Module description
This module brings together two major traditions in modern poetry, the French and the Anglo-American, in order to encourage you in a range of comparative-literary approaches. It covers a wide range of canonical poems by major French, English and American writers in such a way as to encourage unexpected yet rigorous readings of modern poetry across cultural boundaries. All French poems may be read in translation.
The course is of an introductory character in terms of required background but aims to develop historically informed and sophisticated critical reading. You will cover poems from the Francophone and Anglophone worlds over two centuries, in a representative variety of genres and verse forms. You will also learn to discriminate between different modes of comparison in comparative-literary study. Poems in both languages are direct tributes to, ripostes to, protests against, artful borrowings, or shameful thefts from each other; others are striking parallels, whose affinities with and divergences are themselves revealing of the different literary (and broader) cultures from which they come.
Assessment details
1 x 2,500 word essay (50%) ; 1 x 2 hour examination (50%)
Educational aims & objectives
The module aims at giving students the tools to analyse the thematic and formal characteristics of diverse works of poetry in comparison to one another. Students will develop their close reading skills by studying poems from different cultural and linguistic contexts (in translation), and will be encouraged to engage critically with key works of poetry criticism. Students who are able to read poems in other languages in the original will be encouraged to do so.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable and practical skills appropriate to a Level 4 module and in particular will be able to:
- distinguish and apply a range of different approaches to comparative readings of poetry, including thematic analysis, formal analysis, historical analysis, and intertextuality;
- evaluate critical writing on poetry, identifying its strengths and weaknesses;
- analyse works of poetry comparatively during a timed exam;
- plan and write one piece of comparative literary analysis
Teaching pattern
Two hours per week