Handbook

Subject Area: English

This course can also be studied in the following specialisations: Creative Writing

What is poetry? How do we know a poem when we see it, and why is poetry the most moving, the most challenging, and the most memorable of literary forms? In this course you will encounter a range of accomplished and influential works from across the globe and across the centuries: from ravishing love poems to comic ballads, from hip hop to digital poetry. You will learn to think about such works in relation to their historical contexts, from political revolution to scientific developments. And you will discover new ways of thinking about poetry theoretically, from the significance of formal features such as voice and metre to the conceptual differences between poetry and other art forms such as music and the novel. The aim is to develop a thorough grounding in the history of poetry as a form, to hone your critical skills in analysing poetry, and to achieve a sophisticated grasp of contemporary debates about the nature and significance of poetry.