LIT096 CM - Wallace Stevens

This will be an in-depth study of one of the greatest American poets, Wallace Stevens. We will follow Stevens’s career from his first collection, Harmonium (1923), to his last, Auroras of Autumn (1950). We will read Stevens’s letters, essays and lectures, though our focus will be on close reading and nuanced understanding of his poetry. To a get a sense of the poetic context in which Stevens is working we will look at the poetry of American contemporaries such as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and H.D. We will read critical treatments of Stevens’s poetry by Helen Vendler, Harold Bloom, Simon Critchley, Northrop Frye, Guy Davenport, Mary Ruefle and others.

Offered: Occasionally

Credit: 1

Course Number: LIT 096 CM