Politics of love poetry syllabus
Week 1 - 2
Identity
How are our identities formed and sustained? How does love poetry reflect conceptions of "I" through poetic techniques or traditions?
Reading: I am a Strange Loop
Week 3
How have women writers used their identities in writing love poetry?
How does a feminine identity entail multiplicity and how are some identities "inherently political?"
Reading: Irigaray, excerpts from "The sex which is not one", selected poems from British women Romantic Poets anthology
Week 4
Continue analyzing the inherent politics of identities and of some identities in particular. How does poetry and even specially love poetry work as a historical mapping of political climates and oppressions of marginalized groups and identities? What poetic techniques assist with this?
Reading: continued exploration of British romantic poets, highlighting poetic techniques they use and how these are representative of class, race, gender, ability, etc.
Week 5
How do identities shift and reinstate themselves in experiences of loss, heartbreak, and violence?
(Thinking specifically about motherhood, sexual violence, and heartbreak.)
Reading: Christina Rosetti's Goblin Market, Sylvia Plath's 'Mystic', & excerpts from Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born
Week 6
Motherhood as an institution and an identity. How does motherhood work as an identity exploring both sensuality and maternity as they are often seen as mutually exclusive? How do our political identities inform the way we write, the way we connect to others, and how we describe the varying manifestations of love in our lives?
Gwendolyn Brooks' "The Mother", Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born, Denise Levertov
Week 7
How do love poems serve as anecdotal evidence for the lived experience of women? Consider how EBB's love poems to Robert Browning speak to the lived experience of someone experiencing illness.
Reading: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, and Other Love Poems. Christina Rosetti's "I loved you first: but afterwards your love"
Week 8
How are poetic techniques of The British Romantic era redefined during The Harlem Renaissance? How is denied access to literary techniques and traditions an insidious way of class, race, and gender disparities?
Reading: Gwendolyn Bennett's Sonnets, Maureen Honey's Shadowed Dreams
Week 9
How does using traditional poetic techniques to explore sexuality and sexual desire for black women during The Harlem Renaissance provide a means to subvert norms of sexuality (and especially heterosexuality) for poets?
Reading: Mae Cowdery's We Lift Our Voices, excerpts from Shadowed Dreams
Week 10
Mae Cowdery cont'd.
Week 11
What other poetic techniques do women poets use to talk about sex and sexuality?
Reading: Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red, May Swenson's Love Poems, Maggie Nelson's Bluets
week 12
Week 1 - 2
Identity
How are our identities formed and sustained? How does love poetry reflect conceptions of "I" through poetic techniques or traditions?
Reading: I am a Strange Loop
Week 3
How have women writers used their identities in writing love poetry?
How does a feminine identity entail multiplicity and how are some identities "inherently political?"
Reading: Irigaray, excerpts from "The sex which is not one", selected poems from British women Romantic Poets anthology
Week 4
Continue analyzing the inherent politics of identities and of some identities in particular. How does poetry and even specially love poetry work as a historical mapping of political climates and oppressions of marginalized groups and identities? What poetic techniques assist with this?
Reading: continued exploration of British romantic poets, highlighting poetic techniques they use and how these are representative of class, race, gender, ability, etc.
Week 5
How do identities shift and reinstate themselves in experiences of loss, heartbreak, and violence?
(Thinking specifically about motherhood, sexual violence, and heartbreak.)
Reading: Christina Rosetti's Goblin Market, Sylvia Plath's 'Mystic', & excerpts from Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born
Week 6
Motherhood as an institution and an identity. How does motherhood work as an identity exploring both sensuality and maternity as they are often seen as mutually exclusive? How do our political identities inform the way we write, the way we connect to others, and how we describe the varying manifestations of love in our lives?
Gwendolyn Brooks' "The Mother", Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born, Denise Levertov
Week 7
How do love poems serve as anecdotal evidence for the lived experience of women? Consider how EBB's love poems to Robert Browning speak to the lived experience of someone experiencing illness.
Reading: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, and Other Love Poems. Christina Rosetti's "I loved you first: but afterwards your love"
Week 8
How are poetic techniques of The British Romantic era redefined during The Harlem Renaissance? How is denied access to literary techniques and traditions an insidious way of class, race, and gender disparities?
Reading: Gwendolyn Bennett's Sonnets, Maureen Honey's Shadowed Dreams
Week 9
How does using traditional poetic techniques to explore sexuality and sexual desire for black women during The Harlem Renaissance provide a means to subvert norms of sexuality (and especially heterosexuality) for poets?
Reading: Mae Cowdery's We Lift Our Voices, excerpts from Shadowed Dreams
Week 10
Mae Cowdery cont'd.
Week 11
What other poetic techniques do women poets use to talk about sex and sexuality?
Reading: Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red, May Swenson's Love Poems, Maggie Nelson's Bluets
week 12
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