Syllabus for Dr. Butler: Reading and Writing about Literature
Fall 2006

8/24 Reading and Writing about Literature: Making Choices

Burns, "A Red, Red Rose" (547)
Pound, "In the Station of the Metro" (513)
Williams, "This is Just to Say" (478)
Phyllis Wheatley, “On being brought from Africa to America ”

On being brought from A F R I C A to
A M E R I CA.

'TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew,
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train. 

8/25 Meet in Discussion Sections

8/29 Literature: Sound, Form, and Meaning

Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur” (583)
Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool” (594)
E. E. Cummings, “In Just-” (637)
From Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet (Prologue)

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona , where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Homer, "Shield of Achilles" (WebCT)
Auden, "Shield of Achilles" (WebCT)

8/31 Literature: Love

Sidney, "Sonnet 71" (WebCT)
Herrick, "The Vine" (WebCT) and
"Upon Julia's Clothes" (487)
Parker, "One Perfect Rose" (WebCT)
Brooks, "Bean Eaters" (WebCT)
Lovelace, "To Althea. From Prison" (WebCT)
Kinnell, "After Making Love" (WebCT)

9/1 Meet in Discussion Sections

9/5 Literature: War

Lovelace, "To Lucasta. On Going to the Wars" (469)
Jarrell, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" (810)
O'Brien, "The Things They Carried" (410)

9/7 Literature

Viewer’s Choice

9/9 Meet in Discussion Sections

9/12 Using sources and MLA format