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Monday, February 23, 2009

Poems In the English Major

So to find out a little bit more about poems in the English major I asked my sister-in-law, Heather, to help me out. Heather had an English Teaching minor, which is exactly what I'm planning on doing, so I thought it would be a good idea to ask someone in a situation similar to mine. This is the message Heather sent me:
I know we read "Red, Red, Wheel Barrow" and "This is just to say" both by William Carlos Williams several times in the minor. One of my favorite poets is Elizabeth Barret Browning. She wrote the epic poem "Aurora Leigh" which is where "How do I love comes." Robert Browning is important. He wrote a bunch of dramatic monologues, but I forget what they're called. One might be "My Last Dutchess." He also might have written "The Piped Piper." I also really liked "The Love Story of J. Alfred Proffrock," which I think is by T. S. Elliot. He's pretty important. He also wrote one about dead bodied coming out of the ground after World War I, but I don't remember what it's called. Shakespeare's sonnets are also pretty big. People read a lot of Robert Frost, William Blake (he wrote a series of poems that seemed like they were for little kids but they weren't. I think one might be "The Tyger"), William Wordsworth (Leaves of Grass), Langston Hughes (Theme for English B, I, too, am America).
Heather was also really helpful and asked her old English professor what he thought some important poems were.
He suggested:
‘Sonnet 73... Read More’ (Shakespeare)
‘A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal’ (Wordworth)
‘Because I Could Not Stop For Death’ (Dickinson)
‘Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird’ (Stevens)
The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)
The Faerie Queen (Spencer)
Paradise Lost (Milton)
The Prelude (Wordsworth)
‘A Valediction Forbidding Mourning’ (Donne)
‘Tintern Abbey’ (Wordworth)
‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ (Keats)
‘One Art’ (Elizabeth Bishop)

I thought they were really helpful. Hope it helps!


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