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Browse materialsMIT 21L.004 · Fall 2005

Major Poets

Art: Gustave Doré, Gustav Doré, Satan Confronting Sin and Death at the Gates of Hell, c…, 2023 · Public domain

Instructor: Prof. Stephen Tapscott
Term: Fall 2005
Level: Undergraduate
What's inside: 1 reading · 2 web pages
Materials open: MIT OCW

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21L.004 · Fall 2005 · Study here (this version)
21L.004 · Fall 2001 · Study here

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Source: MIT OpenCourseWare 21L.004 Major Poets, Fall 2005, Prof. Stephen Tapscott — original course page on ocw.mit.edu ↗. License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Study order: MIT's own listing order, section by section. Taken from MIT's published course files, downloaded from ocw.mit.edu on September 23, 2026. How RedLectern is built.

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MIT OpenCourseWare, Prof. Stephen Tapscott, 21L.004 Major Poets, Fall 2005.

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Edition: Fall 2005 · Open the original course on OCW ↗

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Major Poets

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Lecture 1: Why metrics matter: the medium is the message Why English counts patterns of emphasis as it does Why does Dante put Ulysses in hell? Does something in the form or tone pass judgment on him?

Lecture 2: Pastoralism: Genre (derived from Greek Models) Is “The Pastoral” in fact a sophisticated form?

Lecture 3: Pastoralism and Gender Do women use language differently than men do? Tone, diction, form

Lecture 4: Renaissance “wit” and Renaissance metaphors (the “conceit”) “My America”: Renaissance sonnet-cycles, readership, publication, and Circulation

Lecture 5: Donne’s arguments Marvell’s logic: syllogism and the blandishments of tone Marvell’s irony

Lecture 6: How the sonnet works (8 and 6 / thesis and antithesis / question and answer) Shakespeare and the Socratic concept of seduction Close reading of several sonnets

Lecture 7: Resisting the biographical narrative Embedded sonnets in Romeo and Juliet Begin the play: civil disorder and children’s obedience

Lecture 8: The ballroom scene and the metaphors of pilgrimage Compare ballroom and balcony scenes in several films of the play (Including Franco Zefferelli and Baz Luhrmann)

Lecture 9: Why is Juliet smarter than Romeo? Christian Sacrifice and Comic Reconciliation

Lecture 10: Keats and the Truth of the Heart’s [Art’s?] Affection Who says the last lines of the “Urn” and why does the question matter? Dickinson, “I lived for Art” and the Keatsian model

Lecture 11: Satan’s persuasive rhetoric: read Satan’s speeches Milton’s Satan and transverse logic Milton’s problem: Theology versus Aesthetic form

Lecture 12: Milton’s Eve and the Freedom of Choice / Eve’s narcissism “The Fall” and what happens to the natural world? Adam’s ironic love-song at the moment Eve falls

Lecture 13: Wordsworth: reclaiming paradise Blake: reclaiming innocence Blake: Vision and illustration “Lamb” and catechetics

Lecture 14: Blake: compare “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” The grammar of “The Tyger” Why is the Tyger smiling?

Lecture 15: Shelley’s Platonism and Romantic self-assertion

Lecture 16: The Monster’s literary education How does the Creature become the Monster?

Lecture 17: Frame narratives in the novel “Forbidden” knowledge? Frankenstein and pop culture

Lecture 18: Keats’ Odes: The Natural World

Lecture 19: Keats’ Odes: Art and Representation

Lecture 20: Keats’ Odes: Time, Mortality, Repetition

Lecture 21: Sonnets!

Lecture 22: Browning and the secret self Tone and self-revelation

Lecture 23: “Home Burial” and Gender Difference Counting iambic pentameter: flexibility and social measurement

Lecture 24: Sincerity and authenticity Why does Lionel Trilling call Frost a “terrifying” poet?

Lecture 25: Close reading of Prufrock, focusing on form

Lecture 26: Close reading of Prufrock, focusing on images

Lecture 27: Plath’s humor and Plath’s form After modernism, what?