Teaching

Spotlight Theory: History of Criticism | 44735 MA seminar

Semester: 
1st semester
Offered: 
2024
Syllabus on Shnaton

'Theory' first began to be used as a proper noun in literature departments in the early 1980s, and 'theory' courses rarely look back much further than that. But the questions of what literature is, how it works, what it is good for—and whether it should be allowed at all—have been perennial concerns from the moment the first song was heard.

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Why have philosophers and poets always been mortal enemies? Is there a place for poetry in an ideal society? Can there be a 'science' of poetics, or is it all just a flash of feeling? What is the difference between a theory, a defence, and an art of poetry? Why does poetry need defending, and how might we defend it? How do we sort good poets from bad? Does literary history matter? Should we read the poetry of ages past, and how do we deal with its differences from our own? What is the relationship between word and sign, myth and allegory, tragic and comic, truth and fiction, imitation and originality, licence and decorum? How do modern poets compare to ancient, and are we winning? How does one write the sound of a wave crashing onto shore? This theory course covers the first two and a half thousand years.

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Introduction to Poetry | 44155 BA lecture course

Semester: 
1st semester
Offered: 
2024
Syllabus on Shnaton

This course introduces students to the history and techniques of poetry in English. Through lectures and tutorials focusing on close reading, students will learn methodologies for the formal analysis of poetic structure, prosody and verse forms as well as theories of poetics.

Seventeenth-Century Poetry | 44187 BA advanced seminar

Semester: 
1st semester
Offered: 
2024
Syllabus on Shnaton

An introduction to the poetry of the seventeenth century, from the accession of James I through the Restoration. Through close reading of major authors we will look at private and public styles; patronage and intimacy; writing for money; 'metaphysical' poetry; the fashioning of a literary career; the English civil war, interregnum, and Restoration; poetic voice; New World poetry; the new science; libertinism; and innovations in this period in genres of English poetry such as elegy, pastoral, lyric, satire, 'songs and sonnets', devotional poetry, and more.

Making it New in Renaissance England | 44741 MA seminar

Semester: 
2nd semester
Offered: 
2023
Syllabus on Shnaton

Sixteenth-century England was in a state of constant novelty. Language and learning, religious politics, history, science, economics, were transformed in the course of a single generation. Humanism and the resurgence of Greek refashioned the face of the past; scientific and maritime discoveries upended centuries-old models of the natural world; the confessional schisms of the Reformation sundered friendships and cast the fate of even the most pious soul into doubt; and the printing revolution gave rise to a dizzying new marketplace of ideas.

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How did English authors respond to this turbulence? How did they rise to the challenge of novelty? We will look at a wide range of literary works throughout the century as responses to—and provocations of—the shock of the new.

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