Keats, Rossetti, Millay

Undergraduate

An immersive study of the poetry, lives, and myths of three icons of the lyric tradition: the Romantic poet John Keats, the Victorian poet Christina Rossetti, and the modernist poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. Although separated by time and literary-historical periodization, all three have been known, loved, and judged for their lyric intensity: the melancholy and ecstasy of their poetic personae, the sensuous worlds their poems conjure, and the virtuosity and beauty of their prosodic forms. As we read the major and minor works of each poet, we'll consider broader questions about the nature of lyric; the vagaries of literary reputation and taste; and the roles of biography, feeling, gender, faith, and form in poetry and poetic analysis. HU TTh 9am-10:15am