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III. How to read and evaluate a poem
• i. A premise: • Poetry is written to read aloud and heard.
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• ii. Some basic steps: • 1. first-time overall reading for a general impression • 2. identifying the sentence structure • 3. figuring out the meter • 4. reading aloud for the rhyme and rhythm • 5. checking new and unknown words • 6. marking off any sections • 7. analyzing the tone • 8. re-reading • 9. asking questions for lith c.: • -- Robinson, Frost, Sandburg • -- the Imagist Movement: Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Stein, Stevens, Williams, Cummings, Hughes, Crane • -- After WWII: the Confessional movement, the Black Mountain poets… • -- 1970s: surrealism • -- 1980s: the New Formalists
• iii. Literary evaluation: • 1. evaluation • -- making an assessment of the poem’s literary value • -- making a judgment on how good and successful it is in the achievements of its poetic goals • 2. a basic way to start • -- to paraphrase
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• 4. From the middle of the 19th c.: • -- Walt Whitman: bridging the gap between the New England Group and the contemporary poets, Leaves of Grass • -- Emily Dickinson: intensity of emotion and idiosyncratic form • -- Herman Melville
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What is poetry?
• -- “poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and higher thing than history, for poetry tends to express the universe, history, the particular” • -- poetry is a species of imitation or mimesis • -- using different mediums, objects and modes in order to carry out an imitation 14 • -- Aristotle: Poetics
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vi. Poem, Poetry and Verse
• 1. Poem 诗歌 • -- piece of creative writing in verse, esp. one expressing deep feelings or noble thoughts in beautiful language, written with the intention of communicating an experience • 2. Poetry诗歌（总称） • -- poems collectively or in general • 3. Verse 韵文；诗歌 • -- writing arranged in lines, often with a regular rhythm or rhyme scheme; poetry
• 1. Early Puritan stage: • -- the cultural allegiance to Britain • -- the purpose of poetry: careful Christian examination of people life • -- the Puritan’s religious subject and imitation of English literary traditions • -- Anne Bradstreet
Part I (I) Introduction
A Short History of British and American Poetry II. What Is Poetry III. How to Read and Evaluate Poetry IV. Poetic Literary Terms V. The Arrangement of the Class
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I.
I. A short history of British and American poetry
i. British poetry: 1. The earliest stage: -- the Anglo-Saxon period -- a verse literature in oral form -- pagan poetry: Beowulf:
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• 5. The 16th c.: the Tudor dynasty, the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the period of Renaissance: • -- Wyatt introducing the Italian sonnet to England • -- Henry Howard creating the English form of the sonnet • -- Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Queen, the Spenserian stanza • -- Christopher Marlowe: making blank verse the principal instrument of English drama • -- William Shakespeare: 154, the Shakespearean sonnet
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• 2. Colonial poets of the 18th c.: • -- traditional forms with new subjects in order to create the first truly American poetry • -- Philip Freneau: The Wild Honey Suckle • -- nature • 3. The 19th c.: real literary value • -- Bryant, Poe.. • -- the New England Group: Longfellow, Emerson, Thoreau, transcendentalism
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• 6. The 17th c.: the Stuarts, different political and religious beliefs • -- the Cavaliers: Robert Herrick, royalistic against the British Revolution • -- metaphysical poets: John Donne… • -- Puritan poets: John Milton: Paradise Lost • -- Restoration poet: John Dryden
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• 7. The 18th c.: the Age of Enlightenment (Reason) • -- Pope, Addison, Steele, Johnson…: a revival of classical standards of order, balance and harmony in literature • -- the middle of the century: sentimentalism, grief and mild protest, Thomas Grey: Elegy written in a Country Churchyard • -- later years of the century: the forerunner of Romanticism, Burns and Blake
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II. What is Poetry?
• i. Can you give a definition to poetry? • ii. Let’s see some famous definitions in history: • 1. Plato • 2. Aristotle • 3. Sidney • 4. Wordsworth • 5. Shelley • …
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• 10. The 20th c. • -- the early stage: the Imagist Movement • -- Eliot, Hopkin, Yeats… • 11. In the contemporary time: more diverse than before
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ii. American poetry
What is poetry?
• “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility…” • -- William Wordsworth in the preface to Lyrical Ballads