William Butler Yeats, 1923. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia.)
Instructor(s)
Prof. John Hildebidle
MIT Course Number
21L.704
As Taught In
Spring 2008
Level
Undergraduate
Course Description
Course Features
Course Description
William Butler Yeats occupies a dominant position in the lives and work of the Irish poets who followed him. We will explore some of that poetry, and consider how later poets, especially female poets, tried to come to grips with, or escape from, that dominance. As a seminar, the subject will place special emphasis on student involvement and control. I will ask you to submit one ten-twelve page essay, two shorter (five page) essays, and to accept the role of "leadoff person," perhaps more than once, That role will demand that you choose from among the assigned readings for that session the poem we should focus upon, and to offer either a provocative articulation of what the poem is about, or a provocative question which the poem confronts, and which we should grapple with, as well.
Other Versions
Other OCW Versions
OCW has published multiple versions of this subject. 
- 21L.704 Studies in Poetry: From the Sonneteers to the Metaphysicals (Spring 2006)
- 21L.704 Studies in Poetry: "What's the Use of Beauty?" (Fall 2005)
- 21L.704 Studies in Poetry - British Poetry and the Sciences of the Mind (Fall 2004)
- 21L.704 Studies in Poetry: Gender and Lyric -- Renaissance Men and Women Writing about Love (Spring 2003)
- 21L.704 Studies in Poetry: "Does Poetry Matter" (Fall 2002)