Seventeenth-Century English Poetry

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

In this course, we will explore poems of 17th-century England, concentrating on the works of John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, and John Milton. Based on these poems, we will talk about Metaphysical Poets, Cavalier Poets and Religious Poets. As the course progresses, you will begin to realize that labels are just that; labels, no more. Although such labels as "metaphysical," "Cavalier" and "religious" serve to highlight the peculiarities of certain types of poetry, they are not wholly adequate and neither are they mutually exclusive. In addition, poets and poems under these labels may be so unlike each other that the roof falls apart. So, in most cases, you will be reading the poems as individual poems, for each poem is different. You will also be trained, early in the semester, in the basic techniques of poetic analysis.