University of St Andrews

Key information

SCOTCAT credits : 30

ECTS credits : 15

Level : SCQF level 10

Semester: 1

Availability restrictions: Not automatically available to General Degree students

Planned timetable: 11.00 am - 1.00 pm Mon

This module offers an introduction to modern and contemporary poetry in the United States. Beginning with some of the most significant precursors to this period (Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, Langston Hughes—and more!), the module moves chronologically through groups of poets, considering the different traditions, currents, ideas and contexts that they might be responding or reacting to, working with or against, right up to some of the most recent contemporary poetry. Throughout the module, we will consider writers within their political, cultural and social milieux, thinking about networks, relationships, and tracing lines of influence. Together we will try to develop a nuanced understanding not only of poems as aesthetic objects, but as political and social documents, as well as considering the idea of “schools” of writing, and how the American canon might be interrogated through feminist, queer, anti-racist, or otherwise recuperative scholarship.

Relationship to other modules

Pre-requisite(s): Before taking this module you must pass EN2003 and pass EN2004

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact: 1 weekly two-hour seminar

Assessment pattern

As used by St Andrews: 2-hour Written Examination = 50%, Coursework = 50%


Re-assessment: exam = 100%

Personnel

Module coordinator: Dr R Campbell
Module teaching staff: Dr Rosa Campbell (RC466)
Module coordinator email rc466@st-andrews.ac.uk

Intended learning outcomes

• Understand and show knowledge of a wide range of poetries written in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.
• Articulate their familiarity with many of the most influential writers and poetic schools/movements of the period, as well as more “minor” or “marginal” figures and works.
• Ground their analyses in some of the historical, socio-biographical, political, and artistic contexts in which these poets were/are writing.
• Demonstrate skills in close reading poetic form and language.