Texts: Students will need texts of the poems of Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, and Adrienne Rich. Also required is a compilation of poems by a variety of female (and some male) poets from 2500 B.C.E. to the present, related writings, and critical essays.

Aims and Organization: This course focuses on poetry by American women from l650 to 2000. However, poets from other periods and countries are brought in for a broad discussion of women's poetry. American women have been examining and recording their lives in poetry from the very start; in fact, the first book of poetry to be published by a citizen of colonial America was by a woman. Although hindered in ways almost unimaginable to us, they subverted prevailing forms and devised their own strategies for exploring the psychological, artistic, spiritual, social, sexual, and emotional implications of being a female and/or a female poet.

We will read poets just now being given critical attention, such as Jane Colman Turell, Judith Sargent Murray, Phillis Wheatley, and, of course, anonymous. We will also examine such canonical writers as Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, and Adrienne Rich in the context of the history of women's poetry. In addition, we will read some important prose works, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton's "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions" and Adrienne Rich's "When We Dead Awaken."

We will examine these poems both as aesthetic constructs and as historical documents, ascertain their common themes, and see how they relate to the traditional canon. We will also discuss the current debate over canon formation. Through them we will also analyze the social structure that determined the lives of both women and men. Our aim will be to acquaint ourselves with a massive body of work heretofore neglected in traditional literature classes.

The format will be a mixture of lecture and discussion. I will lecture some, but I plan to center our inquiries around your questions and comments. Even when I am lecturing, you are free to ask questions or to make points. I will guide and coordinate, but I will also learn from you.

Assignments and Written Work: We will divide the semester into five sections. In the first we will explore the poetry of the Puritan and Revolutionary War periods; in the second we will study the poetry of women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Then comes a section on Dickinson, in which we also read a number of other women poets from Enheduanna in 2500 B.C.E to Mary Oliver in 2000. We will be setting Dickinson in a tradition of female poets who explore mysticism and/or spirituality in their poetry. The last two sections will focus on Plath and Rich, setting them in the context of the late twentieth-century feminist movement and other current poets. After each section, students will write a take-home test/paper. There will also be an assignment of an imitation poem in each section.

For More Information: call me at 745-3634, or e-mail me at elizabeth.oakes@wku.edu.