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WHAT WE’LL COVER: 

Basic meters of English poetry
Scansion
Historical basis of meter
Theories of metrical meaning

POEMS IN NORTON:

CHAUCER (14TH c): Canterbury Tales – read opening page or so
LANGLAND (14TH c): Piers Plowman – read opening page and contrast meter / alliteration w/ Chaucer’s opening lines
ANON (15TH c): Western Wind
WYATT: They flee from me 115 (R), They flee from me (bowlderized by Tottel) 115, Who so list to hunt (R)
RALEGH: Nymph’s reply to the shepherd (R) 140 (read Marlowe first)
SIDNEY: fr Astrophil & Stella: Sonnet 1:Loving in truth 192
MARLOWE: Passionate shepherd to his love (R) 233
SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets 20, 30, 73, 116, 129, start p. 236
JONSON: On my first daughter 291, On my first son (R) 291, Epitaph on Elizabeth LH (R) 296
DONNE: Go and catch a falling star 264, The sun rising 265 , The canonization HERRICK: Delight in disorder (R) 318
WORDSWORTH: She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways 721, A Slumber Did My Spirit Steal 722
FROST: The Road Not Taken 1127, Stopping by Woods 1131, Birches 1128, After Apple Picking 88

PROSE READING: BOOKS & COPIES

Fussell Poetic Meter  Poetic Form: Part One: Meter
Raffel: From Stress to Stress: Introduction (important) & chapters 1-3, 5, 8, 10-12 

READING ON LINE

1) My annotations for: Fussell, Raffel, Gross & McDowell
2) Everything under the heading “Scansion”, including links to poems discussed on the page called “Scansions"

VOCABULARY / ENTRIES IN PRINCETON
Poetry has the most specialized vocabulary in literature. Sometimes this is annoying, sometimes funny, but in most cases it makes the discussion of poems more efficient and precise. Terms also sometimes illuminate the historical circumstances under which they evolved or have been used. I will list each week the terms you should be familiar with. It will then be your responsibility to look up definitions and applications, and to ask questions about terms you don't understand. The Princeton also includes entries on time periods, movements, and genres. I will list these prefaced by *. If it seems in class that a number of you are not mastering the vocabulary or finishing the reading, we will resort to quizzes. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Vocabulary: (most of these will be in the Princeton; the rest should be elsewhere in your reading): meter, rhythm, accentual (strong-stress) meter, syllabic meter, syllable-stress meter, Chaucerian compromise; scansion, caesura, (initial, medial, terminal caesura); foot, iambic/iamb, trochaic/trochee, anapestic/anapest, dactylic/dactyl, phyrric/phyrrus, spondaic/spondee, headless iamb, reversed foot, double iamb; elision (or syncope); enjambed (or run-on) line, end-stopped line, catalexis, stichic form, distich.

* Renaissance Poetry (here and hereafter, be careful to distinguish between the words "poetics" and "poetry" in the Princeton headings)

* English Poetry III A: Renaissance (p.338), III C: The Seventeenth Century (p343), III D: The Augustans (p345).

WHAT WE’LL DO IN CLASS

Briefly review the historical emergence of syllable-stress meter in English

Discuss metrical meaning
Practice scansion
Link the two