SE2605: World War One Poetry in Manuscript form: Conflict and Composition

School English Literature
Department Code ENCAP
Module Code SE2605
External Subject Code 100319
Number of Credits 20
Level L6
Language of Delivery English
Module Leader Dr Carrie Smith
Semester Autumn Semester
Academic Year 2017/8

Outline Description of Module

This module provides students with the unique opportunity to work and study with a range of archival resources and poetic manuscripts related to the First World War. The module will consider diverse sources from wartime: Cardiff University student newspapers, mud splattered poetry manuscripts, soldiers diaries and so on. We will think about the literary world in which First World War poets wrote so that we can examine the progression of writing in the manuscripts from conventions of Edwardian poetry to the visceral and difficult poetry we now associate with trench poets. The module will progress to consider the legacies of such poetry. We will learn how to read the materiality of the manuscript page and understand how the work-in-process can illuminate the published text. The module will use both online digital manuscripts and Cardiff University’s own rich archives. Students will debate key questions that affect our understanding of literary manuscripts, challenging the notion of poetic ‘genius’.

We will start with the archive of Cardiff’s student newspapers and how they engaged with and reported the First World War as it unfolded. The module will move on to think through the effect of material writing conditions on the poetry produced during the war, particularly focusing on the manuscripts of Edward Thomas. We will consider the evolution of what we understand as ‘war poetry’ by reading the drafts of T.S. Eliot’s modernist poem The Waste Land. Exploring these drafts will also allow us to discuss the idea of collaborative composition and how this affects our understanding of creativity. Lastly we will consider the manuscripts of the war poetry of Ted Hughes written in the late 1950s-1970s as he wrestles with the war of his father’s generation and its aftermaths. At the centre of the module is an engagement with the papers of Edward Thomas held in Cardiff University Special Collections.

Students will have the opportunity to create a group video project using artifacts from the archive as part of their assessment.

On completion of the module a student should be able to

On completion of this module students will have a deep and broad knowledge of the texts on the course. They will be able to undertake close readings of the manuscript page – involving both close textual analysis of the language as well as paying attention to the materiality of the manuscript page. Students will be able to locate the texts in their literary, historical and production contexts as well as engaging with archival, manuscript and creativity theories. Vital skills will be developed in areas of critical, independent thinking.

How the module will be delivered

Teaching consists of a weekly one-hour lecture and a weekly two-hour seminar. Hand-outs and PowerPoint presentations will be used where appropriate, and made available on Learning Central directly after the session. Seminars provide the opportunity for closer textual analysis and small-group discussion. Discussion questions will be provided a week ahead of the seminar. Students are expected to arrive prepared to contribute, and will occasionally be asked to give short presentations. As some of the archives with which we will be engaging are digital, students will need to use laptops or tablets. There will be a small number of devices available for class use. Students may also use their own devices. Some seminars will take place in the University Special Collections in the Arts and Social Science Library.

Skills that will be practised and developed

On completion of this module students will have a deep and broad knowledge of the texts on the course. They will be able to undertake close readings of the

manuscript page – involving both close textual analysis of the language as well as paying attention to the materiality of the manuscript page. Students will be able to

locate the texts in their literary, historical and production contexts as well as engaging with archival, manuscript and creativity theories. Vital skills will be developed

in areas of critical, independent thinking. Employability skills include the ability to synthesize information, operating in group-based discussion, skills in digital capture

and editing, presentation skills, informed understanding of handling physically delicate materials.

How the module will be assessed

Video presentation
25%

Essay (2200 words)
75%

Assessment Breakdown

Type % Title Duration(hrs)
Presentation 25 Video Presentation (Mid-Term) N/A
Written Assessment 75 Essay (2200 Words) – January N/A

Syllabus content

Week 1: Introduction

Lecture: Introduction to Manuscript Study: ‘the magical and the meaningful value’

Seminar: How to read the manuscript page

Reading: Lisa Stead, ‘Introduction’, The Boundaries of the Literary Archive, Philip Larkin, ‘Neglected Responsibility: Contemporary Literary Manuscripts’, in

Required Writing: 1955-1982 (1983), Wim Van Mierlo ‘The archaeology of the manuscript: towards modern palaeography’

 

Week 2: Gair Rhydd Archive: Student Newspapers during War Time

Lecture: Journalism and war

Seminar: University College Cardiff, and later Cardiff University student publications and newspapers. This session will take place in Cardiff

University Special Collections.

Task: There is no reading this week, instead I am asking you to contribute to https://www.operationwardiary.org/ and report anything interesting you found to the

class in the seminar.

‘Operation War Diary aims to open up the information that’s currently locked away in the war diaries by asking volunteers to tag any data they find, whether it’s a

person, place, or activity. We know some basic information about the diaries – the units they relate to, and the date ranges – but beyond this we don’t know how

many people are named in the diaries, or how much they can tell us about how the war was actually fought on the front line. This is where you come in! We need an

hour of your time – more if you can spare it – to read and tag a few diary pages for us.’

 

Week 3: The First World War Poetry Digital Archive

Lecture: First World War Poetry: Isaac Rosenberg and Wilfred Owen

Seminar: The material conditions of composition

Reading: selected poems of the First World War and James Campbell, ‘Combat Gnosticism: The Ideology of First World War Poetry Criticism’

 

Week 4: The Papers of Edward Thomas.

Lecture: The Poetry of Edward Thomas

Seminar: Cardiff University’s Edward Thomas Archive

This session will take place in Cardiff University Special Collections. Reading: Selected Poems of Edward Thomas

 

Week 5: The Papers of Edward Thomas.

Workshop: Discussion/ researching items in the Thomas papers/drawing together ideas for the group presentation

Seminar: Discussion/ researching items in the Thomas papers/drawing together ideas for the group presentation

This session will take place in Cardiff University Special Collections. Reading: Selected Poems of Edward Thomas

 

Screening: Videos of presentations on an item of interest found in the Edward Thomas papers to be screened to staff.

 

Week 7: The Papers of Edward Thomas

Workshop: Training in video capture and editing Seminar: filming/editing video presentations

 

Week 8: T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

Lecture: Modernism and T. S. Eliot

Seminar: The Waste Land: a war poem?

Reading: T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems

 

Week 9: Collaborative Composition: The Waste Land Facsimile.

Lecture: Who was Ezra Pound? How did he affect The Waste Land

Seminar: Did T. S. Eliot write The Waste Land? The manuscript of the poem

Reading: T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems, T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land Facsimile

 

Week 10: Ted Hughes’s First World War Poetry

Lecture: Ted Hughes: writing and war

Seminar: Ted Hughes’s manuscripts Reading: Hughes’s war poems (for example: ‘Bayonet Charge’, ‘Griefs for Dead Soldiers’, ‘My Uncles Wounds’, ‘Two’, ‘Wilfred Owens Photographs’, ‘Six Young Men’) and Tim Kendall, ‘Fighting Back Over the Same Ground: Ted Hughes and War’, Modern English War Poetry

 

Week 11: Conclusion: course summary and Q & A.

Essential Reading and Resource List

James Campbell, ‘Combat Gnosticism: The Ideology of First World War Poetry Criticism’, New Literary History, Volume 30, No. 1 (Winter 1999)

T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land Facsimile (2011)

Ted Hughes, selections from Collected Poems (2005)

Tim Kendall, ‘Fighting Back Over the Same Ground: Ted Hughes and War’, Modern English War Poetry (2009)

Philip Larkin, ‘Neglected Responsibility: Contemporary Literary Manuscripts’, in Required Writing: 1955-1982 (1983)

Lisa Stead, ‘Introduction’, The Boundaries of the Literary Archive: Reclamation and Representation (2013)

Edward Thomas, Selected Poems of Edward Thomas

Wim Van Mierlo ‘The archaeology of the manuscript: towards modern palaeography’, The Boundaries of the Literary Archive: Reclamation and Representation (2013)

Some of these will be provided in a reading pack

Background Reading and Resource List

Further information about recommended reading will be provided at the start of the module.


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