ENGL 2600 - Introduction to Poetry

Credit Hours: 3.00

Objectives:

1. Identify key structural elements including imagery, diction, symbolism, connotation, tone, musical devices, rhythm, and meter.
2. Provide meaningful descriptions of the structures of works being studied.

Outcome 2: Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to write an essay of literary analysis that springs from the student’s independent interpretation.

Objectives:

1. Recognize and analyze the poet’s use of poetic devices (especially diction, figurative language, and metrical devices) as they contribute to a unified reading of the poem.
2. Recognize and analyze a poem’s occasion and point of view.
3. Recognize the poem as an artistic creation of the whole person: reason, imagination, and emotion.
4. Develop a sympathetic response to the way the poet sees the world and to the attempt to order that world for the sake of poetic presentation.

Outcome 3: Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to write an essay of literary analysis, incorporating insights from secondary sources and documenting them with proper MLA format.

Objectives:

1. Offer an effective controlling idea in the introduction.
2. Use appropriate support and evidence in the body of the essay.
3. Organize the essay effectively, using topic sentences, transitions, and other devices as appropriate.
4. Document sources according to MLA guidelines.

1. Definition: What is poetry?
2. Recognizing the tools or ingredients of poetry
   1. Tropes
   2. Occasion
   3. Imagery
   4. Diction
   5. Symbolism
   6. Allusions
   7. Connotation and denotation
   8. Tone
   9. Musical devices
   10. Rhythm
   11. Meter
   12. Common forms: sonnet, ballad, villanelle, sestina, etc.
3. The Writer’s System of Values
   1. Common themes
   2. Historical developments
   3. Literary movements
   4. Socio‐economic influences
   5. Multiculturalism
4. The Writer’s Conception of the World
   1. Reason
   2. Imagination
   3. Emotion