The Idea of the "Poetic": Poetry and Other Arts in the Twentieth Century

Catalog description

In this course, we will explore the relationship between poetry and other art forms. What does it mean to say that something is "poetic," especially when we are talking about a non-poetic genre or artistic medium. Is the "poetic" a formal feature? An aesthetic quality? A stylistic choice? Or a mode of creative faculty? And does the way we talk about the "poetic" inform us of something about poetry itself? Together we will read narrative prose, photographs, films, paintings, and of course, poetry itself. Authors and artists we study might include Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Klee, Fei Ming, Virginia Woolf, Paul Celan, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Michelango Antonioni, Andre Tarkovsky, W.G Sebald, Jia Zhangke, and Gerhard Richter.