COMP 225
Traditional Chinese Poetry
Last Offered Fall 2012
Division I Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
Cross-listed CHIN 228
This course is not offered in the current catalog

Class Details

Poetry was the dominant form of literature in China for most of the pre-modern period. It could be used to justify the overthrow of dynasties or to court a beloved; Chinese poets sang about communing with the gods and about brewing ale, sometimes in the same poem. In this course we will read and discuss poems from the first 2000 years of the Chinese literary tradition. Some of the issues we will explore include the ways in which poems present the world and make arguments about it; how Chinese poets construct different notions of the self through their poems; and how poetry can give voice to conflicts between aesthetics and morality, between the self and the community, and between the state and other sources of social capital. We will also look at Chinese theories of literature and poetry and compare them with dominant Western models. This is an EDI course and we will be concerned throughout with differences in the way Chinese and other cultures thought about and utilized poetry. We will examine the implicit biases inherent in the ways Western scholars in particular have analyzed and translated Chinese poetry. All readings in English translation.
The Class: Format: lecture/discussion
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 1126
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: numerous short response papers, two longer papers (1700-2300 words), and a final exam; participation in class discussions required
Prerequisites: none; no previous experience with poetry or Chinese required
Enrollment Preferences: Chinese majors; open to all
Distributions: Division I Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
CHIN 228 Division I COMP 225 Division I

Class Grid

Updated 4:39 am

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