19th & 20th Century American Poets

This coming semester I'm teaching 19th and 20th century American poetry. This will be the first time for me teach American poetry. The landscape I need to cover is quite daunting – two centuries of profound poetry within a mere 14 weeks! (The semester is 16 weeks in total, but two weeks are allocated for mid and final exams.) It feels somewhat silly to cram two centuries of American poetry in less than four months, when any of these poets, take Eliot for instance, can easily occupy a semester on his own.

I’ve decided to teach it as an “introduction” to 19th and 20th century American poetry, and will cover as many of the big names as possible. Currently my syllabus outline will look something like this:

Week 1: Orientation
What is Poetry?
19th & 20th century America (The Highlights)

Week 2: Romantics
Edgar Allen Poe

Week 3: Two Great Voices
Emily Dickinson & Walt Whitman

Week 4-6: More Originals
Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, E. E. Cummings

Week 7:
Working on the first research paper

Week 8:
Midterm Exams

Week 9-11: Modernism
Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot

Week 12-14: Race & Gender (Some Important African American and Female Poets)
Marian Moore, Sylvia Plath, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Maya Angelou

Week 15:
Working on the second research paper

Week 16:
Final Examination

I will also spend a substantial amount of time reviewing poetic devices and figurative language to aid in the quality of the research papers. So far as I can gather, the two research papers the students will write for this class will be a first for many of them, hence the week each I’m allocating before the hand in date for each research paper. Since plagiarism has become such a rampant phenomenon, I’m going to try to keep it hands on with these papers – guiding the students through the process.

My main textbook will be Perrine’s Sound & Sense (Thomas Arp & Creg Johnson, 2008). It include poems of most of the poets I want to look at, gives very good material on reviewing poetry and has a section devoted to writing about poetry. I will probably supplement poems from Norton’s Anthology of Poetry and supplement material from MAP.

Any suggestions?