Language is political. Place is political. Therefore,
language is place and place is language, and they are both entrance points for
understanding political relationships.
If writers are concerned with either language, then they are also likely
to be concerned with place. 20Th
century British poetry charts the decline of the largest empire in
history. Inherent in that historical
trajectory are tendencies to fragment a unified sense of Britishness into
regional identities. At the same time,
post-imperial Britain and its global commonwealth continue to be linked through
a sense of family resemblance. Language
is politically active in both cases: reinforcing regional difference and yet
allowing for cross cultural understanding.
Writing in the midst of these two different outcomes, British poets have
continually written about place as it affects their identities, whether
positively or negatively.
This course will delve into how modern British poets
interact with place, and the language of place.
In doing so, the course is designed to prompt students to consider their
own relationship with place(s). The
course is structured around four essential questions:
- How do
poets negotiate/explore trauma by writing about place? - How do
poets locate themselves in physical and metaphysical places? - How do
poets explore the history of their places of origin/habitation/domicile?
and - What
sorts of cultural places do poets write about?
Each question will be explored through the work a particular
poet, including that poets’ literary, historical, and cultural influences. Class discussion will be extended through
inquiry-based learning such as textual analysis, personal response, and writing
original works of poetry. The course
will also help students gain a background knowledge of the British Empire as it
transformed into the United Kingdom in the 20th century, as well as
distinct knowledge of the four major regions of the current United Kingdom
(England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland). Lastly, students will choose a poet from the
syllabus to study in greater depth with the goal of developing a personal and
academic relationship with that poet’s body of work. The
overarching learning objective for this course is to enable students to
recognize their own relationship with place – and that of writers in their
community – by closely studying 20th century British poetry.
Assessments:
In class participation – 30%
Two analytical essays – 30%
4 investigations – 40%
Required texts:
North, by Seamus Heaney
Dreaming Frankenstein and Collected Poems, by Liz
Lochhead
Wolfwatching, by Ted Hughes
The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, by Dylan Thomas
Other poems and criticism as provided by the instructor