“DREAMS” Syllabus, ARLT101,



SYLLABUS/SPRING 2019

“THE DREAM IN POETRY” , GSEM 110, Tue-Thur, 12:30-1:50, Mudd Hall of Philosophy, Room 102, “Argonaut Room”, Prof. Muske-Dukes

This is a course designed with careful emphasis on reading and writing about poems. We will read and discuss (and attempt to address critically, as well as imitate in short creative pieces), several wellknown canonical poems that are “dreams” – or inspired by the idea of a dream. From Sappho to Keats to Langston Hughes to Elizabeth Bishop, the Famous Dream Poem will be our focus and inspiration. Again, our inquiry here will be into the process of “translation” of dreams and the image of a dream as it is transformed into poetry.

There will be one critical paper of medium length (10-15 pages) due, as well as regular analytical and imaginative writing responses.

dream  

/drēm/

|Noun |

|A series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep. |

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|Verb |

|Experience dreams during sleep: "I dreamed about her last night". |

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|Synonyms |

|noun.   |

|reverie - vision - daydream - sleep |

| |

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|verb.   |

|daydream - fancy |

| |

Martin Luther King Jr. – “I Have a Dream” speech - (Dream as Goal or Aspiration)

According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge the imagination is divided into two types: primary and secondary. Primary imagination is "the living power and the prime agent of human perception". It is the faculty by which we perceive the world around us; it works through our senses and is common to all human beings. Secondary imagination is the poetic vision, the faculty that a poet has "to idealize and unify". During a state of ecstasy, in fact, images do not appear isolated, but associated according to laws of their own which have nothing to do with the data of experience. The imagination is contrasted with fancy, which is inferior to it, since it is a kind of mechanical and logical faculty which enables a poet to aggregate and associate metaphors, similes and other poetical devices.

FREUD: As the “royal road to the unconscious”, dreams allow for accessibility to parts of the mind that are inaccessible through conscious thought. According to his psychoanalytic theory, dreams—like most psychological experiences—can be understood through two distinct levels: manifest and latent.

& Thomas H. Ogden, Conversations on the Frontier of Dreaming:

“The interior conversation known as dreaming is no more an event limited to the hours of sleep than the existence of stars is limited to the hours of darkness. Stars become visible at night when their luminosity is no longer concealed by the glare of the sun. Similarly, the conversation with ourselves that in sleep we experience as dreaming continues unabashed and undiluted in our waking life.

Further reading: “Perchance to Dream”, The New Yorker, magazine/2018/12/10 Article mainly on sleep, but interesting speculation on dreams

Discussion: Ideas of What a Dream Is -- Martin Luther King, Jr., Coleridge,

Freud, Ogden. Think about dreams you have had and how these waking or

sleeping dreams or reveries or aspirations/hopes have influenced your life.

Mirage

The hope I dreamed of was a dream,

Was but a dream; and now I wake,

Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,

For a dream's sake. I hang my harp upon a tree,

A weeping willow in a lake;

I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped

For a dream's sake. Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;

My silent heart, lie still and break:

Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed

For a dream's sake.

■ Cristina Rossetti

A Knock On the Door

They ask me if I've ever thought about the end of

the world, and I say, "Come in, come in, let me

give you some lunch, for God's sake." After a few

bites it's the afterlife they want to talk about.

"Ouch," I say, "did you see that grape leaf

skeletonizer?" Then they're talking about

redemption and the chosen few sitting right by

His side. "Doing what?" I ask. "Just sitting?" I

am surrounded by burned up zombies. "Let's

have some lemon chiffon pie I bought yesterday

at the 3 Dog Bakery." But they want to talk about

my soul. I'm getting drowsy and see butterflies

everywhere. "Would you gentlemen like to take a

nap, I know I would." They stand and back away

from me, out the door, walking toward my

neighbors, a black cloud over their heads and

they see nothing without end.

James Tate

PARTIAL LIST OF TEXTS:

Martin Luther King, Jr. – Letter from Birmingham Jail & “I Have a Dream”

Freud – On Dreams

Thomas H. Ogden, Conversations on the Frontier of Dreaming

Some poems we will consider:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”

Langston Hughes, “A Dream Deferred”

Elizabeth Bishop, “A Summer’s Dream” and “The Dream”

Adrienne Rich, “I Dream in the Darkness”, “The Dream of a Common Language” and “Diving into the Wreck”

James Tate, “A Knock on the Door”

Edgar Allen Poe, “Dream within a Dream”

Louise Bogan, “The Dream”

John Keats, “On a Dream”

Sylvia Plath, “Death & Co.”, “Riddle in Nine Syllables”

Marie Howe, “The Promise”

Gwendolyn Brooks, “Kitchenette Building”

COURSE SCHEDULE:

Week 1 -- Introductions, Instant bios, discussion: schedule. Grading breakdown – class participation (20%) reading assignments (20%) all writing, revision (40%), (portfolio:collected work, revisions) + paper, 20%. Procedure – print or xerox copies of writing for class, set up portfolio, revision schedule. Be prepared, as part of class participation to memorize a poem for class, from a book by one of the “dream” poets. Find that book, read it. Paper: medium length, on “dream poet” of choice. Regular writing exercises - imitation of poem in own words, analysis of poem. Assignment, Cristina Rossetti’s “Mirage” or James Tate, “A Knock on the Door” – on POV. (If possible, find all poems in BOOKS in library or bookstore, not always on-line.) Type name in upper righthand corner of each page, followed by GSEM 110, “Poetry/Dream”, Original + date. Number revisions 1, 2. 3, as they follow. Very important!

Week 1 (2nd meeting) - Bring poems & analysis to class. Rossetti & Tate, discuss. Order. Read & discuss poems & comments. Begin assembling portfolio with original poems + critical comments – revision. Time-keeper.

Week 2 – Continue class discussion. Portfolios – begin to assemble. Assignment: Rossetti & Tate. Think about structure, create a poem on dreaming – Rossetti or Tate

Week 2 (2nd meeting)- Finish discussion, earlier poems & comments, Rossetti and/or Tate. Portfolios – revisions

Week 3 - Discussion and assignments – imagine a dream country – or as in “Kitchenette Building” by Gwendolyn Brooks, a dream that removes the dreamer from a limited space -

Week 3 – (2nd meeting) “Kitchenette Building” . Discussion Brooks,

Kitchenette Building --

We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,

Grayed in, and gray. “Dream” makes a giddy sound, not strong

Like “rent,” “feeding a wife,” “satisfying a man.”

But could a dream send up through onion fumes

Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes

And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall,

Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms,

Even if we were willing to let it in,

Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,

Anticipate a message, let it begin?

We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!

Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,

We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.

-Gwendolyn Brooks, “Kitchenette Building” - find books by G Brooks

Week 4 -Assignment: Adrienne Rich, “Diving into the Wreck” – dream or fantasy or instruction on gender politics? Revisions - OR “Dream” yourself into a future (prose)

Week 4 - Discussion of Rich, discuss comments, poems. Or Future Dream. Portfolio

Week 5 - Rich & Dream, cont. Assignment: Langston Hughes, “A Dream Deferred”

Week 5 - Discussion. Langston Hughes, discuss poem, meaning + comments & writing. Revisions.

Week 6 -- Langston Hughes, further discussion. Politics of race in “Dream”.

Week 6 - Hughes, cont. Revisions. Assignment: Edgar Allen Poe, “ Dream

within a Dream”, imitate, analyze.

Week 7 -- Discuss Poe poem – discussion: writing. Begin to make notes for paper.

Which poet?

Week 7 - Poe: use of rhyme, music in poetry. Continue.

Week 8 -- Poe, continue.

Week 9 - Poe. cont. Assignment: Poem by Marie Howe. Find books.

  

The Promise   

In the dream I had when he came back not sick   

but whole, and wearing his winter coat,   

he looked at me as though he couldn't speak, as if   

there were a law against it, a membrane he      

couldn't break    His silence was what he could not   

not do, like our breathing in this world,     

like our living.    As we do, in time.   

And I told him: I'm reading all this      Buddhist stuff,   

and listen, we don't die when we die. Death is     

an event,    a threshold we pass through. We go on and on   

and into light forever.    And he looked down, and then back up at me. It was the look we'd pass    across the table when Dad was drunk again  and dangerous,    the level look that wants to tell you something,    in a crowded room, something important,      and can't

Marie Howe

Week 9 – Marie Howe

What the Living Do, read + newer work). Assignment: Louise Bogan, “The

Dream”, writing.

Week 10 – Review

Week 11 - Begin discussion, Louise Bogan, + new Dream poets

“The Dream”, meaning, imitation. Psychology of the dream? Paper, focus

on topic?

Week 11 -- Bogan, cont. Discussion. Paper: discussion.

Week 12 – Choice: – Sylvia Plath (“Death & Co”)

– Assignment.

Week 12 -- Plath discussion, cont. Paper?

Week 13 - Plath, Paper?

Week 13 – Plath – Paper due on this date or following Week.

Week 14 - Plath, finish. Assignment: your choice of remaining poets (Elizabeth

Bishop?) or find a Dream Poem (by a recognized author) for discussion.

Week 14 -- Poems, discuss. Read selected papers. Memorized poems?

Week 15 - Final poems, papers, memorized poems.

Week 15 -- Final discussions. Paper due, exam questions.

Final Day – Class Party!

Carol Muske-Dukes, carolmd@usc.edu 213 740 2808 or 2824. Taper Hall, 409

Office hours – Tu-Thu, 1-2 and/or by appt.

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Plagiarism – presenting someone else’s ideas as your own, either verbatim or recast in your own words – is a serious academic offense with serious consequences. Please familiarize yourself with the discussion of plagiarism in SCampus in Part B, Section 11, “Behavior Violating University Standards” .  Other forms of academic dishonesty are equally unacceptable.  See additional information in SCampus and university policies on scientific misconduct, .

 

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Here’s to a great semester! CMD

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