LIT 91 — Romantic Poetry: Nature, Consciousness, and the Sublime
Quarter: Fall
Instructor(s): Denise Gigante
Date(s): Sep 24—Dec 10
Class Recording Available: No
Class Meeting Day: Thursdays
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
Class Meeting Time: 5:30—7:20 pm (PT)
Please Note: This course has a different schedule than what was previously published. The course will meet on 10 Thursdays, September 24 - December 10, 5:30 - 7:20 pm (PT). No class on November 5 and November 26.
Tuition: $585
Refund Deadline: Sep 26
Unit(s): 2
Status: Open
Quarter: Fall
Day: Thursdays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 5:30—7:20 pm (PT)
Date(s): Sep 24—Dec 10
Unit(s): 2
Tuition: $585
Refund Deadline: Sep 26
Instructor(s): Denise Gigante
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
Recording Available: No
Status: Open
Please Note: This course has a different schedule than what was previously published. The course will meet on 10 Thursdays, September 24 - December 10, 5:30 - 7:20 pm (PT). No class on November 5 and November 26.
“The everlasting universe of things flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom—now lending splendour, where from secret springs the source of human thought its tribute brings…” The sublime opening of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Mont Blanc” characterizes much of what the English Romantic poets managed to achieve in language, a blending of the philosophical and the religious, the tranquility of the beautiful and the emotionally intense, the dense materiality of the real and the transcendent.
This course will explore the brilliant verse experiments that have come down to us as classics by William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and others. We’ll read lyric (odes, hymns, sonnets, and conversation poems), closet drama, and narrative verse (ballad, romance sections of autobiographical epic), with an eye toward the hybrid nature of these verse achievements and how voice and identity emerge in them. We'll also read Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's brief journal in the sublime region of Mont Blanc. Above all, we’ll learn to see in the confrontation between the poets and “all the mighty world of eye and ear” something reciprocal, as Wordsworth might say, both “what they half-create and what perceive.”
This course will explore the brilliant verse experiments that have come down to us as classics by William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and others. We’ll read lyric (odes, hymns, sonnets, and conversation poems), closet drama, and narrative verse (ballad, romance sections of autobiographical epic), with an eye toward the hybrid nature of these verse achievements and how voice and identity emerge in them. We'll also read Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's brief journal in the sublime region of Mont Blanc. Above all, we’ll learn to see in the confrontation between the poets and “all the mighty world of eye and ear” something reciprocal, as Wordsworth might say, both “what they half-create and what perceive.”
This description was updated after registration opened to reflect the finalized reading list. The full schedule is available in the syllabus.
DENISE GIGANTE
Sadie Dernham Patek Professor in the Humanities and Professor of English, Stanford
Denise Gigante has taught a wide range of poetry and English literature at Stanford since 2000. She is co-editor of the recently published The Cambridge History of the British Essay. Her books include Book Madness: A Story of Book Collectors in America, Taste: A Literary History, Life: Organic Form and Romanticism, The Keats Brothers: The Life of John and George, and two anthologies: The Great Age of the English Essay and Gusto: Essential Writings in Nineteenth-Century Gastronomy. She received a PhD from Princeton. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley & Percy Bysshe Shelley, History of a Six Week’s Tour (ISBN 978-0192858276)
(Required) Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley’s Poetry and Prose, 2nd ed. (ISBN 978-0393977523)
(Required) William Wordsworth, Wordsworth’s Poetry and Prose (ISBN 978-0393924787)
(Required) Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley’s Poetry and Prose, 2nd ed. (ISBN 978-0393977523)
(Required) William Wordsworth, Wordsworth’s Poetry and Prose (ISBN 978-0393924787)