"Nineteenth-Century American Women Poets" explores the complex and diverse body of poetry that was written
by women poets living in nineteenth-century America. Literary history tells us that only one important poet from this period
is still worth reading: Emily Dickinson. By reading widely in nineteenth-century magazines and periodicals, as well as in both
mass-produced and homemade poetry books, this class asks why, when there was so much poetry being written by women at the time,
we are left with this version of history. In addition to interrogating such issues about canonicity and gender, students in this
course begin to map out new directions for this field of study by doing a series of archival projects that look closely at
nineteenth-century poetry anthologies as well as the holdings of individual women writers. Some questions this course asks:
What are the terms and politics of this recovery movement? What versions of feminism are visible in the effort to read the
poetry of a set of now-forgotten women authors? How can we judge what kinds of reading practices these poems ask us to employ?
Where does even 21st century criticism not venture and where would we like to see the field move next?.
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