SYLLABUS: Spring Semester, 2013
“FAMOUS DREAMS IN POETRY” , ARLT100G, 35326, THH 215, T-THU, 12:30 -1:50, Prof. Muske-Dukes
This is a course designed with careful emphasis on reading and writing about poems. We will read and discuss (and attempt to address critically, as well as imitate in short creative pieces), several wellknown canonical poems that are “dreams” – or inspired by the idea of a dream. From Sappho to Keats to Langston Hughes to Elizabeth Bishop, the Famous Dream Poem will be our focus and inspiration. Again, our inquiry here will be into the process of “translation” of dreams and the image of a dream – transformed into poetry.
There will be one critical paper of medium length (10-15 pages) due, as well as regular analytical and imaginative writing responses.
dream
/drēm/
NounA series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep.
Verb
Experience dreams during sleep: "I dreamed about her last night".
Synonyms
noun. / reverie - vision - daydream - sleep
verb. / daydream - fancy
According to Coleridge the imagination is divided into two types: primary and secondary. Primary imagination is "the living power and the prime agent of human perception". It is the faculty by which we perceive the world around us; it works through our senses and is common to all human beings. Secondary imagination is the poetic vision, the faculty that a poet has "to idealize and unify". During a state of ecstasy, in fact, images do not appear isolated, but associated according to laws of their own which have nothing to do with the data of experience. The imagination is contrasted with fancy, which is inferior to it, since it is a kind of mechanical and logical faculty which enables a poet to aggregate and associate metaphors, similes and other poetical devices.
Mirage
The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream; and now I wake,
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
For a dream's sake.
I hang my harp upon a tree,
A weeping willow in a lake;
I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped
For a dream's sake.
Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
For a dream's sake.
Cristina Rossetti
A Knock On the Door
They ask me if I've ever thought about the end of
the world, and I say, "Come in, come in, let me
give you some lunch, for God's sake." After a few
bites it's the afterlife they want to talk about.
"Ouch," I say, "did you see that grape leaf
skeletonizer?" Then they're talking about
redemption and the chosen few sitting right by
His side. "Doing what?" I ask. "Just sitting?" I
am surrounded by burned up zombies. "Let's
have some lemon chiffon pie I bought yesterday
at the 3 Dog Bakery." But they want to talk about
my soul. I'm getting drowsy and see butterflies
everywhere. "Would you gentlemen like to take a
nap, I know I would." They stand and back away
from me, out the door, walking toward my
neighbors, a black cloud over their heads and
they see nothing without end.
James Tate
PARTIAL LIST OF TEXTS:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”
Langston Hughes, “A Dream Deferred”
Elizabeth Bishop, “A Summer’s Dream” and “The Dream”
Adrienne Rich, “I Dream in the Darkness”, “The Dream of a Common Language” and “Diving into the Wreck”
James Tate, “A Knock on the Door”
Edgar Allen Poe, “Dream within a Dream”
Louise Bogan, “The Dream”
John Keats, “On a Dream”
Sylvia Plath, “Death & Co.”, “Riddle in Nine Syllables”
Marie Howe, “The Promise”
COURSE SCHEDULE: Spring semester, 2013
Week 1 -- Introductions, Instant bios, discussion: schedule. Grading breakdown – class participation (20%) reading assignments (20%) all writing, revision (40%), (portfolio:collected work, revisions) + paper, 20%. Procedure – print or xerox copies of writing for class, set up portfolio, revision schedule. Be prepared, as part of class participation to memorize a poem for class, from a book by one of the “dream” poets. Find that book, read it. Paper: medium length, on “dream poet” of choice. Regular writing exercises - imitation of poem in own words, analysis of poem. Assignment, Cristina Rossetti’s “Mirage” or James Tate, “A Knock on the Door” – on POV. (If possible, find all poems in BOOKS in library or bookstore, not always on-line.) Type name in upper righthand corner of each page, followed by ARLT100G, “Poetry/Dream”, Original + date. Number revisions 1, 2. 3, as they follow.
Week 1 (2nd meeting) - Bring poems & analysis to class. Rossetti & Tate, discuss. Order. Read & discuss poems & comments. Begin assembling portfolio with original poems + critical comments – revision. Time-keeper.
Week 2 – Continue class discussion. Portfolios – begin to assemble. Assignment:
Kubla Khan, Coleridge - long poem, fragment
Week 2 (2nd meeting)- Finish discussion, earlier poems & comments, Rossetti and/or Tate. Portfolios – revisions
Week 3 - Discussion and assignments – Kubla Khan – imagine a dream country, comments – Coleridge: Imagination & Fancy
Week 3 – (2nd meeting) Kubla Khan – Assignment: Adrienne Rich, “Diving into the Wreck”
Week 4 - Kubla Khan, Adrienne Rich – dream or fantasy or instruction on gender politics? Revisions -
Week 4 - Discussion of Rich, discuss comments, poems. Portfolio
Week 5 - Rich, cont. Assignment: Langston Hughes, “A Dream Deferred”
Week 5 - Finish Rich discussion. Langston Hughes, discuss poem, meaning + comments & writing. Revisions.
Week 6 -- Langston Hughes, further discussion. Politics of race in “Dream”.
Week 6 - Hughes, cont. Revisions. Assignment: Edgar Allen Poe, “ Dream
within a Dream”, imitate, analyze.
Week 7 -- Discuss Poe poem – discussion: writing. Begin to make notes for paper.
Which poet?
Week 7 - Poe: use of rhyme, music in poetry. Continue.
Week 8 -- Poe, continue.
Week 9 - Poe. cont. Assignment: Poem by Marie Howe. Find books by Howe.
The Promise
In the dream I had when he came back not sick
but whole, and wearing his winter coat,
he looked at me as though he couldn't speak, as if
there were a law against it, a membrane he
couldn't break His silence was what he could not
not do, like our breathing in this world,
like our living. As we do, in time.
And I told him: I'm reading all this Buddhist stuff,
and listen, we don't die when we die. Death is
an event, a threshold we pass through. We go on and on
and into light forever. And he looked down, and then back up at me. It was the look we'd pass across the table when Dad was drunk again and dangerous, the level look that wants to tell you something, in a crowded room, something important, and can't
Marie Howe
Week 9 – Marie Howe, Visiting Poet, Poetry Reading (Seek out her book,
What the Living Do, read + newer work). Assignment: Louise Bogan, “The
Dream”, writing.
Week 10 – SPRING BREAK: March 18 -23
Week 11 - Post-discussion, Marie Howe. Begin discussion, Louise Bogan,
“The Dream”, meaning, imitation. Psychology of the dream? Paper, focus
on topic?
Week 11 -- Bogan, cont. Discussion. Paper: discussion.
Week 12 – Choice: – Sylvia Plath (“Death & Co.”? “Riddle in Nine
Syllables”) – Assignment.
Week 12 -- Plath discussion, cont. Paper?
Week 13 - Plath, Paper?
Week 13 – Plath – Paper due on this date or following Week.
Week 14 - Plath, finish. Assignment: your choice of remaining poets or find a
Dream Poem (by a recognized author) for discussion.
Week 14 -- Poems, discuss. Read selected papers. Memorized poems?
Week 15 - Final poems, papers, memorized poems.
Week 15 -- Final discussions.
Final Day – Class Party
Carol Muske-Dukes, 213 740 2808 or 2824. Taper Hall, 409
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Here’s to a great semester! CMD