English GU4402: Romantic Poetry

Professor Erik Gray

616 Philosophy Hall
Office Hours: F 2:15-4:15,
or by appointment
eg2155@columbia.edu
Text (available at CU Bookstore):
Romanticism: An Anthology, ed. Duncan Wu, 4th edition

Requirements:
Two papers (30%, 35%); final exam (20%); midterm or section participation (15%)

9/5: Introduction

9/7: Thomas Gray: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (handout)

William Wordsworth: Tintern Abbey (handout; also p. 415)

9/12: William Blake: Introduction (174); The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (212)
See complete illustrations at www.blakearchive.org
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Biographia Literaria, ch. 13 (711)

9/14: Blake: Songs of Innocence (186-197), especially Introduction, The Lamb, The Little
Black Boy, The Chimney Sweeper, Nurses Song
Songs of Experience (197-212), especially Introduction, The Chimney Sweeper,
Nurses Song, The Tyger, London

9/19: Wordsworth: Introduction to Lyrical Ballads (333), Advertisement (337), Preface to

Lyrical Ballads (506-518, esp. 506-510, 514-515), Goody Blake and Harry Gill (370),
Lines written at a small distance... (374), Simon Lee (375), Anecdote for Fathers (378),
We are Seven (380), Lines written in early spring (382), The Thorn (383), The Last of
the Flock (390), The Idiot Boy (396), Note to The Thorn (518), Surprised by joy (587)
Robert Southey: Review of Lyrical Ballads (751)

9/21: No class

9/26: Wordsworth: There was a boy (484), Nutting (485), Strange fits of passion (487), She
dwelt among thuntrodden ways (488), A slumber did my spirit seal (488), Three years
she grew (488), Michael (520), I travelled among unknown men (533), Preface (536)
Coleridge: Biographia Literaria, ch. 14 (712)

9/28: Coleridge: Introduction (611), The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (714)
Wordsworth: Note to the Ancient Mariner (520)
William Hazlitt: from My First Acquaintance with Poets (794 to top of 800)
10/3: Coleridge: The Nightingale (360), The Eolian Harp (621*), Reflections on Having
Left a Place of Retirement (626), This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison (633*), Frost at
Midnight (645*)
Wordsworth: Tintern Abbey (415)

*In cases where the anthology prints two versions of the poem, we will be discussing the later
version (odd pages), though you are encouraged to read both.

10/5: Coleridge: Of the Fragment of Kubla Khan (639), Kubla Khan (641), Christabel (659),
The Pains of Sleep (701)

Paper #1 (1500-1700 words) due in class 10/10

10/10: Wordsworth: Intimations Ode (549), Note on Ode (595)

Coleridge: Dejection: An Ode (693), from Biographia Literaria, ch. 22 (handout)

10/12: Wordsworth: Introduction (420), Two-Part Prelude of 1799: First Part (457), Thirteen-
Book Prelude of 1805: Crossing the Alps (565)

10/17: Wordsworth: Resolution and Independence (541), Daffodils (558), Stepping

Westward (559), The Solitary Reaper (560), Thirteen-Book Prelude: The Arab Dream
(561) and The London Beggar (568)
Dorothy Wordworth: Journal extracts (605-606)
Lewis Carroll: The White Knights Song (handout)

10/19: MIDTERM

10/24: Lord Byron: Introduction (862), Childe Harolds Pilgrimage, Canto 3, stanzas 1-7
(878-880) and 111-118 (910-912), Prometheus (912), Letter to Kinnaird (1065), On
this day I complete my thirty-sixth year (1065)

10/26: Byron: Childe Harolds Pilgrimage, Canto 1, sts. 1-15 (handout); Manfred (922-958)

10/31: Byron: Don Juan, Preface (handout) and Canto 1 (964)

11/2: Byron: Don Juan, Canto 2 (1015), So well go no more a-roving (958)

11/7: No class

11/9: Percy Shelley: Introduction (1070), To Wordsworth (1081), Hymn to Intellectual

Beauty (1101), Mont Blanc (1104), Ozymandias (1108), England in 1819 (1134)
11/14: Shelley: Stanzas written in Dejection (1119), Ode to the West Wind (1131), Lift not the
Painted Veil (1135), A Defence of Poetry (1233-38, 1241-47)

11/16: Shelley: On Love (1108), To a Skylark (1215), Headnote to Epipsychidion (handout),

Epipsychidion (1218), Music, when soft voices die (1266), When passions trance
(1266), With a Guitar, to Jane (1268)

11/21: John Keats: Introduction (1384), On First Looking into Chapmans Homer (1396),
Sleep and Poetry 1-40 (handout), Endymion 1.777-842: The Pleasure Thermometer
(1401), Letter to his brothers (1404), On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once
Again (1405), When I have fears (1406), Letters to Reynolds (1406, 1423), Ode to
Psyche (1462)

11/23: No class

11/28: Keats: Letter to Bailey (1403), from Hyperion, Book 1, lines 1-157 (1425-29), Letter to
George and Georgiana Keats (1458), La Belle Dame sans Merci (1460), Ode on
Melancholy (1469)

11/30: Keats: The Eve of St. Agnes (1446), Ode on a Grecian Urn (1466), Ode on Indolence
(1470)

12/5: Keats: Ode to a Nightingale (1464), Lamia (1472)

12/7: Keats: Letter to Woodhouse (1424), To Autumn (1489), Bright Star (1502), This living
hand (1503)
John Gibson Lockhart: The Cockney School of Poetry (1379)
Shelley: Adonais: Preface (1248-50) and stanzas 36-55 (1260-65)

Paper #2 (2000-2200 words) due in class 12/7

Grades follow the usual scale:

A 90-92 A 93-96 A+ 97-99
B 80-82 B 83-86 B+ 87-89
etc.
Section Times:

Thursday 5:10-6:00, 6:10-7:00

Monday 1:10-2:00, 2:10-3:00

Honor Code: All Columbia courses operate under the colleges honor code. When you turn in
written work for this course, you are thereby affirming that you have not plagiarized, used
unauthorized materials, or given or received illegitimate help on that assignment or examination.
The honor code will be enforced and is to be taken seriously; if you have any questions or
concerns, please consult the instructor before handing in your work.

Columbia University is dedicated to facilitating equal access for students with disabilities and to
cultivating a campus culture that is sensitive and responsive to the needs of students. Please let
me know, either through the Office of Disability Services, or by contacting me individually, if
you need special accommodations because of a disability.