ENGL 466B

Studies in a Twentieth-Century genre (3 credits)

Instructor: John Cooper
Section: 002
Term: 2

After Modernism: Larkin, Plath, Atwood, Walcott

Modernism arrived in the first decade of the twentieth century. It flourished in the following three or four decades. It did not disappear as an influence after the Second World War, but it did give way to a number of new impulses in the literary culture of North Atlantic civilization. We will read and discuss selections from four poets who will help us understand the poetic landscape after1945 and who represent not only continuations of modernism but radical challenges to it as well. The poets we will read and discuss are Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath, Margaret Atwood, and Derek Walcott.

Texts:

• Philip Larkin, Collected Poems
• Sylvia Plath, Collected Poems
• Margaret Atwood, Selected Poems
• Derek Walcott, Selected Poems