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EGC 102 English Poetry

[4 credits, 48 hours]
Objective:

This course in English Poetry is intended to enhance the awareness of the students about the
concepts and the salient aspects of poetry and to encourage the application of such understanding to
the study of English poetry in its historical and literary context.

Learning Outcome:

On completion of the course the student will be able to demonstrate the ability to appreciate and
critique poetry

Course Content:

1. Introduction to Poetry: nature, features, forms, and types. [12 contact hours]

2. English Poetry upto the Age of Chaucer: a brief historical survey indicating the transition from
Old English and Middle English poetic tradition to Chaucerian poetry.

3. Major genres of poetry with reference to the prescribed texts: (a) narrative: verse-tale/epic; (b)
lyric: songs & sonnets: (c) dramatic: dramatic eclogue. (d) minor genres of poetry viz. elegy, hymn,
ballad and parody.

4. Significant movements, modes and eras that mark the evolution of English poetry viz. Classical,
Petrarchan, Renaissance, Elizabethan, Reformation, Metaphysical, Augustan, Neoclassical,
Romantic, Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite, Modern and Contemporary.

Prescribed Texts:
1. Geoffrey Chaucer: “The Prologue”. [6 contact hours]

2. Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Queene [Book I] [6 contact hours]

3. John Donne: Songs and Sonnets. [6 contact hours]

4. William Wordsworth: selections. [6 contact hours]

5. W. B. Yeats: selections. [6 contact hours]

6. W. H. Auden: “The Age of Anxiety”. [6 contact hours]

References:

Abrams, M. H. The Prelude as a Portrait of the Artist.
Alvarez, A. The New Poetry.
Beaty, I. and W. H. Machet. Poetry from Statement to Meaning.
Bennet, H. S. Chaucer and the 15th Century.
Chari, I. Auden’s Poetry: A Critical Study.
Craik and Craik, editors. John Donne: Songs and Sonnets.
Dump, John D., editor. A Critical Idiom Series. (Relevant titles.)