CCS Literature 110: Genres

Wordsworth and the Growth of a Poet’s Mind

Instructor: James Donelan                   donelan@english.ucsb.edu
Office: 2702 South Hall
Meets on: TR 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM Building 494 (Old Little Theater), Room 160B
Course Description: We will read Wordsworth's poetry, his biography, selected critical writings, and works by his contemporaries to examine the process he found worthy of an epic-length poem: the formation of his own mind. We will address issues of self-consciousness, poetics, perception, and artistic development as we learn how and why Wordsworth created himself as a poet and re-defined what being a poet means.
Required Texts:
Bloom, H. Romanticism and Consciousness: Essays in Criticism
Gill, S. William Wordsworth: A Life
Wordsworth, W. The Major Works, including The Prelude

Requirements: The course requires regular attendance, active participation in class discussion and activities, and timely completion of all assignments, including two short essays (5-6 pages) and a longer essay (8-10 pages). Students will also be asked to present their research in brief oral reports.
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Syllabus

I: A Poet’s Beginnings

3/31     Introduction to the course
4/2       “Salisbury Plain,” “Yew Tree,” “The Ruined Cottage,” “The Thorn,” “The Idiot Boy,”
            “We are Seven”; Gill, Part I, 1-3

4/7       Prelude, Books I and II
4/9       “Peter Bell,” “Expostulation and Reply,” “The Tables Turned” Gill, Part I, 3-6

4/14     “Tintern Abbey”; Bloom, “The Internalization of the Quest Romance”
4/16     “Five Elegies”; The Lucy Poems; First Group First Paper Due.

II: The Golden Decade

4/21     Prelude, Book III; Gill, Part II, 7-9
4/23     Prelude, Book IV; Abrams, “English Romanticism”; Second Group First Paper Due

4/28     Gill, Part II, 10-11
4/30     Prelude, Book V; de Man, “Intentional Structure”

5/5       Prelude, Book VI; Hartman, “Romanticism and Anti-Self-Consiousness”
5/7       “Michael,” “Resolution and Independence” First Group Second Paper Due

5/12     “Rob Roy’s Grave,” “The Solitary Reaper”; Hollander, “Romantic Verse Form”
5/14     Prelude, Books VII and VIII; Abrams, “Structure and Style”; Second Group Second
            Paper Due

III: A Poet Matures

5/19     Ode: (There was a time)”; Gill, Part III; Hartman, “The Romance of Nature”
5/21     Prelude, Books IX and X

5/26     Prelude, Books XI, XII, and XIII
5/28     “Yarrow Unvisited,” “Yarrow Visited,” “Yarrow Revisited”; Pottle, “The Eye and
            the Object”

IV: The Laureate

6/2       “Scorn Not the Sonnet” Class Presentations
6/4       Class Presentations; Conclusions

6/8       Final Projects Due