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COLT 540 - Studies in Genre: “What is Lyric?”

CRN: 16596

Instructor: Leah Middlebrook

Term: Fall 2017

What is Lyric?

Readings in theories of poetry and poetics that frame ideas of “the lyric.” Our emphasis in this course will be on historicizing the notion of a lyric genre as it has been promoted in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The course is structured as a series of conversations covering the following topics: What is Lyric?; Poetry and the Concept of Genre; On Prosody and Scansion; Ancient Ideas of Lyric: Linus, Museaus, Orpheus, Amphion; Linus – Hymn, Ballad and Lyric; Orpheus – Petrarchism and its Legacies; Amphion – Poetry and the Polis; Amphion, Solon – Poetry and the Law. Readings include selections from: Jackson and Prins, The Lyric Theory Reader; Jahan Ramazani, Poetry and its Others; Ovid, Metamorphoses; Horace, the Ars Poetica; the Divina Commedia of Dante; Petrarch, Canzoniere di Rime Sparse and the Petrarchan tradition in English, French, Italian and Spanish poetry; selected poetry by Sherman Alexie, Gwendolyn Brooks, Emily Dickinson, Martín Espada, Julia Ward Howe, Langston Hughes, Pablo Neruda, Adrienne Rich, Wallace Stevens, among others. Class is taught in English, and English translations of any poetry composed in languages other than English will be made available.

Coursework includes active engagement in class meetings, regular weekly writing, as well as group work outside of class and a final project of roughly 12 pages (440) or 18 pages (540).