The topic of this course is the troublesome relationship(s) between poetry and sound. Scholars and poets have often appealed to sound as a fundamental quality of poetry, a material characteristic that distinguishes poetry from other kinds of language. Such appeals have just as often landed poetry in the proverbial thicket, amid a tangle of conflicting identities. Partly at issue may be what we can properly call poetry’s “medium,” as different paints, utensils or materials serve the visual and plastic arts. Robert Pinsky has cleverly insisted that “[t]he medium of poetry is the human body: the column of air inside the chest, shaped into signifying sounds in the larynx and the mouth.” Taking Pinsky’s conception as a starting point, a thesis to both challenge and explore, we’ll confront poems from the Medieval period up to and through the current moment, paying particular attention to how poems sound, and how sound both constructs and breaks apart what we think of as poetry. We’ll also note some of the historical controversies that poetry has generated in artistic, scholarly, and political contexts, and see if we can get a sense of where and how sound figures into the form and function of reading poetry.

Student responsibilities include daily attendance, discussion, plenty of reading aloud, a group project, a few short critical responses, and two 5-7 page essays (with revisions).

Texts:

• Wordsworth & Coleridge. Lyrical Ballads. Routledge. [041535529X]
• Susan Howe. The Europe of Trusts. [0811215075]
• Robert Pinsky. The Sounds of Poetry. [0374526176]