Reading poetry

Many of the readings for this course are available online through the Poetry Foundation and the Academy of American Poets and are linked from the
poem titles.

SES
TOPICS READINGS
#

Pound, Ezra. "In a Station of the

1 Recognizing patterns Metro." In Personae. New Directions, 1990.
ISBN: 9780811211383.

Whitman, Walt. "A March in the

2 Making poetry in English
Ranks Hard-Pressed." In Walt Whitman:
Complete Poetry and Selected Prose.
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1959.
Harned, Thomas Biggs, and Walt
Whitman. Thomas Biggs Harned Collection
of the Papers of Walt Whitman: Recovered
Cardboard Butterfly and Notebooks, 1847-
Circa 1863 to 1864; Notebooks; Circa 1863
to 1864, Washington Hospital Notebook.
1863.
Whitman, Walt. The Artilleryman’s
Vision." In Leaves of Grass. Digireads,
2016. ISBN: 9781420954180.
Yeats, W.B. "Easter 1916." In The
Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. Digireads,
2018. ISBN: 9781420957587.
Frost, Robert. "The Death of the
Hired Man." In North of Boston.
CreateSpace, 2014. ISBN:
9781501038761.

Shakespeare, Wililam. "Sonnet 116."

Poetry Foundation.
Vendler, Helen. The Art of
From evidence to
3 Shakespeare's Sonnets. Belknap Press,
analysis
1999, pp. 113–115. ISBN:
9780674637122. [Preview with Google
Books.]

4 Etymologies and Steele, Timothy. All the Fun's in

rhythms How You Say a Thing: An Explanation of
Meter & Versification. Ohio University
Press, 1999. pp. 1–51.
ISBN: 9780821412602.
Bishop, Elizabeth "At the
SES
TOPICS READINGS
#

Fishhouses." In The Complete Poems,

1927–1979.Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
1983. ISBN: 978037451872.
Heaney, Seamus. "Digging."
In Death of a Naturalist. Faber and Faber,
2006. ISBN: 9780571230839.
Moore, Marianne. "The Fish." Poets.org.

Dizikes, Peter. "From Contemporary Syntax

to Human Language's Deep Origins." MIT
Guest Lecture: Shigeru News Office. June 11, 2014.
Miyagawa, Senior Dizikes, Peter. "The Writing on the
Associate Dean of MIT Wall." MIT News Office. February 21, 2018.
5
Open Learning Sun, Jessica. "Where Did Language Come
From?" Feb. 4, 2018. YouTube.
Language as system(s) Miyagawa, Shigeru, Robert Berwick, and
Kazou Okanoya. "Emergence of Structure."
Frontiers Research Foundation, 2013.

Milton, John. "When I consider how my

light is spent (Sonnet 19)." John Milton
Reading Room.
Dunbar, Paul. "The Debt." In The
Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar.
CreateSpace, 2017. ISBN:
9781475157574.
The shape of sentences Frost, Robert. "Acquainted with the
6 and the shape of Night." In The Poetry of Robert Frost.
information Henry Holt and Co, 1979. ISBN:
9780805005028.
Gay, Ross. "Catalog of Unabashed
Gratitude." In Catalog of Unabashed
Gratitude. University of Pittsburgh Press,
2015. ISBN: 9780822963318.
Kirsch, Adam. "Professional Middle-Class
Couple, 1927." Poetry. April, 2003.

7 Reading line breaks Wordsworth, William. "A Slumber did my

Spirit Seal." Poetry Foundation.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. "We Real
Cool." In The Bean Eaters. Literary
Licensing, 2012. ISBN: 9781259274481.
Williams, William Carlos. "The Red
Wheelbarrow." In The Collected Poems of
William Carlos Williams: Volume I, 1909–
1939. New Directions Publishing
Corporation, 1991. ISBN:
SES
TOPICS READINGS
#

9780811211871.
Williams, William Carlos. "Poem ("As the
Cat")." Poetry. July, 1930.
Schussler, Jennifer. "The Forgotten Man
Behind William Carlos William's 'Red
Wheelbarrow'." New York Times. July 6,
2015.
Eliot, T.S. "The Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock." In Collected Poems 1909–
1962.Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991.
ISBN: 9780151189786.
Eliot, T.S. "Reflections on Vers
Libre." In Selected Prose of T.S.
Eliot. Edited by Frank Kermose. Harvest
Books, 1975. ISBN: 9780156806541.

8 Fixed forms, rhymed and Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 18",

otherwise "Sonnet 60", "Sonnet 65." Poetry
Foundation.
Spenser, Edmund. "Amoretti LXXV",
"Amoretti LXXXI." Poetry Foundation.
Sidney, Philip. "Astrophil and Stella 1",
"Astrophil and Stella 31." Poetry
Foundation.
Larkin, Philip. "Sad Steps."
In Collected Poems. Farrar, Straus and
Grioux, 2004. ISBN: 9780374529208.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. "my dreams,
my works, must wait till after hell."
In Selected Poems. Harper & Row, 1963.
ISBN: 9780060909895.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. "the rites for
Cousin Vit." In The Norton Anthology of
Poetry Fifth Edition. W.W. Norton and
Company, 2005. ISBN: 9780393979206.
Johnson, James. "Lift Every Voice
and Sing." In Complete Poems. Penguin
Classics, 2000. ISBN: 9780141185453.
Bishop, Elizabeth. "One Art."
In The Complete Poems 1926–1979.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983. ISBN:
9780374518172.
Collins, Martha. "The Story We
Know." Poetry. December, 1980.
Hayes, Terence. "The Golden
Shovel." In Lighthead. Penguin Books,
SES
TOPICS READINGS
#

2010. ISBN: 9780143116967.

Guest Lecture: Nick

Montfort, Poet and MIT Montfort,
9 Professor Nick. Truelist. Counterpath, 2017. ISBN:
New work in computer- 9781933996639.
generated poetry

Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 12." Poetry

Foundation.
Herbert, George. "The Collar." Poetry
Foundation.
Stevens, Wallace. "Poetry is a
Destructive Force." In The Collected Poems
Sound patterns and of Wallace Stevens. Vintage, 2005. ISBN:
10
sense 9781101911686.
Marvell, Andrew. "The Mower to the Glow-
worms." Poetry Foundation.
Plath, Sylvia. "Daddy" and
"Morning Song." In Collected Poems.
Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2018.
ISBN: 9780061558894.

Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land. W.W.

Reading a difficult poem
11 Norton & Company, 2000. ISBN:
(1)
9780393974997.

Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land. W.W.

Reading a difficult poem
12 Norton & Company, 2000. ISBN:
(2)
9780393974997.

13 How do metaphors Frost, Robert. "Birches." In The

work? Poetry of Rober Frost. Henry Holt and Co.,
1979. ISBN: 9780805005028.
Hughes, Langston. "Harlem."
In Selected Poems of Langston Hughes.
Vintage Classics, 1990. ISBN:
9780679728184.
Pardlo, Gregory. "Double Dutch."
In Totem. The American Poetry Review,
2007. ISBN: 9780977639533.
Cohen, Andrea. "Lit." The New
Yorker. February 16, 2015.
Dunbar, Paul "We Wear the Mask."
In The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence
Dunbar. CreateSpace, 2017. ISBN:
9781475157574.
Jess, Tyehimba. "Booker-
SES
TOPICS READINGS
#

Washington Double Shovel." In Olio. Wave

Books, 2016. ISBN: 9781940696201.

Jess, Tyehimba. Olio. Wave Books,

2016. pp. 12–29. ISBN: 9781940696201.
Guest
DuBois, W.E.B. "Of Spiritual
14 Lecture: Tyehimba Jess,
Strivings of the Negro People." Chapter 1,
Poet
of Souls of Black Folk. CreateSpace, 2017.
ISBN: 9781505223378.

Lowell, Robert. "For the Union

Dead." In Collected Poems. Edited by Frank
Bidart and David Gewanter. Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 2007. ISBN: 9780374530327.
How does allusion work? Trethewey, Natasha. "Incident."
15
(History) In Native Guard. Mariner Books, 2007.
ISBN: 9780618892657.
Pardlo, Gregory. "For Which It
Stands." In Digest. Four Way Books, 2014.
ISBN: 9781935536505.

Shadle, Charles. "Six Dickinson Songs (PDF

Guest Lecture: Charles
16 - 2.3MB)." Courtesy of Charles Shadle.
Shadle, MIT Lecturer
Used with permission.

Guest Lecture: Kimberly Clifton, Lucille. The Book of Light.

17 Brown, MIT Visiting Copper Canyon Press, 1992. pp. 11–13,
Professor 44–47. ISBN: 9781556590528.

Collins, Martha and Kevin Prufer,

Guest Lecture: Martha
eds. Into English: Poems, Translations,
18 Collins, Poet
Commentaries. Graywolf Press, 2017. pp
Translating Poetry
71–75, 163–167. ISBN: 9781555977924.

19–
Student Presentations Student-initiated readings
22

Shakespeare and Donne, Early English

23 Early English Ballads
Ballads Presentation (PDF)

american novel; strange

and stranger
Readings
[Melville] = Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick: A Longman Critical Edition. Edited by John Bryant and Haskell Springer. Longman, 2009.
ISBN: 9780205514083.
[Jacobs] = Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Edited by Jean Fagan Yellin. Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780674035836. [Preview with Google Books]
[Twain] = Twain, Mark. Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson. Edited by R.D. Gooder. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780199554713.
[Preview with Google Books]
[Wharton] = Wharton, Edith. Age of Innocence. Vintage, 2012. ISBN: 9780307949516.
[Faulkner] = Faulkner, William. Absalom! Absalom. Vintage, 1991. ISBN: 9780679732181.
[Morrison] = Morrison, Toni. A Mercy. Vintage, 2009. ISBN: 9780307276766.
[Butler] = Butler, Octavia. Kindred. Beacon Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780807083697.

SES
TOPICS
#

1 Introduction

Strange Places

2 [Butler] "Prologue," "The River," "The Fire," and "The Fall"

[Butler] "The Fight," "The Storm," "The Rope," and

3 "Epilogue"
Annotation Studio Workshop

[Melville] "Etymology," "Extracts," and Chapters 1-9

4
Locast Mapping Workshop

5 [Melville] Chapters 10–28

6 [Melville] Chapters 29–46

7 [Melville] Chapters 47–67

8 [Melville] Chapters 68–88

9 [Melville] Chapters 89–113

10 [Melville] Chapter 113 and Epilogue

Strange Families

12 [Jacobs] Chapters 1–18

13 [Jacobs] Chapters 19–41

14 [Twain] Chapters 1–11

15 [Twain] Chapters 12–21 and Conclusion

16 [Wharton] Chapters 1–13

17 [Wharton] Chapters 14–23

18 [Wharton] Chapters 24–34

Strange Histories

20 [Faulkner] Chapters 1–4

 SES
TOPICS
#

21 [Faulkner] Chapters 5–7

22 [Faulkner] Chapters 8–9

23 [Morrison] Chapters 1–4

24 [Morrison] Chapters 5–7

25 [Morrison] Chapters 8–13

Literary
studies(graduate)
he readings need engagement and you need to be working with them, pen or pencil in hand, making notes, raising questions etc. In addition, you will
be asked to read a part or all of the following required texts:

Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014. ISBN: 9781500376765.

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Tribeca Books, 2013. ISBN: 9781936594191. [Preview with Google Books]

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015. ISBN: 9781506138855. [Preview
with Google Books]
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Vintage, 1990. ISBN: 9780679724698.

TOPICS

New Criticism and American Reader Response Criticism

Keats, John. "Ode on a Grecian Urn."

Brooks, Cleanth. "Keats's Sylvan Historian: History Without
Footnotes." In The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry.
Harcourt Brace & Company, 1975.
Wimsatt, W. K, and Monroe C. Beardsley. "The Intentional Fallacy."
In The Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry. University of Kentucky
Press, 1967.
———. "The Affective Fallacy." In The Verbal Icon: Studies in the
Meaning of Poetry. University of Kentucky Press, 1967.
Potter, Lois. "Lawrence of Virtuous Father" and "Avenge O Lord".
In A Preface to Milton. Routledge, 2014. ISBN: 9781138835870. [Preview
with Google Books]
Fish, Stanley. "Literature in the Reader: Affective Stylistics." In Is
There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities.
Harvard University Press, 1980, pp. 22–37. ISBN: 9780674467255. [Preview
with Google Books]
———. "Interpreting the Variorum." Is There a Text in This Class?
The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Harvard University Press, 1980,
pp. 148–73. ISBN: 9780674467255. [Preview with Google Books]
TOPICS

Structuralism

Saussure, Ferdinand De. Course in General Linguistics. Columbia

University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780231157278. [Preview with Google Books]
Brémond, Claude. "Morphology of the French Folktale." Semiotica 2, no. 3
(1970): 247–76.
The Brothers Grimm. "Rapunzel."
Greimas, A. J., and F. Rastier. "The Interaction of Semiotic Constraints." Yale
French Studies, no. 41 (1968): 86–105.
Required Reading: pp 86–95. Remainder of article is optional.
Notes 4 (PDF)
Overview of key points of Saussure

Structuralism (cont.)

Levi-Strauss, Claude. "The Structural Study of Myth." In Structural

Anthropology Vol. 2. University of Chicago Press, 1983. ISBN:
9780226474915.
Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. CreateSpace Independent Publishing
Platform, 2014. ISBN: 9781500376765.
Foucault, Michel. "What is an Author?" In The Foucault Reader.
Vintage Books, 2010.

Deconstruction

Derrida, Jacques. "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the

Human Sciences." In Writing and Difference. Routledge, 2001. ISBN:
9780415255370.
Levi-Strauss, Claude. Elementary Structures of Kinship. Beacon
Press, 1971, pp. 3–12, 23–25, and 29–33. ISBN: 9780807046692.
———. "The Writing Lesson." In Tristes Tropiques. Modern Library,
1997. ISBN: 9780679602460.
Notes 5 (PDF)
Notes on extract from "Elementary Structures"
Notes 6 (PDF)
Notes on Structure, Sign and Play

Deconstruction (cont.)

Derrida, Jaques. "Signature, Event, Context." In Limited Inc.

Northwestern University Press, 1988. ISBN: 9780810107878. [Preview
with Google Books]
Austin, John Langshaw. Lecture 1 in How To Do Things With Words.
Harvard University Press, 1975. ISBN: 9780674411524. [Preview
with Google Books]
Dinesen, Isak. "The Blank Page." In Last Tales. Penguin Books
Limited, 2001. ISBN: 9780141184951.
Optional Readings
Johnson, Barbara. "Nothing Fails Like Success." In A World of
TOPICS

Difference. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988. ISBN:

9780801837456. [Preview with Google Books]
Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism After
Structuralism. Cornell University Press, 2008, pp. 110–25 and 131–34. ISBN:
9780801474057.

Psychoanalysis: Freud

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. CreateSpace

Independent Publishing Platform, 2015. ISBN: 9781506138855. [Preview
with Google Books]
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wall-paper and Other Stories.
Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. vii–xv and 3–19. ISBN: 9780199538843.
Lacan, Jacques. "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as
Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience." Ecrits, A Selection(1949): 1–7.

Psychoanalysis and Lacan

Zizek, Slavoj. Chapter 1 in Enjoy Your Symptom!: Jacques Lacan in

Hollywood and Out. Routledge, 2007. ISBN: 9780415772594. [Preview
with Google Books]
Chaplin, Charlie. "City Lights."
Poe Edgar Allen. "The Purloined Letter." 1845.
Lacan, Jacques. "The Seminar on The Purloined Letter." Yale French
Studies 48 (1972): 39–72.
Optional Reading
Johnson, Barbara. "The Frame of Reference: Poe, Lacan, Derrida." Yale
French Studies, no. 55/56 (1977): 457-505.
Notes 9 (PDF)
Notes on Zizek's graphs

Psychoanalysis and Lacan (cont.)

Zizek, Slavoj. Chapter 3 in The Sublime Object of Ideology. 2nd ed.

Verso, 2009. ISBN: 9781844673001. [Preview with Google Books]
Vertigo. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Color, 129 min. 1958.

Michel Foucault

Foucault, Michel. Parts 3 and 4 in Discipline & Punish: The Birth of

the Prison. 4th ed. Vintage Books, 2007, pp. 135–95. ISBN: 9780679752554.
Davidson, Arnold I. "Foucault Revolutionizes History." In Foucault
and His Interlocutors. University of Chicago Press Journals, 1998. ISBN:
9780226137148.
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Tribeca Books, 2013. ISBN:
9781936594191. [Preview with Google Books]

Michel Foucault (cont.)

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction.

 TOPICS

Vintage, 1990. ISBN: 9780679724698.

Continuation of Earlier Material

No new readings assigned.

Latour and Kittler

Latour, Bruno. Pandora's Hope: An Essay on the Reality of Science

Studies. Harvard University Press, 1999, pp. 113–44. ISBN:
9780674653368.
Kittler, Friedrich A. "The Mother's Mouth." Discourse Networks,
1800 / 1900. Stanford University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780804720991.

major european works

Required Books
de Cervantes, Miguel. Don Quixote. Excerpts from translation by John Ormsby (PDF) (Download the complete work from Project Gutenberg.)
de Balzac, Honore. Père Goriot. Translated by Henry Reed. New York, NY: Signet Classics, 2004. ISBN: 9780451529596. (Version
used in class, translated by Ellen Marriage (PDF).)
Stendhal. The Red and the Black. Translated by Lloyd C. Parks. New York, NY: Signet Classics, 2006. ISBN: 9780451530288.

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. Translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005. ISBN:
9781593080525. (PDF) (Download this translation in other formats from Project Gutenberg.)
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York, NY: Vintage, 1993.
ISBN: 9780679734505. (Download a different translation by Constance Garnett from Project Gutenberg.)
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. Translated by David Magarshack. New York, NY: Signet Classics, 2002. ISBN: 9780451528612.
(Download a different translation by Constance Garnett from Project Gutenberg.)