Course Syllabus

 

AMERICAN POETRY FROM THE MAYFLOWER THROUGH EMERSON

 

Harvard Extension School: ENGL E-182a (14603)

Fall 2015

Elisa New PhD, Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature, Harvard University

 

Teaching Assistant/Section Leader: Carra Glatt (cglatt@fas.harvard.edu)

 

Online Section Thursdays 7:00 – 8:00

 

Online Office Hours: Thursdays 8:00-10:00 or by appointment

 

 

A MESSAGE FROM PROF. NEW:

 

Greetings! I am delighted to welcome you to the Extension School's offering of my American Poetry: From the Mayflower to Emerson. This course is part of a longer series, of which the next offering (in the Spring) will be Whitman, Dickinson and the Literature of Civil War and After.

 

Poetry in America: From the Mayflower to Emerson is for students interested in getting more comfortable with reading poetry, but it also offers a very deep dive into early American literature and culture: it is especially suitable for students and teachers of early America and for those eager to learn more about America's first centuries. Many of the course segments have been filmed in historic places--on Cape Cod, on the Freedom Trail, in marshes and meadows and churches and parlors and at sites of Revolutionary War battle, and often the materials for the course will include archival documents and images, jingles and songs. Early on in the course, for instance, we'll show you one of the texts we are reading in manuscript, and later on, you'll see some of the course readings performed by an actor and some students. You'll learn to sing some of the poems in this course, too.

 

The syllabus below is more to be taken as an outline than a day by day guide. The texts of poems we read in this course will all be provided for you online, often embedded in a specially designed annotation tool we'll ask you to use to complete some of your assignments.

 

All of the texts on the "syllabus" will be provided to you as part of the "Courseware" You won't need to buy a book for this course.

 

Speaking of books, though, here's a poem we'll be reading early on in our work together. It's a poem about the first book of poems ever published by an American. It may surprise you.

 

Anne Bradstreet, "The Author to Her Book"; also see the annotated version on Genius.

 

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

 

This course covers American poetry in cultural context through the year 1850. The course begins with Puritan poets some orthodox, some rebel spirits who wrote and lived in early New England. Focusing on Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, and Michael Wigglesworth, among others, we explore the interplay between mortal and immortal, Europe and wilderness, solitude and sociality in English North America. The second part of the course spans the poetry of America's early years, directly before and after the creation of the Republic. We examine the creation of a national identity through the lens of an emerging national literature, focusing on such poets as Phillis Wheatley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allen Poe, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, among others. Distinguished guest discussants in this part of the course include writer Michael Pollan, economist Larry Summers, Vice President Al Gore, Mayor Tom Menino, and others. The recorded lectures are from the HarvardX Poetry in America Series. To have access to the digital course materials and recorded lectures, you create an edX account and sign up for "Poetry in America" by August 30 (September 8 if you are registering late).

 

Section

 

Section is a required component of this class. If, however, you live in a time zone that would make it impossible for you to attend our virtual sections, e-mail Carra at cglatt@fas.harvard.edu by the end of the first week of class to discuss alternative arrangements.

 

 

Grading

 

Your grade in this course will be determined on the basis of two 5-7 page papers, a take-home, essay-based final exam, and brief (~ 300 word) weekly postings to the course website. Your written work will be evaluated on the following qualities:

 

1. Evidence of close attention to the language, structure, and other formal elements of the poems

2. Demonstrated understanding of the historical context in which these works were written

3. Strength of argument

4. Clarity of prose

 

In lieu of the second paper and final exam, any graduate students enrolled in the course will be asked to write a 15 page paper on a relevant topic of the student's choosing.

 

 

 

HES Plagiarism Policies

 

You are responsible for understanding Harvard Extension School policies on academic integrity (www.extension.harvard.edu/resources-policies/student-conduct/academic-integrity) and how to use sources responsibly. Not knowing the rules, misunderstanding the rules, running out of time, submitting "the wrong draft", or being overwhelmed with multiple demands are not acceptable excuses. There are no excuses for failure to uphold academic integrity. To support your learning about academic citation rules, please visit the Harvard Extension School Tips to Avoid Plagiarism (www.extension.harvard.edu/resources-policies/resources/tips-avoid-plagiarism), where you'll find links to the Harvard Guide to Using Sources and two, free, online 15-minute tutorials to test your knowledge of academic citation policy. The tutorials are anonymous open-learning tools.

 

Note on Accessibility:

 

The Extension School is committed to providing an accessible academic community. The Disability Services Office offers a variety of accommodations and services to students with documented disabilities. Please visitwww.extension.harvard.edu/resources-policies/resources/disability-services-accessibility for more information.

 

 

SYLLABUS (subject to change)

 

Part 1: The Poetry of Early New England

 

Week 1: (8/31 – 9/4): Course Orientation

Introductions, reading poetry, discussing poetry, course format

• Assignment Zero: confronting an unknown text

 

ASSIGNMENT ZERO (<300 WORDS) DUE 9/8, 5:00 p.m.

 

Week 2 (9/7 – 9/11): Introduction to the Poetry of Early New England

Puritans, migration, daily life, geography

• The Puritan Migration and the New World

• “Puritan Geography: Our Geography”

 

Week 3 (9/14 – 9/18): A Poet’s Pen

Puritans in Cambridge, theology, the Lyric “I”

Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor; metaphor, conceit

• Exploring the Lyric “I” on site at the First Church of Cambridge

• Up close with the Bay Psalm Book

• Psalm Singing at the First Church of Cambridge

• Taylor’s “Meditations”

 

 

Week 4 (9/21 – 9/25): A Poet’s Pen

Puritans in Cambridge, theology, the Lyric “I”

Anne Bradstreet, authorship, the New World poet

• Introduction to poetic forms at the First Church of Cambridge

• Bradstreet’s “Contemplations”

• Bradstreet’s “Prologue”

• Bradstreet’s “The Author to Her Book”

 

Week 5 (9/28 – 10/2): Writing in the Wilderness

Settlers, rebellion, “wilderness,” New World prose, elegy

Thomas Morton, Roger Williams, Anne Bradstreet

• Corn Hill: on site on Cape Cod; William’s “Indian Dictionary”

• On site on Cape Cod, exploring the poetics of New World prose

• Weaning affections with Anne Bradstreet

• Roundtable discussion at the Woodberry Poetry Room

 

PAPER ONE (5-7 pp.) DUE 10/4, 5:00 p.m.

 

Part 2: Nature and Nation: American Poetry 1700–1850

 

Week 6 (10/5 – 10/9): Fear and Love – Ministerial Poets

Doomsday, the church, parallelism, enjambment

Michael Wigglesworth, Edward Taylor

• Wigglesworth’s “Day of Doom”: a Puritan Bestseller

• Day of Doom at Memorial Church

• The “Jeremiad” in early New England

 

Week 7: (10/12 – 10/16): Fear and Love – Ministerial Poets

Doomsday, the church, parallelism, enjambment

Michael Wigglesworth, Edward Taylor

• Civic Elegies: A Livestream event featuring local high school teachers

• Edward Taylor: ministerial context

 

Week 8: (10/19 – 10/23): Introduction to Poetry of the Early Republic

Slavery, capitalism, imperialism, vocabulary for Early Republic poetry

Joel Barlow, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

• English poets in Jamaica: on the site of early New World plantations

• At the Longfellow House: Longfellow and the Revolutionary legacy

• With Michael Pollan on Nantucket

• “Hasty Pudding” – a declaration of cultural independence

 

 

Week 9: (10/26 – 10/30): Revolutionaries in the Early Republic

Independence, “Americanness,” Manifest Destiny, race, gender

Philip Freneau, Phyllis Wheatley

• Conversation with Mayor Tom Menino on “Paul Revere’s Ride”

• Prof. Glenda Carpio on Phyllis Wheately (Woodberry Poetry Room)

• Freneau’s “On the Migration and Peopling of North America”

 

Week 10: (11/2 – 11/6): The Fireside Poets

Symbolic form, blank verse, the “Fireside” movement, economics

James Russell Lowell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant

• The Fireside Poets and their Age

• “Thanatopsis”: a pre-Transcendental look at Death

• Longfellow House tour and discussion

 

Week 11: (11/9 – 11/13): The Fireside Poets

Symbolic form, blank verse, the “Fireside” movement, economics

James Russell Lowell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant

• Mount Auburn Cemetery, on Lowell’s satire

• Conversation with Larry Summers

• Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

Week 12: (11/12 – 11/20): Edgar Allen Poe

Magazine culture, literary criticism, drama, the Grotesque

Edgar Allen Poe

• Lectures on magazine culture, allusion, and Unreality

• Dramatizations of Poe’s poetry by Harvard undergraduates

 

Week 13: (11/23 – 11/27): BREAK; PAPER TWO (5-7 pp.) DUE 11/27, 5:00 p.m.

Graduate Students: 500 word proposal for final paper due

 

Week 14: (11/30 – 12/4): Emerson and His World

Transcendentalism, Nature, Concord, the Ode

Ralph Waldo Emerson (and contemporaries)

• Emerson’s historical context and poetic forms

• Concord, MA with Profs. Lawrence Buell and Andrew Warren

 

Week 15: (12/7 – 12/11): Emerson and His World

Transcendentalism, Nature, Concord, the Ode

Ralph Waldo Emerson (and contemporaries)

• Houghton Library with Profs. Lawrence Buell and Andrew Warren

• Conversation with Vice President Al Gore

 

Week 16: (12/14 – 12/18): FINAL EXAM (take-home, open book, essay-based)

Graduate Students: final paper due 12/18, 5:00 PM