Lehrende: Jan Wilm
Veranstaltungsart: Proseminar
Orga-Einheit: FB02 / Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft (Institut)
Anzeige im Stundenplan: Literary History PS
Fach:
Anrechenbar für:
Semesterwochenstunden: 2
Unterrichtssprache: Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | -
Lehrinhalte: “I rhyme / To see myself” – Seamus Heaney This course is designed to give an overview of contemporary poetry in Great Britain. Students will be introduced to some of the major contemporary poets from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Northern Ireland. Each session we will be looking at work by Simon Armitage, John Burnside, Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney, Don Patterson, and Michael Symmons Roberts, among others. We will be looking at work by authors who are frequently writing in the lyrical tradition of poetry, which has its roots in the Romantic Era, and we will acquaint ourselves with a set of highly complex (yet highly readable) texts by Romantic authors such as William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Their theories and thoughts on lyrical poetry were highly influential at the time and continue to be relevant to contemporary authors until today. Through intense close readings of poems and a consideration of the formal qualities in congruence with the content of the poems, we will see where contemporary poets work within the lyrical tradition and where they depart from it. As we make our way through insightful, humorous, or shocking poems, we will also be introduced to the various forms of poetry, from the highly structured sonnet to the contemporary ode and examples of free verse. Students will be introduced to a wide range of formal diversity in poetry as well as to a variety of subjects treated in verse. Our analysis of each work will be balanced with discussions about theoretical definitions of poetry in general as well as with an introduction to the metrical varieties of contemporary poetry. As a special treat to students, we will organise a poetry reading by the authors John Burnside and Michael Symmons Roberts in Frankfurt at the end of the term, where students will have the chance to hear two of the most gifted and most celebrated poets working today. At the event, students will have the chance to ask questions and meet the authors personally. Students will be introduced to the analysis as well as the appreciation of contemporary poetry. Students will be expected to write an essay during the term on one poem, and the course will close with a final exam, which will consist of the analysis of one poem as well.
Literatur: A course reader comprising all primary and secondary texts will be made available by the first session. Students may, but need not, obtain the following book: New British Poetry. Don Paterson and Charles Simic (eds.). Minneapolis: Graywolf Press. 2004.
