Poetry in America: The Civil War and Its Aftermath

INSTRUCTOR

Elisa New, PhD, Powell M. Cabot Professor of Literature, Harvard University

POETRY TEAM

Leah Reis-Dennis, HarvardX Lead Course Developer

John Radway, PhD candidate in English, Harvard University

Adrienne Raphel, PhD candidate in English, Harvard University

Emily Silk, PhD candidate in English, Harvard University

Caitlin Ballotta, HarvardX Content Developer

Aaron Blanton, HarvardX Video Editor

ABOUT THIS COURSE

This course, the fifth installment of the multi-part Poetry in America series, explores the Poetry of the Civil War and its Aftermath. Encountering such poets as Herman Melville, Julia Ward Howe, Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, James Weldon Johnson, Francis Ellen Watkins Harper, Emma Lazarus, and W.E.B. Du Bois, we will examine the language of patriotism, pride, justice, violence, loss, and memory inspired by the Nation's greatest conflict. We will travel to Boston's Robert Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Monument, and to Harvard's Memorial Hall, two iconic sites of Civil War public memory. Distinguished guests for this module include Harvard President Drew Faust, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner, Professor and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Henry Louis Gates Jr., baritone Davone Tines, and Harvard Civil War scholar John Stauffer, among others.

Led by Harvard Professor Elisa New, Poetry in America 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 embarks on a journey through the literature of a nation. Distinguished guests, including President Bill Clinton, Elena 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.

Course/Certificate Expectations:

This course will run for six weeks, from May 6 to June 19.

Many of you have expressed an interest in taking this course for a certificate. We wanted to explain clearly the standards for receiving a certificate from edX.

Students who complete 75 percent or more of their Coursework Portfolio will receive certificates. To accumulate credit toward a certificate, students complete readings, view the videos, post twice per part in the discussion forum, and complete the free response and annotation exercises. Students may, of course, participate in all of these activities without submitting them for portfolio credit, but those who are working towards a certificate can simply submit their work for credit at the end of an exercise or part, and the assignment will be recorded in their portfolios.

It is difficult for a course in which learning occurs through reading, listening, writing, and discussion to render this sort of participation into a score. Rest assured that the teaching staff have been reading through your comments with great interest and responding to many of them, and we will continue to do so.

Students who can’t complete all of the course materials and assignments are welcome and encouraged to audit this class by engaging with the course materials to the extent that they can.

All content for a given week will be released by 12 PM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on the day indicated on the syllabus.

For more detailed information about the course structure, certificates, and additional resources, we invite you to visit the FAQ tab and the Resources tab.

READINGS

Students will have access to the poems being covered each week under the Course Info tab (printer-friendly). The entire collection of poems is downloadable as a PDF for those who wish to print them. Clicking on any poem in this syllabus will bring you to a printer-friendly PDF version of that poem.

You will notice that the reading load varies from section to section. The poems for the entire module will be available throughout the duration of the module, and so we invite you to read ahead if you so choose.

QUESTIONS

All questions should be made on the FAQ thread in the Discussion Forum. We will do our best to respond quickly!

SCHEDULE:

Week 0: Introduction to Poetry in America: The Civil War and Its Aftermath -- releases May 6, 12 PM EST

Readings: If you have extra time, we recommend that you check out the Resources tab HERE , which includes suggested reading on the Civil War and Its Aftermath, both historical and literary.

Abraham Lincoln, "The Gettysburg Address"
"Swing Low Sweet Chariot" (Traditional)

Week 1: The Civil War -- releases May 20, 12 PM EST

Readings:

"Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel" (Traditional)
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "The Soldier's Faith"
"John Brown's Body" (Traditional)
William W. Patton, "John Brown's Body"
Julia Ward Howe, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
Walt Whitman, "By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame"
Walt Whitman, "Bivouac on a Mountain Side"
Walt Whitman, "An Army Corps on the March"
Walt Whitman, "Beat! Beat! Drums!"
Walt Whitman, "Cavalry Crossing a Ford"
Walt Whitman, "1861"