Instructor:Dr. Stephen doCarmo
Office: Dooling 253
Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays 3:00 - 4:00, Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:15 - 4:45
Phone: ext. 1651 (DeSales U. main telephone number: 610-282-1100)
E-mail: Stephen.doCarmo@desales.edu

Required Text
Hunter, J. Paul, ed. The Norton Introduction to Poetry.  7th ed.  New York: W.W. Norton, 1999.

Objectives
This particular section of English 110 will

• introduce you to works by a considerable number of poets writing in English from different nations and different historical periods,
• give you a critical vocabulary to help you describe both a poem's internal (formal) workings and its relation to larger cultural contexts, and
• leave you considerably more practiced at critical thinking, reading, writing, and public speaking than you were upon entering it.

Evaluation
Your final grade in the course will be determined by five things:

(1) two in-class essays,
(2) a take-home midterm exam,
(3) a take-home final exam,
(4) the quality of your class participation, and
(5) an extended critical essay you'll need to write for me.

Your take-home midterm exam will account for 20% of your final grade.  Both the date I'll give it to you and the date it's due back to me are marked on the course schedule below.  Count on doing five or six pages of fairly polished writing for it in response to three (or so) essay prompts I'll devise for you.

Your take-home final exam will also account for 20% of your final grade, and everything I said about your midterm goes for it, too.  I should add, though, that the final may be cumulative; that is, I reserve the right to give you essay prompts on the final that will require you to consider readings from the first half of the semester as well as the second.

The quality of your class participation will account for 10% of your final grade.  If you 1) miss class rarely, 2) participate in in-class activities when I ask you to, 3) add your voice in a constructive way to class discussions fairly frequently, 4) attend two of the three poetry readings listed on the schedule below, and especially 5) do a good in-class presentation at the end of the semester on the work you're doing for your critical essay (this will involve your distributing out a written outline of your work), I'll happily give you an "A" for this portion of your grade.  Do less than what's specified above and you'll risk a lower grade.

Lastly, your critical essay will account for 30% of your final grade.  It should be in the neighborhood of five pages (longer is fine; shorter gets problematic) and must be written in response to one of several appropriately loose and interpretable essay prompts I'll give you about two-thirds of the way through the semester.  We'll talk more about your essay before it comes time for you to start drafting it, but I can go ahead and tell you now that it should be thesis-driven, that it should be well organized, that it should make ample use of supportive quotes from the text(s) it discusses, and that it should be well proofread.  The due-date for your essay is on the course schedule below.

All grades I give you over the course of the semester will be translated, when it comes time for me to calculate your final grade, to a 4.0 scale.  It'll work like this: A = 4.0, A- = 3.75, B+ = 3.25, B = 3.0, B- = 2.75, C+ = 2.25, C = 2.0, C- = 1.75, D+ = 1.25, D = 1.0, D- = .75, F = 0.0.

Attendance
It's DeSales policy that freshmen in a class meeting three times per week can't without penalty accumulate more than twice as many absences as credits are given for the course.  This means that if you're a freshman, you get six free unexcused absences from this class.  Your final grade in the course will drop a third of a letter grade (from a B to a B -, for instance) for each unexcused absence beyond the sixth.  Sophomores, juniors, and seniors may take as many unexcused absences as they like but will diminish the "participation" segment of their final grades by doing so -- radically if they miss more than six class meetings.  Note: If you're a sophomore, junior, or senior on academic probation, you're subject to the same rule as the freshmen.

I'll excuse an absence only with good reason.  If the Dean of Students tells me the university has officially excused your absence, that's of course good enough for me.  If a coach needs you during class time now and then, that's fine, too -- as long as I get proper documentation.  I may also excuse an absence if you have a note from a physician saying you were in no shape to go out the day you missed or if there's been a death in your family.  Short of any of these things...you should be in class, if you want to keep your grade in tip-top shape.

Also, please be punctual.  I'll count two late entrances as an absence, and if you come to class really late I'll simply leave you down as absent.

Late Work
Both your midterm and final exams will, after their deadlines pass, be marked down a full letter grade for each class meeting that goes by without their being submitted.  Your final essay will be marked down a full letter grade if not submitted by the deadline, another letter grade if not submitted by the following Monday, and another letter grade for each 48-hour period after that.

As for your in-class essays....  You absolutely shouldn't miss them.  If you must, let me know well ahead of time so that we can make alternate plans.

Don't turn things in late.  It would be silly.  If you're ever in desperate straits and need an extension on something, speak to me before the deadline arrives.

Course Schedule
All page numbers refer to your Norton Introduction to Poetry.
The critical concepts that will be loosely structuring our discussions are in bold type.

Wednesday Aug. 22: Introduction to the course.
Friday Aug. 24: Discussion of pgs. 3-9 (on "Reading"), including all poems.

Monday Aug. 27: Discussion of pgs. 9-16 (on "Responding"), including all poems.
Wednesday Aug. 29: Discussion of pgs. 33-43 (on "Tone"), inluding all poems.
Friday Aug. 31: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 44 and 52.  (Stop before reading Elizabeth Alexander's poem.)

Wednesday Sept. 5: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between the bottom of 52 and 61.
Friday Sept. 7: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text (on "Speaker") between pgs. 63 and 76.  (Stop before reading Wordsworth's poem).

Monday Sept. 10: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 76 and 84.  (Stop before reading Stephen Dunn.)
Wednesday Sept. 12: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 84 and 91.
Friday Sept. 14: Discussion of pgs. 93-104 (on "Situation and Setting"), including all poems.

Monday Sept. 17: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 106 and 113.
Wednesday Sept. 19: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 115 and 121.
Friday Sept. 21: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 123 and 134.

Monday Sept. 24: Discussion of pgs. 140-152 (on "Language"), including all poems.  (Stop before reading Sharon Olds.)
Wednesday Sept. 26: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 152 and 162.  (Stop before reading John Milton.)  I'll also e-mail you the essay prompts for your take-home midterm exam on this date.
Friday Sept. 28: Class replaced by John Bargowski's poetry reading the evening before this date -- Thursday Sept. 27th.  He'll be in the Gallery Lounge at 8:00.

Monday Oct. 1: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 182 and 193.  (Stop before reading Katha Pollitt).
Wednesday Oct. 3: Class replaced by one-on-one conferences with me on midterm exams.
Friday Oct. 5: Midterm Exam Due at the start of class.  Also, discussion of pgs. 198-207 (on "The Sounds of Poetry"), including all poems.  (Stop before reading John Dryden.)

Wednesday Oct. 10: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 207 and 220.  (Stop before reading before Gerard Manley Hopkins.)
Friday Oct. 12: Discussion of pgs. 225-235 (on "Internal Structure"), including all poems.  (Stop before reading Sharon Olds.)

Monday Oct. 15: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 235 and 245.  (Stop before reading William Carlos Williams.)
Wednesday Oct. 17: First in-class essay.
Friday Oct. 19: Class replaced by Phil Memmer's poetry reading the evening before this date -- Thursday the 16th.  He'll be in the Gallery Lounge at 8:00.

Monday Oct. 22: Discussion of pgs. 253-256 (on "External Form"), of your Norton's introduction to the sonnet (257), of Louise Bogan's "Single Sonnet" (260), of John Milton's "[When I consider how my light is spent]" (263), of Claude McKay's "The Harlem Dancer" (264), of Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" (265), and of Gwendolyn Brooks' "First Fight. Then Fiddle" (267).
Wednesday Oct. 24: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 271 and 276.
Friday Oct. 26: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 277 and 286.

Monday Oct. 29: Discussion of pgs. 287-296 (on "The Whole Text"), including all poems.  (Stop before reading Jonathan Swift.)
Wednesday Oct. 31: Discussion of pgs. 316-326 (on "The Author's Work as Context"), including all poems.  (Stop before reading the "Passages from [Keats'] Letters.")
Friday Nov. 2: Discussion of pgs. 335-348 (on "The Author's Work in Context"), including all poems.  (Stop before reading Rich's "Power.")

Monday Nov. 5: Discussion of pgs. 362-370 (on "Literary Tradition as Context"), including all poems.
Wednesday Nov. 7: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 386 and 393.
Friday Nov. 9: Class replaced by Ruth Setton's poetry reading the evening before this date -- Thursday Nov. 8th.  She'll be in the Gallery Lounge at 8:00.

Monday Nov. 12: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 411 and 424.  (Stop before reading Claude McKay.)
Wednesday Nov. 14: Discussion of all poems and explanatory text between pgs. 424 and 432.  (Stop before the "Constructing Identity" part.)
Friday Nov. 16: Second in-class essay.

Monday Nov. 19: Individual student presentations on critical-essay projects.
Wednesday Nov. 21: Workshopping on critical essays.  I'll also e-mail you the essay prompts for your take-home final exam on this day, so be sure to check for them.

Monday Nov. 26: Class replaced by one-on-one conferences with me on your final exams.
Wednesday Nov. 28: Individual student presentations on critical-essay projects.
Friday Nov. 30: Individual student presentations on critical-essay projects.

Monday Dec. 3: Individual student presentations on critical-essay projects.
Wednesday Dec. 5: Class replaced by one-on-one conferences with me on your critical essay.
Friday Dec. 7: Critical Essay Due.  Last of the Individual student presentations of critical essay projects.

Your take-home final exam will be due to my office by the end of whatever time slot the university has given us for our final exam!  More info on this soon.
 

Essay Prompts for the Midterm Exam

Note: Each of your answers should be roughly one double-spaced page long.  Also, you shouldn’t write about any poem that doesn’t appear in your Norton Intro to Poetry unless you’ve spoken to me about it first.

1.  Choose a poem that requires you to think in a sophisticated way about matters of speaker in order to make good sense of its theme.  Explain your choice, quoting the poem when appropriate.

2.  Choose any poem in which connotative meanings seem at least as important as denotative ones to a good understanding of the poem as a whole.  Explain your choice, quoting the poem when appropriate.  (Note: Plath’s “Daddy,” Olds’ “Sex without Love,” Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz,” Winters’ “At the San Francisco Airport,” and Bernstein’s “Of Time and the Line” are all off limits for this one!)

3.  Compare and contrast two poems that seem markedly different from each other in their valuations of subject, tone, theme, situation, setting, speaker, connotation, and/or syntax.  Quote the poems when appropriate.

4.  Choose a poem you think is really noteworthy, intriguing, important, or just plain good, and
explain why you find it so while making good use of several (two, three, four..?) of the critical terms we’ve learned this semester.

That’s it.  Knock yourselves out.  Answers are due at the start of class on Friday Oct. 5th.
 

Some Terms Useful for Describing the Way a Poem Sounds

Rhyme: Repetition of the very same (or highly similar) vowel and consonant sounds in the final syllable(s) of two or more words in close proximity to each other (e.g. “brother” and “another”).

End Rhyme: Placement of rhyming words at the ends of lines.

Internal Rhyme: Placement of at least one rhymed word somewhere within a line.

Alliteration: Repetition of the same consonant sound at the very start of two or more words in close proximity to each other (e.g. “clock” and “court”).

Consonance: Repetition of the same consonant sound within (but not at the very start of) two or more words in close proximity to each other (e.g. “acrid” and “bucolic”).

Assonance: Repetition of the very same (or highly similar) vowel sounds somewhere within two or more words in close proximity to each other (e.g. “moon” and “loose”).

Meter: Patterned repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem (e.g. “My Mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”).  There are a number of different types of meter: iambic (shown above), dactylic, anapestic, trochaic....  See pages 206-07 of your Norton for definitions of these.

Onomatopoeia: Use of words that sound like the sounds or things they name (e.g. “buzz” or “thump”).
 
 

Some Important and Not Unusual “Internal Structures” in Poetry
 

A poem organized by narrative structure is chiefly concerned with telling a story whose events will, most likely, be presented in chronological order.

A poem organized by dramatic structure may also tell a story, but it will be broken up into a number of discreet stages, or “acts,” the same way a play is.  Oftentimes, though, it is “stages of feeling and knowing rather than specific visual scenes [that] are responsible for the poem’s progress” (Hunter 230).

A poem with a contrastive structure clearly and plainly compares two or more different, possibly even opposed, people, places, things, or ideas.

A poem that uses discursive structure is somehow “organized like a treatise, an argument, or an essay,” and may even have a blatantly “1-2-3 structure” (Hunter 233).

A poem with descriptive structure aims mainly to deeply and accurately describe – often by appealing to its reader’s senses – some person, place, or thing.

A poem that uses a meditative structure wants first and foremost to explore some interesting idea or insight and may permit its speaker’s mind to work through that insight or idea with little regard for chronology, narrative, or “treatise building” of any clear or methodical sort.
 

List of “Formalist” Critical Terms We’ve Been Using in Class

Subject
Tone
Theme
Situation
Setting
Speaker
Diction (or “Word Choice”)
High (or “Poetic”) Diction
Low Diction
Ambiguity
Connotation
Denotation
Irony (dramatic, situational, or verbal)
Symbol

Rhyme
Meter
End Rhyme
Internal Rhyme
Stanza
Alliteration
Assonance
Consonance
Onomatopoeia

Internal Structure
Narrative Structure
Dramatic Structure
Contrastive Structure
Discursive Structure
Descriptive Structure
Meditative Structure

External Structure
Sonnet
Free Verse

Appearance (or “Visual Arrangement”)
 

Essay Prompts for Your Critical Essay Due Friday Dec. 7th

For your critical essay due Friday Dec. 7th, please do one of the following two things for me.  Either...

1) pick a poet you like and write an essay explaining what characterizes that person's work, showing off your grasp of the critical vocabulary you've learned in class this semester,

or...

2) do an in-depth compare-and-contrast analysis of two poems that beg to be juxtaposed for some good reason to be articulated in your essay.

No matter which of the above prompts you choose to work with, your essay should be about four to five pages long, should be thesis-driven, should be well organized and proofread, and should make sufficient use of supportive quotes from the poems it discusses.

Also...you may quote outside critical texts if you like, but it's not necessarily advised and I definitely won't boost anyone's grade just because s/he goes through the trouble to do it.  I can easily imagine someone writing a great essay without looking at any outside criticism at all, and I can just as easily imagine someone writing an awful paper while citing professional critics' ideas.  You may, though, feel free to cite some published critic if s/he gives you a really valuable idea you'd like to acknowledge in your essay.  Just don't, whatever you do, turn your essay into a book report on somebody else's reading of your poet/poems.

That's it.  Make me proud.
 

Prompt for the Take-Home Final Due Tuesday Dec. 11th at 9:00 a.m.

I've given you eleven poems by two different poets.  You've got, in a handout I gave you during class, six Robert Frost poems: "Mending Wall," "The Road Not Taken," "The Oven Bird," "Fire and Ice," "Nothing Gold Can Stay," and "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening."  You've also got, between the handout and your book, five poems by Alan Ginsberg: "A Supermarket in California," "The Velocity of Money," an excerpt from "Howl," "America," and "Psalm III."

This is what I want you to do, then: in a three- to four-page essay, tell me which of these two guys is, in your own opinion, the better poet.  And why.

Be sure to make good use of concepts and vocabulary we've learned in class this semester.  And be sure to reference specific passages in the poems as you write, directly quoting lines when helpful or necessary.

Also, don't cite any outside critics unless you talk to me about it first.

That's it.  I'll be doing one-on-one conferences with all interested parties on Monday Dec. 3rd and Wednesday Dec. 5th, but you're welcome to swing by during my office hours before then if you'd like to talk about the assignment.  Take care --

S.d.