English 432 , Modern Poetry

King Saud University                                                                       Course Syllabus
College of Arts                                                                                    Semester: II
                                                   Academic Year:  1434-35
 
Instructor’s information:
 

Instructor’s name	Mohrah AlOtaibi
Office Hours	Sunday and Tuesday 08:00-09:00, Sunday 02:00-03:00, , Thursday 12:00-01:00.
Office number	90, Third Floor
Email address	[e-mail]
Website	http://fac.ksu.edu.sa/mohrah/home

 
 
 
Course information:
 

Course Title	Modern Poetry
Course Number	432
Course description	This course covers the major characteristics, concerns, techniques, and practitioners of modern poetry. One unifying approach is to trace the two central currents of modern poetry: traditional and modernistic. The poets discussed will include Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Stevens, Moore, Bishop, and Frost with some focus on the poetry of World War One, Imagism, and the Harlem Renaissance. The course will also focus on other defining aspects of Modern poetry: free verse, symbolism, realism, metaphysics, allusion, Diverse methods of literary criticism are employed, such as historical, biographical, and gender criticism.
Course Objectives (i.e. Learning Outcomes as specified in the Course Specifications)	1. Demonstrate a knowledge of some of the literary, critical, social and ideological preoccupations of early 20th century poetry 2. Relate their comprehension of poetry to the role and relativity of the reader’s own discursive context 3. Learn to read and write about poetry 4. Evaluate poems critically 5. Analyze, evaluate and interpret a variety of types of evidence in a critical manner
Textbook	A selection of poems and related material will be provided by the instructor.
Supplementary Reading	David Perkins. A History of Modern Poetry, Volume I: From the 1890s to the High Modernist Mode, Pelknap Press, 1979. David Perkins. A History of Modern Poetry, Volume II: Modernism and After, New Edition. Pelknap Press, 1989. Marjorie Perloff. 21st – Century Modernism: The “New” Poetics. Wiley-Blackwell, 2002.  Michael Hamburger. The Truth of Poetry. New Edition. Anvil Press     Poetry, 2004.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Methods of assessment:
 

Type	Distribution of Marks	Date of Administration	Date of Feed-back (approximate)*
Response Journal	15%	Throughout the semester	Two weeks after the submission
Quizzes (2)	10%	Sun. 6/4 Tue. 6/5	Next class
Midterms (1)	20%	Tue. 15/4	Two weeks
Presentation	15%	Throughout the semester	Immediate feedback
Final Exam	40%
Additional notes: No make-ups will be offered for quizzes with or without an excuse. Late submissions of take-home assignments will be penalized with a one-point-deduction each late day. Students who miss a midterm are supposed to provide me with an excuse for their absence. Only students with valid excuses will take a make-up exam. The exam will cover the entire syllabus and will take place during the review week.

 
 
 
Weekly Syllabus:

Week	Topic
1	Introduction to Modernism
2	Walt Whitman
3	W.B. Yeats
4	Imagism: Ezra Pound
5	Imagism: H.D
6	Robert Frost
7	War Poetry: Wilfred Owen and e.e. cummings
8	Wallace Stevens
BREAK
9	High Modernism: T. S. Eliot
10	High Modernism: T. S. Eliot
11	William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore
12	W.H. Auden
13	Adrienne Rich
14	Presentations and Course wrap-up
15	Review Week

 
                          
 
 
Ground Rules:

• It is the policy of the university that missing 25% of classes in any given course results in the automatic failure of the course. This 25% includes excused absences.
• Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Plagiarized assignments will result in an immediate F. If you are unsure of what constitutes plagiarism, contact me for more information.
• The syllabus is subject to change at the instructor’s discretion.