Poetry: a basic course

A series of eight lectures on poetry. Nine poems have been chosen for discussion. Abstract: A series of eight lectures on poetry. Nine poems have been chosen for discussion Content: 1. London Bridge is falling down : poetry and social formations -- 2. The ballad of Sir Patrick Spence : common measure and justice -- 3. Shakespeare's The phoenix and turtle : on difficulty, the meaning and structure of difference -- 4. Milton's Avenge, O Lord : poetry, religion, and the rationality of experience -- 5. Keats' Ode to a nightingale : poetic knowledge and the founding narratives of poetic practice -- 6. Dickinson's I cannot live with you : difference and the work of love -- 7. Yeats' Among school children : secular education and the reproduction of poetic knowledge -- 8. Robert Lowell's Skunk hour and Elizabeth Bishop's The armadillo.