BRITISH AND IRISH POETRY
Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously said that prose was "words in their best order" but that poetry was "the best words in their best order". This course looks at some of the most influential poets from the last 1300 years. Students examine the origins of the poetic form and the traditions of oral poetry, which began in the eighth century with Beowulf; the influence of Petrarch on the sonnets of Donne and Shakespeare; the aestheticism of Blake and Keats; the spiritual and philosophical concerns of Hopkins and Tennyson; the confessional style of Plath, Lowell and Duffy, and the primitive energy behind the verse of Hughes and Heaney. Attention is paid to the development of form and style and the poets' treatment of language, themes and ideas.
The full course outline may be downloaded here.