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This course aims to promote the enjoyment of contemporary poetry, to help students make informed literary responses to poetic texts, and to stimulate thesis research. It is not a survey course, but concentrates instead on a selection of work by some of the best loved poets writing in the English-speaking world today: Tony Harrison, James Fenton, Carol Ann Duffy, Kathleen Jamie, Anne Stevenson, Gillian Clarke, and Seamus Heaney. Though brief, this list suggests something (but only something) of the cultural and geographical diversity of English-speaking poetry, reflecting backgrounds in England, Scotland, Wales, the United States, and Northern Ireland. These poets reach large audiences, and their work is characterized by inclusivity of address and breadth of thematic concern. Yet while they do not pitch their work primarily to poetry mandarins or academics, their work invites and richly repays academic study. The course will also explore two popular anthologies of contemporary verse, Making for Planet Alice: New Women Poets (ed. Maura Dooley, Bloodaxe, 1997), and the recent, controversial bestseller Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times (ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe, 2002).
The student will understand how individual poems work and how poets use the formal resources of verse. The second aim of the course is to allow contemporary poems to introduce new readers to older poems, and in this way to incite and nourish literary enthusiasms beyond the course’s scope. The student will also develop the ability to analyse texts within their social, political and cultural context.
Students who are admitted to study programmes or individual courses at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for by registering a study plan in StudentWeb.
International applicants, if you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures for international applicants.
Only students admitted to the course may take part in instruction and tuition and sit for the examination.
Admission to the master program in literature, LAP or other suitable master programs.
Seminar, two hours per week for ten weeks. The students must write a qualifying assignment; a five-page commentary consisting of headnote and explanatory annotation to either a single poem of more than twenty lines or two shorter poems. There is no set syllabus of individual poems to be studied: students are expected to read extensively in the work of the poets considered in this course. A selection of poems will, however, be specified at the beginning of term for class discussion on given dates, and students will be required to prepare these poems specifically for seminar discussion. In addition, each student will be expected to prepare a ten-minute oral presentation in the course of the term. Students will be expected to attend each seminar.
Once a qualifying assignment has been approved, the course will be assessed by a term paper, a ten-page critical essay.
All written papers must be accompanied by a declaration concerning cheating Obligatorisk erklæring vedr. fusk
English.
Marks will be published on Studentweb no later than three weeks after the submission date/exam.
Course grades are awarded on a descending scale using alphabetic grades from A to E for passes and F for fail.
An external auditor regularly evaluates the academic quality of the course, including the form of exam used on the course.
A student may appeal against an awarded grade and/or file a formal complaint about exam procedures.
Students who due to illness or other valid reason of absence were unable to sit for their final exams may apply for participation in make-up exams. Make-up exams are arranged either later in the same semester or early in the semester following the exam in question. Documentation of valid reasons for absence from the regular exam must be submitted upon application to participate in make-up exams.
Students who have failed an exam and students who wish to re-take an exam to achieve a better grade may not participate in make-up exams, but must re-take the exam when it is regularly scheduled.
Students may apply for access to alternative exam resources or exam forms on the basis of chronic illness and/or special needs that create a marked disadvantage to other students in the exam situation. Mothers who are breastfeeding may apply for extra time to complete the exam.
Feedback from our students is essential to us in our efforts to ensure and further improve the high quality of our programmes and courses. As a student at the University of Oslo you will therefore be asked to participate in various types of evaluation of our courses, facilities and services. All courses are subject to continuous evaluation. At regular intervals we also ask students on a particular course to participate in a more comprehensive, in-depth evaluation of this course, a so called "periodic evaluation".
Visiting address:
Niels Treschows hus, Level 7
Postal address:
P.O. Box 1003 - Blindern
0315 Oslo
Visiting hours:
Monday - Friday 12.30-15.00
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