Description
Lyric Poetry - Silvering the Darker Interstices
In this course, we examine the lyric poem -- the lyrical or meditative poem that draws imaginatively on sound, melody, imagery, and/or form to convey the beating heart of human existence: our spectrums of experiences and emotions. We will consider the lyric poem in global contexts, and study how poetic features are used to give voice to the human condition in both universal and culturally specific ways. How do poets convey, in searingly beautiful word art, experience that seems to defy language itself - the bliss of passion, the anguish of loss, the sublimity of the sacred (whether secular or divine), the existential terror of the unknown, of war, illness, mortality? - the angst that can shadow our fighting of daily battles and the hope that silvers the darker interstices? How can a panoply of renowned poetic voices enrich our own expressive capabilities and experience of the world?