Upon completion of the course students will be able to display insight into the complex web of political, cultural, social and ethnic identities that have influenced the identity poetry of Great Britain. Students should have an understanding of the leading national poetries of England, Wales and Scotland.
By taking this course students will be able to display insight into the complex web of political, cultural, social, and ethnic identities that have influenced the identity poetry of the constituent parts of Great Britain. Students should have an understanding of the leading national poetries of England, Wales and Scotland, and their interactions with and responses to that greater part of the island: England. This course is an examination of national discourse through the national poetries of England, Wales and Scotland, focusing on the most iconic examples, namely those poets and poems that help us to further understand the creation of distinct national identities in these countries. The course includes, among others, Simon Armitage, Tony Harrison’s towering ‘v.’, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Benjamin Zephaniah, R S Thomas, Gwyneth Lewis, Robbie Burns, Hugh MacDiarmid, Tom Leonard and Jackie Kay. This course will spend some considerable time reading and analysing that genre of poetry known as the First World War poets, a rather unique, deeply moving and highly critical strand of poetry, now widely lauded and respected. It was not always thus; the sing-song rhymes of Jessie Pope were wildly popular during the war, excessively patriotic, glorifying combat, exhorting men to fight, and generally romanticizing war, Pope’s poems have been vilified as jingoistic doggerel. She is now largely forgotten but her poetry perhaps reveals more of British Home attitudes to the ongoing war in the rat-infested trenches of France and Belgium. She herself said of her poetry: 'if you take a pen and sit and stare at a piece of blank paper long enough, something in the shape of a poem will come on it sooner or later'.
Lectures 28 h; reading/self-study 47 h; end-term essay of 3000 words (around 10 pages) 60 h
Seminar-based communicative approach to teaching. Original recordings of the poets themselves used wherever possible.
By taking this course students will be able to display insight into the complex web of political, cultural, social, and ethnic identities that have influenced the identity poetry of the constituent parts of Great Britain. Students should have an understanding of the leading national poetries of England, Wales and Scotland, and their interactions with and responses to that greater part of the island: England. This course is an examination of national discourse through the national poetries of England, Wales and Scotland, focusing on the most iconic examples, namely those poets and poems that help us to further understand the creation of distinct national identities in these countries. The course includes, among others, Simon Armitage, Tony Harrison’s towering ‘v.’, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Benjamin Zephaniah, R S Thomas, Gwyneth Lewis, Robbie Burns, Hugh MacDiarmid, Tom Leonard and Jackie Kay. This course will spend some considerable time reading and analysing that genre of poetry known as the First World War poets, a rather unique, deeply moving and highly critical strand of poetry, now widely lauded and respected. It was not always thus; the sing-song rhymes of Jessie Pope were wildly popular during the war, excessively patriotic, glorifying combat, exhorting men to fight, and generally romanticizing war, Pope’s poems have been vilified as jingoistic doggerel. She is now largely forgotten but her poetry perhaps reveals more of British Home attitudes to the ongoing war in the rat-infested trenches of France and Belgium. She herself said of her poetry: 'if you take a pen and sit and stare at a piece of blank paper long enough, something in the shape of a poem will come on it sooner or later'.
Lectures 28 h; reading/self-study 47 h; end-term essay of 3000 words (around 10 pages) 60 h
Seminar-based communicative approach to teaching. Original recordings of the poets themselves used wherever possible.
- Opettaja: John Braidwood