English 90eb. Elizabeth Bishop and Others

Instructor: Vidyan Ravinthiran
Monday, 12:00-2:00pm | Location: TBD
Enrollment: Limited to 15 students

This course introduces students to the poetry, literary prose, and artful correspondence of one of the major poets of the twentieth century, considering her innovations in all these genres. We will look at her writing alongside the mid-century shift from “closed” to “open” verse forms, and relate stylistic issues to the intellectual and social changes, and political and historical developments of the period. Bishop’s critique of received ideas about nationality, race, power, gender, sexual orientation, and the overlap between culture and nature, connects with her cosmopolitanism: she has links to Canada, the U.S, and Brazil. “Others” refers to how her writing considers the sociopolitical reality of other people, and also to the comparisons we’ll draw between her writing and that of other poets.

This course satisfies the “1900-2000 Guided Elective" requirement for English concentrators and Secondary Field students.