LEN_40210_TA - 19th and 20th Century American Poetry

This is a course about 19th and 20th century American poetry in which we will read a sampling of texts throughout the two centuries from Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882); Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849); Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862); Walt Whitman (1819-1892); Emily Dickinson (1830-1886); Harriet Monroe (1860-1936); Gertrude Stein (1874-1946); Robert Frost (1874-1963); Wallace Stevens (1879-1955); Mina Loy (1882–1966); William Carlos Williams (1883-1963); Ezra Pound (1885-1972); H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886-1961); Marianne Moore (1887-1972); T. S. Eliot (1888-1965); Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950); E. E. Cummings (1894-1962); Hart Crane (1899-1932); Langston Hughes (1902-1967); Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997); Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) and Sylvia Plath (1932-1963). Students will develop their familiarity with American literature; culture; history; and philosophy through the reading of these 20 authors and learn to express their interpretations through an online poetry blog. We will also practice reading the poems aloud to improve pronunciation. In addition; students will choose one author to present to the class.