ENG 238 Speaking from Nature: Some Traditions in the Poetry of China, England, and America
This class looks at poetry that takes nature as its subject or its source in Chinese and Anglo-American traditions. We will look at conceptions of nature in both the Chinese and European-based traditions, and at how these relate to selected poetic movements in Ancient China, in English and American Romanticisms, and in contemporary Chinese and American poetry, especially poetry explicitly influenced by the Chinese tradition. Readings will vary, but may include anonymous early poems, as well as work by writers such as Wang Wei, Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Meng Jiao, Zhang Wenji, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Clare, Dickinson, Whitman, Pound, Moore, Williams, Amy Lowell, Rexroth, Snyder, Kizer, Charles Wright, Mary Oliver, Jane Hirshfield, Chase Twitchell, and by poets in the recent Chinese American tradition.