ENGS32

An introduction to the study of print cultures and the history of the book by closely examining one type of printed text, poetry. Students consider how the invention of the Gutenberg press and developments in printing practices began to influence poets, before tracing the relationship between print technologies and poetic practices up through the present day. The class read widely, studying: Tottel's Miscellany (the first printed anthology of English poetry), George Herbert's image poetry (1633), William Blake's illuminated Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789), and the 20th- and 21st- century concrete- and pattern-poetry movements, including poetry by Augusto de Campos, Guillaume Apollinaire, e e cummings, Mary Ellen Solt, Marilyn Nelson, Tyehimba Jess, and Jen Bervin. Students also compose their own poetry and experiment with type-setting/printing on a hand press.

Study in Creative Writing and/or pre-1800 literary courses highly recommended.