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English Current Students Intranet

Seminars


Term 2: we start in week 2 of term 2 with 'What are poets for', included in Poetry, Language, Thought (PLT). (PDF Document) All the reading for week 2 is linked to below; the rest of the reading will be handed out during the seminar.

Seminars are still Tuesday, 11-12.30:

  • weeks 2-5: F25.B (Millburn House)
  • weeks 7-10: A1.28 (Millburn House)


Term two


    1. No seminar
    2. Heidegger, ‘What are poets for’ (1946), in PLT; Hölderlin, ‘Bread and Wine’ (1800) (PDF Document) ‘Mnemosyne’ (1803); R. M. Rilke, ‘Improvised Verses’ (1924) (reprinted in 'What are poets for') HANDOUT (PDF Document)
    3. Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus (1922); Duino Elegies, extracts (1923)
    4. Heidegger, ‘Letter on Humanism’ (1949) (PDF Document); Tao de Ching, trans. Stephen Mitchell
    5. Heidegger, ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ (1949), pp.3-35 (PDF Document); Elizabeth Bishop, ‘The Man Moth’ (1935/36), ‘The Moose’ (1972)
    6. Reading week
    7. Heidegger, ‘Building, Dwelling, Thinking’ (1951), in PLT; J. H. Prynne, ‘Huts’, Textual Practice, 22.4 (2008), 613-633; Prynne, ‘The Holy City’, ‘Moon Poem’, ‘Charm against too many apples’, from The White Stones (1969)
    8. Heidegger, ‘Language’ (1950), in PLT; Georg Trakl, ‘In the Park’, ‘A Winter Evening’, ‘Autumn of the Lonely’, ‘Rest and Silence’ (1914)
    9. Heidegger, ‘Language in the Poem’ (1953), in OWL; Georg Trakl, ‘In Venice’, ‘Limbo’, ‘Springtime of the Soul’, ‘Song of the Departed’ (1914)
    10. Heidegger ‘Poetically Man Dwells’ (1951), in PLT; Jorie Graham, ‘What is called thinking: After Trakl’, ‘What the End is For’, from The Dream of the Unified Field (1995); ‘Of the Ever changing agitation in the air’, from Errancy (1998)


    Term three

    1. No seminar (term begins on Wednesday)
    2. Heidegger, ‘Rimbaud Vivant’ (1972) (PDF Document); Arthur Rimbaud, ‘First Communions’ (1871), ‘Drunken Boat’ (1871); ‘Childhood’ ‘Mystical’ and ‘Dawn’, from Illuminations (1873-1875); [see also Rimbaud's May 15, 1871 letter that Heidegger references in his essay (PDF Document)]; see also Heidegger, Gedachtes (PDF Document)
    3. REVISION SEMINAR FOR EXAM


    Term one


    1. Heidegger 'Thinking and Poeticizing: Philosophy and Poetry' (1944); Paul Celan, 'Todtnauberg'; Dylan Thomas, 'The Force That through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower'; Emily Dickinson, 'At half-past three' [introductory seminar: no advance reading required]
    2. Heidegger, ‘Introduction to Metaphysics’ (1935), pp.1-14; G. M. Hopkins, ‘The Starlight Night’ (1877), ‘Binsey Poplars Felled / 79’ (1879), ‘That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire’ (1888) (Word Document)
    3. Heidegger, ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ (1935-36) (PDF Document) please read pp.1-10; and 33-50; Van Gogh, ‘A Pair of Shoes’ (1886); Adam Kirsch, ‘The Taste of Silence’, Poetry Magazine, Jan 2, 2008; Seamus Heaney, 'Squarings' (extracts); Charles Simic, 'White' (Word Document)
    4. Heidegger, ‘The Age of the World Picture’ (1938) (PDF Document); Pablo Neruda, ‘Towards an Impure Poetry’ (PDF Document); ‘Ode to the Seagull’ (1956), ‘Ode to the Rooster’ (1957); ‘The Word’, ‘Ocean’, ‘Water’, ‘The Sea’ and ‘Serenade’, from Full Powers (1962)
    5. Heidegger, ‘Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry’ (1936); Friedrich Hölderlin, Nightsongs (1802/3), ‘Remembrance’ (1808), ‘In Lovely Blue’ (1832)
    6. Reading week
    7. Heidegger, ‘Poeticizing the Essence of the Rivers: the Ister Hymn’ (1942); Hölderlin, The Ister (1803/5)
    8. David Barison and Daniel Ross, dir., The Ister (2004); Alice Oswald, Dart (2002) [a film screening of The Ister is booked for Wednesday November 20, in MS.02, 2-6pm]
    9. William Wordsworth, The Ruined Cottage (1797-98); River Duddon (1804-20)
    10. Heidegger, ‘The Thinker as Poet’ (1947), in PLT; Wordsworth, ‘Tintern Abbey’, ‘Strange fits of passion I have known’; ‘She dwelt among th’untrodden ways’; ‘A slumber did my spirit seal’; ‘There was a boy’ (1798)