Whitman and His Counterparts

English 460: Major Author

Fall 2004

Course Description:

Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass sets the groundwork for American poetry, photography, and art for the next 150 years. We will study closely the major poems of Whitman’s early career and follow that with attention to recent poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, and A. R. Ammons.

Goals of the Course:

1) to focus on a major American author and his influence on American culture

2) to watch that influence interact with the developments of 20^th-century art and poetry

3) to learn how to do a graduate-level paper and publish a topical anthology

4) to discover some new literary friends (in the course and the class).

The Path of the Course:

As Ammons would have it, a poem is a walk, a going out and a return. This course goes out for seven weeks from the major poems and prose writings of Whitman to the critical and biographical appraisals of his work. Each student will identify a topic, idea, technique, or issue in Whitman to form the focus of a paper on the author.

In the second half of the course, we make our return by looking closely at the poetry of five other poets in the syllabus (others as well in research). Each student will gather a set of later poems to form a short anthology of works that parallel the major poems and prose of Whitman and play out new variations on the topic of the original paper. This creative enterprise will take the form of a small book which illustrates and includes the paper (now revised).

An indispensable element of this major, term-long project will be the research teamwork of the course. We will keep track of everyone’s topic and interest, passing suggestions and findings by email, through note cards distributed in class, or in class discussion. You will be given credit not only for what your research produces for your project, but how it helps others.

Course Requirements and Grade Formula:

Ø paper on Whitman -- DUE WEEK 7: 25%

Ø anthology of Whitman and his counterparts-- DUE WEEK 15: 40%

Ø participation: attendance, class discussion, report(s), helping others with their topics, etc.: 25%

Ø final examination: 10%

Steve Phelan, Professor of English, Orlando Hall 109 (ph: -2409)

Email: phelan@rollins.edu --- Campus Mail: 2662

Website: http://fox.rollins.edu/~phelan

Bird’s Nest Fern

Week	Date	Reading Assignments and Classroom Activities
1)	Aug. 23	Introduction to the course: goals, schedule, requirements, and how to read “Song of Myself”
2)	Aug. 30	“Song of Myself” and “There Was a Child Went Forth”
3)	Sept. 6	laborless: day and night: read ahead and decide on your topic
4)	Sept. 13	“Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” “The Noiseless Patient Spider,” “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” “Sleepers,” “I Sing the Body Electric,” “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed”
5)	S. 20	Democratic Vistas
		Selections from Specimen Days
6)	S. 27	Preface to the First Edition, 1855
		Biographies and Critical studies
7)	Oct. 4	Paper Due: identifying your own interest and defining a major thrust of Whitman’s creative impulse
		Ginsberg: “Howl” (to be read in class)
8)	O. 11	Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Coney Island of the Mind (cd jazz reading) How to Paint Sunlight (more recent book of poems and paintings)
9)	O. 18	Gary Snyder: Turtle Island
10)	O. 25	reports on other poets
11)	Nov. 1	A. R. Ammons: Selected Poems, Expanded Ed.
12)	Nov. 8	reports on other poets
13)	N. 15	Mary Oliver: New and Selected Poems
14)	N. 22	workshop on final anthology
15)	N. 29	Anthology including revised paper Due
16)	Dec. 6	Final Exam