Course details

Name: ENGL - 294

Title: WOMEN POETS

Section: 01

Semester: Fall - 2010

Credits: 3

Description:
Women’s poetry first emerged as a modern cultural force in nineteenth-century Britain. Felicia Hemans, now a little-known figure, was one of the bestselling poets of the century. Annual \\\"gift books\\\" edited by influential writers such as L.E.L. (Letitia Elizabeth Landon) sold out every Christmas season. This course provides an introduction to women’s poetry by first looking closely at these and several other nineteenth-century British poets, including such major figures as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti. Issues we’ll explore will include the emergence of the \\\"poetess\\\" tradition, the significance of the dramatic monologue form for women poets, the problem of women’s writing for a literary marketplace that strongly discouraged female authorship, and women’s representations of love, marriage, motherhood, and war. In the second half of the term, we’ll establish some counterpoints and parallels by turning to the emergence of four major African-American women poets in the late twentieth century: Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, and Rita Dove. Like their nineteenth-century British predecessors, these poets seek to define a space for the woman writer in the larger culture, even as in some respects they advance a specifically African-American (and in the case of Audre Lorde, lesbian) political and lyric sensibility. Requirements include three papers and regular journal entries.

Schedule: Monday,Wednesday From 1:00 pm To 2:15 pm

Graduation requirements:

• Genre Study (Poetry)
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• Ethnic Studies (3b)
• Women and Gender Studies (3c)

Teaching Faculty: Behlman Lee (behlmanl)

Is course canceled: No