Class Central is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Harvard University

Poetry in America: Modernism

Harvard University via edX

Overview

This literature course, the sixth module in the Poetry in America series, explores a diverse array of American Modernist poets and poems.While “Modernism” is notoriously difficult to define, the movement spanned the decades from the 1910s to the mid-1940s, and the poetry of this period marked a clear break from past traditions and past forms.

Throughout this module, we will encounter such poets as Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Claude McKay, Dorothy Parker, and Wallace Stevens. We will study how these poets employed the language of rejection and revolution, of making and remaking, of artistic appropriation and cultural emancipation. Traveling to the homes and workplaces of Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens; to the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, where the institution of American Modernism was born; and even exploring the River Thames in the London of Eliot's THE WASTE LAND, we will see the sites that witnessed—and cultivated—the rise of American Modernism.

Led by Harvard Professor Elisa New, the Poetry in America series surveys nearly 400 years of American poetry. Through video lectures, archival images and texts, expeditions to historic sites, interpretive seminars with large and small groups, interviews with poets and scholars, and conversations about poems with distinguished Americans, Poetry in America takes learners on a journey through the literature of a nation. Along the way, distinguished guests includingElena Kagan, Henry Louis Gates, Eve Ensler, John McCain, Andrea Mitchell, Michael Pollan, Drew Faust, Tony Kushner, and Nas, among others, bring fresh perspectives to the study of American poetry.

Taught by

Elisa New

Reviews

5.0 rating, based on 1 Class Central review

Start your review of Poetry in America: Modernism

  • Anonymous
    An absolutely fantastic course, far superior to the same module at my university in the UK. Thoroughly enjoyable - Professor New leads the discussions exceptionally well and it is clear that the students are really engaging with the material presented. The poems are very well-chosen - I particularly recommend Week 8 on William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens. Thank you so much!

Never Stop Learning.

Get personalized course recommendations, track subjects and courses with reminders, and more.

Someone learning on their laptop while sitting on the floor.