Παρουσίαση/Προβολή

(ENL715) -  Iro Filippaki

Περιγραφή Μαθήματος

Following a thematic approach and through close readings of texts, this course explores the changing forms and possibilities of English poetry, from earlier periods to the present day. We will examine how established poetic forms—including the sonnet, epic, ode, elegy, and lyric—have been continually adapted, challenged, and reinvented across different historical periods. Alongside formal developments, we will consider how poetry engages with enduring and urgently contemporary questions of nature, love, death, gender and sexuality, war, revolution, and social change, situating these concerns within their historical, political, and cultural contexts.

The course aims to develop students’ skills in experiencing, interpreting, analyzing, and critically engaging with poetry, while introducing them to major forms, traditions, and periods of English poetry. Particular attention will be given to the ways in which poets from different periods respond to changing social and political realities, and to how contemporary poets revisit, transform, and question inherited literary traditions. By the end of the course, students should be able to read poetry with greater understanding and critical perception; recognize and articulate the historical development and continuing transformation of English poetry; and communicate literary analyses clearly and effectively.

A central concern of the course is also to reconsider what we mean by “English poetry” in the contemporary world. We will examine how questions of Englishness, belonging, and literary tradition intersect with race, gender, sexuality, disability, and social class, and consider whose voices and experiences have historically been included, excluded, or marginalized within accounts of English literary history. In this way, the course approaches poetry not simply as a record of the past, but as a dynamic and evolving form that continues to engage with the cultural, political, and social concerns of the present.

Combining lectures, close reading, and discussion, the course places an emphasis on active student participation and sustained engagement with the assigned material. Students are expected to keep up with the syllabus and come prepared to discuss the poems assigned for each session.

Ημερομηνία δημιουργίας

Τετάρτη 23 Σεπτεμβρίου 2026