Module Identifier | ENM6520 | |||||||||||
Module Title | TRANSVALUATIONS: POETRY AFTER DARWIN | |||||||||||
Academic Year | 2004/2005 | |||||||||||
Co-ordinator | Dr D Kevin Mills | |||||||||||
Semester | Semester 2 | |||||||||||
Assessment |
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1. Demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of the text(s) under review in the written assignment, and an awareness of the broader cultural and theoretical issues raised by the module
2. Demonstrate an ability to write competently about the texts with reference to their cultural and historical background
3. Produce organised, coherently argued, and critically informed written work
Session 2
This session will focus on poems by Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning. Students will be asked to consider the ways in which the later works of these poets reflects changing ideas of human life and human destiny in the light of geological and evolutionary thought.
Session 3
The focal text for this session will be James Thomson?s long poem `The City of Dreadful Night?, considering the ways in which its ambivalence about Darwinian thought reflects a complex reaction to evolution and its implications for the Christian account of humanity?s origins and destiny. As in all sessions, peer feedback and tutorial guidance will play a leading part in the learning process.
Session 4
This session will explore short poems by a number of authors (including Constance Naden, Agnes Mary Robinson and Louisa S. Guggenberger), in terms of their treatment of human yearnings and proclivities as evolutionary phenomena. Students will be asked to reflect on the implications of these poems for human self-understanding and traditional notions of `love?, `soul?, `spirit? and personality.
Session 5
This session will focus on Mathilde Blind?s long poem `The Ascent of Man?, as an attempt to recast Christian mythological formations, and to posit a transcendent alternative to the brutality of the Darwinian struggle for survival.
This module is at CQFW Level 7