Lyric poetry in a global context from the mid-nineteenth century
to the present, with special emphasis on the relevance of the
texts under discussion to contemporary society around the world,
including the United States.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students: Additional reading, writing, and research assignments.
Athena Title
Rethinking World Poetry
Undergraduate Prerequisite
Experience engaging critically with literary or other texts and experience developing and expressing ideas in written and oral form.
Graduate Prerequisite
Experience engaging critically with literary or other texts and experience developing and expressing ideas in written and oral form.
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
Students will be able to evaluate and interpret lyric poetry from diverse cultural traditions by analyzing the relationship between poetic form, language, and social or historical context, and by defending a reasoned interpretation supported by textual and scholarly evidence.
Students will be able to compare and synthesize different poetic traditions and interpretive frameworks to articulate the global relevance of modern lyric poetry in written and oral formats.
Students will be able to develop and express ideas about poetry with clarity, coherence, and stylistic control in both scholarly and public-facing forms, demonstrating awareness of audience, purpose, and genre conventions.
Students will be able to apply interpretive and aesthetic principles from global lyric traditions to create an original poetic or hybrid project—for example, a sequence of poems, a multimedia text, or a creative translation with commentary—that reimagines poetry’s role in the modern world.
Students will be able to reflect critically on how the study and creation of poetry inspire new ways of perceiving and representing contemporary experience, and to re-envision poetry’s function in global modernity through an original synthesis of analytical and creative insight.
Topical Outline
The focus of the course is on readings of lyric poetry around the world, with special emphasis on the relevance of texts under discussion to the contemporary global scene. The works covered vary with the individual instructor. Among the topics generally treated are: the formal, rhetorical, and thematic patterns common to modern poetry and how these differ from one culture to another, from one period to another, and from one poet to another; the function of symbol, irony, paradox, allegory, synesthesia, and myth in modern verse; the persistence of themes of displacement, withdrawal, and alienation; and the preoccupation with questions of epistemology and axiology in modern poetry. The following is a sample syllabus of readings for a single semester:
Holderlin. Hymns and Fragments
Baudelaire. The Flowers of Evil
Neruda. Selected Poems
Soyinka. Idanre and other poems
Rilke. Duino Elegies
Pessoa. Poems
Institutional Competencies Learning Outcomes
Critical Thinking
The ability to pursue and comprehensively evaluate information before accepting or establishing a conclusion, decision, or action.
