University of St Andrews

Key information

SCOTCAT credits : 30

ECTS credits : 15

Level : SCQF level 10

Semester: 2

Availability restrictions: Spaces are allocated by Honours advisors in the School of English, following choices entered by students at pre-advising.

Planned timetable: To be confirmed

When Marianne Moore writes of poetry, ‘I, too, dislike it’; when Plato banishes poets from his utopian Republic; when Amiri Baraka declares that ‘poems are bullshit unless they are / teeth or trees or lemons’; or when W.H. Auden claims that ‘poetry makes nothing happen,’ they are all facing up to the problem of poetry and failure. This module explores this idea across time, covering texts from the Renaissance to the present day, and students will be encouraged to develop their own research interests to think trans-temporally about poetics. Working through poetry about failure, poetry that fails, the poetics of failure, and failures of reading, we will consider incompletion, uselessness, error, silliness, difficulty, limits, silence, embarrassment, refusal, and just plain badness. The module will provide intensive training in close reading, helping students develop a detailed understanding of the mechanics of form and technique, whilst thinking, ultimately, about the "point" of poetry.

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 x 2-hour seminar per week, and 2 optional consultative hours per week, over 11 weeks.

Scheduled learning hours: 44

Guided independent study hours: 256

Assessment pattern

As used by St Andrews: Coursework = 100%

As defined by QAA
Written examinations : 0%
Practical examinations : 0%
Coursework: 100%

Re-assessment: Coursework = 100%

Personnel

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

Intended learning outcomes

• Develop a high-level understanding of poetic form and technique, and be able to deploy this in sophisticated analysis of poetry.
• Demonstrate an ability and willingness to approach texts across periods, both within and abstracted from their historical contexts.
• Interrogate the theoretical idea of ‘failure’ as it exists in critical theory and contemporary discourse.
• Demonstrate originality, creativity and independent research in carrying out written and recorded assessments.