ENGL 24038. SONNETS IN TIME AND SPACE In this class we’ll consider the sonnet as one of the most
foundational and concentrated, and most innovative and expansive, forms of
English poetry, from Petrarch’s influence on Chaucer through the Elizabethan
period’s major sequences to Wordsworth, Auden, and beyond—to the present day. Throughout the course, using techniques of
close reading, analytical writing, and creative reinterpretation, we will
examine how the sonnet form serves both varied and enduring purposes over time,
as well as how sonnets deal with the mental spaces they create, be they John
Donne’s “pretty rooms” or vast sweeps of landscape, cosmos, or eternity. [Before 1900] [AH]
- Profesor: Claire Eager