ENG 442 - Whitman and Dickinson

Semester Hours: 4

Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman wrote during one of the great “flowerings” of American literature, the American Renaissance. They remain in the 20th century, without a doubt, two of the most influential writers in American literature, influencing poets as disparate as Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, Allen Ginsberg and Carolyn Kizer. This course will allow you to study the work of these poets in depth and help you understand not only their enormous influence on 20th century poetry but also the context in which they lived and worked. We will read a great deal of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and a large selection of Dickinson’s poetry, including a close reading of one of the “fascicles.”