Poetry and Gender
Herbert Marks
Comparative Literature
Is the muse of lyric androgynous, or may poetic “voice” like speech itself, be distinguished according to gender? With this question as starting point, our course will focus on America’s two greatest poets – Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson – who, in their distinctive ways (Whitman’s self-promoting, bardic, and effusive; Dickinson’s reclusive, ironical, and gnomic), epitomize and challenge our common ideas about the relation between poetry and gender. As time allows, we shall also consider one or two more contemporary couples (for example, Nelly Sachs and Paul Celan; or Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell). Secondary writings on the theory of lyric. Written work: a term paper or two shorter papers, and a class presentation.
Catalog Information: HON-H 303 Interdepartmental Colloquia