English 377 - Feminist Poetics

This seminar will explore innovations in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women's verse. By investigating experiments with narrative, genre, stanza form, meter, and figurative language, we will contemplate what political, social, and ideological problems women writers attempted to present and perhaps solve through linguistic creativity. Larger questions include how to define 'feminist poetics' and what potential such a project might afford poets and thinkers today. To this end, we will read selections of poetry in conversation with contemporary feminist theory as well as representations of women's incantation, prophecy, and singing by male poets and novelists of the day.

This course is open to Juniors and Seniors.; Prereq: 8 credits from English and/or Gender Studies beyond the 100 level.