Module description
This module explores the idea that just as English painting is renowned for its representation of landscape, poetry in Britain and Ireland has been shaped by the nature of place. The module is intended to introduce students to some of the most significant figures in twentieth-century poetry from the standpoint of their complex engagement with place. We will examine topics such as poetry and landscape; poetry, the country and the city; poetry and the idea of England (the “spiritual, the Platonic, old England,” as Coleridge called it); insularity and post-imperial retrenchment; travel and the foreign; and what Seamus Heaney has called “the place of writing.” The focus on the question and representation of place also provides a way of grounding and negotiating work that can sometimes seem (as in the case of major contemporary English poets like Geoffrey Hill and J. H. Prynne) extremely challenging. Place gives us a point of access to the poetry, but it also proves to be a central concern, one way or another, of all the poets on the course. The dynamics of William Wordsworth’s relationship to place become a founding moment for several poets (Auden, Bunting, Heaney, Levertov and J. H. Prynne) and we shall be looking at their dialogue with Wordsworth. Sylvia Plath’s poetry begins to look very different if we start not from her suicide but from her responsiveness to place. Poets such as W. S. Graham have engaged not only with particular landscapes, in Graham’s case Penwith in Cornwall, but particular painters (the St. Ives School), and where possible we shall examine painting and poetry together. With that in mind you are strongly encouraged to visit the collection of modern British painting at Tate Britain—or at the very least to look at it online. The module is not intended to be a comprehensive survey of post-war poetry in Britain and Ireland and we shall try to leave room for consideration of some more experimental writing alongside the mainstream.
Assessment details
3,000 word essay (100%)
Educational aims & objectives
This module explores the idea that just as English painting is renowned for its representation of landscape, poetry in Britain and Ireland has been shaped by the nature of place. The module is intended to introduce students to the variety and inventiveness of modern poetry from W. H. Auden to the present and to explore simultaneously the complexity of its engagement with place: poetry and landscape; poetry, the country and the city; poetry and the idea of England (the 'spiritual, the Platonic, old England,' as Coleridge called it); insularity and post - imperial retrenchment; poetry, travel and the foreign; and what Seamus Heaney has called 'the place of writing.' The focus on the question and representation of place also provides a way of grounding and negotiating work that can sometimes seem (as in the case of major contemporary English poets like Geoffrey Hill and J. H. Prynne) extremely challenging. Place gives us a point of access to the poetry, but it also proves to be a central concern, one way or another, of all the poets on the course. The dynamics of William Wordsworth's relationship to place becomes a founding moment for several poets (Auden, Bunting, Heaney, Prynne) and we shall be looking at their dialogue with Wordsworth. Sylvia Plath's poetry begins to look very different if we start not from her suicide but from her responsiveness to place. Poets such as W. S. Graham have engaged not only with particular landscapes, in Graham's case Penwith in Cornwall, but particular painters (the St. Ives School) - and where possible we shall examine painting and poetry together
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable and practical skills appropriate to a Level 5 module.
1. analyse critically a range of British poetry from W. H. Auden to the present;
2. demonstrate broad awareness and relevant reference to the political, social contexts of the period;
3. demonstrate detailed knowledge of the principal secondary literature on the poets studied;
4. compare and select different theoretical methods, including close reading, phenomenology, cultural geography and cultural studies;
5. communicate reading and research effectively, through formative assessment, discussion and written essays
6. develop and sustain an argument, drawing on appropriate critical resources.
Teaching pattern
One lecture and one seminar, weekly
Suggested reading list
You are strongly encouraged to read as much as possible of the poets’ own work, beginning with Wordsworth’s original Two-Part Prelude of 1798-99. In addition to dipping into the work of the poets, the following books can be recommended as excellent preliminary reading: Yi-Fu Tuan’s Space and Place (1977; 2011), Doreen Massey’s for space (2005), which is more wide-ranging and theoretical and rather more alive to the politics of place; and Gaston Bachelard’s beguiling Poetics of Space, which focusses on French poetry but explores a number of ideas we’ll be thinking about.