Essential works of a group of poets unsurpassed in poetic achievement and influence: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, Keats. Selected writings of Dorothy Wordsworth, Mary Robinson, Felicia Hemans. We’ll explore and interrogate prominent themes of Romanticism, including imagination, memory, creation; childhood, nature, the self; sympathy, empathy; questions of representation (for example, what issues arise when white, European, and for the most part male writers attempt to represent or “give voice” to “others”?); envisioning social justice; the lure of the unknown or unknowable; inspiration as "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings"; dejection and writer's block, bipolar poetry; influence (from opium to "the viewless wings of Poesy"); beauty, truth, fancy, illusion; rebellion, revolution, transgression, exile; the Byronic hero, the femme fatale, the muse; complexity, ambiguity, mystery, doubt; mortality, immortality. Open to majors and non-majors. No poetry background required.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 25

Prerequisites: None.

Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Not Offered; Spring