Dr. Elizabeth Rich
Office: SE 164
Phone: X 4317

First Paper Guidelines & Topics: 20th C Am. Poetry

Guidelines

The purpose of this paper is to provide you with the opportunity to use the concepts and historical contexts that you have learned thus far to inform your reading of the literature that we have covered in class. This opportunity also allows you to investigate the various people who make up poetic movements and to study how communities of writers, thinkers, and artists share in the process of creating distinctive poetics at a given moment. Although your own perspective should determine the form and direction of the paper, refrain from simple reflection or informal personal reactions to the poetry. Use specific examples from primary texts in the form of quote, paraphrase, and summary. Though you may do research if you wish, it is not required. However, quotes and examples from the references to texts that we read in class are necessary. All citations should be in MLA format, as should the Works Cited page.

--Papers should be between 750 and 1,250 words in length. (One typed page should be about 250 words, so set font size and type and margins accordingly.)

Topics

1. Discuss how form and content differ between the Victorian and modern poetry, considering the poetry that we covered in class. Be clear and consistent in this paper, and have a clear focus. A litany of similarities and differences is insufficient.

2. Consider Eliot's poem The Wasteland with his essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" in mind. Does Eliot perform in his poetry what he outlines in his statement of poetics? How and how not? What are some reasons for his divergence or adherence to his statements? (Avoid organizing your paper around these questions. Come up with a cohesive paper that merely considers these questions that are designed to help you brainstorm an answer.)

3. Both Eliot and H.D. reconsider classical (that is, ancient Greek and Roman) mythology in their poetry, but their approach is quite different. Write an essay that examines how and why these poets reach back to the Ancients to express their ideas about the "modern world." (Be sure to define, at some point, what constitute each poet's notion of the "modern world.)

4. Gertrude Stein is credited by many scholars and poets for contributing to contemporary poetics. What did she contribute? What is unique about her form and use of syntax?

5. Wallace Stevens is often viewed as a very cerebral poet, because of his use of abstraction. In what ways is his poetry concrete and abstract? What is to be gained by the balance that he struck?

6. What differences and similarities exist between the modernists, writing among the Harlem Renaissance group, and Eliot, H.D.and Williams? Consider this question by comparing one Harlem Renaissance poet and one of the modernists listed above. Have something clear to say. A list of similarities and differences is insufficient.

7. Create your own topic. Be sure to see me, so that we can agree on a topic and write it out to make the object clear to both of us. Failure to do so will result in a failing grade.

Sourced Paper Guidelines & Topics: 20th Century American Poetry

Guidelines

The purpose of this paper is to provide you with the opportunity to examine ideas that you have begun to consider within a detailed analysis of poetics as they have developed throughout the 20th century. You may focus on one poet or discuss several poets to compare movements, manifestos, and moods.

Incorporating quotes and ideas from secondary sources to support your own points is imperative. Each paper should contain a strong original thesis statement that presents your ideas in the introductory paragraph and subsequent paragraphs with clear topic sentences that function to prove your ideas throughout the paper. The topics are meant to guide and help you consider different ways to approach 20th century poetry, but you are responsible for having a clear and original point that grounds your paper. Consult the primary text, the text that you choose to analyze, for quotes that support your ideas. Be sure to explain the quotes from both types of sources fully and clearly so that you interpret them for your reader and relate them to your main point. Avoid explaining someone else's argument. The secondary sources are for support only.

Specifics:

The paper should:

•incorporate quotes and ideas from secondary sources smoothly. (Use the MLA search under the "Literature" section on the database in the library.)

•be typed and at least 2,500 words in length

•use MLA form correctly and consistently. (This stylistic concern is especially important for this paper.)

•use only books and scholarly journals (print or full-text from the SVSU database).

•contain a "Works Consulted" page.

•have a title, which appears on the first page, under the MLA-style header. The title should not be in bold, underlined, in italics, a larger font, set off with quadruple spacing or tampered with in any other way.

•contain an "Acknowledgments Page" in which you thank whatever made this project possible, possibly including your friends, relatives, classmates, or coffee brands. It should come in between your paper and the bibliography.

•use both long and short quotes from the primary text for support.

1. Choose a modernist poet who was also an expatriate from the U.S. (Remember ex-patriate only means that they lived outside of their homeland, not necessarily that they gave up their citizenship or disliked the U.S.) Then, discuss how his or her relationship to the U.S. influenced his or her poetry. (You may wish to consider H.D., Stein, Pound, or Eliot.)

2. The expatriate writers and artists, who lived and worked on the Left Bank of Paris, discussed aesthetics together, which means that visual artists and writers impacted each other. For example, Picasso and Stein were close for some time, and Picasso's portrait of her remains on of the most famous of his portraits. Explore the relationship between a modern writer and a modern visual artist. (For example, Stein and Picasso; Williams and Demuth; or Langston Hughes and Aaron Douglas.) OR Examine how a particular movement was influenced by art. (For example, imagism and the futurist artists or the cubist artists; the influence of African design on cubism and poetry;

3. Consider the topic #4 from Paper #2 and use secondary sources to support your point. (If you have already written on topic #4, it may not be used again.)

4. Consider the cultural and social changes of the early twentieth century. What contributed to a particular movement in terms of form and content?

5. Susan Howe's poetry engages deeply and critically with history. How does she access poetry? What does she have to say about the idea of history? How is it redefined in her poetry?

6. The Confessional poets were strongly concerned with telling their stories, but they also told their stories in a highly stylized form. Read Foucault's "What Is an Author?" (on reserve) and explain how the Confessional poets can be understood in terms of the "author function."

7. According to Jorie Graham in the introduction to The Best American Poetry 1990, "Each poem is an act of the mind that tries – via precision of seeing, feeling, and thinking – to clean the language of its current lies, to make it capable of connecting us to the world." This perspective is somewhat a different tack than that of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets, many of whom see language as constituting the world rather than connecting to the world. Using no fewer than two and no more than three poets, explain this difference and why it is important to consider.

8. Create your own topic. Be sure to see me, so that we can agree on a topic and write it out to make the object clear to both of us. Failure to do so will result in a failing grade.