Students examine classic and experimental essays for technique and content. Emphasis is placed on individual style, but imitation of selected works are encouraged. A workshop in the craft of writing fiction. English 233 or consent of the instructor. A workshop in the craft and art of writing poetry.
Classes are a mix of open readings and criticism of student poems, reports, and tutorials.
Students are asked to compose a chapbook-length portfolio of their own poetry by the end of the semester. Readings include works of poetry, drama, fiction, and prose non-fiction by More, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Donne, Jonson, and others. A critical study of the major writers of the eighteenth century, particularly Pope, Swift, and Samuel Johnson, and of the central imaginative concerns of the transition from the Renaissance world view to the Romantic and post-Romantic eras. There is a concentration on satire, but with some attention to drama, the novel, lyric poetry, and miscellaneous prose. This study of the epic tradition starts with a brief glance at the classical epic and then focuses on epic writing in English and American literature.