ENGL2191: Modern Poetry

• At least one of the following modules: Introduction to Drama (ENGL 1011), Introduction to the Novel (ENGL 1061), Introduction to Poetry (ENGL 1071).

• Any other 20 credit lecture module in English.

• None.

• Study the work of six modern poets in English.
• Explore the ways in which individual talents work, making connections between them where appropriate.

• This module will focus on the work of six British, Irish, and American poets: e.g. Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath and Geoffrey Hill (please note selection of poets may change year-on-year).
• Seminars will foreground poetic texts, contextualising and exploring themes and more general issues where appropriate.
• Through close examination of the poetry, we shall investigate the ways in which individual talents work.
• We shall also consider such topics as the relationship between British and American poetry in the post-war period, aesthetic strategies for addressing personal material in lyric poetry, the relationship between 'private' and 'public' in poetic discourse, the role and operation of memory in poetry and issues concerning poetic 'voice' and technique, such as lineation, 'formal' and 'free' verse, diction, syntax, imagery - as and when these topics and issues arise in the study of particular poets and poems.
• Please note that some of these twentieth-century texts employ language, attitudes and concepts some contemporary readers may find uncomfortable. Should they arise, these aspects of the poetry will be discussed sensitively but directly with full attention to historical context in the course of the seminars.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Students will be expected to gain a broad knowledge of six postwar poets and detailed knowledge of a selection of them.
• Gain knowledge of relevant critical ideas and issues.

Subject-specific Skills:

• Students studying this module will develop:
• critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts an ability to demonstrate knowledge of a range of texts and critical approaches
• an ability to make connections between some of the poets
• informed awareness of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature and ability to offer cogent analysis of their workings in specific texts
• sensitivity to generic conventions and to the shaping effects on communication of historical circumstances, and to the affective power of language
• an ability to articulate and substantiate an imaginative response to literature
• an ability to articulate knowledge and understanding of concepts and theories relating to literary studies
• skills of effective communication and argument
• awareness of conventions of scholarly presentation, and bibliographic skills including accurate citation of sources and consistent use of scholarly conventions of presentation
• command of a broad range of vocabulary and an appropriate critical terminology
• awareness of literature as a medium through which values are affirmed and debated

Key Skills:

• Students studying this module will develop:
• a capacity to analyse critically
• an ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way involving the use of distinctive interpretative skills derived from the subject
• competence in the planning and execution of essays
• a capacity for independent thought and judgement, and ability to assess the critical ideas of others
• skills in critical reasoning
• an ability to handle information and argument in a critical manner
• information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access information organisation and time-management skills

• Seminars: encourage peer-group discussion, enable students to develop critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts, and skills of effective communication and presentation; promote awareness of diversity of interpretation and methodology
• Consultation session: encourages students to reflect critically and independently on their work
• Independent but directed reading in preparation for seminars provides opportunity for students to enrich subject-specific knowledge and enhances their ability to develop appropriate subject-specific skills.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.
• Coursework: tests the student's ability to argue, respond and interpret, and to demonstrate subject-specific knowledge and skills such as appreciation of the power of imagination in literary creation and the close reading and analysis of texts; they also test the ability to present word-processed work, observing scholarly conventions. In individual Special Topics, the essay may, where appropriate to the subject, take an alternative form, such as 'creative criticism'.
• Feedback: The written feedback that is provided after the first assessed essay allows students to reflect on examiners' comments, giving students the opportunity to improve their work for the second essay.
• Independent student research supervised by the Module Convenor: students are encouraged to undertake independent research, in addition to the usual reading and preparation, by engaging with critical debates associated with a particular author or text (e.g. confessional poetry in American poetry or The Movement in English poetry). Under the supervision of the module convenor, students also write short critical appraisals based on research of an individual literary work for each of the seminars.

Before the firstassessed essay, students have an individual 15 minute consultation session in which they are entitled to show their seminar leader a sheet of points relevant to the essay and to receive oral comment on these points. Students may also, if they wish, discuss their ideas for the second essay at this meeting.

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