Training in writing expository prose. Instruction in expository writing in conjunction with reading literature. Satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement.

Poetry has historically been a privileged object of literary criticism, especially of the so-called 'New Criticism' that, while no longer regnant, continues in several ways to inform literary critical practice today. Poetry has, in turn, been a privileged medium of literary pedagogy, of teaching students not only how better to read literature but also, and just as importantly, how better to write about it, with proper attention both to the texts in question and to argumentative rigor. In this course we will be looking at a number of poems and also at a number of complementary critical accounts. This double exposure--to isolated poems and to the criticism elicited by them--will allow us to reflect on how certain poems work, on how their attendant criticism works, and most importantly, on how your own argumentative writing might become adequately sensitive and critical. Pairings might include: John Donne and Cleanth Brooks, William Shakespeare and William Empson, Claude McKay and Jasper Bernes, Denise Riley and Denise Riley, J.H. Prynne and Veronica Forrest-Thomson, and so on.

Requisites

• Satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing Requirement

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills