Principles of Literary Study, Spring 2026

This course is an introduction to the discipline of English literary studies, focusing on ways to answer the fundamental questions academic readers ask about poems, short stories, and novels: How is it put together? What meanings does it convey? What effects does it achieve? How does it relate to the cultures and societies in which it is read? Learning to answer these questions about a variety of poems, short stories, and novels, students sharpen their skills as readers, writers, and thinkers.

Detailed syllabus: syllabus.pdf.

This page last updated: May 4, 2026.

Readings are to be completed by the day they are listed under. Even for readings distributed digitally, read on the printed page as much as possible. You are required to print out the readings marked with a ¶. We will spend substantial time on each of these in class, though we will of course also discuss the other assigned poems. Each assigned poem should be read multiple times, on multiple days, in multiple ways: silently, aloud; with pencil in hand, with empty hands; deliberately, speedily; standing up, sitting down; dramatically, restrainedly.

• Thursday, January 22. Introduction: ars poetica (selections, slides).

  • Emily Dickinson, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” (1872).
  • Anne Bradstreet, “The Author to Her Book” (1678).
  • Lorine Niedecker, “Poet’s Work” (1962).
  • OED, 3rd ed., s.v. “literature,” 2011.

• Monday, January 26. Online meeting due to campus closure. Words and meanings (selections, slides).

  • Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella 1, 55 (ca. 1581–83).
  • John Donne, ¶“A Valediction: forbidding Mourning” (ca. 1611?).
  • William Wordsworth, “A slumber did my spirit seal” (1798).
  • Ezra Pound, ¶“In a station of the metro” (1913).
  • H.D., “Sea Rose” (1916).
  • Langston Hughes, “Harlem” (1951).
  • Philip Larkin, “This Be The Verse” (1974).
  • Rae Armantrout, ¶“Will” (2013).

• (Wednesday, January 28.)

  • Exercise due: The meaning of a word.

• Thursday, January 29. Lines and sentences (selections, slides).

  • William Shakespeare, Sonnets 18, 30, 116, ¶129 (1609).
  • George Herbert, “Jordan” (1), ¶“Prayer” (1) (1633).
  • John Milton, “When I consider how my light is spent” (1652?).
  • Walt Whitman, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” (1865).
  • Wallace Stevens, ¶“The Snow Man” (1923), “Man Carrying Thing” (1947).
  • Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool” (1959).
  • Terrance Hayes, “The Golden Shovel” (2010).

• Monday, February 2. Meter (1): four beats (selections, slides, handout).

  • Read aloud, attempting to tap or thump the beats:

    • “Humpty Dumpty,” “Baa baa, black sheep,” “Skip-a to my Lou” (dates unknown).

    • John Newton, ¶“Amazing Grace” (1779).

    • ¶“Sir Patrick Spens” (Child 58A) (before 1765).

      • Recommended: listen to Ewan MacColl’s 1961 recording.

    • William Blake, “The Lamb” (1789), “The Tyger” (1794).

    • William Wordsworth, “We are Seven” (1798).

    • Emily Dickinson, ¶“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” (1862), “I heard a Fly buzz - when I died” (1863).

    • Lewis Carroll, “Jabberwocky” (1871).

    • Muriel Rukeyser, “Ballad of Orange and Grape” (1973).

  • Background (optional): Carper and Attridge, Meter and Meaning, chaps. 1–2.

• (Wednesday, February 4.)

  • Extra credit opportunity: attend Writers at Rutgers with Lisa Ko (student Q&A, 4 p.m., Murray Hall, Room 302; reading, 7:30 p.m., College Avenue Student Center). Write 100 words for the class.

• Thursday, February 5. Meter (2): pentameter (selections, slides, handout).

  • Shakespeare, Sonnets ¶49, 130 (1609).
  • Anna Letitia Barbauld, ¶“Washing-Day” (1797).
  • Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey” (1798).
  • Shelley, ¶“England in 1819” (1819).
  • Wallace Stevens, “The Idea of Order at Key West” (1935).
  • Background (optional): Carper and Attridge, chaps. 3, 6.

• Monday, February 9. Meter (3): thinking about meter (slides, handout).

  • Felicia Hemans, ¶“Casabianca” (1826) (in Feb. 2 selections).
  • ¶Robson, “Standing on the Burning Deck.”

• (Wednesday, February 11.)

  • Exercise due: Meter practice.

• Thursday, February 12. Rhyme: couplets (selections, slides).

  • Andrew Marvell, ¶“To His Coy Mistress” (1681).
  • Jonathan Swift, “A Description of a City Shower” (1710).
  • W.B. Yeats, ¶“Adam’s Curse” (1903).
  • Wilfred Owen, “Strange Meeting” (1918).
  • Agha Shahid Ali, “Tonight” (1996).
  • Evie Shockley, ¶“where you are planted” (2011).

• Monday, February 16. Fixed form: sonnets (selections, slides).

  • Thomas Wyatt, “Whoso list to hunt” (1525?).
  • Shakespeare, Sonnets 1, ¶20, 35, 73, ¶125, ¶138, and those previously assigned: 18, 30, 49, 116, 129, 130.
  • Donne, Holy Sonnets 4, ¶10 (1609–?).
  • Wordsworth, “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” (1802).
  • Shelley, “England in 1819” (previously assigned).
  • George Meredith, Modern Love 1, 2 (1862).
  • W.B. Yeats, ¶“Leda and the Swan” (1923).
  • Wallace Stevens, “Autumn Refrain” (1932).
  • Gwendolyn Brooks, “the rites for Cousin Vit” (1949).
  • Patrick Kavanagh, “Epic” (1951).
  • Seamus Heaney, “Clearances” 3, 7, 8" (1987).
  • ¶Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 1–10, 487–93.

• Thursday, February 19. Some stanza shapes (selections, slides).

  • John Donne, “The Canonization” (after 1603).
  • George Herbert, “Easter Wings” (1633).
  • John Keats, ¶“Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819).
  • Thomas Hardy, “The Convergence of the Twain” (1914), “The Voice” (1914).
  • Marianne Moore, ¶“The Fish” (1924).
  • W.H. Auden, “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” (1939).
  • Wallace Stevens, “Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour” (1954).
  • Elizabeth Bishop, “Sestina” (1965).

• Monday, February 23. Speakers and addressees (selections). Blizzard class by Zoom (notes in the form of slides I didn’t show).

  • Donne, “The Flea,” “The Sun Rising” (after 1603), “A Valediction: forbidding Mourning” (previously assigned).
  • Phyllis Wheatley, ¶“On Being Brought from Africa to America” (1773).
  • John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (previously assigned).
  • Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess” (1842).
  • Emily Dickinson, “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” (1861), “Publication - is the Auction” (1863).
  • Herman Melville, ¶“Shiloh” (1862).
  • T.S. Eliot, ¶“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915).
  • Langston Hughes, “Good Morning Revolution” (1932).
  • ¶Warner, “What Like a Bullet Can Undeceive?”

• Thursday, February 26. Open forms (selections, slides).

  • Melville, cont.; Warner, cont.
  • John Milton, “Lycidas” (1638).
  • Marianne Moore, “An Octopus” (1924).
  • A.R. Ammons, “Corsons Inlet” (1965).
  • A.K. Ramanujan, ¶“Elements of Composition” (1986).

• Monday, March 2. Couplets again (slides).

  • Ramanujan, cont.
  • Shahid, Call Me Ishmael Tonight. Read the whole book, once, then reread at least three poems that intrigued or baffled you.
  • Some annotations: andrewgoldstone.com/blog/shahid.

• (Wednesday, March 4.)

  • Exercise due: The principled essay introduction.

• Thursday, March 5. On beyond English (slides).

  • Shahid, cont.
  • Essay introduction workshop.

• Monday, March 9. The sequence (slides).

  • Shahid, Call Me Ishmael Tonight. Reread.

• (Wednesday, March 11.)

  • Extra credit opportunity: attend Writers at Rutgers with Mat Johnson (student Q&A, 4 p.m., Murray Hall, Room 302; reading, 7:30 p.m., College Avenue Student Center).

• Thursday, March 12.

  • Midterm exam in class.

• (Friday, March 13.)

  • Paper 1 due. Note extended deadline.

• (Monday, March 16. Spring recess).

• Monday, March 23. Plot (slides).

  • ¶Conan Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia.”

• Thursday, March 26. Narration (slides).

  • ¶Ko, The Contractors.

    • Examine the amazon product page for this story.

• Monday, March 30. Irony (slides).

  • Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 3–100 (pt. 1).

• Thursday, April 2. Irony, continued (slides).

  • Austen, Pride and Prejudice, through 146 (pt. 2, chap. 11).

• Monday, April 6. How to fall in love (slides).

  • Austen, Pride and Prejudice, through 238 (pt. 3, chap. 9).
  • Exercise due (10 p.m.): Austen’s irony.

• (Wednesday, April 8.)

  • Extra credit opportunity: attend Writers at Rutgers with Melissa Febos and Donika Kelly (student Q&A, 4 p.m., Murray Hall, Room 302; reading, 7:30 p.m., College Avenue Student Center).

• Thursday, April 9. Character and character-effects (slides).

  • Austen, Pride and Prejudice, complete.

• Monday, April 13. Closure and critique (slides).

  • Austen, Pride and Prejudice, continued.
  • ¶Johnson, Jane Austen, chap. 4.
  • Woloch, The One vs. The Many, 56–58, 62–82. The rest of chap. 1 is highly recommended but optional.

• Thursday, April 16. Narration, again (slides).

  • Achebe, Things Fall Apart. (1958), chaps. 1–8.
  • Ndibe, “Nigeria.”

• Monday, April 20. Perspective (slides).

  • Achebe, Things Fall Apart, chaps. 1–12.

• Thursday, April 23. Irony, continued, continued (slides).

  • Achebe, Things Fall Apart, chaps. 1–19.

• Monday, April 27. Realism (slides).

  • Achebe, Things Fall Apart, complete.
  • ¶Quayson, “Realism, Criticism, and the Disguises of Both.”

• Thursday, April 30. Not realism (slides).

  • ¶Okri, Prayer for the Living, selections: “Boko Haram (1),” “Prayer for the Living,” “The Overtaker.”

• Monday, May 4. Genre; course conclusion (slides).

  • ¶Okorafor, “Mother of Invention.”
  • Paper 2 due at 10 p.m. Note extended deadline.

• Monday, May 11, 9–11 a.m.

  • Final exam (in person). Two hours only.