English 4316—American Non-Fiction and Poetry to 1900 Dr. Brian Yothers Office: Hudspeth 212 Phone: 747-5886 Email:
[email protected] Office Hours: M 6-8, T 1:30-4:30 Course Description This is a course in American poetry and poetics through the end of the nineteenth-century. We will examine a wide range of poets and their techniques, their cultural context, and their aesthetic theories. Required Texts The New Anthology of American Poetry, Volume One (Eds. Axelrod, Roman, Travisiano) Because careful reading is one of the goals of this course, I strongly recommend that you have a good college dictionary at your side while reading in order to look up unfamiliar terms and references. I would particularly recommend that you make use of the Oxford English Dictionary Online, which is available through the UTEP library web page. For information on MLA format, grammar, punctuation, clarity, organization, and editing, I recommend the following site: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ Course Requirements Exams You will take three exams this semester, each of which will include identifications, terminology, and contextual data that we have studied in relation to early and nineteenth-century American poetry and poetics. Each exam will be worth 20% of your course grade. Critical Essay You will write two papers, one relatively brief (4-5 pages, or a minimum of 1200-1500 words, exclusive of works cited), and one longer (8-10 pages, or a minimum of 2400-3000 words) for this class. A detailed assignment sheet for each essay will be provided early in the semester.