MLA Proseminar: How to Read Poetry

This course is designed for students who would like to become better readers of poetry. Students who fulfill the course requirements will learn about the English-language poetic tradition between the 17th and the 20th centuries, begin to recognize expert, artistic uses of language, and discover what makes poetry so enjoyable to readers. No previous training or coursework is expected. Students from every discipline are encouraged to enroll. We’ll concentrate on lyric poetry in English (short poems that express the thoughts and emotions of a first-person speaker), emphasizing sonnets and related forms. By learning to read these short but densely packed poems, students will gain skills that can be used to interpret and enjoy poetry of all kinds: how to pay close attention, how to paraphrase, how to recognize poetic structures and authors’ choices, and how to  understand particular poems as participants in  wider poetic purposes and methods. Students will develop skill in “close reading,” a practice of attention and a critical-thinking tool that can be applied not only to poetry, but to other kinds of writing and other media. Trained close readers perceive not only what texts say directly but also how they say it, what they assume, and what they leave unsaid. By learning to close-read, students become less vulnerable to verbal manipulation in many contexts. Even if you never read another poem after this course (a sad and terrible prospect), the ability to close-read will serve you for the rest of your life.