[Marlowe, Ralegh, “Come Live With Me and Be My Love, NA, 233, 140; Handouts]

            Poe, “The Raven,” NA, 881-3

Sept 9 Shakespeare, Sonnets. You are encouraged to read as much of this great sequence of English poems as you can. Please come to class with a choice of your two favorite sonnets. The explanatory footnotes in the assigned edition (the best may seem overwhelming, but they will help you surmount many of your interpretive difficulties and they will alert you to the complexity of individual sonnets and of the sequence itself.

      16   Donne*”The Good Morrow,” *“The Sun Rising,” *The Canonization,” *“The Anniversary,” *“A Valediction Forbidding Morning,” *”The Flea,” *”The Relic,” “His Mistress Going to Bed,”; Holy Sonnets, *7, *10, 14; “Hymn to God My God in My Sickness,” NA, 263-290

            Larkin, “Talking in Bed,” “High Windows,” *“Aubade,” 129, 165, 208

            Kenney, “Aubade,” NA 1833

      23   Herbert, “The Altar,” “Redemption,” *”Easter Wings,” “Sin (I),” *”Affliction (I),” “Jordan (I),” “The Windows,” “Vanity (I),” *”Virtue,” *”Man,” *“Life,” *”The Collar,” *”The Flower,” “The Forerunners,” *Love (III),” NA 329-347

            Hollander, “Swan and Shadow,” NA 1664.

            Thomas, NA 1437-39

            Larkin, *“Churchgoing,” 97-8

      30   Jonson, “To Doctor Empirick,” *“On My First Daughter,” *“On My First Son,” *“Inviting a Friend to Supper,” “On Gut,” *”To Penshurst,” *“Song To Celia (I),” “Song to Celia II),” “A Fit of Rhyme Against Rhyme,” NA 291-301.

Herrick, “To the Sour Reader,” “Delight in Disorder,” *”Corinna’s Going A-Maying,” *“To the Virgins,” “Upon Julia’s Breasts,” *“Upon a Child that Died,” *”To Daffodils,” “Upon Julia’s Clothes,” “Upon Prue,” “The Pillar of Fame,” NA 317-25

            Larkin, “Dear CHARLES,” 217-8

            [Causley, NA 1483-1485] 

            Ransom, “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter,” NA 1255

            Thomas, “A Refusal to Mourn the Death,” NA 1463

            Brooks, “We Real Cool,” NA 1481

            Parker, lyrics, NA 1280-1

            Nash, short lyrics, NA 1328-1330

Oct 7   Marvell, *“To His Coy Mistress,” “The Definition of Love,” *“The Picture of Little T. C. In a Prospect of Flowers,” *”The Garden,” *“An Horatian Ode,” NA 435-447

            Larkin, *“Lines on a Young Lady’s Photograph Album,” “Maiden Name,” 71, 101

            Tomlinson, “The Picture of J. T, in a Prospect of Stone,” NA 1636-7.

            Brown, “Chillen Get Shoes,” NA 1319

            Auden, *“In Memory of W. B. Yeats,” NA 1368-9

            O’Hara, “The Day Lady Died,” NA 1617

            [MacLeish, You, Andrew Marvell,” NA 1271-2]

Fall Break

     21    Vaughan, *“Regeneration,” *“The Retreat,” NA 448-450.

            Traherne, *“Wonder,” NA 487-8

Thomas, “The Force that Through the Green Fuse,” *“Fern Hill,” “Do Not Go Gentle,” NA 1460-65

            Larkin, *“I Remember, I Remember.” *“Essential Beauty,” 81-2, 144-5 + handouts

            Thomas, “Adlestrop,” NA 1147-8

            Dryden, *“Mac Flecknoe,” *“Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day,” NA 473-482 (heavy sledding?)

            Rochester, “A Satire against Reason and Mankind,” (try it), *”Love and Life,” NA 505-10

     28    Pope, *“The Rape of the Lock,” “To Dr. Arbuthnot,”NA 547-74 (heavy sledding?)

Swift, *NA 526-533 + handouts

            [Goldsmith, “The Deserted Village,” NA 628-636: try it]

            Smart, *“From Jubilate Agno,” NA 625-627

Whitman, “From Song of Myself,” “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” NA 961-69

            Ginsburg, “From Howl,” NA 1598-1603

            Larkin, “The Old Fools,” 196-7

Sissman, “From Dying: An Introduction,” NA 1654-57

Nov 4  Crabbe, “Baptisms,” NA 662-68. Try it.

            *Blake, “Songs of Innocence,” “Songs of Experience,” “Ballads &c,” 671-675, 678-684

            + handouts of “Proverbs”

*Larkin, “Toads,” “Take One Home for the Kiddies,” “Toads Revisited,” “Sunny Prestatyn,”89, 130, 147, 149

Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey,” “From The Prelude I,” NA 699-721, *lyrics and sonnets, *“Ode,” *lyrics and sonnets, NA, 699-737 (tackle them all, if possible)

     11-18          Coleridge, *“Kubla Khan,” “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,”“Dejection: An Ode,” NA 741-2, 744-59, 761-2

Keats, *sonnets, “St. Agnes Eve,” “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” *“Ode to a Nightingale,” *“Ode on a Grecian Urn,” *“To Autumn,” NA 831-844, 845-50

            [Harrison, “A Kumquat for John Keats,” NA 1767-9]

Byron, “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” “She Walks in Beauty,” “So We’ll Go No More A-Roving,” *“From Don Juan,” NA 766-795 (try the latter: it’s worth the effort)

Larkin, *Myxomatosis, *”The Whitsun Weddings,” *“Cut Grass,” “The Mower,” *“The North Ship,” 100, 114-6, 183, 214, 302

            Thomas, “The Owl,” NA 1148.

            Hughes, *“The Thought-Fox,” NA 1697

            Cowper, “Epitaph on a Hare,” NA 637-8

     25    Dickinson, *NA 1010-1025

            Rossetti, NA 1026-28

            Lear, NA 942-4

            Carroll, NA 1032-36

            Housman, *“Reveille,” *“‘Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff,’” NA, 1068-1075 (sample them all)

Hopkins, *“God’s Grandeur,” *“The Windhover,” “Pied Beauty,” *“Spring and Fall,” *dark sonnets, NA1062-4, 1064-66

Plath, *“Daddy,” *“Ariel,” *“Lady Lazarus,” NA1728-1738 (sample them all)

            Larkin, *“Love Songs in Age,” “Livings,”113, 186-8

Thanksgiving

Dec 4  Yeats, *“The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” *“When You Are Old,” “The Wild Swans at Coole,” *“An Irish Airman Foresees His Death,” *“Easter 1916,” “The Second Coming,” *“To Be Carved,” *“Sailing to Byzantium,” “Leda and the Swan,” *“Among School Children,” “Byzantium,” *“Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop,” “The Circus Animals’ Desertion,” *“Under Ben Bulben,” NA 1083-2005

            Jarrell, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” NA 1446

            Dowson, lyrics, NA 1105-6

Stevens, *“The Emperor of Ice Cream,” *“Sunday Morning,” “Anecdote of the Jar,” *”Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” *“Peter Quince at the Clavier,” NA 1151-58 (sample all of Stevens)

            Williams, *lyrics, NA 1166-69. Enjoy!

            Larkin, *“The Card-Players,” “Vers de Societe,” 177, 181-2

            O’Hara, “Why I Am Not a Painter,” NA 1619-20

            Cummings, “in Just-,” “anyone lived in a pretty how town,” 1282-3, 1286-7

Dec 9  Eliot, *“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” *“The Waste Land.” Students are exhorted to read all the poems in the volume, esp. *pp. 14-25, 27, 31-39, 43-4, 47-52.

Handouts (incl. “How unpleasant to meet Mr Eliot!”). Discussion of the manuscript facsimile of “The Waste Land” (an optional purchase by students) and of lines deleted from “Prufrock.” Students may wish to sample Eliot’s later poetry, NA, 1248-1255.

            Reed, “Chard Whitlow,” NA 1456.