Studies in Poetry - British Poetry and the Sciences of the Mind

Calendar

SES #	TOPICS	KEY DATES
The Scope of Reason: Moral and Intellectual Backgrounds
1	Introduction Graham, Jorie. Thinking.
2	Plato. From Ion, Republic, and Phaedrus.
3	Locke, John. Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Fox, Christopher. Defining Eighteenth-Century Psychology: Some Problems and Perspectives.
4	Newton, Isaac. Opticks. Voltaire on Newton’s Opticks Thomson, James. “To the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton.” Bowden, Samuel. “A Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton.”
5	Pope, Alexander. Essay on Man. Books 1-2, and 4.
6	Addison. The Spectator. Akenside, Mark. The Pleasures of Imagination. Book 1.
7	Akenside, Mark. The Pleasures of Imagination. Books 2-3.
8	Hartley, David. Observations on Man. Young, Edward. Night Thoughts. Book 1.
9	Wilmot, John. A Satire on Reason and Mankind. Mettrie, Julien Offray de la. Man, A Machine.
The Bounds of Reason: Melancholia and Madness
10	Cheyne, George. From The English Malady. Green, Matthew. The Spleen.
11	Gray, Thomas. Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Warton, Thomas. The Pleasures of Melancholy. Collins, William. Ode on the Poetical Character.	First draft due (5-6 pages)
12	Smart, Christopher.Jubilate Agno.
13	Blake, William. An Island in the Moon. “Mock on, Mock on…” “You Don’t Believe I Won’t Attempt to Make Ye”
14	Blake, William. The Book of Urizen.
15	Student Presentations and Evaluations
The Scientific Poem and its Critique
16	Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. Books 1, and 4.
17	Thomson, James. The Seasons, Summer.
18	Armstrong, John. The Art of Preserving Health. Book 1, lines 1-63. Book 4 (online)
19	Darwin, Erasmus. The Botanic Garden. Parts 1, and 2. Canning, George et. al. “The Loves of the Triangles.” In The Anti-Jacobin.
20	Darwin, Erasmus. The Temple of Nature. or, The Origin of Society. Cantos 1, and 3.
21	Wordsworth. Lyrical Ballads. Preface “The Thorn” (with Note to “The Thorn”) “The Idiot Boy” “Goody Blake and Harry Gill” “Simon Lee” “We are Seven”
22	Wordsworth. Lyrical Ballads. (cont.) “Expostulation and Reply” “The Tables Turned” “Lines, Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”
Keats, Medicine, and the Poetic Mind
23	Keats’s Anatomical and Physiological Notebook Bell, Charles. Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain. Keats. In drear-nighted December.
24	Keats. “To My Brother George,” Sleep and Poetry," and “Lamia.” Hazlitt, William. “On Poetry in General.”
25	Keats. “Ode to Psyche,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode to Melancholy,” and “Ode to Indolence.” Sel. Keats Letters
26	Student Presentations	Final paper due (12-15 pages)