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Prof. John HildebidleOffice: 14N-434 MIT Phone: 617-253-4452 E-mail: jjhildeb@mit.edu |
Tuesday-Thursday 2:30-4:00 in 1-277
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Prof. John HildebidleOffice: 14N-434 MIT Phone: 617-253-4452 E-mail: jjhildeb@mit.edu |
As a seminar, the subject will place special emphasis on student involvement and control. I will ask you to submit one ten-twelve page essay, two shorter (five page) essays, and to accept the role of "leadoff person," perhaps more than once, That role will demand that you choose from among the assigned readings for that session the poem we should focus upon, and to offer either a provocative articulation of what the poem is about, or a provocative question which the poem confronts, and which we should grapple with, as well. I have asked the Registrar to set up a class e-mail list, 21l.704-students@mit,edu (that's twenty one ell, not two hundred eleven). The list will be operational on the Monday after Reg Day. You will not be placed on the list unless and until you are fully and officially registered for the subject.
It is my presumption that all work you present or submit is your own. Which raises the troublesome issue of plagiarism, the use of another's intellectual work without proper acknowledgement. This is a very serious offense. It is the policy of the Literature Faculty that students who plagiarize will receive an F in the subject, and also that the instructor will turn the matter over to the Committee on Discipline. Please note that these responses are not within my power to vary or bypass.
Full acknowledgement for all information obtained from sources outside the classroom must be clearly stated in all written work submitted. Ideas, arguments, and direct phrasings taken from someone else's work must be labeled and properly footnoted. Further guidance on the proper forms of attribution may be found in the style guides available in the Writing and Communication Center (12-132), and at the MIT website on plagiarism at: http://web.mit.edu/writing/index.html.
On my web site are what I hope will be useful links on such subjects as "analyzing a text" and "paraphrase," the latter of which is to be firmly resisted. As for deadlines, I grant you that they are inconvenient, but I have tried to structure the term so that essays from my two classes do not fall due simultaneously. If you look at the syllabus and see you will be needing an extension, come see me well in advance. I try to be sympathetic, but the excuse that you are "busy" is a non-starter. After all, we are all busy, all the time, here at MIT. If you simply fail to submit the essay at the deadline moment, without prior arrangement, I will record an irremediable F in my grade book. Essays should be placed in the plastic receptacle on my office door. The "due date" extends until I arrive on campus the following morning, usually around noon.
Essay 1: 10-12 pages (one-inch margins,
double-spaced, 12 or 14 point font). Due on February 19.
Select one of the following poems by Yeats, and write a cogent,
detailed, argumentative analysis of it:
"On a Political Prisoner"
"The Black Tower"
""A Prayer for My Daughter"
"Among School Children"
Essays 2 and 3: Use one of the "leadoffs" posted on the class mailing list, and write a cogent, detailed analytic essay on one of our assigned poems. The essay should run 5 pages. Due on March 4 and April 3.
Our texts should be available for purchase at the Coop:
The Yeats Reader (Simon and Schuster pb)
Patrick Crotty (ed) Modern Irish Poetry (Blackstaff Press pb)
Rita Ann Higgins, Throw in the Vowels (Bloodaxe Books pb)
Eavan Boland, An Origin Like Water (W. W. Norton pb)
Nuala ni dHomhnaill, Selected Poems (New Island Books pb)
First, the man himself. Browse freely and widely in the poems in The Yeats Reader. The Autobiographical selections are worth a glance, as well. Be sure to pay some attention to the following poems:
February 5: Hearty Welcomes (the Irish are renowned for hospitality, after all)
February 7: "The Wild Swans at Coole"
February 12: "Lapis Lazuli"
February 13: first essay due
February 14: Yeats, "When You Are Old" and "Leda and the Swan"
February 19: according to the Institute, today is a Monday, so we will not meet
February 21: "Easter 1916"
Now, on to other voices:
February26: Patrick Kavanagh
February 28: Louis MacNeice
March 4: John Hewitt
Essay 2 due
March 6: Richard Murphy
March 11: John Montague
March 13: Seamus Heaney
March 18: Michael Hartnett
March 20: Derek Mahon
Hot Ziggeties! It's Spring Break! Two tasks for you (a) take one (or more) prolonged nap(s), and (b) take either Crotty's tome or one of the collections by our women as you fly to Paris or Barcelona or wherever, and browse.
April 1: Paul Durcan
April 3: class will not meet. But just to take the bloom of that rose, your third essay is due on this date.
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April 8: Paul Muldoon
April 10: Ciaran Carson
April 15: Paula Meehan
April 17: Medbh McGuckian
April 22: class does not meet
April 24: free sampler day. Come to class prepared to read us a poem from the Crotty anthology. No explanation or defense expected we'll just listen
April 29: a video encounter with Eavan Boland
May 1: Yeats, Cathleen ni Houlihan and Evan Boland, "A Kind of Scar." Think back to any women you recall appearing in any of the poems we've read
May 6: panel discussion of Boland's poetry. Each of you should post on the class mailing list a "provocation" a statement which includes which poem in the book seems most clearly to grapple with Yeats, and a few sentences about how that struggle is enacted.
May 8: a panel discussion of Rita Ann Higgins. Same sort of "provocation" due for this class.
May 13: panel discussion on Nuala ni Dhomhnaill. Same "provocation" system as before.
May 15: last class. Ah, that we could sip some stout or fine Irish whiskey!
